Director: Stephen Soucy
Writers: Jon Hart, Stephen Soucy
Stars: John David Allen, Helena Bonham Carter, John Bright
Synopsis: Follows the history of the Merchant Ivory partnership, featuring interviews with James Ivory and close collaborators detailing and celebrating their experiences of being a part of the company.
Ismail Merchant and James Ivory are immediately recognizable names in movie history. In a period of 48 years and 43 films, their filmography, almost all literary adaptations, remains a worthy collection. A Room With A View, Maurice, Howard’s End, and The Remains Of The Day are among the masterpieces that have been critically revered for decades and a constant connection through this are two other collaborators. One is screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and the other is composer Richard Robbins. Sadly, only Ivory himself is alive to give his story. Yet, in the tale of Merchant Ivory, a privately volatile relationship between the two titular names was always present and consistently threatened to split them up for good.
The story starts with their origins, one that is nearly forgotten because of how their success was mainly in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But, in actuality, their beginning was due to an encounter at the Indian consulate in New York in 1961 with a screening of Ivory’s documentary The Sword and the Flute that Merchant, an Indian native, came to see and loved. Merchant, an Oscar-nominee for the documentary short The Creation of Woman, quickly connected with Ivory and soon became a couple. However, Ivory is rather shy about his romance with Merchant and the documentary notes how people did not want to go on record about this early period out of respect for Ivory.
It does not, however, avoid the open secret of Robbins having an affair with Merchant while working (and that Bonham Carter also was with Robbins), but to Ivory, who speaks with Edwardian sensibilities, it is a matter of acceptance of this side affair. The documentary comments on how homosexuality was seen at the time; in the UK, it was a criminal offense until 1967. Merchant was raised in a conservative Muslim household which he could never say he was gay while Ivory himself said that it was, in his family, never talked about. However, his family knew that Ivory and Merchant were more than friends. This clearly influenced some of their movies in which same-sex relations were depicted, and famously, they made Maurice in 1987 depicting the forbidden love affair at a time when homophobia was rampant during the AIDS crisis.
The tone is not of an expose with a behind-the-scenes look of the struggles to make these films, but a glossy, nostalgic trip with insight by those who were there. Most notably, the documentary details the struggle to make films with their low budgets and how Merchant, a man with relentless passion and energy, was able to make movies with not a complete budget and always avert disaster at the last minute. This sometimes conflicted with Ivory’s perfectionism, yet the yin & yang kept everything moving along and bringing back cast and crew to later movies. Interviews with numerous players including actors Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, and Vanessa Redgrave, plus costume designers Jenny Bevan and John Bright, editor Humphrey Dixon, and cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts contribute their knowledge to how every film was made and the intricacies of the famous partnership.
From the Indian period with the surprise success of Shakespeare Wallah to their mainstream success with A Room With A View, director Stephen Soucy puts together a chronicle of the highs and lows that carry a permanent legacy to be proud of. Even with the works that weren’t successful (Jefferson In Paris, The City Of Your Final Destination), they are defended and Ivory speaks fondly now at the age of 96 of what was accomplished. It is a walk through time of something that was much deeper intellectually and emotionally. Despite the sadness of Merchant’s sudden death and the unceremonial end to the whole period, Merchant Ivory puts to us a life’s worth of cinematic excellence that remains endearing to many fans.
