Ivory. James Ivory is the director of the Merchant Ivory brand- and it is a brand- a clear and distinct style and taste. Ismail Merchant is the producer and James Ivory is most often credited with being the artistic creative engine of the partnership (not totally unlike the Archers – Powell/Pressburger with Michael Powell getting the bulk of the artistic credit). It shouldn’t go without mention that the majority of their work as from the screenwriting pen of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (which may seem odd because Ivory is a heck of a screenwriter himself and just won the Oscar for his work on Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name). They made polished period films, sophisticated literary adaptations with brilliant costume design work and acting. They weren’t often directed with great flair and bravado (a few exceptions in their best work) but there’s a uniformity and depth here in the body of work worth rewarding. They have nine archiveable films, two that land in the top 100 of their respective decade and again, per the “brand” comment—James Ivory is no hired-handed who happens to make intelligent films—he makes Merchant/Ivory films!
Best film: Howards End
- It’s peak Merchant/Ivory- A Room With a View is there, too
- Handsomely mounted by Ivory, Oscar-Winning script from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and the cast is phenomenal- Redgrave is great in her small role, Bonham Carter- wow—but it’s Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins that are really revelatory. She won the Oscar here and Hopkins is in an incredible stretch and late-career renaissance started by Silence of the Lambs the year before
- Set direction- Oscar win as well
- First of four merchant/ivory collaborations with Hopkins
- I adore the silent opening- classical music- Redgrave walking the grounds of her splendidly gorgeous Howards End—floral arrangements, looking lovingly at her family in the windows
- Simon Callow- one of four archiveable films with Merchant Ivory (this, Maurice, Room With a View, Mr.& Mrs. Bridge)
- Natural lighting by the window- like the climax romance kiss at A Room With a View
- Redgrave is anomalous- almost other worldly—but she’s immensely likeable here- which she rarely is throughout her career even when she gives a great performance.
- Massive set design period set pieces—Christmas shopping, train station- so well detailed
- Thompson so good-natured—love seeing her win for playing a character
- Ivory throws away his trademark two awful wipe edits in a film trademark and goes with some really nice dissolves here- much more fitting his visual style
- Jaw-droppingly beautiful floral sequences—the bluebells in the surrealism sequence of Samuel West’s Leonard Bast escaping his desk
- These are brilliant intellectual sisters—piques the interest of Bast stuck with his earlier lover—it’s such a sympathetic tragedy
- The Wilcox children are largely just awful—not bad acting or bad characters- just hard to stomach— as is some of Bonham Carter’s impertinence and spirit
- There’s such wonderful narrative form- the rug from Thompson and Bonham Carter fits Howards end—
- Slow-motion shot of Charles Wilcox carried into the carriage at the end
- Highly Recommend/ Must-See—leaning Must-See- a to 5 of the year quality film
total archiveable films: 9
top 100 films: 0
top 500 films: 0
top 100 films of the decade: 2 (A Room With a View, Howards End)
most overrated: Nothing here for Ivory. They have zero films sadly in the TSPDT top 1000. I’m surprised. I thought The Remains of the Day would be there for sure. If you expand it to the TSPDT consensus top 2000 it’ll include A Room With a View and The Remains of the Day– but shockingly no Howards End– which is why….
most underrated: … Howards End is wildly underrated. It’s easily in my top 1000 and doesn’t land in the TSPDT top 2000 as I was saying above. The acting, writing are sublime—but the massive set design set pieces (Christmas shopping, train station) and the set piece of Howards End itself (in that magnificent opening with Redgrave) make it, indeed, very cinematic.
gem I want to spotlight : Mr. and Mrs. Bridge
- It’s a strong bounce-back for Merchant/Ivory after 1989’s Slaves of New York
- Features real life husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward- Woodward is nominated here but they’re both superb
- Strong period piece study of an affluent Midwestern family—practicality and conservatism
- made at the most fertile period artistically for Merchant Ivory
- Woodward plays the naïve, well-intentioned but often nattering housewife=– she’s painfully sheltered and captive
- Strong mise-en-scene—wallpaper and period detail- really a gorgeous film- I love the Papier-mâché at the school dance which is shown with a reverse tracking shot like a Curtiz slow-tracking establishing shot
- Kansas WASP- “the city can be the devil”, Eagle scouts,
- “meticulously detailed”- Ebert
- Trip to France- gorgeous churches, stunning, museums, tapestries
- “why don’t these artists get jobs like everyone else and then they can paint on the weekends”- haha
- Blythe Danner and Simon Callow in small roles- great- add color and verboseness
- It’s almost Sirkian—fall leaves, American suburbia—décor—dueling twin beds for the married couple
- Sexuality and nudity which is always nodded to in Merchant Ivory- here in the young son’s magazine
- The film has aged fantastically
- Hate the two sloppy wipe edits- another, sadly, trademark from Ivory
- Family vignettes- reminded me of Fanny and Alexander
- Generational dissonance
- Newman plays a very hard man—and Woodward’s performance starts out as a bit of a parody but it comes full circle—the breakdown with the son- it’s a layered performance- strong—the car stuck in the garage is a great metaphor for her helplessness
stylistic innovations/traits:
- Merchant Ivory means period piece to most people- elevated material, great acting
- Polished literary adaptations, always handsomely mounted – naysayer would call this “stuffy” and uncinematic and though some of their work suffers from that- their best have impeccable mise-en-scene and clearly have as much care in the set and costume design as the words chosen from and adapted from the literary material
- Period films, travel, elitist, décor and costume
- Often the discussion of sex, love, generational disconnection, art—in Shakespeare Wallah in 1965 Ivory introduces us to the film with a bunch of sculptures and a character reading Lolita—there you go
- Beautiful wallpaper historical décor and detail
- Gardens, floral
- Best costume 6 times nominated
- Merchant/Ivory trademark- a crest on the titles- importance, upper class, regal
- Dissolve transitions in remains of the day are a nice editing touch— too often Ivory threw in these awful out of place edits that never fit and were never set up formally (traits can’t always be positive things here)
- Like almost all of Ivory’s film’s the ensemble is fantastic in their work- Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins often
- The quality and beauty of say Anthony Minghella. This precedes Minghella’s great trilogy of English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain but Ivory has that sharp of an eye for attractive filmmaking- it’s a compliment—shot in super 35mm
- Unstuffy again—certainly not prudish—there is nudity in nearly all their films
- Their big three films below, two Oscar wins for best adapted screenplay (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), three noms, and three noms for director (Ivory) and picture (Merchant) during their heyday—their best five films come between 1985 and 1993
- Henry James Adaptations (at least 2) and E.M. Forster (3 I believe)
top 10
- Howards End
- A Room With a View
- The Remains of the Day
- Mr. and Mrs. Bridge
- Maurice
- Heat and Dust
- The Bostonians
- Shakespeare Wallah
- Quartet
By year and grades
| 1965- Shakespeare-Wallah | R |
| 1981- Quartet | R |
| 1983- Heat and Dust | |
| 1984- Bostonians | R |
| 1985- A Room With A View | HR |
| 1987- Maurice | R |
| 1990- Mr. and Mrs. Bridge | R |
| 1992- Howards End | HR/MS |
| 1993- The Remains of the Day | R/HR |
*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film
MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film
HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film
R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives
[…] 167. James Ivory […]
Drake have you seen The White Countess (the final Merchant/Ivory collaboration)? It was shot by Christopher Doyle and has Ralph Fienes in the lead so could be worth a look if not.
@Harry- I have yes, caught this one in 2018. I don’t have much on it in terms of specific notes I’m afraid from just over 4 years ago.
The sad thing is that Ivory didn’t even direct the best Merchant Ivory films.. those were directed by Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack and Martin Scorsese. I think a lot of people would also say that the best film Ivory had a hand in was also one he didn’t direct, Call Me By Your Name. I’ve been going through their films though I’m really impressed, always really easy to watch with more humor than you’d expect, might seem like a strange comparison but Merchant Ivory feel like the period piece version of Mike Leigh at times. Of course they don’t really make stuffy films like you point out, Ivory’s always talking about how he was fighting for there to be more nudity in Call Me By Your Name.
If you just want a solid filmography with some of the greatest actors present, Ivory is a good place to go. Worked with Hopkins, Fiennes, Newman, Christie, Moore, Adjani.. etc.. and those incredible ensembles. Love the range of locations and periods shown in the films.
Going to get to more but right now my ranking would be.
1. The Remains of the Day – MS
2. Howard’s End – HR/MS
3. A Room With a View – HR
4. Mr. And Mrs. Bridge – R
5. Heat and Dust – R
6. Quartet – R