Director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant (1936–2005) together created 24 feature films over their 44 year partnership. Their pictures garnered 30 Academy Award Nominations and were critically-acclaimed, many of which were quintessentially tasteful and glossy British dramas with subversive undercurrent themes. In this season Triskel Arts Centre presents three of the Merchant Ivory Productions (HOWARDS END, and HEAT & DUST) as well the new documentary MERCHANT IVORY, a fascinating, revealing and rather sumptuous film about this legendary filmmaking duo.
With stunning location photography, lavishly detailed sets and elegant period costumes, this compelling saga follows the interwoven fates and misfortunes of three families amid the changing times of Edwardian England. It tells the story of two free-spirited, cosmopolitan sisters, Margaret (Emma Thompson) and Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham Carter), who collide with the world of the very wealthy – one sister benefiting from the acquaintance with the Wilcoxes (owners of the beloved country home Howards End), the other all but destroyed by it. Anthony Hopkins is the conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and Vanessa Redgrave is his ailing wife Ruth Wilcox.
Widely critically acclaimed upon opening, HOWARDS END was nominated for nine Academy Awards (winning three: Best Actress [Emma Thompson – her first Oscar win], Best Screenplay and Best Art Direction) and eleven BAFTAs (winning Best Film and again Best Actress for Emma Thompson).
The repressed and bourgeois Maurice Hall (James Wilby) tackles the prejudices of Edwardian society as he comes to terms with his sexuality, in this landmark drama. From the halls of Cambridge University to the cricket fields of the English gentry, this profound tale of emotional and sexual awakening features star-making performances from Wilby, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves, and perfectly captures the fears and joys of submitting to a forbidden desire.
Described by The Guardian as ‘undervalued and underseen’ and a precursor to the James Ivory-scripted CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, MAURICE is a landmark film as important as any in the history of gay cinema and one that presents a positive and enriching portrait of first love.
Cross-cutting between the 1920s and the 1980s, Merchant Ivory’s epic of self-discovery is also a lush evocation of the sensuous beauty of India. It interweaves a young Englishwoman’s journey of discovery in the present-day India with a scandalous incident of family history, set in the 1920s in the Civil Lines of a backwater Indian state. Anne, a young historical researcher, inherits letters written by her great aunt Olivia, and becomes obsessed with their revelation of an exotic and sensual past. Amid the contrasting landscapes of the Deccan, Kashmir and London, this film – high spirited and romantic – deals with both the colonial and ‘Indian’ India.
HEAT & DUST was nominated for seven BAFTAs, with writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala winning Best Adapted Screenplay. She was awarded the same accolade by the London Critics Circle Film Awards. Director James Ivory was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
MERCHANT IVORY is the definitive presentation and tribute to the Merchant Ivory partnership, anchored by interviews with James Ivory and forty-one Merchant Ivory close collaborators detailing and celebrating their experiences of being a part of the “wandering company” helmed by legendary producer Ismail Merchant.
With six Academy Award-winners among the notable artists participating, including Emma Thompson and Vanessa Redgrave, the documentary provides new and compelling perspectives on a unique partnership that produced seminal films over four decades.