Merchant Ivory: The Documentary

They made the classy commercial, until they got a little too commercial. Nevertheless, their names remain synonymous with upscale literary costume dramas, produced by their eponymous production company. Yet, behind the scenes, there was a lot of flying by the seat of their pants, as filmmaker James Ivory vividly remembers in Stephen Soucy’s documentary, Merchant Ivory, which opens today in New York.

It was their mutual love of Indian cinema and culture that first brought James Ivory and Ismail Merchant together. After their initial encounters in New York, they met up again in India, where they began their first of many collaborations. Their early works, like Shakespeare Wallah were literary, but also cross cultural. Of course, they gained international fame and acclaim with their adaptations of E.M. Forster and Henry James.

Classic Merchant Ivory films were directed by Ivory, produced by Merchant, written (or rather adapted) by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and scored by Richard Robbins, all of whom lived together, in an almost communal relationship. It was widely known, even at the time, Ivory and Merchant were partners creatively, commercially, and personally. Yet, there was also something going on between Merchant and Robbins in later years, but it did not particularly bother Ivory—or so he says. Regardless, their closest friends and co-workers admit they are still not sure what the heck was going on there.

Sadly, only Ivory remains of the four, but he happily reminisces for Soucy’s behalf. The film also features commentary from many prominent thesps who appeared in their films, including Emma Thompson (Howard’s End, Remains of the Day), Hugh Grant (Maurice), Helena Carter Bonham (Room with a View), Greta Scacchi (Heat and Dust), and Felicity Kendal (Shakespeare Wallah). Unfortunately, Sir Anthony Hopkins never appears, perhaps because he sued for his unpaid salary due from The City of Your Final Destination.

Frankly, some of the best stories in Merchant Ivory describe how Merchant managed to wheel and deal and somehow finagle funding at the very last minute, for productions well underway. Merchant Ivory films were classy and literate, but as a producer, Merchant evidently shared a kinship with Cannon’s Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Apparently, his knack for scrounging money was sorely missed on Final Destination, the only Merchant Ivory film produced after his Merchant’s death.

Merchant-Ivory: Shakespeare Wallah

Alas, Tony Buckingham is on the wrong side of both a generational divide and a cultural divide. There was a time when Indian audiences flocked to see his traveling Shakespearean company, but they find themselves out of favor in the mid-1960s. At least they will scuffle with class and culture in the freshly 2K restored early Merchant-Ivory production, Shakespeare Wallah (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Lizzie Buckingham was born in India, straight into her father’s acting troupe. Over the years, she has graduated from stagehand work to featured roles, like Ophelia. Unlike her parents, she has no memory of those salad days, so performing in any old venue feels natural to her. They represent an end of an era, just like the maharajah, for whom they give a private command performance in the opening scenes.

Fatefully, engine trouble while on the road to their next gig introduces the Buckinghams to their sort of rescuer, Sanju, a well-heeled playboy. He rather makes an impression on Lizzie and vice versa. However, she makes it clear she will not tolerate his usual gamesmanship. Indeed, he is rather impressed with her spirit and dazzled by the high culture she represents. Eventually, Manjula, his Bollywood star cousin, back-handedly acknowledges Ms. Buckingham could be a threat to the stake she claimed in Sanju.

Wallah is directly inspired by the experiences of Geoffrey Kendal’s thespian family, who essentially play fictionalized versions of themselves. In the years prior, they extensively toured the subcontinent, happily performing Shakespeare for appreciative audiences. This was the screen debut of his daughter, British TV star Felicity Kendal, who is probably most recognizable to American audiences for playing the wife of the bulky sweater-wearing Richard Briers on the 1970s Britcom Good Neighbors, which was in regular rotation on 1980s PBS stations. Although it probably helped type-cast her in “cute” roles, she is in fact, quite forceful and nuanced as Lizzie Buckingham.

Ironically, Kendal’s close friend Madhur Jaffrey portrayed her arrogant rival Manjula with flamboyant cattiness. It is a wonderful Bette Davis-kind of turn that heralded the start of a long association with Merchant and Ivory. Shashi Kapoor flashes the charm as Sanju, but he is more memorable for darker, more chauvinistic moments. Of course, it is Geoffrey Kendal and his off-screen wife Laura Liddell who supply the film’s bedrock grace and dignity as Tony and Carla Buckingham.

There is a free-and-easy vibe to Wallah that does not seem very Merchant-Ivory, but it is definitely in keeping with the swinging sixties. The black-and-white cinematography also stands in stark contrast to the lush look of their 1980s breakout films. In a weird way, it would make a fitting double bill with such radically dissimilar films as Olivier’s The Entertainer and A Hard Day’s Night. Highly recommended, Shakespeare Wallah opens this Friday (11/10) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

Merchant-Ivory: Heat and Dust

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won the Booker Prize for her novel of two distantly related English women who come to India under very different circumstances, but the double-narrative divided by fifty years shares a stylistic compatibility with the best-sellers of today. Yet, it was the 1983 film version that proved to be zeitgeisty, ushering in a mini-boomlet of films and television set during the British Raj (A Passage to India, Jewel in the Crown, The Far Pavilions). Adapted by Jhabvala from her novel and produced by Ismail Merchant, James Ivory’s Heat and Dust (trailer here) helped set the template for what a Merchant Ivory production meant. A fresh 4K restoration of Merchant Ivory’s breakout hit (comparatively speaking) opens this Friday in New York, as part of a double bill with Autobiography of a Princess.

Anne was always curious about her great aunt Olivia Rivers, the black sheep of the family. When she and her husband Douglas arrived in 1923, they both are genuinely devoted to each other, but something about India will have a pernicious effect on their relationship. The heat is definitely part of it. So is her questionable friendship with the Nawab, Satipur’s local royal. Publicly, the Nawab makes nice with the British, but there are rumors he is not so secretly in league with the Dacoit bandits. His intentions towards Rivers are not necessarily honorable either.

Meanwhile, five decades later, Anne the great niece retraces Rivers steps with the help of old family letters. Initially, she is quite happy boarding with the Lal family, even when “Chid,” a foolish American Hindu convert invites himself to crash on her balcony. However, Anne finds herself repeating history with her landlord, Inder Lal, despite her affection for his sickly wife.

In many ways, H&D is exactly the sort of quality literary production the Merchant Ivory brand now implies. It features most of their hallmarks, including an elegant, classically-based score from their frequent film composer Richard Robbins, but in this case, it is augmented with some traditional Indian accents provided by tabla player Zakir Hussain, who also plays Inder Lal.

He is solid in the part, as is the late Christopher Cazenove as poor, clueless Douglas Rivers. Yet, there is no doubt this film and story belong to its women characters. Neither great aunt or niece fit the mold of “memsahibs,” the British “mothers of empire builders,” who were often more socially rigid and outright racist than their husbands. They also tend to look rather matronly. That is all very well for Anne in 1982, but Olivia chafes under their petty jealousies and resentments.

As Ms. Rivers, Greta Scacchi smolders up the screen almost as much as she did in the Kenyan-set White Mischief (ironically, another story of English colonials acting badly). Yet, she finds subtle dimensions in the unhappy memsahib that elevate her above a mere Hester Prynne of the Raj. In one of her final turns as a romantic co-lead, Julie Christie’s Anne is equally seductive, but in an earthier, more grounded and mature kind of way. We can certainly believe she is her great aunt’s grand-niece. However, the charms of Shashi Kapoor’s Nawad are not readily apparent.

Ivory is a filmmaker known for his taste and refinement, but he makes viewers feel the heat of Satipur and his characters’ resulting sweat. Thirty-some years later, its cultural attitudes do not feel the slightest bit dated. Yet, the sensitivity and ambiguity of the Jhabvala-scripted Autobiography of a Princess make the two-handed tele-film ultimately more satisfying. Recommended for Anglophiles and admirers of Christie and the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala collaborative team, Heat and Dust opens this Friday (9/1) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

Merchant-Ivory: Autobiography of a Princess

For most historians, Indira Gandhi’s legacy is decidedly mixed. She clearly favored the Soviets as a not-so Non-Aligned Nation and effectively suspended India’s democracy during the infamous State of Emergency, but she also began the process of normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel. However, the daughter of a fallen Indian Maharajah never equivocates in her opinion of the controversial prime minister. She will meet with her father’s former secretary to fondly remember the good old days, but he does not always share her idealized nostalgia in James Ivory’s Autobiography of a Princess, a Merchant-Ivory 1975 television special, which has its theatrical debut this Friday, along with a brand new 4K restoration of Heat and Dust.

Despite his mixed feelings, Cyril “Sahib” always keep his annual engagement with the Princess to mark the anniversary of her father’s death. To her, the Maharajah was a progressive reformer with a jolly sense of humor. Having served first as his tutor and then as his secretary, Cyril came to the conclusion the Indian royal was a master manipulator and a bully, so he is not especially eager to write his biography (and certainly not in the manner she so clearly expects).

Granted, he cannot deny the Maharajah provided opulent living conditions, but he largely blames the luxury for sapping his scholarly ambitions. During their late afternoon tea, the two old palace acquaintances will watch vintage news reel footage of early to mid-20^th Century India specially delivered by the BBC, which will serve as Rorschach ink-blots for their perceptions of Indian history and society.

Autobiography is a deceptively simple two-hander, but it is a wonderfully thoughtful and graceful film. Like a good producer, Ismail Merchant re-purposed interview footage with former Indian nobles who had been stripped of their formal recognition and (more importantly) their government stipends, originally shot for an unfinished documentary. It is hard to weep for them, but the Princess seems to better exemplifies the sense of grace and duty that nobility is supposed to uphold. Yet, ironically, she again praises her father for giving her the independence to survive on her own (having jettisoned her deadbeat arranged husband long ago).

For many, this will be a James Mason film they are not familiar with, which should be reason enough to check out the Merchant-Ivory double-bill. In fact, it might just be one of his best performances, constituting some wonderfully complex, delicately shaded work. Although it is clear he has his misgivings about his service in Indian, his ultimate judgment of the Maharajah remains ambiguous.

While Mason exudes world-weariness, Madhur Jaffrey is absolutely luminous as the Princess. She is a forceful screen presence, who only allows the subtlest hints of doubt and insecurity to peak through the Princess’s charm and hospitality. Together, they are quietly terrific playing off each other.

The fifty-eight-minute, 2K-restored Autobiography is the extra added bonus paired up with Heat and Dust (for over three hours of Merchant-Ivory), but it is the bigger surprise and arguably the superior film, thanks to the assured co-leads. Very highly recommended, Autobiography of a Princess opens this Friday (9/8) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.