Robert Horton is a Scarecrow board member and a longtime film critic. This series of "critic's notes" is chance to highlight worthy films playing locally and connect them to the riches of Scarecrow's collection.
Seeing the new documentary Merchant Ivory brought back pleasant memories of interviewing the two key members of that filmmaking team. I have no record of the interview, and I can't remember what movie they came to Seattle to promote. It was long enough ago that there was a good amount of time—likely an hour—to sit with them in their room at the Olympic Hotel, and be able to talk about things other than the movie at hand. Time enough to gain an impression.
That impression is very much confirmed by the documentary. Ismail Merchant, the producer of the team (although he also directed a handful of features, which are not without interest, even if they fail to suggest the kind of "touch" that born directors have), spent at least part of the interview on the phone with someone. It was probably just briefly—but still, you had the feeling that a wheeler-dealer was in the room. And my single clearest memory of the interview was that at one point, Merchant scanned the room service menu and announced that we really needed to get some chocolate-dipped strawberries in the room. Which he made happen, and which he shared with a sweep of his hand. It just seemed like a producer sort of thing.
James Ivory, native of Klamath Falls, Oregon, was soft-spoken and elegant of gesture. He seemed like a person of some resolve, which is what you need as a director—yet you wonder how far this quiet man would have gotten if he hadn't found his Merchant early on.
This new film, directed by Steven Soucy, takes a roundabout look at the history of Merchant Ivory. The third key member of Merchant Ivory was writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who died in 2013 but is represented here in old footage; Merchant died in 2005. By virtue of still being alive, then, Ivory has the upper hand here. The organization is sometimes frustrating; the movie shrugs off a chronological trip through the MI history, but the resulting structure doesn't always make sense. Its approach is sincere and square—and even naïve, when it comes to revealing that Vanessa Redgrave was a bit of a handful when it came to being interviewed for Merchant Ivory. Just be grateful you got her on camera.
And yet—if not quite a plateful of chocolate-dipped strawberries—this film is enjoyable, because the anecdotes are spikey enough and the subject merits the time. Soucy got (presumably with some nudging from Ivory) a collection of big names to sit for his camera, including Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, and Helena Bonham Carter, so that's a pretty good start. Beyond the surface pleasures, there are two contributions the film makes, or at least starts a discussion about. One is the complexity of the relationship between Ivory and Merchant, which began in their youth (on their first film together the crew called them "Jack and Jill") and qualified as a long-term romance, even if other partners were in the mix. There's a strong section about the composer Richard Robbins, who did the music for 21 of Merchant Ivory's films, and how his romantic connection with Merchant played into the history of the team. (Helena Bonham Carter says she was in love with Robbins herself, which sounds like an interesting story.)
The other point is how chaotic it was behind the scenes of those famously pretty, art-directed-to-within-an-inch-of-their-life Merchant Ivory pictures. For me, this humanizes the output of the duo; I think they made some terrific films, but they also did some fairly dull ones. To know that the Merchant Ivory process was wildly disordered, with Merchant portrayed here as a con man who somehow managed to skitter a step ahead of banks and investors while creating a safe space for Ivory to make the movie, is somehow delightful (it makes sense that people recall director and producer in screaming matches on the set). It isn't all jolly, either; the film makes clear that a lot of people got fed up with being underpaid or cajoled into overworking, no matter the power of Ismail Merchant's charm. When Merchant Ivory films are clicking, it's because they track the toll taken in living an expected outer life that has little to do with feeling. Turns out their production style was in a similarly fractured key.
Merchant Ivory opens 9/13 at the Crest, 9/20 at the Grand in Tacoma—and you can get everything else by Merchant Ivory from Scarecrow.
September 13, 2024
