James Ivory in Conversation: How Merchant Ivory Makes Its Movies

England

ENGLAND RobertEmmetLong: ARoomwithaViewwasnominatedforeightAcademyAwards, includingBestPictureandBestDirector,andenjoyedaphenomenalruninboth America and abroad. Would you say that it was your most famous film? James Ivory: It was—once. But now I suspect that The Remains of the Day is better known. ARoomwithaView came out sixteen years ago. A whole generationhasgrownupthatdoesn ’tknowit,asithasn’tbeenrereleasedveryoften. Long:Itwasapictureofexceptionalvisualbeauty,andasithappened,itwas the first film you made with Tony Pierce-Roberts as your cameraman. What would you say are some of his special qualities as a cinematographer? Ivory: Well, his energy and good humor—a cameraman needs a large supply of both. And then he has a superlative technical grasp of everything; he’s an impeccable perfectionist, but at the same time, as I say, he has such high spirits, such energy. Nothing is too much for him, nothing is impossible. He willtryanythingyouwant,andI’veworkedwithcameramenwhowouldnot— whohadafixedideabeforehandthatsomethingwouldnotworkorwouldnot be worth the eªort, and therefore didn’t try it. Long: You’ve collaborated with him now for quite a number of films . . . Ivory:We’vedoneseventogether: ARoomwithaView,SlavesofNewYork, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Howards End, The Remains of the Day, Surviving Picasso, and The GoldenBowl. That’s nearly a third of my features. Long: Is there a particular look he gives to a picture that makes you know you are seeing Tony Pierce-Roberts’s cinematography? Ivory:Thebestcinematographersdon’thaveanindividuallook,Ithink.They 197 aretheretoservethedirector,whosetsthetoneandlook.Thattoneandlook reallycomefromthevariousstoriesyouaretelling.Eachoneisdiªerent.Lately I’ve spent a lot of time watching Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, and there the cinematographywassoperfectforthatparticularworldthatitshone ,likesomething verypure.Thestyleisquitespare,evenminimalist—thoughvery,veryevocative .Andit’snotlikeanyoftheothers:there’sawonderfulsenseofwhatought to be there. I suppose it’s what is meant by painterly: you can’t add anything, neither can you take anything away. Long: In composing scenes to be shot, have you sometimes found yourself influenced by artists of the past? Someone has written of A Room with a View that the “Italian picnic scenes have a touch of Renoir (père et fils).” Ivory: Well, I was certainly not much influenced by either Renoir in that film. But if you put some goodlooking women in long white dresses in a field dotted with red poppies, and they’re holding parasols, then people will say “Renoir.” I think any artist who works in a visual way—any painter, photographer, or filmmaker —unconsciously (and sometimes consciously) refers to works of art that have given him, or her, pleasure . However, I have definitely tried to evoke Sargent in TheGoldenBowl and Pahari miniatures in Hullabaloo overGeorgieandBonnie’sPictures. Long: Appearing with A Room with a View’s credits are those wonderful designs that are works of art in themselves . . . Ivory: They are called grotesques. Long: Who selected them? Ivory: I did. For the most part they came from the walls of the villa where wewereshooting.Therewerealotofthemthere,partofthedecorationofthe roomsinthevillaatMaianothatwasusedasthefilm’spensione.Wethenasked a painter to do a whole series of them . . . enough for titles . . . and for titles betweensectionsofthefilm,likechapterheadings.Thatideacausedarguments. Long: Why was that? 198 f e a t u r e f i l m s : e n g l a n d a r o o m w i t h a v i e w E.M.Forster’searlynovel aboutamuddledyoung Englishgirlwhodiscoverslove inFlorenceandthenalmost losesitwhenshegoesback hometoSurrey.WithHelena BonhamCarter,JulianSands, SimonCallow,MaggieSmith, andDanielDay-Lewis.1985. Feature.35millimeter;color; 117minutes. Ivory:Somepeoplesaidtheystoppedthestorydeadeachtimetheyappeared. Butsuchpeoplewerefaroutnumberedbytheotherswhoenjoyedthem.These chapter headings had, after all, been placed by Forster in his novel, and they were witty and lighthearted and quite unusual for a modern film. Long: Was it you or Ruth who initiated ARoomwithaView? Ivory: It was my idea. Forster’s estate thought we ought to make A Passage to India instead. But for all sorts of reasons we didn’t want to. We had, after all,justdoneaBritishRajfilm,HeatandDust.Anyway,IwantedtorevisitItaly after a twenty-year absence. Long:Butwhenthetimecametodoit,youhadbeguntochangeyourmind. YoutoldRuthandIsmailthatyoucouldn’tdoanotherperiodpicture,another literary adaptation. What brought you round? Ivory:Wedidn’thaveanythingelseintheworksthatwasready.AsI’vesaid elsewhere,ourplantomakeafilmbasedontheideasthatlaterbecameRuth’s novel Three Continents wasn’t concrete enough to embark on anything so ambitious .She’dalreadywrittenthescreenplayof ARoomwithaView,andwedecided to go ahead with it. Ismail went to Sam Goldwyn with the project and wastoldthatthecharactersshouldbemadeintoAmericans,andthattheolder characterssuchasCharlotteBartlettshouldbedroppedentirely,notbeingof anyinteresttoyoungaudiences.ThetwoEmersons,oldMr.Emersonandhis sonGeorge,weretobecombinedintoonecharacter.Iwaspresentatthismeeting , so I know what was said. We said “thank you” and left, and Sam Goldwyn has been kicking himself ever since. Somehow this meeting galvanized Ismail, and he went out and found the financing we needed almost at once, thoughitbecamesomethingofacliªhangeratthelastminute.Wewereready tostartshootinginFlorence,andthefinancierswerestilltryingtobettertheir deals. Anyway, they finally all came through and were...