Merchant Ivory Films

Thought of The Masterpiece but went for Le Divorce as the suicide attempt and aftermath were the first thing I think about in relation to MI

Curious to know what jed thinks is their masterpiece.

Didn't know they'd done The Golden Bowl! Generally think they were very unsuited to James.

would have said The Remains Of The Day up until recently, have to be predictable and go with Howards End i'm afraid.

Ebert's review of Slaves.. is quite something

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/slaves-of-new-york-1989

Didn't know they'd done The Golden Bowl! Generally think they were very unsuited to James.

― Bernie Lugg (Ward Fowler), W

or most novelists

Maurice is a funny one, it followed on the heels of a big multi-oscar-nominated hit but kinda vanished.

this makes a decent case for it being unfairly overlooked.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/may/19/maurice-film-period-drama-merchant-ivory

I suppose they served Maurice well, for it's a touching little nothing of a novel.

Ward, Howard's End, although i should probably see Heat and Dust.

or Le Divorce!

They had that many?

The bane of my existence as a budding pre/teenage film nerd who watched Siskel and Ebert religiously and tried to watch most Oscar nominated stuff. I should probably give Howard's End another go, at least.

Howards End is fine. I rewatched it recently. When they adapt Forster, they turn some of his characters into Dickens caricatures.

Also, because I'm in a different city as my books at the moment: did Kael like A Room With a View?

Alfred, is there anything here you consider better than fine?

I absolutely ladder their film of Howard's End.

Side question: what are the best "Merchant Ivory" films that weren't made by Mechant Ivory?

Ladder = adore! Ffs.

Alfred, maybe it's Nick Guest's adaptation of The Spoils of Poynton :D

xxp the best Merchant Ivory films not made by Merchant Ivory; Another Country for sure, maybe The English Patient. also Ang Lee's
Sense And Sensibility?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

some blind spots (eg, Ballad of the Sad Cafe, which was directed by Simon Callow, no?) but have to go with A Room With a View.

Crypto, Kael enjoyed A Room.

jed, the obvious answer: Jake Gyllenhaal.

Scorsese's Age of Innocence beats possibly all of these.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

His Oscar securely in hand, James Ivory no longer needs to speak tactfully. pic.twitter.com/0idUYbFSUG

— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) March 27, 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/27/james-ivory-ismail-merchant-love-secret-call-me-by-your-name-nudity

James Ivory seems kind of an asshole.

at 89, it's a good bet he doesn't care how he seems.

true.

I've never gotten the sense he's an asshole, but he sure does like a good one now and then

RIMshot!

where's the current gay thread? not the dirty one.

Filling the void of the Craigslist personals: LGBTQ Spring 2018

thanks Dr.

I finally watched The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (dir. Simon Callow), which doesn't really make the McCullers novella work on the screen. It is, however, the only film that climaxes with a bareknuckle brawl between Vanessa Redgrave and Keith Carradine.

Saw The Remains of the Day this afternoon for the first time. Decidedly not my thing, but for now, my selectivity with the two nearby rep theaters is close to nil.

Pretty good. It came out after Kael retired, but she mentioned it in one of her last interviews: praised the performances (especially Peter Vaughan as Hopkins' father), but also called it "leatherbound," and almost a parody of repression. Which describes my reaction to Phantom Thread well. Of the two, I liked The Remains of the Day better.

It's their best film, I think, but it's not alive, weird, and fraught like Phhantom Thread is. I'm not seeing what they have in common...?

I saw PT again in May, and, god, it's got so much happening, starting with the queerness of it main character who's a womanizer for the sake of dressing them up, the way PTA in an Ophuls-like manner tracks character going up and down staircase or devotes him/herself to ceremonies like breakfast or the happy hour martini.

What's it have in common with Merchant Ivory? Their films have a literal interest in prose ephemera that rarely gets at the weirdness of human life.

*starting with the queerness of its

That they're so dogged about the repression of their lead characters. But I found Remains less of a slog (or maybe my expectations were just much lower).

You found DDL's character repressed? On the contrary! He did what he wanted to do! She interfered with him.

Repression consists of denying one's own talents for the sake of an anxiety or something, and there's no way Reynolds Woodcock codes as repressed. The point of the film, in my opinion, is how he withstands the continual assault of a woman whom he made the mistake of leading on.

He felt that way to me, at least in his manner.

I hate that film and knock it every chance I get.

Repression consists of denying one's own talents for the sake of an anxiety or something

I know. So let me rephrase: the repression is PT Anderson's, not DDL.

Howard's End is, surely, their best film. Remains... is a bad book but the film is really quite good. Ishiguro doesn't understand what he's writing about, imo. I can say the same about the other books of his I've read. Everything he writes seems "made up".

the repression is PT Anderson's, not DDL.

Fair. So how does it manifest itself?

For me, that the guy who made Boogie Nights made a glorified Merchant-Ivory film.

I figure Remains was one of the last films Christopher Reeves made before his accident; that felt a little sad.

“The point of the film, in my opinion, is how he withstands the continual assault of a woman whom he made the mistake of leading on.” and that he recognizes that he’s a masochist operating as a sadist, and has found a kindred soul as his opposite. Although guess it’s not as simple as that

Woodcock is an awful person, but PTA's script and framing choices make it clear; but it's also a clear-eyed view of how creative people work, notably when they lead someone on. I'm not harping on this point, I hope, clem, but I don't see him as repressed or the film as an example of repression. He flourishes as an artist, and the film's irony -- for which I applaud it! -- is how it limns a guy who's a craftsman untroubled by woman trouble, alcoholism, or trauma until he sends the wrong signals. Few movie are this subtle.

Phantom Thread seems quite "made up" as well, imo.

Gloriously so.

Obviously, I completely disagree re PTA. Everything that's so alive in Boogie Nights, that comes so naturally to him, all that is kept in check in Phantom Thread. For me, it's like the deadly gulf between Jaws and Munich. I just think Wanting To Be Taken Seriously is not good for some directors.

Hm! This fascinates me. His writing and approach to mise-en-scene is shaggier since Inherent Vice; what unites these films (BN, IV, PT) is the sense that anything can happen.

alfred i think i have a slightly different take which is that he's a guy who realizes, more unconsciously than not, that he desperately needs to be taken out of his comfort zone.

as a filmmaker pta has been taken seriously literally as long as he's been making movies

I like that from seeing his movies I have no idea what his comfort zone is

But then I like There Will Be Blood a lot, and I'm okay with the grand ambitions of Magnolia, so Wanting to Be Taken Seriously isn't quite the problem. Honestly, I'd need to do what I've studiously avoided to be more precise: see it a second time.

as a filmmaker pta has been taken seriously literally as long as he's been making movies

By anyone who loves Boogie Nights, yes. But I think a lot of people just dismiss that as a flashy, empty Scorsese imitation.

Sorry, Merchant-Ivory, for derailing your thread.

Among the attitudes I like Phantom Thread for is how it rejects the capitalist separation b/w "work" and "leisure." Think of the scene b/w Reynolds and Alma late in the picture when she mixes a martini and cooks his dinner, and he can't understand why she thinks it's worth the bother. A devastating moment, but it's not an example of his repression -- he is fully realized, fully aware of his gifts, at the peak of his profession. Why should he relax? He brings beauty to the world? He's not broken down. It's she who never understands.

But! I's his fault for treating her as a model. He led her on. These kind of subtleties are novelistic, way past what I would've expected PTA was capable of in 1997, and I like Boogie Nights. The difference b/w this film and TROTD is how the the latter -- a movie I like -- stack the deck against Stevens.

*I's = It's

I'm not 100% sure I have it, but if I do, I'll watch it again. I'm out here on a ledge, otherwise, just winging it--I'll either have a clearer explanation of what I don't like or a revised opinion.

Remains... is a bad book but the film is really quite good. Ishiguro doesn't understand what he's writing about, imo. I can say the same about the other books of his I've read. Everything he writes seems "made up".

― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Tuesday, September 1, 2020 1:18 AM (forty-six minutes ago)

i love the book tbh but i was surprised when i read an interview with ishiguro and he said that he really didn't know anything about butlers and had pretty much made everything up.

i'm guessing that's probably a little false modesty on his part

I doubt that.

watched a room with a view yesterday, expecting a very dry, repressed english costume drama, but ... it's mostly a comedy? very silly movie, most of the supporting characters are ridiculous, with daniel day-lewis out-ridiculousing them all - he's pretty much a cartoon of the prissy snob. definitely more fun than i had anticipated.

The moment when Lucy dashes his hopes in the last third you could see his soul collapse in close-up. I found that moment poignant.

watching THE BOSTONIANS (1984) and already irritated by the difficulty these goons have getting from shot to shot, only ken russell has crappier editing

I noticed it was on MUBI. Has any subsequent restoration removed Christopher Reeve?

none more mississippi

i adore a room with a view - find it hilarious, actually has something to say about its characters, and even the caricatures like Daniels Day Lewis' Cecil Vyse as Alfred pointed out about get a poignant (human) moment - and very much about the breaking out of stuffiness

still have yet to see Quartet - Maggie Smith, Isabelle Adjani, Alan Bates - i'm curious

back to the bostonians: the mesmerist looks like malcolm mclaren, they shd have done more with that

havent seen it since it came out but general recollection of Bostonians is it being very underlit - maybe inaccurate - def don't remember ken russell type of editing

it is dim-lit and joyless and sluggardly and graceless

russell wd be garish and gleeful and sluggardly and actively clumsy

none of them have the faintest sense of timing

The Bostonians is one of the worst films I've seen.

fair

tho i love this (reordered) quote from feminist & transcendentalist margaret fuller that they dig up to deploy in one of verena's lectures: "the especial genius of women I believe to be intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency, electrical in movement"

electrical in movement! we are the robots!

i keep sensing dark jamesian joeks abt the civil war sailing over merchant's and indeed ivory's preening heads

Maurice is, by their standards, pretty hot

I'm tempted to include Redgrave in the Good Performances in Naff Movies category, but Ivory does so little to shape the performance I just can't.

jessica tandy is fun in a smallish role and tbh madeleine potter is extremely watchable but again they don't know how to make anything of what she brings in terms of shape or themes

(i know james had a weird relationship to the actual politics of boston feminism and they maybe didn't want just to shadow him there but… ) (except did they even give it this much thought?)

The novel mixes amusement, contempt, and fascination. One of the more oddly constructed novels of his career too: the first night takes up more than a hundred pages! Then it slows down considerably.

The documentary about them is a pleasant way to spend an early afternoon. I knew they were a couple, didn't know they juggled multiple lovers into their sixth decades, including Merchant with composer Richard Robbins (who was also romancing Helena Bonham Carter).

is the doc streaming anywhere?

I don't think so? I saw it in person earlier today at the Miami Film Festival.

I'm not a big fan of their films, but Mr. & Mrs. Bridge is probably the one I'd go back to. (IIRC Ivory now says it's his favorite among the films he's done, partly because it's about the world or culture he grew up in.)

I was stunned and saddened by how terrible Merchant was to those he employed. I forgot which site it was, but when I was reading his obit, I saw the comments section fill up with film crew employees angrily recalling how he would try to skip out on paying them and sometimes threatening them if they tried to get him to follow through on payment. I think the doc mentions it as well but the extent to which he did this was atrocious - it wasn't just people who would at least win Oscar nominations and find lucrative work elsewhere, it was a lot of people far down the ladder who were screwed.

How was The Remains of the Day not the winner here? Their best film by a large margin imo

The doc gets into racial stereotypes of Merchant as a guy with "bazaar" politics.

I review the documentary.

Punctured tires by the side of the turnpike is the kind of line I wish Siskel & Ebert would've used on their show. (Unfortunately I think they were pretty big fans of their films.)

oh yes they did