Director James Ivory will receive the Dartmouth Film Award today in Spaulding Auditorium at a tribute honoring his career in film. The tribute program includes the Upper Valley premiere of the new Merchant-Ivory film "Jefferson In Paris," which will be screened following the presentation of the award to Mr. Ivory.
Ivory is the directing half of Merchant-Ivory Productions which has given us films like "Shakespeare Wallah," "A Room With a View," "Howard's End" and "The Remains of the Day." Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, collaborators for over thirty years, are, according to Guinness Film Facts and Feats, "the most enduring partnership in the business."
Ivory, describing their relationship says, "We work together, but we don't interfere in the others' sphere of interest. We talk at great length about each project but we don't get in each other's way. It is the same respect I have for my actors, all of whom are artists. They want to express their art and I think anyone would be foolish to trample on that."
This artistic freedom and characters that have, earned their actors numerous awards, attract extremely talented and popular artists such as Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Day Lewis, Hugh Grant and most recently Nick Nolte and Greta Scacchi.
Greta Scacchi, talking about working under James Ivory's direction, says, "I worked with James at the beginning of my career and it was the happiest experience I've ever had. He hardly ever says anything to the actors after their big scenes. He'll only approach you if there's something he wants to alter. He has tremendous faith in actors, a lot of respect for what they do. He casts very well and then trusts that we know our characters and that we'll come up with the goods."
Merchant Ivory Productions came into being when Ivory and Merchant met en route to the Cannes Film Festival. Their partnership began with the aim of making English language theatrical features in India for the international market.
They were attracted to India, not only because of its varied and vast resources but also because of the greater availability of funds there. Major American distributors had frozen rupee accounts there which the Indian government would only allow to be used for investment in India. Thus they could be utilized by Merchant-Ivory Productions to make films in India for distribution by the company. Their first feature was "The Householder" which was the first Indian film to get worldwide distribution by a major American company, Columbia Pictures. It was based on the novel by Jhabvala, who also wrote the script, and whose presence completes the creative trinity at Merchant-Ivory Productions.
Ivory attended the University of Oregon where he majored in architecture and fine arts. He returned to his birthplace, California (he was born in Berkeley) to study cinema at the University of Southern California. His first film, "Venice: Theme and Variations" was made as a thesis film for his degree. Written, photographed and produced by him, the half-hour documentary was named one of the best non-theatrical films for 1957 by The New York Times. His second film marked the beginning of Ivory's association with India. Titled, "The Sword and the Flute" it concentrated exclusively on Indian miniature paintings in American collections. Following its success, Ivory was given a grant by the Asia Society of New York to make "The Delhi Way," a film about the capital city of India.
After this came the formation of Merchant-Ivory Productions for which Ivory has made eighteen theatrical films to date. Their earlier films,the classic "Shakespeare Wallah", "The Guru" and "Bombay Talkie,"are based in India. These were followed by two Henry James productions, "The Europeans" and "The Bostonians" with a return to India with "Heat and Dust" scripted by Jhabvala and based on her novel of the same title.
"A Room with a View" based on E.M. Forster's novel was nominated for eight academy awards including Best Picture and Best Director. It won numerous other recognitions as well; it was voted Best Film of 1986 by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), the Critic's Circle Film Section of Great Britain and the National Board of Review in the USA. In Italy it won the Donatello prize for Best Foreign Language Picture and Best Director. The critical acclaim that met "A Room with a View" was repeated the following year with "Maurice," also based on an E.M. Forster novel, which received, among other awards, a Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival.
Ivory then returned to the US to make two American films, "Slaves of New York" and "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" which received Best Actress and Best Screenplay awards from the New York Film Critics Circle as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for Joanne Woodward.
Ivory's next two films were made in England. "Howard's End" in 1992 and "The Remains of the Day," both of which star Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins, won huge critical and public acclaim. "Howard's End" was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor and won three for Best Screenplay Adapted from Other Material, Best Actress and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. It also won Best Picture at the BAFTA awards and Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress at the National Board of Review's D.W. Griffith Awards. "The Remains of the Day" was nominated for eight Academy Awards and six BAFTA awards and won Best Actor for Anthony Hopkins at the BAFTA Awards.
Merchant-Ivory Productions' latest film, "Jefferson In Paris" [1994] is based on the five years (1784-1789) Thomas Jefferson spent in Paris as the American ambassador to France. It stars Nick Nolte, Greta Scacchi, Thandie Newton, Gwyneth Paltrow and Simon Callow. Ivory says of the film, "We had a story to tell, which has not been told before on the screen. I wanted to tell the story of Jefferson's life in Paris. For me, it was a very big, complicated film."
Ten years in the making, from conception to finished product, the film portrays a tumultuous period in the history of France and in Jefferson's own life. Jefferson, still mourning the loss of his wife who had died two years before, became enamored of a beautiful Anglo-Italian painter and musician, Maria Cosway (Greta Scacchi). While still involved in this affair, he formed another attachment - to his daughter's nurse Sally Hemings. Sally was one of the slaves Jefferson had inherited from his father-in-law who apparently had also fathered them. Thus Sally was Jefferson's wife's half-sister.
At the same time Jefferson, who had drafted and signed the American Declaration of Independence, was perceived by the French liberals and intellectuals as a guide towards a democratic form of government. The original American in Paris, he was both shocked by the corruption he saw at Court and deeply appreciative of the cultural riches France had to offer. The tensions and contradictions of the times, their reflection in Jefferson's life and the interplay of the personal and political forces present, guaranteed a thoughtful and skillful presentation by the Merchant-Ivory team, promise to make "Jefferson in Paris" a treat to watch.
