Merchant Ivory

Helen, Queen of the Nautch Girls, a 30-minute documentary film that looks at an aspect of Indian culture from a rather whimsical angle, has always been a popular Merchant Ivory film. The idea for the documentary came from Anthony Korner, an associate of Merchant Ivory's in the period, and now the publisher of Art Forum. It was directed and narrated by him, but the scenario was devised by Ivory. The subject of the film, which cost a modest $17,000 to make, is the most popular dancer in Bombay musical films -- so much so that since 1957 she had appeared in five hundred of them. In part the movie is a montage of scenes from her pictures and of the opening sequence in Bombay Talkie in which Helen dances with Shashi Kapoor on the keys of a giant red typewriter. Indian musical films that provided the background ofBombay Talkie now come to life before the bemused viewer. Stepping neatly around the puritanic codes governing Indian films that forbid direct sexual contact (even kissing), the musicals project sexuality fervently through innuendo -- in teasing situations and the sensuality of Helen's dancing. Extravagantly romantic fantasies are the stuff of this popular art form, of which Helen is clearly "queen."

The first of Merchant Ivory's triptych of Henry James adaptations (including The Bostonians in 1984 and The Golden Bowl in 2001), The Europeans is the story of an encounter between a family of pre-Civil War New Englanders and their European relations whose alien, sophisticated ways dazzle some family members and scandalize others. The Baroness Eugenia Muenster (Lee Remick) arrives with her artistic and dashing brother Felix (Tim Woodward) for a transatlantic visit with their cousins, the Wentworths. The bohemian Felix is immediately taken with Gertrude Wentworth (Lisa Eichhorn), James's "innocent Sabbath-breaker," who is being courted by the earnest but tiresome Puritan suitor Mr. Brand (Norman Snow). Eugenia fixes upon the reserved and attractive Robert Acton (Robin Ellis), who is torn between his captivation with the Baroness and his distrust of her European worldliness. The resulting conflicts and complications in the Wentworth and Acton houses come to play out James's vision of America trying to maintain her innocence by fending off European influences. The characters must somehow forge relationships and identities somewhere between the grave sobriety of Puritan acseticism, its "thousand different ways to be dreary," and the perceived amoral or outright immoral decadence of the Continent. The widely acclaimed performances, led by Remick's complex Eugenia, lend subtle sympathy to the characters. They are enabled by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay, which never betrays James's wit or delicate command of social subtext. Ivory gives a sense of lyrical simplicity to his scenes in the New England interiors of the period, but perhaps most striking are his exteriors, which capture Henry James's sense of ambivalent wonder at the New World. The expatriate author of The Europeans was fascinated by the New England landscape, which he called "Arcadian" and "idyllic" but also depicted as a "void" and a "vacancy." The film's setting amidst the striking reds and oranges of the New England autumn gives us a sense of a place that is both edenic and unfulfilled - - a world in advent, people waiting for something.

Set in post-colonial India of the 1950's, Cotton Mary is the story of two Anglo-Indian (part English and part Indian) sisters. Cotton Mary and Blossom, their niece, Rosie and their tangled and complicated interactions with a British household. The drama centers on the relationship between Cotton Mary, who dreams of realizing a British identity and Lily Macintosh, a young woman recently returned to India to live in her childhood home.

Lily's husband John Macintosh, a correspondent for the BBC in South India, is absent at the film start when Lily gives birth two months early to a weak and sickly child. Against the backdrop of Vishu, the Keralan festival of lights, Lily is rushed to an old British Military Hospital now staffed by local Indian doctors and nurses including Cotton Mary and Rosie. The hospital sets the stage for the first part of the film when Lily is unable to nurse her child. Despite the efforts of the hospital staff, the child is close to death when Cotton Mary comes to the rescue by stealing the child away to crippled sister Blossom, who is a wet nurse in a nearby Alms house. Still living in the past when her life was peopled by British ladies of the Raj and their children----Blossom and the other Alms house ladies are revived by having a new white child in their midst.

Mary's devotion to the baby and her success in arranging for the feeding make her indispensable to Lily. When John arrives at the hospital and is unwilling to discuss the baby's condition, Lily reaches out to Mary for help. Fearful that her already disintegrating marriage will suffer further because of the child, Lily offers Mary a permanent position in their home as the baby's ayah (nanny).

Lily wholeheartedly accepts Mary and delegates more of her responsiblities as her own insecurities begin to overwhelm her. Alienated from the small expatriate community whose attitudes toward India are of her mother's era, Lily becomes more and more isolated. Blaming herself for her inability to feed the baby and for the child's weak condition, she gradually loses confidence in herself. Emotionally distanced from her husband, Lily withdraws to her garden and into herself. Gradually Mary usurps the powers of the loyal family servant, Abraham, whom she accuses of stealing, and more importantly, of being dirty. Boasting to her sister and the other ayahs that Master is building her a house in England, near Wellington Castle, Mary begins to achieve the identity she desires.

James Ivory, screenwriter of Call Me by Your Name, took home the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay at Sunday’s Academy Awards at the age of 89, making him the oldest recipient in the history of the Oscars. While this might have been Ivory’s first win, it certainly wasn’t his first nomination. The producer and director was previously in the running for Best Director for three of his Merchant Ivory films: 1985’s A Room with a View, 1992’s Howards End and 1993’s The Remains of the Day.