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."

Based on the 1910 novel, Howards End is a tour-de-force portrayal of E.M. Forster's masterpiece about a society in transition. The film was named Best Picture of 1992 by the National Board of Review, received nine Academy Award nominations, including that of Best Picture, and was one of the most critically acclaimed pictures of the 90s.

The free-spirited, free-thinking Schlegel sisters, Margaret (played by Emma Thompson, who received an Academy Award for her performance) and Helen (played by Helena Bonham Carter), are swept into a relationship with the Wilcoxes, a wealthy conservative English trading family; and the Basts, a couple near the lowest tier of the Edwardian class system. In an ever deepening palimpsest of relationships and obligations, Margaret must reconcile her irrepressible, independent spirit with her desire for companionship, and Helen must come to terms with her sister's choices and her unexpected passion for a match that, seemingly, should never be.

In a luminous, Oscar-nominated performance, Vanessa Redgrave is Mrs. Wilcox, a matriarch holding fast to a vanishing, remembered England of her childhood at the country house, Howards End. Her husband, Henry Wilcox (played by Anthony Hopkins), is an unyielding traditionalist who must face his own past and the changing world around him. Samuel West brings an assured sensitivity to Leonard Bast, whose aspirations above his class are inspired, and ultimately, rebuked.

Shot on location in England -- from the Hertfordshire countryside to the tenements of London's East End - Howards End won an Art Direction Academy Award for Luciana Arrighi's re-creation of the world known to Forster and his contemporaries. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala received her second Academy Award for her screenplay adaptation, which captures both the quick wit of Bloomsbury parlors and the quiet interiority of Forster's novel.

Ivory's unforgettable translation of Forster's themes into striking images (Mrs. Wilcox's lyrical walk around the house of her childhood; Leonard Bast's sun-drenched fantasies at his insurance clerk's desk), and the performances of an impeccable English cast make Howards End one of the Merchant Ivory team's most moving and perfectly realized films.

A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries is the story of an American family living in Paris in the mid sixties, told from the point of view of the daughter, Channe. The father, Bill Willis, is a successful expatriate writer (based on Kaylie Jones's father, the writer James Jones), a WWII veteran haunted by his experiences in the Pacific. His wife, Marcella, is an emotional, fun-loving woman. The film opens the day five-year old Benoit, a French orphan, is brought into the family for adoption.

Benôit's natural mother, an unmarried French girl who was only fifteen when her child was born, holds up the adoption proceedings out of feelings of guilt and remorse, thus terrifying the Willises with the possibility of Benôit's removal. Jealous, Channe retreats to the protective embraces of her Portuguese nanny Candida, who takes her frustrations out on the small boy. Benôit, who has been moved around from foster home to foster home, keeps his suitcase packed, ready at a moment's notice to be sent back to the orphanage. It is only after much tenderness and reassurance from Bill and Marcella that Benôit relinquishes his suitcase, and asks to have his name changed to Billy.

Against the backdrop of their parents' poker games and all-night parties, the children grow up attending a bilingual school where they struggle to be accepted. When necessary, Marcella intervenes at school, defending her children with a fierce loyalty and railing at the form-obsessed French teachers. Still, Billy wants - more than anything else in the world - to be American. Just as Channe reaches puberty, she is befriended by a sensitive and artistic boy names Francis Fortescue. Francis is fatherless, somewhat effeminate, and the son of an expatriate American mother. They become inseparable. Billy thinks Francis is weird, but Channe admires Francis' knowledge of opera, his ability to tell dramatic stories, and his courage in always being frank and up front. As sexual maturity overtakes Channe, the friendship becomes strained, and Francis, who is excluded from the school's teen-age party scene, becomes more and more withdrawn and morose as Channe looks romantically to the other boys. Their friendship collapses just as Bill announces that at the end of the school year, the family will be returning to the U.S. He explains that a congenital heart problem is getting worse, and he wants to be under the care of American doctors. The children's entire world is suddenly and unceremoniously left behind.

In Sagaponack, Long Island, on Labor Day weekend, the Willises arrive at their new home, an old farm house in the middle of vast, green potato fields. Bill teaches Channe how to drive, continues the tradition of all-night poker games, and plays down Marcella's fears about his family's history of heart disease. Channe and Billy attend the local high school, fitting in no better than they did in Paris. Channe begins having sex in the backseats of cars, searching for acceptance and attention. Unsure of herself, she shares intimate conversations with her father about boys and girls and sex. Bill tries to guide her way but feels powerless; he is getting worse, and is preoccupied with trying to finish his final novel about WWII.

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.