The Sunday Times (London)

June 4, 1995, Sunday

Merchandising ideas

Stephen Amidon

Right from the opening shot of Jefferson In Paris, you know it is the latest production from Merchant Ivory. Why are their films so distinctive, and could anybody make one? Stephen Amidon has the answers.
From their 1965 breakthrough with Shakespeare Wallah to the forthcoming release of Jefferson In Paris, the film-making team of producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory has been widely celebrated for its subtlety, refinement and attention to period detail. They represent movie-making at its most nuanced and sophisticated. However, a closer examination of their films reveals a surprisingly simple formula at work. In fact, anybody following this 15-point programme can easily create their own Merchant Ivory film in the comfort and safety of their own home (provided it is Grade I listed).

1. Visit the library
There is no need to waste your time dreaming up an original idea for your film. Just hit the local library. It is full of good stories most of them out of copyright. Ish and Jim have already cornered the market in EM Forster (three times) and Henry James (twice), but there are still plenty of great books to be adapted. You can also try more modern scribblers Merchant Ivory have used Evan S Connell for Mr & Mrs Bridge and Remains Of The Day author Kazuo Ishiguro (also known as Ish Jr). Just make sure your author is adept at historical settings, wealthy protagonists and repressed emotions. As Merchant Ivory’s woeful production of Tama Janowitz’s Slaves Of New York proved, brassy, angst-ridden New Yorkers do not fit the bill, even if they have big hair (see 4).
2. Put the girl in a muddle
The greatest single theme in the work of Merchant Ivory is that of a sensitive yet repressed woman undertaking a voyage of self-discovery (even if her name happens to be Maurice). In nearly all of their films, drama is derived from a heroine being forced to choose between two lovers, be they conventional beaux, such as Daniel Day-Lewis and Julian Sands in A Room With A View, or more bizarre suitors, such as Christopher Reeve and Vanessa Redgrave in The Bostonians. One of the problems with Jefferson In Paris is that it is Nick Nolte who must play the damsel in distress. Even with the wig, he just doesn’t convince.
3. Ring Ruth
Once you have the right property, hire Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Merchant Ivory’s in-house screenwriter. As an adaptor of great books, she is without parallel, able to cull two hours of hard-hitting drama from reams of ponderous prose. Her contribution is such that the production team should rightly be called Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala. Well, maybe not. But steer clear of any original work she might offer:
her script for Jefferson sounds like a talking-book version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
4. Get Carter
Okay, so she’s only knee-high to a grasshopper and, granted, from certain angles she bears an uncanny resemblance to Elsa Lanchester in Bride Of Frankenstein, but Helena Bonham Carter is the quintessential Merchant Ivory heroine. She isn’t in all their films it just seems that way. Possessor of the most active eyebrows this side of Roger Moore, and a bona fide toff, she is the perfect vehicle for the cultivated repression that passes for emotion in an Ish and Jim film. Include a scene where she can flap her arms like some flightless bird while being kissed. Also, the stage direction ”pouting” should appear frequently. If you cannot get her, hire somebody similar, even if they are as useless as Kyra Sedgwick or Bernadette Peters. As long as they can be petulant, swoon and have big hair, you’re in with a chance.

5. Act Callow
The other thespian necessary for your Merchant Ivory production is that versatile character actor, Simon Callow. He made his first appearance in Heat And Dust, disguised as Nickolas Grace, but really hit his stride in A Room With A View, where he played the eccentric Rev Beebe and we got to see his bum. He then appeared in Mr & Mrs Bridge as an eccentric psychiatrist, though we didn’t get to see his bottom; nor did we in Howards End, where he played an eccentric musicologist, or in Jefferson, where he was an eccentric painter. Ish and Jim’s loyalty to Callow is touching and apt, especially now that Denholm Elliott is dead. The same cannot be said for their fealty to Vanessa Redgrave, whose lobotomised performances in The Bostonians and Howards End are straight out of the Ed Wood school of acting.
6. Tony and Em
In the event your story does not have prominent roles for Carter or Callow, it is imperative you cast Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson as reluctant, over-the-hill lovers. Hopkins should be gruff and stiff-collared. Thompson should wear sensible shoes and have small hair. They need not be in the same room when he proposes. Under no circumstances should we see their bottoms.
7. Find a location with a view
The most important screen entrance in any Merchant Ivory film is not the star but rather the house where he or she lives. Big, beautiful residences are the only real estate on offer along the Merchant Ivory coast. If for some reason you cannot situate the action in a stately English manor, then rent a castle, loft or sprawling American colonial mansion.
8. Avoid art
One of the reasons Merchant Ivory films are able to be artful without seeming pretentious is that they consistently mock artists, idealists and social do-gooders, from Judi Dench’s ridiculous novelist in A Room With A View to Callow’s foppish painter in Jefferson; from Redgrave’s loopy feminist in The Bostonians to the entire cast of Slaves. Be sure that any creative types in your story are continually lampooned. Giving them silly accents helps.
9. Wear a hat
From the moment Shashi Kapoor appeared in Heat And Dust wearing a turban that looked as though somebody had burst a Christmas cracker above his head, outlandish headgear has played a key role in Merchant Ivory. Homburgs, boaters, bowlers, veils, fedoras, kepis the more the merrier. Indeed, in A Room With A View, Denholm Elliott can be spotted at one point wearing two hats. Of course, all period drama relies heavily on haberdashery, but anybody who puts a beanie on Blythe Danner suffers from a serious cap fetish. Oh, and if umbrellas can be added to any scene, all the better.
10. Buy a stamp
Merchant Ivory characters write long letters to one another, which are then voiced over scenes of rustic transportation. In fact, Nick Nolte can be seen writing two letters at the same time in Jefferson. Your characters should be uncomfortable using the telephone witness Phoebe Nicholls in Maurice shouting into one as if she were talking to Mr Cholmondley-Warner.
11. Pack a lunch
Merchant Ivory should get a backhander from Fortnum & Mason’s picnic-basket department for the amount of time they have their characters lounging around in lush meadows, eating brie and stealing kisses. So make your lovers outstanding in their fields. But under no circumstances should they be affected by bugs, dirt or heat. Merchant Ivory characters rarely sweat. The preferred means of transportation is carriage or rowboat. Avoid outboard motors in the latter case as this will drown out any mumbled endearments. Life jackets are not necessary hats can serve as flotation devices.
12. Keep your shirt on
For all the longing and passion bubbling beneath the surface, there’s precious little nudity in Merchant Ivory films, and when there is it tends to be male and flaccid. In all their work I can detect only two breasts, both of which belong to Greta Scacchi, who doesn’t count. And in Jefferson, where a white master shacks up with an underaged slave girl, we get nothing more than an unbuckled shoe.
13. Tip the servants
Servants play important roles in Merchant Ivory’s social order. Rupert Graves’s Scudder in Maurice reaches the parts of the hero that Clive cannot, while Thandie Newton’s slave in Jefferson performs a similar service for the future president. And Remains Of The Day presents a curiously inverted world in which great political events serve as backdrop for a romance between a butler and a housekeeper. This focus on downstairs is a surefire way to portray class-ridden scenarios to a classless society.
14. Turn it down
Raging fights and romantic revelations in Merchant Ivory films are all carried out sotto voce. When people get really mad, they whisper. Guns, fists, knives and cudgels are not employed. (There is a cut lip in Maurice, but that’s only because the hero kisses Clive too hard.) Locate all squabbles and emotional outpourings either in a room with people next door or, best of all, on an open staircase, so the participants will be forced to mumble.

15. Take your time
The average Merchant Ivory film clocks in at just over two hours, with Jefferson running more than two and a half. This is not always necessary A Room With A View can be said to move right along, while The Bostonians and Maurice seem lengthier than Liberal Democrat conferences. There is a reason for this elongation: an extra half-hour of tracking shots, hilly scenery and wistful voice-overs will give your film a feeling of added depth and importance. Remember, art-house cinema is one of the few places where inflation is a good thing.