JAMES IVORY IN CONVERSATION
HOW MERCHANT IVORY MAKES ITS MOVIES
Chapter One
SETTING THE SCENE
Robert Emmet Long: Merchant Ivory is known to be the independent film production
team of the last few decades, achieving its success on its own, outside
the Hollywood studio system-or maybe in defiance of it. But, in fact, what
has your experience with Hollywood been like? What sort of dealings have you
had with the studios?
James Ivory: There has been this idea-people have often spoken or written in
this way-that Merchant Ivory shuns Hollywood or feels that it is too good for
it. Something of that kind. But people would be surprised at the number of our
films that had a big studio connection, and also when that connection first took
place-at the very beginning of our career. Our first feature was The Householder,
which we made in India and then sold to Columbia (now Sony). You might say
that it had even been partially financed with Hollywood money. One of our Indian
investors on that film was a theater owner in Bombay who made a fortune
off The Guns of Navarone, a Columbia hit. He put some of that in The Householder,
so we might ... read full excerpt from James Ivory in Conversation: How Merchant Ivory Makes Its Movies ebook
