In a no-holds-barred interview with The Guardian, the Oscar-winning screenwriter for Call Me By Your Name, James Ivory criticised the director Luca Guadagnino for the lack of full frontal nudity in the film. Still baffled by the film’s resounding success, he said that the coming-of-age film’s wide appeal is a mystery to him. At 89, he became the oldest Academy Award winner this year.
While reiterating his disappointment with Guadagnino, over not showing Elio and Oliver naked, despite the specifications in the screenplay, he said,
But this was not the most outspoken part of the parley. He went on to talk tenderly yet unabashedly about his gay relationship with his producing partner Ismail Merchant, which withstood the test of time. He lifted the longterm veil of secrecy that shrouded their relationship.
The duo, that ran Merchant Ivory Productions, met in the 60s and were in a companionship for 44 years till the death of Merchant. When he was questioned about why they kept their relationship under wraps, he attributed it to the illiberal mindset of Merchant’s community.
Few collaborations are as distinctive as that between the two. When Ivory, who had never directed a narrative feature, met Merchant, who had never produced one, they made the Shashi Kapoor starrer, The Householder.
Bagging 31 Academy Award nominations, the pair garnered tremendous critical success with movies like A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).
Merchant’s demise brought in its wake a slow decline of the Merchant-Ivory Productions which Ivory’s Oscar win in March seems to have corrected.
Ivory even dismissed Daniel Day-Lewis’ retirement announcement. We would like to keep our fingers crossed in favour of this prophecy!
Finally, he spoke about the prestigious accolade that he recently pocketed.
Source: The Guardian
(This article is from The Quint’s archives and is now being republished to mark Ismail Merchant’s birth anniversary.)
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