There’s often been unfair snobbery about the films of Merchant Ivory, the production banner founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory, which gives Stephen Soucy’s entertaining documentary study its title. The British costume drama was widely considered a wheezing genre — fusty, middlebrow and too calcified in its literary sources to acquire much cinematic vitality — when A Room with a View came along in 1986 and became a global art-house crossover hit. At their best, notably in Howards End and Remains of the Day, Merchant Ivory’s films stand the test of time as influential works that removed the starch from the stodgy period piece.
Contemporaries reductively dismissed their output as “Laura Ashley filmmaking,” referencing the design firm known for its pretty Romantic Victorian inspirations. But Merchant Ivory did more than anyone from the mid-1980s to the early ‘90s to popularize and legitimize the thematically and emotionally rich costume drama.
Contemporaries reductively dismissed their output as “Laura Ashley filmmaking,” referencing the design firm known for its pretty Romantic Victorian inspirations. But Merchant Ivory did more than anyone from the mid-1980s to the early ‘90s to popularize and legitimize the thematically and emotionally rich costume drama.
- 11/13/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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