Jennifer Merin Interviews James Ivory

The White Countess Directed by James Ivory Produced by Ismail Merchant 

After a 44-year partnership that produced A Room with a View, Howard’s End, and other contemporary classics, director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant will work together no longer. The team’s latest release, The White Countess, is their finale. Sadly, Ismail Merchant’s death last May, during post production on this film, left Ivory to deliver the project to movie screens without his partner’s ever present wisdom and support.

      “A film simply has a certain way of going along, particularly when you’re in post production. You take all the steps. Ismail was with me in the editing room in my home in Upstate New York, and saw various cuts of the film. Then, we went to England to do some extra shooting and post-synch with the actors, and Ismail he got sick. When I came home to work on the sound post production for the film, the fact that he was nowhere around was a terrible thing. It continues to be a terrible thing,” says Ivory.

MERIN: How did you manage to finish the film?

IVORY: We were in the editing room at least two months longer than we are normally. Had Ismail been around, he would have been gnashing his teeth at the length of time it took for us. We’d had tremendous problems with the sound. It all had to be redone. We’d used a good digital recording system used in France. But the film was processed and the sound transferred in Australia, where they didn’t know the French system, and got it all wrong. When it arrived in the editing room in New York, nothing was in synch. It was a terrible mess. Everything had to be redone, retransferred and it took months to sort it out. Also, it was inconvenient to use the Australian lab because of the time difference. We’d be finishing the day’s editing, and they hadn’t come to work yet. That was out of synch, too.

MERIN: Why did you choose Australia?        

IVORY: That was [Cinematographer] Chris Doyle’s decision. He didn’t want to put the film in a Chinese lab—I guess he’d had some bad experiences there. He’s had good experiences in Sydney [which is where he’s from] and wanted to use a lab there.

MERIN: How did you choose Chris Doyle?

IVORY: I’d seen his films. Luckily, he was free, wanted to work with us. Chris speaks Chinese. He’d worked in China and came with his own crew. His shooting style suited the film, story and locations—which were an approximation of what 1930s Shanghai was like. We had to invent as we went along. Chris was very good at that. I’d say he’s an absolute classicist—which he’d probably deny. He has a loose, free way of working.

MERIN: Were rumors of financial problems true?

IVORY: Financiers were going to put in a couple of million and didn’t. So, there was a shortfall we had to make up.

MERIN: Is it getting harder to finance independent films?

IVORY: I guess so. This film was hard to put together, although we raised the money. People want an awful lot for their money now—rights and things you don’t want to give them.

MERIN: Why was this film hard to finance?

IVORY: Well, we were shooting in China. And, it’s not your usual Story—not easy to describe, and plot points possibly didn’t register with investors.

MERIN: What points?

IVORY: The aesthetic approach to making a bar of your dreams in Shanghai. What would that be? That may not be of much interest to some people putting money into movies.

MERIN: What about it interested you?

IVORY: I liked it because it was so perverse.

MERIN: How did you put together this Western-Chinese co-production?

IVORY: It wasn’t easy. We had some wrong contacts—people who weren’t in government’s good graces, although they were part of government. That wouldn’t have happened in India—Ismail would’ve sensed and prevented it. But he didn’t know Chinese, didn’t know complexities of what’s meant or not when someone says something, or formalities about saving face. It was so different, we took some false steps. But that was months before we began shooting. Ismail corrected everything in time. We got what we needed.

MERIN: How’d you find the script?

IVORY: It’s Kauzo Ishiguro’s story. Working on Remains of the Day, we became friends. We liked him, and he us and our movies. Actually, I’d thought about adapting a Japanese novel, Diary of a Mad Old Man, to shoot in Tokyo and Boston. It had a similar theme—a collector, a man seeking beauty. Ishiguro worked on that, but got bored. Without saying much, he wrote “The White Countess” and presented it to us.

MERIN: How’d you get the Redgrave actresses appearing together?

IVORY: We cast Natasha [Richardson] first. She looks like someone Who’s been through a lot—not just a blank beautiful face. Then I thought of Vanessa—who’s character was originally simpler, sweeter, good—but not so brainy. We rewrote for Vanessa. Lynn wasn‘t sure she‘d be free, but we worked it out so she could be there.

MERIN: What makes Merchant Ivory projects unique?

IVORY: I’ve never made a film I didn’t enjoy working on. It might be difficult or trying, but it has to give me pleasure. I’ve never had to make a crummy film with a senseless story or work with bad actors because you need them to get the money. I know my films look and sound different. But everybody making films— unless they’re the crassest commercial kind—wants to do something handsome, well acted, snappy, entertaining. Not unique, but those characterize Merchant Ivory films. And, I feel our stories and characters are consistently true to life—and therefore, in a way, superior to films which are not true to life.

You might say that characterizes Merchant Ivory films.

MERIN: What’s distinctive about your aesthetic?

IVORY: I’ll tell you something interesting: it’s the process of removal, but rarely the process of addition. It’s getting rid of al the things that don’t belong, harm it, pull it down, aren’t necessary, that seems to be how the aesthetic comes about. That’s in editing, but in shooting, too. Pretty much in how you frame the shots.

MERIN: What’s Merchant Ivory‘s future?

IVORY: We’re working on a film we’ll shoot in Argentina this summer. We’re casting now. Beyond that, I really don’t know. I’ve a dream of making a film of Richard II.

MERIN: Who would you cast?

IVORY: I’d want Jude Law in that part. He’ll be tired of making Hollywood movies by then and will want to go home and reclaim his birthright.