This April, celebrate the remarkable period-movie powerhouse of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, whose film productions often featured lavish sets and genteel characters who suffer from disillusionment and tragic entanglements.
Merchant Ivory’s '80s and '90s heyday launched the careers of British acting aristocracy Hugh Grant (Maurice) and Helena Bonham Carter (A Room with a View) and we will be screening both these classic titles in the season, along with Howards End, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson plus the house itself, so often an important character in their films.
Coming up in the mini season:
A Room With a View
Sunday 6 April 3pm and Thursday 10 April 11am
The Emersons come to Lucy's rescue when she finds herself alone in Florence. She falls in love with George Emerson, but back home in England her fiancee awaits her return. Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Julian Sands, and Daniel Day Lewis.
Book now for A Room with a View >>
Howards End 4K Restoration
Sunday 13 April, 3pm
Simmering with rich emotion and crackling with class politics, Howards End is the crowning glory of the Merchant Ivory catalogue and that rare perfect period drama. Starring Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins, Sam West, Vanessa Redgrave, Prunella Scales and many more!
Maurice
Sunday 20 April 3pm and Thursday 24 April 7:30pm
A very young Hugh Grant stars in this poignant and passionate 1987 British romantic drama.
Period drama excellence
Remarkable independent production company, Merchant Ivory, was a period-movie powerhouse with an intensely literary kind of creativity, combining the talents of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins.
The expression "Merchant–Ivory film" has made its way into common parlance, to denote a particular genre of film which would likely be a period piece, based on a classic novel, set in the early 20th century, usually in Edwardian England, featuring lavish sets and top British actors portraying genteel characters who suffer from disillusionment and tragic entanglements.
Merchant and Ivory were also life partners and theirs is a love story and a marriage as well as a chapter in film history, although a love story which was complicated; Ivory had an affair with Bruce Chatwin and Merchant was involved with Robbins, who himself had a tendresse for the great Merchant Ivory player Helena Bonham Carter.
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