
Production
Ismail Merchant
Born 1936-12-25 · Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
Ismail Merchant (born Ismail Noor Muhammad Abdul Rahman; 25 December 1936 – 25 May 2005) was an Indian-born film producer and director. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included director (and Merchant's longtime professional and domestic partner) James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Their films won six Academy Awards.
Acting credits
5.1His wife having recently died, Thomas Jefferson accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, though he finds it difficult to adjust to life in a country where the aristocracy subjugates an increasingly restless peasantry. In Paris, he becomes smitten with cultured artist Maria Cosway, but, when his daughter visits from Virginia accompanied by her attractive slave, Sally Hemings, Jefferson's attentions are diverted.
Jefferson in Paris
1995
7.0Historical context for The Remains of the Day.
Blind Loyalty, Hollow Honor: England's Fatal Flaw
2001
7.7The first definitive feature documentary to lend new and compelling perspectives on the partnership, both professional and personal, of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and their primary associates, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins. Footage from more than fifty interviews, clips, and archival material gives voice to the family of actors and technicians who helped define Merchant Ivory’s Academy Award-winning work of consummate quality and intelligence. With six Oscar winners among the notable artists participating, these close and often long-term collaborators intimately detail the transformational cinematic creativity and personal and professional drama of the wandering company that left an indelible impact on film culture.
Merchant Ivory
2024
6.0Anne is investigating the life of her grand-aunt Olivia, whose destiny has always been shrouded with scandal. As Anne delves into the history of her grand-aunt, she is led to reconsider her own life.
Heat and Dust
1983
8.0In 1960, acclaimed filmmaker James Ivory traveled to Afghanistan to shoot scenes for a documentary that was never completed. In 2022, he decided to revisit this unique footage, which takes him back to his adventurous youth.
A Cooler Climate
2022
6.5The filmmakers and lead actors of The Remains of the Day (1993) discuss how they came to make the film, and the subtle power of its execution.
Love & Loyalty: The Making of 'The Remains of the Day'
2001
5.4Meet the denizens of New York City: artists, prostitutes, saints, and seers. All are aspiring toward either fame or oblivion while hoping for love and acceptance. Instead they find high rent, faithless partners, and dead-end careers.
Slaves of New York
1989
6.5The story of a family troupe of English actors who travel around the towns and villages in India giving performances of Shakespearean plays. Through their travels we see the changing face of India as the old is replaced by the new, Maharajas become hotel owners, sports become more important than culture and the theater is replaced by Bollywood movies. Based on the travels of Geoffrey Kendal with his daughter Felicity Kendal.
Shakespeare-Wallah
1965
10.0No synopsis available yet.
A Tribute To Ismail Merchant
2005
5.6An English novelist travels to Bombay to watch one of her novels translated to film. She chases after the movie's leading man while the screenwriter chases after her.
Bombay Talkie
1970
6.5A documentary about making The Remains of the Day.
The Remains of the Day: The Filmmaker's Journey
2001
8.0Documentary about Merchant Ivory Productions, including interviews with the principals of the film production company and actors which have appeared in their films.
The Wandering Company
1984
6.2Prem, a young school teacher, is arranged married and begins the journey of learning the roles and responsibilities required of him.
The Householder
1963
NRNo synopsis available yet.
James Ivory Remembers Ismail Merchant
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10.0Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece the Apu Trilogy is widely considered one of the most important works in cinema history. In 1992, Ray was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Oscar. But when film-preservationist David Sheppard volunteered to go to Bengal, he found the original negatives in a terrible state. “It’s hard to think of another world-class filmmaker”, says Sheppard, “whose oeuvre hangs by such a thin thread!” The Song of the Little Road tells the story of how a master’s body of work came so close to disintegration, and why Ray’s films move audiences so deeply across time and cultural boundaries. Three icons – director Martin Scorsese, producer Ismail Merchant, and music composer Ravi Shankar – illustrate stirringly what makes a masterpiece.
The Song of the Little Road
2003
Behind the camera
7.4A rule-bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.
The Remains of the Day
1993
7.0A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.
Howards End
1992
6.2In 1930s Shanghai, 'The White Countess' is both Sofia, a fallen member of the exiled Russian aristocracy, and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.
The White Countess
2005
7.0When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?
A Room with a View
1986
7.6After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.
Maurice
1987
5.0While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.
Le Divorce
2003
5.5A bored lawyer and a suffragette vie for the attention of a faith healer's charismatic daughter.
The Bostonians
1984
6.340 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.
Lumière & Company
1995
6.0Wealthy American widower Adam Verver and his daughter Maggie live a refined life in Europe, surrounded by art. Maggie marries impoverished Italian Prince Amerigo, while Adam marries Maggie's friend Charlotte Stant. The Prince and Charlotte are having an affair, which Maggie discovers and navigates through a silent, psychological battle of wills, ultimately using her cunning to preserve her marriage and protect her father.
The Golden Bowl
2000
7.0An expatriated French novelist returns to Paris when she learns that her childhood home is being placed on the auction block.
The Proprietor
1996
5.1His wife having recently died, Thomas Jefferson accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, though he finds it difficult to adjust to life in a country where the aristocracy subjugates an increasingly restless peasantry. In Paris, he becomes smitten with cultured artist Maria Cosway, but, when his daughter visits from Virginia accompanied by her attractive slave, Sally Hemings, Jefferson's attentions are diverted.
Jefferson in Paris
1995
6.1Set during World War II, an upper-class family begins to fall apart due to the conservative nature of the patriarch and the progressive values of his children.
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
1990
5.2India, 1825: the country lives in mortal fear of cult members known as the “Deceivers." They commit robbery and ritualistic murder. Appalled by their activities, an English military man, Captain William Savage, conceives a hazardous plot to stop them. In disguise, he plans to himself become a “Deceiver” and infiltrate their numbers. Ever present in Savage’s adventures is a sense of dread; he is in constant fear of betrayal and vengeance and also undergoes a disturbing psychological transformation as he experiences the cult’s blood lust firsthand.
The Deceivers
1988
5.8The passionate Merchant-Ivory drama tells the story of Francoise Gilot, the only lover of Pablo Picasso who was strong enough to withstand his ferocious cruelty and move on with her life.
Surviving Picasso
1996
6.0Anne is investigating the life of her grand-aunt Olivia, whose destiny has always been shrouded with scandal. As Anne delves into the history of her grand-aunt, she is led to reconsider her own life.
Heat and Dust
1983
6.3Spanning twenty-four hours, HEIGHTS follows five New Yorkers challenged to choose their destiny before the sun comes up the next day.
Heights
2005
5.4Meet the denizens of New York City: artists, prostitutes, saints, and seers. All are aspiring toward either fame or oblivion while hoping for love and acceptance. Instead they find high rent, faithless partners, and dead-end careers.
Slaves of New York
1989
4.9An aging silent movie comic star throws a lavish party to try and save his failing career.
The Wild Party
1975
6.5The story of a family troupe of English actors who travel around the towns and villages in India giving performances of Shakespearean plays. Through their travels we see the changing face of India as the old is replaced by the new, Maharajas become hotel owners, sports become more important than culture and the theater is replaced by Bollywood movies. Based on the travels of Geoffrey Kendal with his daughter Felicity Kendal.
Shakespeare-Wallah
1965
5.1"Roseland" is made up of three stories, sometimes connecting, all set in the famed New York City dance palace, and all having the same theme: finding the right dance partner.
Roseland
1977
5.8A small-town eccentric opens a café in her decaying home.
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
1991
5.8When her husband's arrest leaves her penniless, a woman accepts an invitation to move in with a strange couple.
Quartet
1981
5.6An adaptation of Henry James' novel about the Countess Eugenia Münster and her brother Robert, expatriate Americans who have grown up in Europe. Returning to prosperous relatives in New England, Eugenia hopes to make an advantageous marriage with a wealthy cousin. While Eugenia encounters obstacles, Robert finds his suit bearing fruit.
The Europeans
1979
5.6An English novelist travels to Bombay to watch one of her novels translated to film. She chases after the movie's leading man while the screenwriter chases after her.
Bombay Talkie
1970