WATCH: For 44 years, these filmmakers kept their love secret—& made some of the most romantic movies ever
A Room With A View to Howards End, most of the films from Merchant Ivory—a production studio founded by namesake writer-director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant—fall into a specific milieu: Handsomely made costume dramas adapted from works of literature.Because of that “a Merchant Ivory production” gradually—and unfairly—became synonymous with “boring” in the public eye.
Even when their films were financially successful or won Oscars, they weren’t necessarily thought of as cool.Sure, they weren’t action-packed blockbusters, but together Merchant and Ivory made some of the most achingly romantic movies ever.
And, hey, we’re never going to call a movie that features three unclothed men playfully wrestling in a pond boring (shout-out to A Room With A View).Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.And that’s to say nothing of Maurice, their controversial 1987 gay romance which arrived during the surge of the AIDS epidemic and a new wave of homophobia, boldly pushing the conversation forward for LGBTQ+ representation on screen.Celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, ‘Maurice’ was groundbreaking for daring to depict gay romance without the tragedy.Reputation aside, James Ivory and Ishmail Merchant were, in many ways, trailblazers.
And what’s more: They were in love.The pair first met at a screening of one of Ivory’s documentaries in 1959 and quickly hit it off.
