Happy Birthday director James Ivory

Born: James Francis Ivory
June 7, 1928 in Berkeley, California, USA

QUOTES:

[on his affinity to India] It wasn’t as though I had a childhood preoccupation with India. It was completely accidental and was based on my seeing The River (1951) and later on seeing a group of miniature Indian paintings. And then, most important, seeing the films of Ray, the Apu trilogy. That’s what really got me started – a combination of things spread out over a period of six or so years.

[1984 interview] The first book she gave me to read was “The Europeans”; then I went through them all. But it’s very hard to get financing for a Henry James story. I spent many years trying with The Europeans (1979) and finally got the money from Britain. And the same with this one: a little American money, but, again, the English came up with most of it. Henry James just isn’t box office here, apparently. He’s more appreciated in England.

Ismail (Merchant) was very keen for us to do A Room with a View (1985). We had paid for the rights and it was just sitting there. But Ruth (Prawer Jhabvala) and I were working on another screenplay, a contemporary story, and I said, “Must we? I don’t want to do another period film right now.” Thank God we did! Because of that film a lot of opportunities were created in studios. They couldn’t understand how a film which cost $3.5 million to make could make $70 million at the box office. They thought we had some great secret.