James Ivory may have found the fountain of youth
Are you serious? Isn’t it obvious? Do you really need to ask? Those are the questions that seem to occur to Oscarwinning director and screenwriter James Ivory when he’s being interviewed. Not that he voices the questions explicitly. That would be rude, and Ivory says one thing he’s learned from all his time spent in Britain and with British people is better manners.
But he doesn’t have to say anything.
It’s the look on his face and the tone of his voice. Regardless of what answer he is giving, you can see that he’s already given it a million times before and is somewhat baffled that the subject still requires explanation. Or that it ever did to begin with. And at 89 years old — with decades of successful films behind him and a fresh Oscar in his possession for his adaptation of the screenplay for Call Me By Your Name — Ivory has earned the right to be direct and unimpressed. Or at least unsurprised.
Direct and unsurprised is how I’d describe the James Ivory I saw in Toronto this week. As part of TIFF’s Books on Film series, he sat down at the Bell Lightbox after a screening of his 1987 film Maurice to speak with Eleanor Wachtel and take questions from the audience.
The result was i nspiring. Not only did Ivory offer unapologetic details about what he thought worked and didn’t work in the novels upon which many of his films have been based, he also gave us a no-nonsense glimpse of his life, which has been — and continues to be — lived with creativity and authentic artistic expression.
I suspect it’s that neverending engagement with movies and stories he cares about that explains why Ivory looks a couple of decades younger than he actually is.
And why his work is still going strong, with a film version of Richard II starring Tom Hiddleston now on the horizon of possibility.
“Every child is an artist,” Pablo Picasso said, “the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.” That’s not an easy thing to pull off.
So how has James Ivory done it … for so many decades and well beyond the age at which most people not only retire but succumb to illness and/or pass away? Maybe he has good genes. Perhaps the stubbornness and certainty that come through in his interview answers have served him well in a business that can crush sell- worth with ruthless abandon. For all I know, the man has a Chi machine, binges on superfoods and engages in frequent detox cleanses.
One should not discount the possibility, though, that Ivory’s fountain of youth is simply making things he loves, then moving on and making more. He was unembarrassed to express his ( well- deserved) pride in Maurice after the screening Monday. This came across as neither arrogant nor gushy. It was a straightforward expression of satisfaction with a movie he made 30 years ago. But Ivory is just as ready to talk highs and lows of his other works — whether from the 1960s or 2017 — with no false modesty, and no clingy nostalgia.
It’s like he’s so confident in his creative spirit that he can casually grumble or grin about what he’s done without worrying what effect his assessments might have on his future endeavours, which seem to be a given.
No question, there’s much we could all l earn f rom James Ivory. He’s a master of his craft who’s wise enough to know that mastery is no more an ending than it is an excuse to settle comfortably into idleness.
No doubt the success of Call Me By Your Name has given Ivory’s current commercial potential a boost, which could facilitate the financing of the Richard II project ( in much the same way that A Room With A View’s box office and critical success facilitated the making of Maurice, an unlikely film adaptation of what is probably E.M. Forster’s least acclaimed novel, albeit his most personal).
But one gets the feeling Ivory would have persisted regardless. He’s certainly not treating Call Me By Your Name as a precious pinnacle, i nstead grouching about director Luca Guadagnino’s choice not to show the casual full frontal nudity called for in Ivory’s script ( apparently because actors Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer had “no frontal nudity” clauses in their contracts); and expressing surprise at the film’s wide appeal.
James Ivory is not a man to dwell. He is ready to keep going because he has more stories to tell ... and little patience for stories he’s already told. Not a bad way to live, if you ask me.