Solid Ivory: Memoirs

When James Ivory won his first Academy Award in 2017 for his screenplay for Call Me by Your Name, he was 89 years old and had been directing and writing films for more than 50 years with his business and domestic partner Ismail Merchant. In Solid Ivory, the filmmaker looks back on his long career making such Merchant Ivory classics as A Room with a View, Howards End and The Remains of the Day. Ivory may be in his ninth decade but he possesses a sharp memory and a storyteller's gift for compelling tales. He also never forgets a slight and still nurses grudges--making for a lively, affectionate and caustic memoir.

Ivory has great affection for Bengali filmmaker and mentor Satyajit Ray. Though he graduated from the University of Southern California film school, Ivory writes, "I didn't know what a director did until I went on Ray's set" and watched him interact with his cast and crew. Some of the other portraits of contemporaries and coworkers are less flattering, but Ivory always counterbalances anecdotes about bad behavior with insight into the insecurities behind the actions of others. He writes juicy and perceptive portraits of George Cukor, Lillian Ross, Vanessa Redgrave, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and especially his nightmarish time directing Raquel Welch in The Wild Party. He also recounts his fractious relationship with the producers and director of Call Me by Your Name, a film he wrote and produced and was originally to co-direct.

Solid Ivory is a candid portrait of growing up gay before World War II and a captivating account of five decades making independent films. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

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