August 2011 Final Pages.indd - World Memon Organization ...

Ismail Noormohamed
Merchant
Hollywood Film Producer, director, writer
Ismail Merchant was an Indian Memon
film producer, best known for the results
of his famously long collaboration with
Merchant Ivory Productions which included
director (and Merchant’s longtime professional
and personal partner) James Ivory as
well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
Their films won six Academy Awards.
Merchant succeeded as an independent
producer in Hollywood for more than
40 years. His strength lay in funding his
projects, particularly in his ability to produce
films for several million dollars less
than those of his contemporaries.
Ismail Merchant Born in Bombay in25
December1936, he was the son of Hazra
and Noormohamed Haji Abdul Rehman, a
Mumbai Memon textile dealer. He grew up
bilingual in Gujarati and Urdu, and learned
Arabic and English at school.When he was
11, he and his family were caught up in
the 1947 partitioning of India. His father
was president of the Muslim League, and
refused to move to Pakistan. Merchant later
said that he carried memories of the “butchery
and riots” into adulthood.
He studied at St. Xavier’s College, Bombay
and it was here that he developed his
love of film. When he was 22, he traveled
to the United States to study at New York
University, where he earned an MBA. He
supported himself by working as a messenger
for the United Nations and used this
opportunity to persuade Indian delegates to
fund his film projects. He said of this experience
that “I was not intimidated by anyone
or anything”
In 1961, he made a short film, The Creation
of Woman. It was shown at the Cannes Film
Festival and also received an Academy Award
nomination.In 1961, Merchant and director
James Ivory formed the film production company
Merchant Ivory Productions. Merchant
was also Ivory’s long-term life partner. Their
professional and romantic partnership lasted
from the early 1960s until Merchant’s death
in 2005.[5] Their partnership has a place in
the Guinness Book of World Records for the
longest partnership in independent cinema
history. Until Merchant’s death in 2005, they
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A PROFILE A.Hameed Tayab Suriya
produced nearly 40 films, including a number
of award winners. Novelist Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala was the screenwriter for most of
their productions.
In 1963, MIP premiered its first production,
The Householder, based upon a novel
by Jhabvala (she also wrote the screenplay).
This feature became the first Indian-made
film to be distributed internationally by a
major American studio, Columbia Pictures.
However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the
partnership “hit on a successful formula for
studied, slow-moving pieces ... Merchant
Ivory became known for their attention
to period detail and the opulence of their
sets”. Their first success in this style was
Jhabvala’s adaptation of Henry James’s The
MEMON ALAM AUGUST 2011
Europeans.
In addition to producing, Merchant directed
a number of films and two television
features. For television, he directed a short
feature entitled Mahatma and the Mad Boy,
and a full-length television feature, The
Courtesans of Bombay made for Britain’s
Channel Four. Merchant made his film
directorial debut with 1993’s In Custody
based on a novel by Anita Desai, and
starring Bollywood actor Shashi Kapoor.
Filmed in Bhopal,India, win National
Awards from the Government of India
for Best Production Design and special
award for the lead actor Shashi Kapoor. His
second directing feature, “The Proprietor,”
starred Jeanne Moreau, Sean Young, Jean-