Looking for an antidote to the summer blockbuster? Merchant/ Ivory, the filmmaking team whose very name has become synonymous with a particular brand of period film — very British, very artsy — have a suggestion. Their latest, The Golden Bowl, is an elegant adaptation of Henry James’ 1904 novel, thick with broken hearts, broken marriages, and broken corset strings. But whatever you do, don’t admit you thought Merchant and Ivory were British.
Actually, producer Merchant was born in Bombay and director Ivory in California. A little bit gruffly, Ivory explains the source of the confusion: “It’s simply that the films of ours which are most famous [Remains of the Day, Howard’s End, A Room With a View] happen to be British. But they’re the only British ones, in fact. … We do films which are sometimes so very, very different, and yet they’re all lumped together as if they came off the writing desk of some long-dead English author.”
At least Henry James is a long-dead American author, though he did emigrate to England later in life (natch). The Golden Bowl centers on Charlotte (Uma Thurman), an American woman in Europe, well regarded but essentially penniless. She’s violently in love with an Italian prince (Jeremy Northam), but he too is without fortune. Their only hope at financial stability is to marry well — meaning, not to each other. The prince takes a young American bride (Pearl Harbor‘s Kate Beckinsale), the daughter of robber baron Adam Verver (Nick Nolte). Charlotte, looking to get rich and stay close to the prince she loves, guilelessly seduces Verver and marries him, making for one very complicated arrangement, sort of the antithesis to the nuclear family.
Period dramas, especially one that is a high-prestige project from masters of the genre, tend to be released in the fall/winter months, in preparation for an Oscar race. But, as Ivory explains, “The most successful films we ever made came out in the spring, so all I can hope is that this too will be successful.” At least he won’t have to worry about his film distinguishing itself from the competition: no aliens, no CGI, no bombs descending from the sky. “The emotions that we show …” He pauses, choosing his words as delicately as a pair of elbow-length gloves, “We show that they are subtle and that they are complex and that life and feelings aren’t as simple as they’re supposed to be in Hollywood movies.”
The Golden Bowl opens this Friday, May 25. See review in Film Listings.
This article appears in May 25 • 2001.
