Ismail Merchant

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty six, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:31

Our Castaway Today is a man who makes movies. Twenty four years ago he went into partnership with the American director James Ivory, and today that partnership still prospers and flourishes. More than that, a merchant ivory film has come to represent quality and style, rare commodities in today's increasingly tawdry marketplace. The films they've made include Shakespeare Waller, The Bostonians, Heat and Dust, and most recently The Splendid A Room with a View.

Presenter0:57

Those films were directed by James Ivory and produced by our castaway Ishmael Merchant.

Presenter1:03

Ismail, it's easy to define I think most people know what a director does in a film. What does a producer do?

Ismail Merchant1:07

Well, normally one has this idea of a producer smoking a cigar or chewing on a cigar and signing away cheques or raising money, which is of course a part of the game of the producer. But in our case it has been very fortunate because I get involved in the very first stages of the film.

Ismail Merchant1:27

From the conception of the idea, whether it is an original story or it is from a novel.

Ismail Merchant1:33

And Jim, Ivory, Ruth Jabwala and I, you know, think about it together. I mean, if Ruth has brought something to us or to our attention, then Jim would read it and I would read it. Or if I were to do it, then they would read it. So this is all works as a team together.

Presenter1:48

Ruth Javarra, of course, is the writer who you had a similar long association with, as you have with James Iberry. I read of a little article actually which said about you that you've got the cheek of the devil and the charm of an angel. Now, is that God-given, or is that required to be a producer?

Ismail Merchant2:02

I think it's it's God given really.

Ismail Merchant2:06

It is God given and I think a producer has to have a quality which could sort of build confidence in the other people. You know that we have had lots of ups and downs with finance and, you know, problems while raising money or during the filming. But if you have a kind of a quality which people can have that blind confidence in you or at least create a faith in them, then

Ismail Merchant2:30

Practically 80% of your battle is won because then they believe in you. And over the years, in this past 23 years, there are some of the technicians who have worked with us for nearly 20 years. And they have that faith in you. Actors have the faith in you. That no matter even if they are not paid right away, they will be paid, because there is a commitment, you know.

Presenter2:50

Let's then talk about uh your choice of music.

Presenter2:53

How have you chosen the the music? Are they particular memories of films that that the music evokes?

Ismail Merchant2:59

Music is very important for films because visually, if you have images and sometimes you want to punctuate those images, music plays a very important part. And with us, you know, all along in our films, luckily we have had a composer who's been working with us for the past 10 years, Richard Robbins, who has done the music from the Europeans onwards. And when I was very young in school and college, music also played because I was the secretary of the Sangeet Mandal, which is the music society. So right from the beginning, I was very involved with music, particularly Indian music.

Presenter3:33

What is the first choice of music, then?

Ismail Merchant3:36

Well, there are two brothers, Nazaka Tali and Salama Tali. They come from Pakistan and they were my, you know, great musicians whom I worshipped actually. So first music we will have is Raad Misrak Hamaj, which uh you will hear.

Speaker 43:54

What the faith of Satan

Speaker 44:13

Oh, the darker said man.

Presenter4:20

Ishmael, you were born in Bombay. What kind of background did you come from?

Ismail Merchant4:24

Well, I came from a Muslim background. My father was a businessman and uh I had six sisters. They all live in Bombay.

Ismail Merchant4:33

nineteen nieces and nephews. So it is a quite a huge family.

Presenter4:36

Was your father prosperous?

Ismail Merchant4:37

He was what you call it a middle-class man, but is not very rich, not very poor.

Ismail Merchant4:43

He was extremely aware of his business activities and he was also a gambler. He loved horse racing. So when the season would start in Bombay at the Turf Club for three months or so, every Saturday he would be there and Sunday occasionally to go to the races. And he took me with him and he never feared about gambling. One's fortune are made and one's fortunes are lost in a twinkle of an eye.

Presenter5:12

What did your father want you to be? I mean, I I mustn't assume they want you to be a in in the film industry.

Ismail Merchant5:16

No, no, he wanted me to very much take up a profession like being a doctor or a lawyer. I mean, those are the two professions he really thought were the best. As far as the profession of a doctor, for me, I was not really interested in s science or medicine and such.

Presenter5:30

Well what what led you down the road then to films? I mean, was there an early fascination? Because Bombay is the Hollywood of the Indian film industry, isn't it? Oh, very much.

Ismail Merchant5:37

Oh, very much so. It's the biggest capital of I would say the entire Southeast Asia because the number of films we make is something like seven, eight hundred films a year. And uh you know when you arrive at the airport in Bombay, those huge herdings, multicolored herdings of these movie stars, faces of these movie stars, that's what you encounter the very first visit of Bombay.

Ismail Merchant6:00

And through our family connection we came to know a great singer in Ajmeir, which is a place where we went for festival of a saint. So every year for ten days we went to Ajmair. And there we met this great singer whose daughter became a movie star and she came to Bombay in nineteen forty six and forty seven. Uh in forty six, forty seven her visits, they left a great impression on me.

Ismail Merchant6:27

And when she became the movie star in this famous film called Barsat, where she was introduced by Raj Kapoor, who is a great movie director and producer and actor, I went with her everywhere to the studios and went to the premieres with her. And the kind of adoration from the crowds and meeting with them and just they wanted to come and touch you as if you are a god or a goddess, you know. And you write that. All that was sort of fascinating for me. I was very young and it created such an impression on me that I thought, well, this is just the film line I want to be in.

Presenter7:00

So the first ambition would be to be a film star rather than a than a producer?

Ismail Merchant7:04

Actually, one wanted to be sort of somehow be an actor or a movie star along with this actress Nimmy.

Presenter7:12

Let's have a second choice of music.

Ismail Merchant7:15

Well, the second choice is my first encounter in America are this great opera by Mozart Magic Flute.

Ismail Merchant7:23

And uh the aria that really absolutely shook me was the bird catcher, the papageno.

Ismail Merchant7:30

You know, I had never seen an opera before and I had never heard music like this. And I can never forget that. I came out actually crying, you know. And um even now when I hear that piece of music, it just takes me back, you know, it's such I mean it sort of actually shakes me.

Presenter8:47

Ishmael, that piece of music placed us firmly in America. Did you go there from home to complete your education?

Ismail Merchant8:54

Yes, I went to get my Master's at uh New York University in Business Administration.

Ismail Merchant9:00

So immediately after my graduation, I just uh went to New York. And New York is the only place that's a really

Ismail Merchant9:06

I wanted to go to New York. Of course my father wanted me to come to England, but I said, No, I want to go to New York and again the films, earlier films, you know, which I had seen, MGM and Warner Brothers in Bombay, they led me to New York actually.

Presenter9:21

What kind of films were they? What were the film the American movies you saw as a child that impressed you?

Ismail Merchant9:24

Well, I saw Samson and Delilah. That was one of the things which I took you to America. That took me to America.

Presenter9:28

And that took it to America.

Ismail Merchant9:32

And I also love Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies, which are absolutely, you know, I mean, Pillow Talk. And the Katharine Hepburn films with Carrie Grant, I mean, Philadelphia Story.

Presenter9:43

Never be But

Ismail Merchant9:44

Never been, never been. It's uh those are the kind of film which you sort of you enjoy and you know that there is something more in films than just sort of you know this present day rubbish, you know, which is being made or churned out. And you have faith in cinema.

Presenter9:58

So you're there in New York then. You weren't involved in the movie industry. No, no. But all the time you had this ambition to get involved.

Ismail Merchant10:01

No no.

Ismail Merchant10:03

Absolutely.

Presenter10:04

What what positive steps are you taking?

Ismail Merchant10:05

What steps did you take? I then took a job at the United Nations as a messenger with the delegates from India. You know, the General Assembly takes three months from September to December, and the delegates all come from different parts of the world. So I became a messenger there. But actually this woman who was at the reception at the delegates' lounge

Ismail Merchant10:29

became very fond of me and would announce me as the delegate of India as opposed to a messenger of India.

Ismail Merchant10:35

And I invited some friends or people whom I wanted to meet with to talk about my films and plans as I wanted to make a short film. So I invited lots of people. I would look at the classified, you know, who are, you know, making these films for television and uh commercials. And I met one or two very nice people and they came to the United Nations in the delegates' lounge and we talked about films. And that really was my first sort of uh real

Ismail Merchant11:03

going after finance and making it possible to do this film.

Presenter11:08

Was it about this time, too, that you uh made your first acquaintance with an American or Hollywood film star, mister Paul Newman?

Ismail Merchant11:13

Yes, I had seen a film of his, Someone Up There Likes Me, and I was just so taken by his performance and his looks and everything. So when I went to see Sweetbird of Youth with Geraldine Page and Paul Newman on stage together, well, this was a great thrill for me. So I went backstage, knocked at his door and he said, Come in and I said, Well, I've come from India and I'm interested in films. And he said, Well, sure, you know, I've never been to your country, but I hope to go someday. And I said, Well, that would be wonderful.

Ismail Merchant11:43

I mean, I couldn't get myself to say, Well, I'll produce a film because I was just so taken as a fan almost, you know, sort of worshipping him. Yeah. And then he said, Well, I'm going downtown and I said, Well, I live downtown too So he said, Hop on my motorbike and we went down to his uh apartment.

Ismail Merchant12:01

It was just, you know, like your dreams. And that was really quite extraordinary meeting.

Presenter12:06

You've never produced a film for him.

Ismail Merchant12:07

Never produced a film for him. No, I'm not, but I am going to. You're going to. Yes, absolutely.

Presenter12:09

You're going to determine

Presenter12:12

You have on the other hand rid on the back of his motorbike. Not many people can say that.

Presenter12:16

Let's have another choice of record-ish man.

Ismail Merchant12:19

I came to know this wonderful, wonderful pianist, great artist, Glenn Gould, and at CBS, at number of his recordings I went, and one of the things which he played so beautifully is is Beethoven's Piano Concerto Vie Emperor. So that was my really favorite music.

Presenter13:40

I cast away today's Ishmael Merchant, who along with the director James Ivory, forms the Merchant Ivory Production Company, which in fact I read is now in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest running independent film production company in the world, which is a wonderful achievement actually, particularly considering also the quality of the work you do, which I'll talk about in a moment. But how did you even first meet James Ivory?

Ismail Merchant14:01

Well, it was in New York actually where I had met with Saeed Jaffri and Madhur Jaffrey. They were both struggling actors and they were trying to get jobs and

Ismail Merchant14:11

They mentioned to me about James Ivory had made a film called The Sword and the Flute.

Ismail Merchant14:15

So I was very much looking forward to seeing that film. So after my return from Los Angeles, I was on my way to India with an idea of making a film. And I was invited to a screening of The Sword in the Floor. So I went there and there was James Ivory and I invited him to a cup of coffee after the screening. And I just loved this film. It was all about Mughal and Rajput paintings, Indian paintings.

Ismail Merchant14:39

He had just returned from India making another film, a documentary on Delhi.

Ismail Merchant14:44

And he had met Ruth Jabwala there at a sort of a a party very briefly. And I had read Ruth's book in Los Angeles, which was given to me by a writer at MGM called Isabel Leonard, her book, The Householder. So when I met with Jim, I said, Well, would you like to come and make a film in India? and he said he would love to.

Ismail Merchant15:03

And I offered him the book The Householder, and I went to see Rudjabwala.

Ismail Merchant15:08

whom we met in Delhi.

Ismail Merchant15:11

And she was a little bit sceptical about movie people because she had been approached earlier on by other people who wanted to make it into a play, her novel, an Amrita, uh a television play, but nothing had happened and she was a little bit, you know, sort of leery about meeting movie people. But anyway, we went there. I went with my bag and all my clippings and everything from Hollywood, you know.

Ismail Merchant15:34

And uh I presented to her that we want to do this. She listened very, you know, calmly and great reservations.

Ismail Merchant15:43

But yes, she liked the idea of making that into a film, and she also took to us as we took to her. That was how it all started. That's how it started.

Presenter15:48

That was how it all started. That's how it started. How would you characterize the relationship that you have then with James Ivery? I mean, for twenty four years you've been making movies. It's a very, very fraught industry. People lose their tempers. Has it been in a sense like a stormy marriage?

Ismail Merchant16:01

You know, unless you have something sort of, you know, uh passionate commitment as such, you know, like Ruth as a writer, fiction writer, Jim as a director, and myself as a producer. I mean, we make a very good team together. You know, normally in films, a producer who has to buy a property or a novel or a story. Well, here we already have a writer who's committed to us, a director who's committed to us, and a producer. So that makes a life a lot easier. We are just about to make another film with a director, Stephen Freers. But I know before we got to Stephen, it took me two years to find a director. So here, when we start something, we are always together. So she can write on spec.

Presenter16:37

So

Ismail Merchant16:43

Jim can co-write with her or work on the script with her and I can in the meanwhile go and get the actors interested or send it to the actors and then the whole what you call it a package is made. So we really don't have to have money to come to that stage because we are always together. That makes it possible for us to present a complete package to the distributors. Because our distributor is not one distributor, but there are about five or six people who finance a film. Even if it's a small budget film, we have to think about four or five or six people to finance it.

Presenter17:14

The thing that you've explored, the three of you together in many of your movies, has been the conflict, if you like, of the Europeans, the Brit particularly, living in in India.

Ismail Merchant17:22

Well, very much so because you see Ruth comes from Europe, Jim comes from America and I come from India. And we also travel for various reasons, for education, for experience or whatever it is. We travel to three different continents. And that gives you a kind of a different look. Like if I were to make a film about America, it would be perhaps, you know, from my own experiences to how I saw America. And Ruth, again, living in India, married to an Indian, you know, and went to India to live for thirty odd years. She also sees India in a different way. And Jim, again, the same thing coming to Europe. So I think that has helped a lot, seeing a place in a completely different way.

Presenter18:04

What about another choice of music now?

Ismail Merchant18:06

Well, there is music from our own film, The Guru, played by a great maestro, a Sitar Maestro, Vilayat Khan. It's a very, very beautiful piece of music. Normally people talk about Ravi Shankar all the time, but this man is absolutely quite extraordinary and his piece of music is Rag Yamani.

Presenter18:56

Ishmael, you've got a a fan club throughout the world, your merchant ivory films, you've got a following, a definite following. Those people are attracted, I would suggest, to the movie because

Presenter19:05

Of a style you create it, because they know when they go to a merchant I remover there's a certain class, if you like, about it.

Presenter19:11

I wonder how difficult it's been for you to resist the temptation to join the bandwagon and to make cheap exploitation movies like many people have in the industry today.

Ismail Merchant19:20

Well actually we have never sort of gone to or you know looked into a popular entertainment as such. We want to do something which we really believe in or we feel strongly about or committed to it, whether it be an original screenplay or a novel like Foster or Henry James or Gene Rees. And also the satisfaction of making a film that may not be a big box office success, but at least if people see it, even in a minority of people earlier on when they saw our earlier films, that fan club, as you very kindly said, has increased because they know that our commitment is to the good work. I mean something which is solid, good, wonderful dialogue, characters, relationship, atmosphere and places of interest, whether it be Roseland or whether it is be Paris or whether it is Florence. I think people have come to accept that if they are going to go and see a merchant Ivory film, there'll be quality, they will enjoy it and they'll be entertained.

Presenter20:18

Can we have another record, please, Ishmael?

Ismail Merchant20:20

Yes, this is Vivaldi, which is a winter concerto, and it has a wonderful story to it. This particular segment of music, I mean I can't begin to describe, had affected me so much. And I have incorporated this in my film, Mahatma and the Mad Boy, which was the film I directed. And it is improvised with an Indian rag and coming back to the same theme of the winter concerto.

Presenter20:46

So we start with the Orthodox version and then on to the Indian version.

Ismail Merchant20:48

Uh

Presenter21:21

Ismail, what you've done in your films, generally speaking, is that you've employed very good actors and and actresses, but you've generally kept away from the the big Hollywood stars, except on a couple of occasions. You once employed uh Raquel Welsh. Now did she in fact take a cut in salary to join you?

Ismail Merchant21:37

She did indeed. I remember going to Los Angeles to discuss with her agent and when he heard what I was offering her, he said, You know, you're talking to a star now, a movie star, and

Ismail Merchant21:48

She cannot reduce her salary to this extent.

Ismail Merchant21:51

But we made a happy compromise and I I said this is such an unusual film for her because it will show her in the right light as an actress as opposed to some sex symbol which she has been portrayed again and again.

Ismail Merchant22:04

So we came to a happy compromise and uh she saw the two films which we had done, Shakespeare Walla and Savages, all at Paramount Pictures, one reel after the other.

Ismail Merchant22:15

Well, working with her, initially she was so enthusiastic, but the day she started work, in the next two, three days, you could see that it's going to be a difficult time with her. She stormed out of the set, she didn't show up for two days. But at the end of it, when she saw the film, after it was all finished and done with, she was just so taken by it. The studio, you know, they tried to mess around the film. You know, they sort of recut it and re-edited it and all. And she stood by us and she filed a suit against them. So, you know, that kind of loyalty, when you when an actress sees that she's doing something different, you know, then the loyalty

Presenter22:46

So you know

Presenter22:48

Yeah.

Presenter22:51

Yeah.

Ismail Merchant22:52

is there to the film and her work.

Presenter22:54

There are also stories too about you on on on sets and making movies and and the money runs out halfway through. You can't pay the actors, you can't pay the the technicians. What do you do? It's alleged that you go and cook them a meal, isn't is that so?

Ismail Merchant23:05

Is that so? Well, meal cooking is like ritual once a week.

Ismail Merchant23:10

On a Saturday, if you're shooting six days or if you're shooting five days, in the evening I cook a meal for my crew and actors and their guests. So it could be from somewhere 50 to 80 people or 100 people would come to dinner. And then we are all, even in this small budget, we have very good wine or champagne and a wonderful meal. So it's like a family getting together, you know, with their relatives and their friends and their wives and their children. So it gives them something to look forward to. People don't want huge salaries when they work with us because they know the producer and the director have gone through a hardship to come to the state of really filming it. So they all realize that and then they work with dedication. And I think that we are very grateful and lucky that this has happened, you know, because not many people can boast about it.

Presenter23:55

No, indeed not. Let's have another record.

Ismail Merchant23:57

Well, this is from Heat and Dust. And again, you know, a very good combination of synthesizer and some traditional Indian music, you know, and instruments with it. And Richard Robbins, who's been a composer with us for nearly ten years, is his composition.

Presenter24:43

Ismael, your latest film is called Room with a View and uh it's been a wonderful, critical and box office success too, isn't it? What fascinates me about it and the way you you organize your films is that it cost three million dollars. I'd be interested to know your assessment of what it might have cost had a big Hollywood production company done it.

Ismail Merchant25:01

Well, it would be at least, I would say, ten to twelve million dollars with a Hollywood company.

Presenter25:05

Why?

Ismail Merchant25:06

First of all, in order to develop the project

Ismail Merchant25:09

they have to spend somewhere between five hundred thousand to let's say two and a half million dollars you know overhead the studio representative, the expense accounts and the salaries they pay. And for this project we started three years ago, a room with a view, to develop it and all. So

Ismail Merchant25:26

To the stage of budgeting casting and all that, and their casting ideas are quite weird, as you realize. One of the studio executives said, You must combine Mr. Emerson and George Emerson, the son and the father, into one character. And you must have a love story between Lucy Honeychurch in Florence. They said, just shorten the part of Charlotte Bartlett, you know. You don't have to give that much of an emphasis to her. And then just do a love story. And this will make a lot of money for you. And I said, but you know, then you're not talking about Foster. You're not talking about the screenplay we are submitting. You're talking about some cockeyed thing about your own version of A Room with a View, which you are at liberty to do it. But I don't think that you could sort of really basteurize this particular script and the talent which goes behind it. And we have a commitment from Maggie Smith.

Ismail Merchant26:15

We have a commitment from Danem Elliott, and they say, well, you know, these are really not people who audiences want to go and see it. Now the film is playing across the country, including places like Detroit and wherever the film is playing, it's breaking records at the cinemas.

Presenter26:33

You must be very, very quietly satisfied when that happens.

Ismail Merchant26:36

Yes, actually, it's also a satisfaction of a vendetta, like you've just proven yourself that why mess around? Here it is, the public will go and see something good.

Presenter26:45

Let's have another choice of record Ishmael.

Ismail Merchant26:47

It's the famous one of the Beatles, Hey Jude. And I think among all the composers and people whom I have had and seen over the years, I think they are absolutely the greatest of our time. Uh and I class them, you know, in the same way as I would class Mozart or Beethoven or, you know and I think this is one of my favorite.

Speaker 427:09

Uh

Ismail Merchant27:09

Uh

Speaker 427:09

Uh

Ismail Merchant27:09

Age

Ismail Merchant27:10

Uh

Speaker 427:12

Don't let me down.

Speaker 427:16

You have found her, now go and get her.

Speaker 427:22

Remember hate to let her into your heart

Ismail Merchant27:24

Get it!

Speaker 427:27

Where you can start

Speaker 427:30

To make it

Presenter27:34

Ishmael, what about the future? I mean, would you sort of like to end up as a as a chef or a film producer?

Ismail Merchant27:40

Well actually I film producer is my passion. Chef is something which I enjoy. And and I don't know whether you know that my cookbook, the one which I have just done

Presenter27:50

Yes. What's interesting about your cookbook is that of course it's basically Indian cuisine, but it shows all the influences on your life and the places you live, because it's a mixture, isn't it, of of various cuisines with a basic Indian background.

Presenter28:02

Would that be right?

Ismail Merchant28:03

Well, actually it is true. You know, influence of America, influence of England, influence of France, and particularly France, which I have mixed very much of French herbs with mustard sauce. My food is not overcooked as, you know, normally Indian traditional food is overcooked. I like to keep things sort of, you know, subtle in cooking. People who have tried it, you know, have enjoyed it, that they can do it in less than forty minutes, four or five dishes. And people don't have to take a lot of pain over the stove and say, Oh, God, you know, it's going to be a chore. Instead of that, it's a pleasure. You know, and then when you hear these great phrases from your guests, you know, you feel great greatly proud.

Presenter28:42

Final choice of record as well.

Ismail Merchant28:45

Well, this is again a wonderful singer, Indian singer, Bega Makhtar.

Ismail Merchant28:49

whose ghazals from great poets in India.

Ismail Merchant28:52

She's called the Queen of Guzzles. She's like Nightingale of India. And uh now you'll hear her.

Ismail Merchant29:13

Uh

Speaker 429:14

La God.

Speaker 429:21

Lahera Ha Cha Reka.

Presenter29:29

So Ishmael, now we've come to the point where you're on the desert island and you've got one record to choose out of the eight that you've selected so far. Just imagine there's some awful disaster, seven gets swept away, which is the one record you want to be left with.

Ismail Merchant29:42

Well, that's a very hard one, isn't it?

Presenter29:44

Yeah.

Ismail Merchant29:45

Well, I would keep magic flute, and if that was by my side, then I think I would survive.

Presenter29:52

What about a book? Not uh Shakespeare, not the Bible?

Ismail Merchant29:55

Well, I think what I would do is if one can have a three-author volume, I mean I would combine the names Foster, James and Jabwala.

Presenter30:04

I think that's cheating, but we'll let you have it.

Presenter30:06

And what about the the one luxury item?

Ismail Merchant30:08

A luxury item would be a wonderful cooking range.

Ismail Merchant30:12

to spend my time cooking away um and enjoy the meals. I think that would be a perfect way to spend on a desert island.

Presenter30:21

I think that we'll have to allow you that because I'm not going to argue with a film producer. Ishmael Merchant, thank you very much indeed.

Ismail Merchant30:27

You're welcome. Thank you.

Speaker 330:36

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 330:40

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