Movies: Ismail Merchant

Documentary about Merchant Ivory Productions, including interviews with the principals of the film production company and actors which have appeared in their films....

Prem, a young school teacher, is arranged married and begins the journey of learning the roles and responsibilities required of him....

The filmmakers and lead actors of The Remains of the Day (1993) discuss how they came to make the film, and the subtle power of its execution....

Off-camera, a Western traveler tells us of hearing singing from his hotel window in Bombay. He searches for the source, and discovers a caste of street performers, eking out a modest living. We see individuals and groups, old and young, snake charmer...

Circa 1940 in Trinidad, still a British Colony, lives Ganesh Ramseyor, of East Indian origin, along with his wife, Leela. He longs to reach out to people, especially to Hindus, in order to promote the Hindu Faith, and be known as a writer. He does ge...

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Historical context for The Remains of the Day....

Nirad C. Chaudhuri expounds his views on culture, history, religion and society from a comparative perspective....

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Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece the Apu Trilogy is widely considered one of the most important works in cinema history. In 1992, Ray was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Oscar. But when film-preservationist David Sheppard volunteered to go to Bengal, he f...

Looks at the musical extravaganzas which constitute the main bulk of commercial cinema in India; in particular at the career of Helen, the undisputed Queen of such sagas, having appeared in some five hundred since 1957. Excerpts from some of her film...

This lighthearted romp through Royal India presents a world of Maharajas, palaces, imperiled art objects, and the foreign collectors who will stop at nothing to possess them. Peggy Ashcroft and Larry Pine star as two rapacious art collectors who come...

"Roseland" is made up of three stories, sometimes connecting, all set in the famed New York dance palace, and all having the same theme: finding the right dance partner....

In the time frame of a single day (from dawn to dust), the film records the wanderings of an Indian youth who sleeps on the beach, holds conversations with a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, and scavenges for food with his monkey. By afternoon, a little cer...

This short documentary, shot in July 1976 at the Mannes College of Music on Manhattan's Upper East Side, marks the first collaboration between Merchant Ivory Films and composer Richard Robbins, who would go on to provide the musical scores for nearly...