Page 18 - Fujifilm Exposure_22 Le Divorce_ok

AMERICANS
AMERICANS
IN PARIS
IN PARIS
In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower with Merchant Ivory on Le Divorce
The remarkable award-winning part- nership of Merchant Ivory has long been charac- terised as the quin- tessence of ‘her- itage English’ filmmaking.
So it comes as a bit of a
shock to realise that through-
out the team’s enduring love
affair with European cinema,
England actually comes firmly behind France in their production tally.
The French connection has recent- ly been renewed for no less than the eighth time – following films like Quartet, Jefferson In Paris and Surviving Picasso - with Le Divorce, an adapta- tion of American novelist Diane Johnson’s best-selling contemporary comedy of manners - not to mention adultery, kidnapping and murder.
Starring Kate Hudson (Almost Famous) and Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive) as a pair of American sisters in Paris, the cast also includes Glenn Close, Stockard Channing, Bebe
ever Academy Fellowship to be conferred on a film team (following Powell & Pressburger in 1981) in hon- our of a staggering 40 years of continuous production.
Neuwirth, Sam Waterston, Matthew Modine and Stephen Fry. Among the prestigious native contingent are Leslie Caron, Thierry Lhermitte and Jean Marc Barre.
With producer Ismail Merchant temporarily nursing a bleeding ulcer in his Left Bank apartment and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala remaining strict- ly scarce from shooting, director James Ivory, 74, is the only member of the official MIP triumvirate on active duty this late Spring day.
A couple of months earlier, they were all on call at the BAFTA Awards in London to pick up only the second
Now Ivory relaxes on a park seat in the Champs de Mars enjoying a rare bout of sunshine which lights up the Eiffel Tower looming in the near distance. The wayward is just one of a number of
Photos main: Kate Hudson; inset above: Director James Ivory and Producer Ismail Merchant
weather
logistical headaches particularly exer- cising Ivory and his veteran cine- matographer Pierre Lhomme on his fifth assignment with MIP since his first, Quartet, more than 20 years ago.
Clearly the most painless aspect of the shoot is Paris itself which Berkeley-born Ivory still relishes both as a visitor and filmmaker: “Yes, what appealed to me was a modern story set here. I read a review of Diane Johnson’s book in the Herald Tribune and thought it would be fun to do,” adding straight-faced, “though I really shouldn’t be thinking of fun at my age.”
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EXPOSURE • 16 & 17