Ismail Merchant and Closeted Coffins

Ismail Merchant, acclaimed producer and director, died today. Merchant and his life partner James Ivory made movies for over four decades, reaching their peak of critical and commercial success with adaptations of "Howard's End", "Remains of the Day", and "Room With a View".

A personal note on Merchant Ivory films. Not quite ten years ago, in my repressed, red state existence, I managed to find a tattered copy of "Maurice" at my local video store. I'd seen the usual "very special" sitcom episodes, the pride parade drag queens and dykes on bikes splashed on the local news, any number of one-dimensional images compressed for ignorant straight consumptions. "Maurice" was the first time I had ever seen three-dimensional, complex, poignant gay characters. For the first time I saw the struggles of a gay man through  his own eyes. As Maurice tried so desperately to cure his "illness", to repress his desires,  and finally realized that true, total love was worth sacrificing the fragile sham he had called an existence, I realized his eyes were mine. Deep-down, I knew I was gay, but not until I saw stolid James Wilby pull dreamy, rebellious Rupert Graves into his arms and kiss him with the passion of his full life force, when I saw that lush, romantic embrace of true love, did I finally accept who I truly am, that I was not cursed, or sick. I was what God made me and I deserved everything that any straight person had. I've seen plenty of movies about hook-ups between men, but to this day Maurice is the only true gay romance I have ever seen.

Ismail Merchant presented unabashed admiration of the male form. Not simply homosexuality, but in the camraderie of men, men who never fully let go of their childhood abandon. There is a classic scene in Room With a View where Julian Sands and Rupert Graves chase each other around a bathing hole. In the midst of their splashing and jostling, the moralistic, priggish Rev. Beebe (Simon Callow) stumbles onto the scene. He's appalled, of course, but when they dare him to chuck all that shame and formality he had accepted as being the only way an "adult" or a "grown man" should behave, when they invite him to just say "the hell with it", even Rev. Beebe could not resist becoming the man of the uncloth. This condescening man lost all his inhibitions and enjoyed life again, freed of the restrictions placed on him by "civilized" people. It's a wondrous moment that you have to see for yourself.

As you can see, although Ismail was not pigeonholed as a "gay" director, he filmed through the unique prism only a gay man can experience. He never hid who he was. Sadly, we can't say as much for our "liberal" media. Take a look at the final, tacked-on sentence in his  AP obituary:

Merchant was unmarried and had no children.

Isn't that nice? Merchant had a longterm relationship that lasted far past the duration of many marriages. Yet, because this relationsip was with another man, without that precious slip of paper, a summation of his life ends with a dismissive "unmarried and had no children". In other words, anyone who does not bother to read between the lines would assume he died all alone and unhappy.

Even to this day, there is a peculiar re-closeting when a famed gay personality dies. First Susan Sontag, now this. No, they did not claim Merchant was straight, but that "unmarried" has quite the heavy undertone. Instead of talking about his long and happy relationship with another man, the piece ends with an unspoken question - Why didn't he get married? Why wasn't he able to find a wife?

If anyone ever wonders why some gays want the right to equal marriage, it is because of moments like this. The little perks that straight people take for granted. The right to have our love recognized as a letter of the law, not something forbidden, or able to be quashed out at any given moment.

All I can think about is that last scene in Maurice when he runs to the boathouse and tells his lover that he's willing to give up everything to be with him. They know that their lives will never be the same, they will always be in the shadows, in secret. Have things changed that little in a hundred years? Apparently they haven't.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

Thanks, James.

There's life beyond the nuclear option. ;-)

[jonnybutter]

Yeah, nice to think about actual human beings for a change, after losing our minds trying to fathom these human statues in the Senate for a week! Blessed relief, James.

[DHinMI]

Have things changed that little in a hundred years?

Yes, people don't have to furtively read unabashed statments of who they are and who they love like this brilliant post. They can read it out in the open.

Thanks.

[DHinMI]

Damn. James, that was really good.

[Meteor Blades]

AP hasn't got a clue. But at least Merchant got a wonderful eulogy from you, James. I would never have known.

[James]

Thanks, guys. I worried it was too thin or pointless. I was thinking of writing something about the APA and gay marriage, or Scott Bloch, but this just flew off my keyboard for some reason.

[4jkb4ia]

Excellent post. We just got back from "Revenge of the Sith" :)

[Kagro X]

It really was great on a number of levels. One, it was a great eye opener. "Oh, yeah. That ain't right." And on another, a substantive bit of decoding. This "unmarried and had no children" thing is every bit as much a code phrase as "moral values," or for that matter, "Zionist." But it's genteel code, used by mainstream outlets that would probably be quite shocked to realize they've been perpetuating bigotry.

"After all, it is true," they'd likely say in their defense. But that's why they make you swear to tell "the whole truth," when such stuff really counts.

[scribe]

This post is anything but thin and pointless, it it totally relevant and beautifully written. much. I am so glad Maurice reached you through his work, and lovingly brought you home to yourself. This "unmarried" but very much permanently partnered gay grandmother thanks you for writing this, and telling me about this special man.

[Mimikatz]

Truly a beautiful post. Only someone who shares a major characteristic that makes them nearly always an outsider can appreciate the anguish of which you write. It is the little things, never quite being taken seriously. Like having to sit at the "second table" when the spouses of the brides' other siblings (and your partner) are at the main table.

At that particular wedding on the other side of the country the only thing my partner's non-immediate family and their friends asked her was if she was married. They were uninterested in her very significant work or anything else about her life. That seemed to be a kind of great divide.

And that gets to the heart of why some people see such a threat in gay marriage. By putting more people on the other side of that great divide, it somehow diminishes their own status, makes them less special. Why it should be seen as a zero-sum game is beyond me, though.

[TCinLA]

You might want to check out the obituary in today's LA Times (www.latimes.com) which calls Ivory Merchant's "life partner" and ends by noting that "in addition to Ivory, he is survived by..."

But of course, here in L.A., knowledge of Ismail Merchant has been long known among the movie community.

He may have inspired you with his sexuality and willingness to express it positively (a good thing), he also inspired many of us in independent film by his work and his constant efforts to support other independent film-making over the years.

[TCinLA]

In addition to all these other good things about Ismail Merchant, one could do far worse than to pick up his cookbook, "The New Indian Cuisine for Fearless Cooks and Adventurous Eaters," which can definitely change your mind about Indian good (it did change mine).

My point is that he really was a "Renaissance man" in the vrey best sense of the word - and certainly in *all* ways.

[DHinMI]

TC: Thanks for the extra information about Merchant. As you say, he was a Renaissance man, and one of the aspects of a Renaissance man was to exude virtu, or virtue. While certainly a bit different than what Machiavelli and the Republicans had in mind, it's clear from your testimonial, combined with his art, that he was a virtuous man.

Maybe I'm just dense about some things, but I never put it together that the Merchant-Ivory partnership extended beyond their art. Knowing what you and James have told us, it's clear that their partnership was one of the great partnerships in the history of cinema.

[mlr701]

Maybe I'm just dense about some things, but I never put it together that the Merchant-Ivory partnership extended beyond their art.

Me neither. I just enjoyed the movies.

Thank you for this post. Beautiful and then insightful.

[Frankeynstain]

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