A biography for James Ivoryhasn’t been written yet.
“If I hear that a film of mine is going to be shown on a big screen somewhere and I haven't seen it in a while, I make a point to get to see it. I just want to see it up on the big screen.”
“You know, a lot of people give up their religion, but, oh, my goodness, they go through such agonies. I never did.”
“I learned to paint in a historical method. First through watercolours and then through oil. Then, when I went to college and to the school of architecture, I took up modern painting.”
“I've seen it happen with other directors. Sometimes there's a period where, if they're lucky, they get the financing where they can make two films in a year.”
“Maurice' was a groundbreaking film. People didn't feel that then but looking back everyone says that.”
“A lot of directors don't bother to go back and look at their films, but I do.”
“I love a well composed shot. It doesn't necessarily have to be beautiful, but it must be well composed.”
“I went to Europe in '52 or '53, and when I came back, I stopped in New York. I remember looking out of a window on a glorious October morning and there was New York. And I thought, 'I'm coming here. This is for me.'”
“I think you can study too much. I've seen that happen. Young people get immersed in the work of other directors and end up imitating them rather than finding their own identity.”
“You can just start shooting things and see how it goes. But time is still money, so you have to know when you are finished. It's not like painting a picture which you could go on refining for 20 years - with a film you have to stop at some point, and that is no bad thing.”
“You know, if the filmmakers were satisfied with the film they just made, they could jump right in and make another one, instead of lingering on the last one.”
“In 'A Room With a View' there's a lovely scene with Julian Sands and Helena Bonham-Carter in a wheat field. It was simply the right time of day: late afternoon, that golden light, wheat and poppies... So romantic. But I had no idea it would turn out that well, since we so rarely shoot in a studio.”
“The conscious decision, early on, was that I was going to live in New York. That was it.”
“In October 1959, I could scarcely wait to get off the plane that had brought me to New Delhi so that I could go to the Indian Arts Palace in Connaught Place and begin buying miniature paintings.”
“Most of my films are set in an upper-middle-class world of well-off people who may have all kinds of emotional problems, but they live well.”
“My interest in India began with my interest in Indian painting and music and that grew.”
“Maybe there's something in the Oregon character that pushed me into the kind of life that I took up.”
“Did I develop any ruses of my own in order to buy what I wanted at a reasonable price? In time, of course, anyone who has ever done real business in an oriental bazaar will learn the tricks and feints of buying and bargaining there.”
“Love is the absolute basis of my career.”
“Helena Bonham Carter was 19 when we made 'A Room with a View'. She came for the interview in these extraordinary boots and a black dress, and sat with her feet out in front of her.”