My Passage from India: A Filmmaker's Journey from Bollywood to Hollywood

Book Description
Ismail Merchant is known for the extraordinary films he's produced with the American director James Ivory, among them A Room with a View, Howards End, and Remains of the Day. But when he's not making these lush, expensive costume dramas, he's making movies in his native India. In My Passage from India he takes us on a guided tour of how a middle-class Muslim named Noormohamed Abdul Rehman became an internationally acclaimed producer with a string of award-winning films to his credit.

My Passage from India is a fascinating look at the Bombay film industry-called Bollywood-from the 1950s through today, and how Holly- and Bollywood have intersected through Merchant's film career. Merchant amusingly recounts how his passion for movies was born in the streets of Bombay. He details his precocious wanderings from London to New York, where he first encountered his lifetime collaborator, James Ivory, and raised money for his first short film, and ultimately to Hollywood. Merchant lovingly recalls the circumstances of the movies he's shot in India, the Western stars he cast-and entertained-from James Mason to Jeanne Moreau to Vivien Leigh to Greta Scacchi, and the vast obstacles that his home country often presented-along with the movie magic that was the frequent result of his efforts.

With seventy-five photographs and a fabulous narrative, My Passage from India is a vivid memoir and colorful account of the lasting impact India has had on the thing Ismail Merchant does best: filmmaking.

About the Author
Ismail Merchant is one of Hollywood's premier movie producers with more than forty films and four Oscar nominations to his name. He has worked with director James Ivory on films such as A Room with a View, Howards End, and Remains of the Day. A native of Bombay, Merchant made his first mark on the film world with the 1961 Oscar-nominated short The Creation of Woman. He is also a master chef, skilled photographer, and the author of five other books.


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"My Passage from India describes Ismail Merchant's extraordinary journey from his start as an aspiring filmmaker in Bombay, scraping together a meager production budget for his first short film, to his triumphant arrival at the Oscar podium." "His story begins in India where he grew up. At the age of thirteen, sharing a triumphal gala entrance with Nimmi, a family friend and Indian film star, he had his first taste of cinema's allure and realized that he would spend his life making movies." "In 1958, the young Indian filmmaker arrived in New York to pursue a master's degree at NYU. While landing a job in advertising, he kept his focus on his dreams, winning a place at the Cannes Film Festival for his first short film, Creation of Woman. His passion for film was relentless, helping him leap over obstacles with humor, guile and infectious enthusiasm. In 1961, he was introduced to a kindred spirit, James Ivory, and together they established Merchant Ivory Productions. Along with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, their partnership would result in more than forty extraordinary films (so far)." Including seventy-five photographs of his life, My Passage from India is a sumptous feast of the stories, sights, sounds and larger-than-life characters that have been part of his remarkable world, in India and around the globe.


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