James Ivory famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

I always assume that nothing that I make is going to be a success, that everything I make is going to be a failure - not a failure but not some huge box- office success. If something is an artistic success, I'll be happy, but I'll maybe be the only person that's happy.
-- James Ivory

#Office #Artistic #Assuming
My father did think I should get interested in television. But I had very little interest in television and it wasn't something I wanted to do. I really never thought about going to work on big feature films in Hollywood. But when we made The Householder, Columbia Pictures bought it. Who would have ever imagined?
-- James Ivory

#Father #Thinking #Film
When I was doing the screenplay, people who read the book Call Me by Your Name would go, "Oh god, what are you going to do about the peach scene?" I'd say, "I don't know, but I'll do something." And finally I figured out that there was a way of doing it without being totally graphic. You can do it in a way where the audience gets it and accepts it.
-- James Ivory

#Book #People #Scene
Lots have said since what the film Maurice meant to gay men. I had a guy in New York who recognized me and jumped off a bus to tell me how I changed his life. Isn't that something?
-- James Ivory

#Gay #Men #Guy
One of the challenges in writing the script Call Me by Your Name was that I had to find something concrete for the professor to do. In the book he is some kind of classics scholar. But I thought it would be interesting to make him into something of an art historian and archaeologist whose background was the classical world. It's always difficult when someone is supposed to be an intellectual. What do they do? You can't just film them sitting around and thinking all day. And that's what the business of the statues is all about.
-- James Ivory

#Art #Book #Writing
Lately, I've discovered the Hellenistic bronzes. I'd never really thought about them much, but then there was this marvelous exhibition - many of them Roman, some of them Greek, all kinds of wonderful standing figures or heads or horses. It all suddenly became a passion of mine. I finally got to see that exhibition, which led to the idea of bringing up the statue in the film.
-- James Ivory

#Horse #Passion #Greek
I just read an article about how young American males feel uncomfortable appearing naked in front of each other in locker rooms. That was never the case when I was young. We were naked in the Army all the time. And neither actor in Call Me by Your Name appears fully naked. I think there might have been clauses in their contracts that ensured there would be no nudity. When I wrote the script, there was plenty of nudity. But the English just had none of the same squeamishness about it.
-- James Ivory

#Army #Thinking #Nudity

Ned passed the next few minutes quietly not dying in his office, and was pleased with how well it was going. He'd stayed alive longer, but now that he was concentrating on it, it felt more like an accomplishment.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
For me, what I do is an artistic expression which is channeled through me. Fashion is just the medium.
The Window is not without a certain visual spell that makes it a first-rate artistic achievement.
I have a lot of weird interests, but everything I do is artistic.
That is the artistic task: To choose the best from these solutions.
Of all cold words of tongue or pen, the worst are these: "I knew him when -
It is a lifetime effort to come to grips with being an artistic person.
Pity the mother who assumes the name without being all this implies!
If you are to be, you must begin by assuming responsibility. You alone are responsible for every moment of your life, for every one of your acts.

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