(Image by Matthew Rettenmund)
It was a bit of a dream come true (again! I attended a similar event nine years ago) when I found myself at NYC's Paris Theater for a screening of the new 4K restoration of Maurice.
The 1987 film, lovingly adapted and expanded from the posthumously published novel of the same name by E.M. Forster, looks more spectacular than it did when I saw it nearly 40 years ago.
I had just moved to Chicago to attend the University of Chicago, and snagged a job in the legendary Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue. On the first floor of the building was an arthouse theater, and that is where I saw Maurice was playing. It was the first gay-themed film I watched in public.
I vividly recall buying a single (confirmed bachelor?) ticket. I felt the same mix of bravado and terror as when I bought the book The Gay Book of Days at B. Dalton Bookseller at Genesee Valley Mall in Flint, Michigan, a year before. Coming out via commerce.
I recall several other single, mostly old, men in the theater with me, and I remember being emotionally overwhelmed by the film, which traces the stunted passion of turn-of-the-last-century English Cambridge boys Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant), which dies due to Clive's fear of being exposed. It follows Maurice, who is presented as a gay everyman and a sponge for social data on homosexuality and general social expectations, as he attempts to come to terms with who — and what — he is. Explosively, he falls madly in love with Alec Scudder (Rupert Graves), a sultry and much better-adjusted gay man who knows what he wants and has no problem indulging in it.
I bought a movie poster for the film at a college fair that sold posters for kids to decorate their dorm rooms, I sketched Hugh Grant's show-stopping hair and I mooned over the film's deeply affecting score by Richard Robbins.
At the Paris this week, I was pleased to get to meet the evening's moderator, Ira Sachs, a ballsy filmmaker whose devastating 1996 gay romance The Delta came out not even 10 years after Maurice, but was a much more modern, and bleak, drama, one that's never left me in the same way Maurice hasn't. He also directed the film Keep the Lights On (2012), about a gay couple whose passion is deteriorating due to drug addiction, and the universally acclaimed 2023 film Passages, starring Franz Rogowski and Ben Whishaw.
Sachs was very sweet, so that was a good start.
(Image by Matthew Rettenmund)
Once inside, reliving Maurice was extremely satisfying. It's just a perfect film for me. The conversation between Sachs and Ivory was interesting, with Ivory — who is turning 97 in June! — sharp-witted. Dumb questions galore, and when one guy asked if he had any great loves (um, maybe Ismail Merchant, whose name is all over all of Ivory's work?!) and then said he assumed Ivory had many, the director hilariously retorted, “Why do you think that?”
Everyone liked my vintage still. (Image via Merchant Ivory)
Right after, Mr. Ivory was happy to sign autographs and pose for photos. I was grateful to be able to tell him what the film meant to me, and he said, “I'm glad it was there for you.” A very nice young woman took a photo for me — my God, it makes such a difference not to do a selfie.
A great night.
Check out the Q&A below:
