When Merchant Ivory prepared to adapt E. M. Forster’s posthumously published novel Maurice — a delicate Edwardian tale of a gay relationship — Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who had been the 'normal writer' for Merchant‑Ivory projects, declined the assignment. British actor James Wilby later recalled in a British Film Institute interview that Jhabvala refused to write the screenplay, supplying only notes, and dismissed the book as 'sub‑Forster and sub‑Ivory.' The refusal was more than a professional quibble: it revealed the creative limits of the celebrated Merchant‑Ivory trio and a rare public fissure in their collaborative mythology. The production went ahead in 1987 without her full script, and the finished film — directed by James Ivory and noted for its tasteful handling of sensitive material — became one of Merchant‑Ivory’s most discussed departures from their usual writer-director-writer dynamic. Jhabvala’s rejection of Maurice read, to some contemporaries, as a moral and aesthetic judgment about how Forster’s subject should be handled on screen, and to others as a sign that even the closest creative partnerships had boundaries that could produce awkward, quiet rifts.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1980s
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Refuses to Adapt E. M. Forster’s Maurice, Calling It 'Sub‑Forster and Sub‑Ivory'
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala / Maurice (1987) / 1980s
When Merchant Ivory prepared to adapt E. M. Forster’s posthumously published novel Maurice — a delicate Edwardian tale of a gay relationship — Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who had been the 'normal writer' for Merchant‑Ivory projects, declined the assignment. British actor James Wilby later recalled in a British Film Institute interview that Jhabvala refused to write the screenplay, supplying only notes, and dismissed the book as 'sub‑Forster and sub‑Ivory.' The refusal was more than a professional quibble: it revealed the creative limits of the celebrated Merchant‑Ivory trio and a rare public fissure in their collaborative mythology. The production went ahead in 1987 without her full script, and the finished film — directed by James Ivory and noted for its tasteful handling of sensitive material — became one of Merchant‑Ivory’s most discussed departures from their usual writer-director-writer dynamic. Jhabvala’s rejection of Maurice read, to some contemporaries, as a moral and aesthetic judgment about how Forster’s subject should be handled on screen, and to others as a sign that even the closest creative partnerships had boundaries that could produce awkward, quiet rifts.
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