In an interview for the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD of the first film by Merchant Ivory Productions, “The Householder” (1963), James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, gray-haired and wearing similar oxford shirts, sit together in a muralled room in their 1805 Federal-style house in Claverack, New York, and companionably bicker about how they met. It was in 1961, at the Indian Consulate in Manhattan, at a screening of Ivory’s short documentary about Indian miniature paintings, “The Sword and the Flute.” Ivory says that they met on the steps. “He accosted me,” he says. Merchant invited Ivory for coffee. “You were in the screening room,” Merchant says. “No!” Ivory says. “You met me on the steps. I remember very well.” They debate; Ivory smiles. “You looked around—” “No, I didn’t look around!” Merchant says. “My eyes always focus on the right things.”

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