James Ivory listens to screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in New Dehli (above)/James Blue listens to director Roberto Rossellini in Houston (below)

On Oct. 10 at 7:00 PM, three time Oscar nominee James Ivory comes to Portland to introduce MAURICE (1987), starring James Wilby, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves. Handpicked by Ivory for the Hollywood event, MAURICE is on the short list of films for which he served as both screenwriter (with Kit Hesketh-Harvey) and director.

James Ivory grew up in Klamath Falls and graduated from the University of Oregon in 1951.  Famously well traveled, he lives in New York and London, and does not often visit Portland. He’s coming this time to see an extremely rare film, and to help celebrate the life and career of its director, James Blue, who was Oregon’s first Oscar nominated director, and Ivory’s UO classmate.

On Oct. 11 at 1:00 PM, Richard Blue, the brother of James Blue, will introduce James Blue’s THE OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE, winner of the Critics Prize at Cannes in 1962.

James Blue grew up in Portland and graduated from the University of Oregon in 1953. James Ivory remembers working with him building sets for a college drama production. Did they have any idea they would become Oregon’s first Oscar nominated directors?

And that they both would launch careers from outside this country?

I learned about James Blue directly from James Ivory in 2009. Since that time, it has become easier for Oregonians to learn about this forgotten Oregon artist. Thanks to the James and Richard Blue Foundation, James Blue’s papers have joined James Ivory’s as part of the University of Oregon’s Special Collections in the Knight Library.

But who was James Blue?

On Oct. 11 at 2:30 PM, following the screening of THE OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE, there will be a panel discussion titled James Blue, a life in conversation.

Using archival photos from the Blue Collection to structure the narrative, three panelists will retrace his life from Tulsa to Portland to Eugene to Paris, then on to his professional breakthrough in Algiers, where he made THE OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE, his subsequent embrace of documentary, and his dual identity as filmmaker and educator.

The panelists are:

Richard Blue, the brother of James Blue

James Dormeyer, Blue’s classmate at L’Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris and a close friend

Gill Dennis, the screenwriter of Blue’s 1969 Oscar nominated doc, A FEW NOTES ON OUR FOOD PROBLEM, and a close friend.

Earlier on Oct. 11, at 11:00 AM at the Hollywood, we will screen James Ivory’s AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PRINCESS (1977), starring Madhur Jaffrey and James Mason. Ivory chose AUTOBIOGRAPHY specifically to complement THE OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE, which shares its theme of post colonial identity crisis.

Tickets can be purchased online at hollywoodtheatre.org.

The Mid Century Oregon Genius screening of THE OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE is co-sponsored by The James and Richard Blue Foundation.

Here’s more information about the Mid Century Oregon Genius screening series.

Fiscally sponsored by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, the Mid Century Oregon Genius screening series is funded by grants from Kinsman Foundation and Miller Foundation.

More information about the parallel career tracks of these two Oscar nominated directors can be found here.

James Ivory listens to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, above/James Blue listens to Robert Rossellini, below.

Two Oscar nominated Oregonians share the same first name. To help readers keep them apart, Oregon Movies, A to Z has compiled a handy checklist of distinguishing characteristics.

1. James Ivory was born in 1928 in Berkeley. James Blue was born in 1930 in Tulsa.

2. Ivory grew up in Klamath Falls. Blue grew up in Portland.

3. Ivory studied architecture and fine arts. Blue studied theater. Both at University of Oregon.

4. Ivory graduated from film school at USC in 1957. Blue graduated from film school at L’IDHEC in Paris in 1958.

5. Both men served in the military between undergraduate school and film school.

6. Ivory made his first feature, The Householder, in India in 1963. Blue made  his first feature, The Olive Trees Of Justice, in Algiers in 1962.

7. Ivory received Oscar nominations in 1987, 1993 and 1994. He was nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1979, 1981, 1983, 1992, 1995 and 2000. Blue beat him to this particular punch. He was Oscar nominated in 1969. He won the Critic’s Prize at Cannes in 1962.

8. More support for the hypothesis that all Oregonians are secretly French? I would say so, since four of Ivory’s films were made in France, while Blue went to film school in Paris, and his breakthrough film was in French.

9. Both men became New Yorkers. Ivory lives in New York City. James Blue lived in Buffalo, where he taught at SUNY. He died in 1980.

Five year old James Francis Ivory moved to Oregon in 1933. His father owned a mill in Klamath Falls, and took his son on business trips to Los Angeles where James saw immense sets being built with his father’s lumber on movie studio back lots. He prepared for a career in movies by studying architecture and art at the University of Oregon, graduating in 1950.

Drafted in 1953, he served in the Seventh Army Special Services, booking entertainment for troops overseas. He received a Masters Degree from University of Southern California in Cinematography in 1957. While in school he wrote, shot, directed, edited and produced a documentary film, Venice: Theme and Variations which was selected by the New York Times as one the ten best non-theatrical films of 1957.

In 1961 he met Ismail Merchant, who, completely disregarding James Ivory’s inexperience directing actors, immediately began raising money for their first feature film together.

The rest is history. James Ivory and Ismail Merchant remained partners, going down in film history as the longest lasting film collaboration in the world.

Director James Ivory co-wrote (with Kit Hesketh-Harvey) this adaptation of E. M. Forster’s novel.  Maurice is my own personal pick for James Ivory’s best film.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wilby, under Ivory’s direction, infuses the title character with a quiet sensitivity and an underlying sense of desperation to create a character who, as Forster wrote, has “an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him.” From the Merchant Ivory website.

I hereby claim Maurice as an Oregon film based on the Klamath Falls, Oregon origins of James Ivory, the director and co-writer.