The Remains of the Day

James Ivory’s film began at Columbia as something else: Mike Nichols directing Harold Pinter’s adaptation. The projected 26 million dollar budget proved too high, so Ivory and Ismail Merchant took it over for far less; Nichols stayed on as producer. Part of Pinter’s script survives; he was paid, then invoked his contract to remove his name. The screen credit is Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s. There is no single Darlington Hall. Merchant and Ivory looked at some 20 country estates and built the hall out of four in the west of England, Badminton House chief among them. The butler’s corridor and his lordship’s library stand in different buildings; you read them as one address. It premiered at the Academy in Los Angeles in October 1993, opened the London Film Festival, then went out in 94 American cinemas. Its awards run both ways. At the 66th Academy Awards it took eight nominations and won nothing, tied with The Piano for second in that year’s count. At the 47th BAFTAs it had six nominations and won one, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Anthony Hopkins. A good fit if you take what is left unsaid as the subject rather than an omission. Not for anyone expecting Lord Darlington’s politics at the front; that thread is mostly kept in the next room.