Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 June 10 : carbon copy typescript.

Apologizing for not writing Jhabvala this past Sunday, but clarifying that he needed some time to reflect on the work they've accomplished so far; narrating the good and bad aspects of their time shooting, and summarizing it all with "everything is going well, though we're beginning to feel tired and tempers are short"; writing they will film for another week, and then he will travel to London for the Merchant/Ivory film festival being put on by the British Film Institute; saying he will miss the British premiere of "Bombay Talkie" but will arrive in time to deliver the John Player lecture at BFI; writing that he and Merchant will stay in England for a month or so, mostly because he needs to transfer the Chaudhuri documentary to the BBC; saying that after that concludes, they will return and he can begin editing the new film they are now in the midst of shooting; promising that after this film wraps and editing is complete, he intends to take an actual break; describing how he wants to finish the narration for the Chaudhuri film in Italy, though he isn't sure where he wants to go; drawing inspiration from Rohmer's film "La Collectionneuse" where the protagonist is driven mad by an attempt at a solitary repose and immediately returns to his family and friends; specifying "it wouldn't have driven me mad"; describing that the Hudson River Valley [where they're shooting "Savages"] is immensely beautiful and that he wouldn't mind spending some time here, though he "would want to get on a train for New York fairly frequently, though God knows why, it's so dirty."