a respected British film company started by the PRODUCER Ismail Merchant (1936- ) and the DIRECTOR James Ivory (1928- ). Many of their films, such as A Room with a View (1983), Howards End (1991), and The Remains of the Day (1992), are based on well-known works of English literature, and they are often about the lives of UPPER CLASS English people in the early 20th century, and about the English class system and its effects on people's behaviour.
a place or situation where you are separated from the difficulties of ordinary life and so are unable to understand them, used especially to describe a college or university