{"id":1103,"date":"2004-11-14T07:59:10","date_gmt":"2004-11-14T11:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2011-09-04T10:37:56","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T14:37:56","slug":"gosford-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=1103","title":{"rendered":"Gosford Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

The movie Gosford Park<\/em> takes place during a weekend\r\nshooting party on an English country estate during the 1930s. The\r\nhouse belongs to Sir William McCordle, who is very wealthy. He owns\r\nseveral sweatshops, and he supports almost all the members of his\r\nwife's family. Even with all this, however, he has no control over\r\nwho he sits next to at dinner in his own home.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

He always has to sit next to his wife's aunt\r\nConstance, the Countess of Trentham, although he dislikes her, and he\r\nnever gets to sit next to his sister-in-law Louisa, whom he likes\r\nperhaps a little too much. This has nothing to do with Lady\r\nTrentham's age or her relationship to him, it's because, as a\r\nCountess, she is the highest ranking woman there, according to the\r\ntable of precedence, so she is always seated to the right of the host.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

This strict seating plan extends below stairs as\r\nwell, so Lady Trentham's maid Mary gets the place of honor at the\r\nservants' dinner table, at the butler's right, even though she is the\r\nleast experienced servant in the house. And, like all the visiting\r\nservants, she is called my her mistress' name when she is below\r\nstairs, rather than by her own.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Gosford Park<\/em> uses the form of a 1930s English\r\ncountry house murder mystery, but the movie doesn't care much about\r\nthe murder and neither do we. The murder is in the center of the\r\npicture, but what's happening around the edges is usually a lot more\r\ninteresting.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

We see the machinery of a huge\r\ncountry house like that, and all the procedures and routines that keep it\r\ngoing. Almost everybody knows what they should be doing and how they\r\nshould be acting, and the few exceptions, like Mary and a visiting\r\nAmerican movie producer, allow us to find out exactly how complex and\r\nrigid the whole system really is. All of the duties and\r\nresponsibilities of the different servants are very carefully\r\nresearched, and it shows.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

We also see some very complex family\r\nrelationships, both above and below stairs, much of which is just\r\nhinted at. As in most Altman films, information is given but not\r\nemphasized or repeated.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

This is a movie which only has its full effect\r\nwhen you see it more than once, in a way that Altman never would have\r\ndone twenty or thirty years ago. But in the age of video and DVD,\r\npeople watch movies again and again, and he knows that. Gosford\r\nPark<\/em> is designed to reward repeated viewings, since some scenes will\r\nappear to be one thing the first time around, but on a second viewing\r\nwill reveal themselves to be something very different.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Freddie Nesbitt<\/B>: Don't worry, it's\r\nnobody.<\/I><\/P>\r\n\r\n

At the beginning of the movie, we see some of the\r\nguests arrive in front of the huge house, and as they enter we expect\r\nto enter with them, but we don't. Instead, we abruptly find ourselves\r\nentering below stairs, with the visiting servants. We're in the\r\nengine room of the ship, not on the main deck, and we see the rest of\r\nthe weekend from the point of view of the servants. We don't see\r\nanything above stairs unless at least one servant is present.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

This allows us to see, among other things, how\r\ninvisible the servants are, because extraordinary things are said and\r\ndone in front of them as if they're just another chair or lamp. I've\r\nseen very similar behavior in the corporate world, in fact, but\r\nobviously not to this extent, and certainly not this consistently.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

What keeps it all going is not only the economics of\r\nit, that William McCordle owns enough sweatshops to run a huge country\r\nhouse and to buy his way into an aristocratic family, but the other\r\nthing which maintains the whole structure is that the people involved\r\nall end up having a stake in it, to some extent, even the servants (especially\r\nthe senior ones). They maintain their own hierarchies and protocols\r\njust as much as the aristocracy, and they are very aware of the\r\nrespect they get because of their position in the house.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Service was a job, and for a lot of people it was a\r\nvery good and desirable job, but it was a lot more. It became your\r\nhome as well, and, especially since there were few married servants,\r\nit tended to become your family. Many people went into service in\r\ntheir early teens, like the hallboys who serve the dinner for the\r\nservants, so for them it was a vocational school as well. And it was\r\nall, as we know but they do not, about to end, since comparatively few\r\npeople maintained this kind of house after World War II.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

And, as in many families or small towns, everybody\r\nknows what everybody else is up to, even if they don't talk about it.\r\nEverybody knows about Lady Sylvia and her taste for handsome visiting\r\nservants, everybody knows that Jennings, the butler, is a drunk,\r\neverybody knows about Sir William and Elsie, the head housemaid,\r\neverybody knows about Bertha the kitchen maid and her various\r\nliaisons, and everybody knows about Arthur, the gay second footman,\r\nwho is always hoping to be allowed to dress Ivor Novello, a visiting\r\nfilm star (who doesn't have his own valet), but things are always\r\nworked out so that he doesn't get the chance.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

In this world, for everyone you encounter there is\r\nan appropriate form of address, and an appropriate way to act, and for\r\nevery part of every day there is an appropriate way to dress.\r\nThe visiting American film producer, who has several\r\nstrikes against him (he's American, Jewish, vegetarian, gay, and he\r\nproduces Charlie Chan movies), never succeeds in saying or doing or\r\nwearing the correct thing in any situation, but, being an American,\r\nhe's usually completely unaware of this.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

He's an outsider, like \"Opal from the\r\nBBC\" in Nashville<\/em><\/A>, and Altman uses him to show us interesting\r\ninformation along the way, like the fact that breakfast in a house\r\nlike that was the opposite of dinner. It was served buffet style,\r\neverybody sat where they wanted, people read the newspaper and it was\r\nall very relaxed.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Many of the major characters (and there are a lot of\r\nthem) are supplied with quite a bit of back story, but frequently only\r\nin a comment or two. Most of it is not essential to the \"plot,\" so\r\nyou can absorb as much or as little as you like.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

For example, at some time in the past, the Earl of\r\nCarton (who we never meet) wanted one of his daughters to marry\r\nWilliam McCordle. As happened very often (and still does), the Earl\r\nhad a title but no money. William McCordle had money, but no \"class.\"\r\nSo, Sylvia and Louisa cut cards, and Sylvia won, so she married him.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Both sisters now regret how this worked out. Louisa\r\nflirts with William, and it isn't clear whether it ever went any\r\nfurther than that, but what is clear is that she likes the idea of\r\nsomebody playing with her, coaxing her into bad behavior. Her\r\nhusband, Lord Stockbridge, the very stuffy ex-Army officer, certainly\r\nisn't about to coax anybody into anything naughty.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Sylvia certainly doesn't need anybody to coax her<\/I>\r\ninto bad behavior, she dallies with visiting servants on a regular\r\nbasis, if they're handsome enough. What Sylvia finds she wants,\r\nthough, is somebody she can respect, and there's nothing much (as she\r\nsees it) to respect about her awful, vulgar, middle class husband.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

I remember in the 1970s two players on the NY\r\nYankees decided to trade wives in mid-season. Needless to say, this\r\nwas not an option in the English aristocracy, especially in the 1930s.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Mrs. Wilson<\/B>: Didn't you hear me? I'm the\r\nperfect servant. I have no life.<\/I><\/P>\r\n\r\n

Neither group of people above stairs or below, has a\r\nmonopoly on goodness, or nastiness, or self-involvement, or lust, or\r\nany other human characteristic. The servants don't really have much\r\nof a life, though. Not because the masters consciously prevent them\r\nfrom having one (the masters are generally oblivious to the whole\r\nquestion, which is in some ways even worse). It's just because of\r\nwhat's demanded of them by the job (or, really, the life).<\/P>\r\n\r\n

One of the most delightful scenes in the movie takes\r\nplace in the evening, as Ivor Novello (who was a real film and music\r\nstar of that time, his music is used throughout the film) sits down to\r\nentertain people at the piano. Despite the fact that this is\r\nobviously why he was invited, all of the guests ignore his playing\r\nalmost completely. A film star is nothing to them, and it seems\r\npretty clear that they like having him there so they can make that\r\npoint, to him and to each other.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

However, many of the servants, entranced by the\r\nmusic, creep up to the doors of the drawing room to try to listen\r\nwithout getting caught.<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Constance Trentham<\/B>: He produces the Charlie\r\nChan movies. Or does he direct them? I never know the\r\ndifference.<\/I><\/P>\r\n\r\n

The film is beautifully balanced, all the real\r\nunhappiness set off by some wonderful humor. For one thing, there is\r\na theme throughout of jokes about the movie business. Morris\r\nWeissman, the American movie producer, is always on the long distance telephone,\r\nconducting his\r\nbusiness with the studio and fighting about the casting of his latest\r\nCharlie Chan movie, much to the\r\ndisdain of the aristocrats.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

The second thread of humor is provided by the bitchy\r\nasides of the women of the family about Mabel, among many other\r\ntopics. Mabel is the middle class wife of the Honorable Freddie\r\nNesbitt. He is there to try to get money and\/or a job from William,\r\nmostly by blackmailing him with the knowledge that William's daughter\r\nis or was pregnant, probably by Freddie himself. Freddie is awful,\r\nand everybody knows it, but he is of their class, and he knows how to\r\ndress and how to act and conduct himself, so they put up with him.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Mabel is one of the people who changes during the\r\ncourse of the movie (most of them don't, in fact most of them are\r\nbarely affected by the murder), and it's one of the great subplots, as\r\nshe realizes that her husband and most of the other people there may\r\nlook down on her (even some of the servants dismiss her, because she\r\ntravels without a ladies maid), but she begins to realize that she has\r\na lot of intelligence and strength that most of them don't have.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

The third, and most obvious, source of humor is the\r\ndetective himself, who is a complete ass. He tries, unsuccessfully,\r\nto ingratiate himself with the aristocracy, he obviously has no idea\r\nhow to solve a crime, and he is a constant source of amazement to the\r\nconstable who works with him. He is probably the only completely\r\none-dimensional character in the movie.<\/P>\r\n\r\n

Only one character discovers who committed the\r\ncrime(s) and why, and she never reveals this knowledge to anybody\r\nelse. She thinks, quite correctly, that no purpose would be served by\r\ndoing so. And, though she doesn't say so, she is aware that the\r\nmurder was only the culmination of many other crimes, none of them\r\never punished.<\/P>\r\n\r\n


Gosford Park<\/BIG>\r\n\r\n
(2002)<\/SPAN><\/B>
Directed by Robert Altman
Screenplay by\r\nJulian Fellowes, from an idea by Robert Altman and Bob Balaban\r\n\r\n
 
\r\n\r\nCast:<\/SPAN><\/B>\r\n\r\n
Constance Trentham : Maggie Smith\r\n\r\n
William McCordle : Michael Gambon\r\n\r\n
Sylvia McCordle : Kristin Scott Thomas\r\n\r\n
Isobel McCordle : Camilla Rutherford\r\n\r\n
Raymond Stockbridge : Charles Dance\r\n\r\n
Louisa Stockbridge : Geraldine Somerville\r\n\r\n
Anthony Meredith : Tom Hollander\r\n\r\n
Lavinia Meredith : Natasha Wightman\r\n\r\n
Ivor Novello : Jeremy Northam\r\n\r\n
Morris Weissman : Bob Balaban\r\n\r\n
Freddie Nesbitt : James Wilby\r\n\r\n
Mabel Nesbitt : Claudie Blakley\r\n\r\n
Rupert Standish : Laurence Fox\r\n\r\n
Jeremy Blond : Trent Ford\r\n\r\n
Henry Denton : Ryan Phillippe\r\n\r\n
Kelly Macdonald : Mary Maceachran\r\n\r\n
Robert Parks : Clive Owen\r\n\r\n
Jane Wilson : Helen Mirren\r\n\r\n
Elizabeth Croft : Eileen Atkins\r\n\r\n
Elsie : Emily Watson\r\n\r\n
Mr. Jennings : Alan Bates\r\n\r\n
Mr. Probert : Derek Jacobi\r\n\r\n
George : Richard E. Grant\r\n\r\n
Arthur : Jeremy Swift\r\n\r\n
Dorothy : Sophie Thompson\r\n\r\n
Mrs. Lewis : Meg Wynn Owen\r\n\r\n
Mr. Barnes : Adrian Scarborough\r\n\r\n
Sarah : Frances Low\r\n\r\n
Renee : Joanna Maude\r\n\r\n
Bertha : Teresa Churcher\r\n\r\n
Inspector Thompson : Stephen Fry\r\n\r\n
Constable Dexter : Ron Webster

\"image_pdf\"<\/a>\"image_print\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The movie Gosford Park takes place during a weekend shooting party on an English country estate during the 1930s. The house belongs to Sir William McCordle, who is very wealthy. He owns several sweatshops, and he supports almost all the members of his wife’s family. Even with all this, however, he has no control over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[36,33],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-reviews-2","tag-robert-altman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1282,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/1282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}