Robert Altman garnered his fifth Oscar nod for his film Gosford Park. Twenty years later, the wonderful whimsy is yet to fade…
Director: Robert Altman
Starring: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas
Running time: 137 minutes
After a string of commercial flops in the late nineties, legendary filmmaker Robert Altman, then in his mid-seventies, needed something special for his third act. Naturally, he struggled to get funding for Gosford Park. No doubt studio heads were puzzled as to why Altman - whose body of work seems so defined by his hip visions of 1970s Americana - would want to make a period film about a bunch of British aristocrats and their servants in the 1930s. However, armed with a razor-sharp whodunit penned by Julian Fellowes, as well as a stellar ensemble, Altman managed to get The National Lottery Fund to cough up. Finally, he was able to make his murder-mystery, just about the only genre he hadn’t yet flipped on its head.
Julian Fellowes’ premise is straight Agatha Christie, tried and tested; the aforementioned aristocrats gather tweed-clad for a weekend of shooting and socialising at the manor house Gosford Park, hosted by Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon). While the guests may seem proper, their conduct suggests the opposite, and each subtle betrayal, hushed infidelity and hidden agenda culminate in a murder, for which, Altman suggests, everyone is a suspect.
The hallways, kitchens and dining rooms of Gosford Park are populated with just about every hot English thespian at the turn of the 21st century. Emily Watson, Hellen Mirren, Stephen Fry, Kristen Scott Thomas, a fresh-faced Clive Owen and the incomparable Maggie Smith make up a small fraction of the bill. There’s that beautiful harmony between screenwriter, cast and director we see on Altman’s biggest successes - another delicately constructed ecosystem of intertwining humanity, both hilarious and heart-breaking. The film seems to have an embarrassment of riches at its disposal, but not a single character feels wasted; everyone gets their moment, each arc realised, each motive clearly (or unclearly) defined. Most of all, the cast makes everything feel inhabitable; characters feel present and impactful even when they’re not the focus of the camera.
Ultimately, it’s the film's complex study of class society - the relationship between rich and poor - that made it age so well
Altman’s style operating within the ‘constraints’ of the murder-mystery sphere feels just as prominent as in his genre revisionism in the seventies and eighties. The overlapping dialogue, the sometimes six-actor compositions, the creeping lens all work to ring then un-ring bells - we scrutinise every frame, trying to wrangle the overlapping scandals despite the blasé revelations.
Ultimately, it’s the film's complex study of class society - the relationship between rich and poor - that made it age so well. Looking at Gosford Park’s Oscar-winning script, sweet in detail, sour in substance, it’s no surprise that nine years later, Julian Fellowes would go on to make the British staple Downton Abbey. Disparities explored through the Upstairs, Downstairs dynamic are entertaining if blatantly obvious, but what is most striking is the somewhat symbiotic relationship they share. There are times when the various characters are gathered around a table in the servants’ quarters, gossiping about the guests upstairs as if it were the latest episode of Made in Chelsea (is this a reflection of our own guilty pleasures?). To our surprise, the lords and ladies upstairs also have a peculiar interest in the lives of the servants - in particular the ongoing feud between the two head servants, Mrs Wilson (Mirren) and Mrs Croft, which often gets fetishised. This invisible intimacy goes beyond mere gossip and can be both endearing and utterly emotional.
Altman’s final masterpiece (but not his last feature length film) racked up seven Oscar nominations, with Fellowes bringing home a well-deserved gold statue. Twenty years later, it’s still a genuine pleasure to revisit the harmonies between director, screenwriter and ensemble in one of the most unique murder-mysteries ever made. With Gosford Park, Altman does for the whodunit what McCabe & Mrs Miller did for the western, what The Long Goodbye did for the noir and what Nashville did for the political satire - free-flowing genre transcendence.
Did you know? Julian Fellowes originally intended Downton Abbey to be a spinoff of Gosford Park, but decided it should take place decades earlier.
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