Gosford
Park, directed by Robert Altman, is a series of character
studies played by the cream of British actors and actresses,
albeit a film looking for a plot. An Agatha Christie tagline
announces "Tea at four. Dinner at eight. Murder at midnight."
(But misses duck hunting at noon.) When the film begins, various
guests arrive for a weekend at a manorial estate in country
English during 1932, accompanied by their servants. As the
movie gradually acquaints filmviewers with the rich English
hosts and guests, we discover that just about everyone is
trying to out-snob everyone else. The most contrary of all
is Sir William McCordle (played by Michael Gambon), who is
later murdered, thus finally supplying a plot. However, more
film footage is devoted to the interactions among the servants,
as well as between servants and their employers. The jockeying
for status among the servants is perhaps the most fascinating
aspect of the movie, especially when we learn that some are
McCordle's illegitimate children whom he placed in an orphanage
soon after they were born. In contrast with the effete upper
class English and their much more perceptive servants, three
unusual characters from Hollywood steal the show--Morris Weissman
(played by Bob Balaban), his English actor friend Ivor Novello
(played by Jeremy Northam), and his presumed servant Henry
Denton (played by Ryan Phillippe). Weissman, who claims to
be the director of the upcoming Charlie Chan in London
(Eugene Forde was the actual director of the 1934 film), is
on the telephone a lot dealing with casting issues. Novello
plays the piano and sings after dinner, much to the delight
of the servants more than the snobs. Denton, meanwhile, tries
to seduce with as many women as possible, though he is an
actor who evidently keeps his career afloat by sleeping with
Weissman. But the three Hollywood characters take back stage
momentarily to Inspector Thompson (played by Stephen Fry),
who is summoned when Sir William is discovered dead, interviews
both upstairs and downstairs, ignores clues pointed out by
his police assistant, and then leaves, presumably more titillated
at meeting the upper class than in apprehending a suspect.
Aside from many amusing lines, Gosford Park
demonstrates how the English upper classes were out of touch
with reality, and thus that England was revitalized when the
former class of servants entered in the postwar era into the
middle class. Oh, yes, just for the record, the butler is
not the guilty one, though a servant solves the crime. MH
I
want to comment on this film
