"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
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web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." |
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| Antonia Moras is a writer with the University of Alaska Anchorage and the editor of the Alaska Justice Forum, a quarterly journal addressing justice issues pertinent to Alaska. As part of her university work, she also writes and produces educational documentaries. A constant traveler, Ms. Moras also occasionally writes travel articles; she is at work on a mystery story set in Italy. She is married, with two children. Direct correspondence to editor. |
Gosford Park, A Review
A number of guests have gathered at Gosford Park, a mansion in the wet English countryside, for an extended house party. The mansion is awash with resentments, disdain, envy, jealousy, avarice, lust, fear, and -- it emerges slowly -- with memories and hopes of love. Within the tangle of emotions and personal histories are any number of motives for murder, and as sometimes happens in English country mansions during house parties, a murder takes place. In Gosford Park, director Robert Altman uses the conventions of a traditional English murder mystery translated for the screen to present a study of class and character.
It is the early 1930s, between the two World Wars, a time when the English class system still imposed a superficial order on social relations. The mansion belongs to Sir William McCordle, a wealthy factory owner, played by Michael Gambon, and his wife, Lady Sylvia, played by Kristin Scott Thomas. The guests are a collection of relatives and acquaintances accompanied by their maids and valets. For the duration of the house party, the servants will be called by the last names of the people they serve -- a custom that is supposed to clarify the organization of tasks. One of the valets, however, is quick to introduce himself by his true name -- Robert Parks (Clive Owens) -- to Mary (Kelly Macdonald), a pretty Scottish girl new to service. Mary is the watchful innocent who leads us through the welter of class-deformed events and personalities. Her freshly scrubbed openness contrasts with the pinched negativity of her mistress, Lady Trentham (Maggie Smith). Lady Trentham distills the snobbery, pettiness, and frustrations exhibited by most of the upper-class guests. Mary is tutored, and befriended, by the chief house maid, Elsie (Emily Watson). The two share Elsie's tiny attic bedroom, which she has decorated with pictures of movie stars. Quick, breezy, and experienced in the ways of the house and its inhabitants, Elsie observes herself and others with clear-sighted irony and a rough kindness.
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Upstairs
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The self-absorbed and the self-effacing. The servants nurture their social betters to the point of self-obliteration. Only a few seem capable of acting on their own behalf. The gentry barely notice those who serve their food, fix their hair, hem their dresses, and shine their shoes -- except when a sexual fancy takes hold. But Gosford Park isn't heavy-handed with either its social observations or its murder. The camera follows and records the goings-on with detachment and a certain understanding for even the most poisonous personalities. |
Downstairs
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In one sense, the movie is about working, and old and new attitudes toward work. Many of the guests show an aristocratic disdain for money-making even as they scheme to attract financial assistance from Sir William. The servants are more or less proud of what they do and as mindful of subtle distinctions in class and rank as their masters. The head housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren) has sought to become "the perfect servant." Her emotions are subsumed, her intelligence focused on the requirements of running this house -- a mother superior in worldly service.
And there is the emerging work world of the movies. One of the guests is a Hollywood producer (Bob Balaban), who is so preoccupied with his phone calls that he barely notices the murder. His presence and that of his wandering valet (Ryan Phillippe), who ignores the rules of house decorum, ironically underline the artificiality of the world of Gosford Park and suggests its affinity to the world of movie production. After all, the servants are working to ensure that the guests can go through their daily performances in perfect costume on perfect sets.
Lecherous Lady Sylvia |
The house itself is a dramatic force in the story, with its kitchens, pantries, staircases, corridors, attics, and secret doors. Upstairs are the settings for the house party: the dining and drawing rooms; the library. On the lower levels are the many service rooms where the work of the house takes place. The servants move discreetly between all levels, from the basement corridors with their interior windows through the lavish main floors to the plain attic bedrooms. In contrast, the owners and the guests appear only rarely in the world of work behind the scenes and know much less about their servants than the servants know about their masters. In one lovely, extended sequence the whole house listens as one of the guests, the actor Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), plays and sings in the drawing room. The camera moves throughout the house and we watch the servants and guests as they listen and respond to the music. Some have paused in their work or conversations, but others continue with their personal business as the music, heard from the next room or from the attic or from a basement staircase, ties them all together for a few moments. |
There is an understated tactile quality to the photography and scenography that makes us appreciate the physical details of life at Gosford Park -- a dusting of flour on a kitchen table; the rows of jams and preserves lined up on the pantry shelves; the hot water bottles that everyone, including the servants, uses to warm their beds at night. In a sweetly intimate exchange, the handsome young valet Parks brings Mary a filled water bottle early to be certain she gets one before the general rush.
When the murder victim is discovered, the life of the house begins to unravel; the formalities slip and secrets tumble out. Scenes become shorter and tighter. Very few in the house show any true grief, and even fewer are interested in learning the identity of the murderer. Some are worried their secrets will be discovered; others are selfishly relieved because the murder actually changes their situation for the better.
The inspector and constable assistant who investigate the crime introduce a faintly farcical overlay. Eager to ingratiate himself with his social betters, the inspector (Stephen Fry) is oblivious to even the most blatant clues. The efforts of the short, ratty-faced constable (Ron Webster), who is a somewhat better investigator, lead nowhere because he can't communicate with his superior. The investigation meanders, upstairs and down, but never comes close to penetrating the true structure of the crime. In the end, the police fade off, speculating that the murder must have been an outsider. The house party is ending, the guests leaving.
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The director, Robert Altman, respects both his actors and his audience and he is also demanding of both. Scenes are long, with many things going on at one time; conversations rise and fall; and the camera often lets the viewer choose where to focus attention, as if you were another guest in the drawing room. Most of the scenes have been shot at mid-range. Altman uses facial close-ups sparingly and extreme close-ups almost never. The watcher has to work -- to listen closely and watch the interplay of the characters, their gestures and the details of their surroundings. In wide shots the whole screen is full, and as one interchange is highlighted in the foreground, other things are happening in the background. Altman often uses only one or two extended shots to present a scene, letting the actors perform at length rather than relying on cutting together a sequence of short shots. Since so many characters are often on camera at one time, this has required exquisitely attuned performances. The actors permit us to see the shadings of the individual within the carapace of the social role and to understand that these lives are all works in progress. |
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The lives of the minor figures -- the ones who appear at the edges of scenes -- suggest complex histories as much as those of the leads: the butler (Alan Bates) who drinks on the sly; the crusty cook (Eileen Atkins) who holds her own against the head housekeeper; Isobel (Camilla Rutherford), the pretty, distraught daughter of Lady Sylvia and Sir William, who cannot trust anyone in her world; Lord Stockbridge (Charles Dance), who, although deaf and disengaged, has nevertheless retained a reserved tone of command from his military service. We learn many things about these people but no one is ever completely revealed; personalities are still exhibiting new shadings even in the last scenes. We want to learn more about each, even as we would like to examine the dresses and jewelry of Lady Sylvia and her sisters more closely and explore the house at greater length. |
Helen
Mirren is the "perfect servant" |
Although it demands careful watching, Gosford Park is delicious to absorb. The primary mystery, with the revelations that solve it for Mary and for the audience, is only one facet of the experience of entering this house for a time and moving along its corridors, in and out of its bedrooms, and up and down its staircases.
Copyright 2003 by Antonia Moras
| "Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." |
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