Gosford
Park
Review
by : Eric Barker
Starring:
Maggie Smith (Constance), Bob Balaban (Morris
Weissman), Alan Bates (Jennings), Helen Mirren (Mrs. Wilson),
Emily Watson (Elsie), Richard E. Grant (George), many
others
Written by: Julian Fellowes, from idea by Robert
Altman and Bob Balaban
Directed by: Robert Altman
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Sexual intrigue, class prejudice and murder, among both
the highborn and the low, during a shooting party weekend
in 1932.
A sublime
comic tapestry from Robert Altman, weaving its way in and
around and between the lives of two dozen characters, every
vignette a sharp little masterpiece of high drama or sly social
satire, every performance beautifully timed and realized,
all of it fitting together seamlessly. Gosford Park
is a spectacular movie for adult sensibilities, easily one
of the best films of 2001, and a glorious highlight in Robert
Altman’ s mercurial career.
Ostensibly
a “whodunit” -- that is, a clever literary puzzle in which
everyone turns out to be something other than they first appear
-- Gosford Park delays bringing its murder mystery
on stage for a full hour. That’s because what really interests
Altman is the process of reconstructing, and then deconstructing,
the British class system, a stratified world in transition
where both aristocrats and servants gossip about each other,
distrust each other, and ultimately cross boundaries in secret
to satisfy their mutual curiosity. It’s a transgression against
consensual reality to which neither class would ever admit
when among their own kind.
At first,
the camera moves restlessly from one pairing to another, crossing
invisible social borders, eavesdropping on snatches of amusing
exposition here, finding telling moments in hallways and corners
there, then suddenly pulling back to include panoramas of
conversation, Altman playfully conducting bits of business
as if they were music and shaping a rich, impressionistic
picture of English country life between the world wars. Naturally,
a few clues to the upcoming mystery are being dropped along
the way, but it is the sheer joy of observation that really
drives this movie, a confident vision of life as a fascinating
carnival with a dozen interesting sideshows to the main attraction.
When the mystery finally arrives, it is merely one more balancing
act in a wildly colorful, humanist circus.
It has
been years since Altman achieved this level of mastery over
a style that is almost wholly his own invention -- what might
be called the multiple character, historical-pastoral-comedy-tragedy.
The last great American iconoclast of his generation and just
about the only one of them left working, he usually takes
on genres like the western, or the war movie or the thriller,
to explode their conventions, when he isn’t discarding expectations
completely. The cinema of Robert Altman is generally one of
confrontation, demanding that the audience let go of their
assumptions about what movies should do, or what they can’t
do, and see things in a new and invigorating way. When he
is at his most original, as in Nashville (1976) and
Short Cuts (1993), he is a trickster of a showman,
giving us scathing, three-ring murals of American self-indulgence
and delusion, tempered only by the occasional glimmer of forgiving
wit. In his darkest films -- such as McCabe and Mrs. Miller
(1971) -- nothing is forgiven, and he shows us an indifferent
universe populated by hopelessly optimistic losers.
But since
he made Short Cuts, there has been a palpable change
in his movies, certain signals that perhaps Altman would lighten-up
in his old age. He is more likely to play a genre straight
and let the bitterness slide, allowing a story to just do
what stories normally do, while he concerns himself with deepening
his characters. In Gosford Park, an uncharacteristically
Anglophilic subject for this most American of directors, Altman
transcends his mystery tale by simply letting it be, skillfully
navigating conventions with tongue-in-cheek and ultimately
using the genre for his own kaleidoscopic, Altmanesque ends.
There is no question the filmmaker’s sympathies lie with the
underclass: most of the satire arises “upstairs,“ in the drawing-
and dining rooms, filled as they are with trivial concerns
of manners and appearance, while the great dramas underscoring
this world are played out “downstairs,” in dark kitchens and
cramped servants’ quarters. By the time the film is over,
and the answers to the mystery have been revealed, who done
it has become much less important than who didn’t, and the
only sense of melancholy we feel is at the necessity of leaving
such a marvelous gathering of people. Gosford Park
is as wide and deep as a good novel or miniseries, embracing
both the light and the dark of human nature, sending an audience
back out into the world with the giddy sensation that life
goes mysteriously on.
The outstanding
cast includes many of England’s best actors at this particular
cultural moment, with enchanting turns by three generations
of women: Maggie Smith’s clueless, needy countess is a riot;
Helen Mirren shines as a cruelly efficient housekeeper; and
chameleon-like Emily Watson dominates all of her scenes as
a worldly-wise head maid. Among the men, Altman favorite Richard
E. Grant is hilarious as a mischievous footman; the always
underrated Alan Bates is wonderful as a devoted-but-conflicted
butler; and the very American Bob Balaban, who conceived the
film with Altman and helped produce it, gives another dry
(and extremely ironic) performance as a fussy producer of
bad Hollywood movies.
A true
cinematic event that demands multiple viewings. Great screenplay
by Julian Fellowes, fabulous widescreen camerawork by Andrew
Dunn, accompanied by the usual dense and frenetic Altman soundtrack.
Notes:
HIS FOURTH
COMEBACK: Robert Altman (b. 1925 in Kansas City) began his
career nearly fifty years ago in the grueling world of series
television, directing hundreds of episodes for Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, Bonanza, Maverick and Combat, among many others.
Always at odds with the powers that be in Hollywood, he emerged
as a major filmmaker with the idiosyncratic, low-budget M*A*S*H,
which became the sleeper box office hit of 1970. In the intervening
thirty years he has consistently been a director whom critics
love and the suits fear, mostly because the majority of his
films don’t make money. In the executives’ defense, it must
be said the quality of his output is extremely uneven, ranging
from unwatchable (The Gingerbread Man, 1998) to very
enjoyable (Cookie’s Fortune, 1999) to this latest masterwork.
One of the great improvisational stylists, he often encourages
actors to depart from the script and embellish their roles.
He begins shooting his next film in May, at the age of 77:
Voltage, from the novel A Shortage of Engineers by Robert
Grossbach.
WHAT TO
SEE: other certified Altman masterpieces -- M*A*S*H (1970),
Thieves Like Us (1974), Nashville, and The
Player (1992; a film Altman himself called his “third
comeback“).
Worth a look -- McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long
Goodbye (1973), Vincent and Theo (1990), Short
Cuts.
HOW, AND
WHY, HE DOES IT: The elegant chaos of an Altman soundtrack
imitates the babble of our everyday world, but it also mimics
consciousness in its selectivity, scanning constantly for
relevant details. It is achieved by “miking” literally every
actor in a scene and recording dialogue on multiple channels,
the director just off camera in headphones, manipulating the
sound levels.
MR. DEPENDABLE:
Bob Balaban (b. 1945) comes from a family of film exhibitors
and studio executives. A graduate of Chicago’s Second City
comedy troupe, he made his film debut as the naďve gay hustler
in Midnight Cowboy (1969). He’s a quirky, intelligent comedian,
a veteran of over fifty films, always working, hardly ever
noticed. In 2001, besides his writing-producing-acting duties
on Gosford Park, he managed to assay the role of Enid’s hapless
father in Ghost World, as well as small roles in The Majestic
and The Mexican. His next film will be Altman’s Voltage.
OSCAR
WATCH: nominated for 7 of the big ones -- Best Picture, Director
(Altman‘s fifth nomination in this category), Original Screenplay,
Supporting Actress (both Mirren and Smith), Art Direction,
and Costume Design.
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