Gosford Park is a most unusual and complex film. Its all about the "getting there," and then when it does "get there" the "gotten" only serves to compliment the "getting." Yes, there is a mystery, and yes it is solved, but this only further complicates the characters and their relationships to one another. The revelation of the mystery only affords a greater mystery. So, in all actuality, the ending is only the place where the movie ends and the credits begin. How Gosford Park is all this and still manages to be satisfying is, perhaps, the greatest mystery of all.
The plot of Gosford Park is entirely to complex to be neatly tidied up here, besides anything less than a full script would be superficial. I will say, however, that it concerns a massive group of impossibly rich characters, invited to a party circa November 1932. Nearly all of these are restricted to the upstairs (aristocrats) and downstairs (servants). The first half of the film would seem to show the differences between these, but then, ironically, someone is ed and the film takes the opposite turn. Suddenly, each of these people are all just people, and the only thing dividing them is a set of stairs and musty ideals. Each group is, after all, made up of individuals put in their place solely by chance. In the end everyone has their own specific problems and concerns, that may or may not relate to their class, and are often either paralleled or mingled with the opposite class.
Do these themes resolve the movie? Well, yes and no. In the end the is irrelevant, and could have been substituted by any similar scandal or tragedy. It is the characters that matter. We never really find out just who everyone is, but that, the mystery left unsolved, may be the point of the movie. Gosford Park is at first all about surfaces, every character begins a caricature. However, gradually we realize that there is something never completely disclosed going on beneath the surface. Sure there are little revelations throughout, but all they really tell us is that each character is more than meets the eye. In an exact reversal of typical narrative, the characters start out simple and accessible, but end complex and mysterious. So their plights are never really resolved, they may still come away a little bit wiser for their visit.
All of this is made rich by cunning direction, lush photography, and impossibly wonderful performances. That director Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville) manages to drag a brilliant performance out every every member of his whopping 23-character cast is, well, like I said... impossible. But then again Altman really doesn't seem to give a damn. He is one of the most talented directors of our age, and he puts that talent to good use here. He knows the tricks of his trade very well. He can make any character an , a suspect, and all with the angle of his camera. And how he handles that cast...!
Speaking of which, it would take entirely to much text to detail the performances of each main character, as there are so many of them. However, there are two female performances that stand out, and seem to be garnering special attention. Maggie Smith is a show-stealer. She is so wonderfully bitchy and disdainful in her role, really giddy to behold. She manages to teeter perfectly between being a part of her class, and absolutely contemptuous of it. Then, in the opposite light is Helen Mirren. A servant, her performance is composed of subtle glances which tell us just enough of her bitterness, cynicism, and ultimate love, without completely revealing her. She is ultimately very sad, and she suppresses and reveals that sadness in just the right way.
Altman openly claimed his film to be greatly influenced by the classic French film, La Regle Du Jeu, a very similar study of social classes. Does this detract from the film's originality? Not really. Upstairs-Downstairs movies are really a genre all their own. Antiwar films, interracial love stories, teen angst dramas and other specific types of movies all may express very similar themes, but they can also be very unique. Gosford Park expresses the universal ideas of La Regle, but in a different manner. It lifts the themes and settings of the earlier film, and populates them with many different characters, and situations. The tone is different as well...
In Gosford Park Altman takes a very sly, farcical approach to his material. When watching it I got the feeling that he was like a kid throwing rocks into a busy anthill. His is his greatest rock, and one the ants spend a great deal of time figuring out how to approach. Should they swarm all over it, stand aside and laugh scornfully, hide away, or blame each other? Altman's ants all take a different approach. In the end there's just this rock sitting in the anthill, and they all leave. Besides, if anyone committed the it was Altman himself.
The plot of Gosford Park is entirely to complex to be neatly tidied up here, besides anything less than a full script would be superficial. I will say, however, that it concerns a massive group of impossibly rich characters, invited to a party circa November 1932. Nearly all of these are restricted to the upstairs (aristocrats) and downstairs (servants). The first half of the film would seem to show the differences between these, but then, ironically, someone is ed and the film takes the opposite turn. Suddenly, each of these people are all just people, and the only thing dividing them is a set of stairs and musty ideals. Each group is, after all, made up of individuals put in their place solely by chance. In the end everyone has their own specific problems and concerns, that may or may not relate to their class, and are often either paralleled or mingled with the opposite class.
Do these themes resolve the movie? Well, yes and no. In the end the is irrelevant, and could have been substituted by any similar scandal or tragedy. It is the characters that matter. We never really find out just who everyone is, but that, the mystery left unsolved, may be the point of the movie. Gosford Park is at first all about surfaces, every character begins a caricature. However, gradually we realize that there is something never completely disclosed going on beneath the surface. Sure there are little revelations throughout, but all they really tell us is that each character is more than meets the eye. In an exact reversal of typical narrative, the characters start out simple and accessible, but end complex and mysterious. So their plights are never really resolved, they may still come away a little bit wiser for their visit.
All of this is made rich by cunning direction, lush photography, and impossibly wonderful performances. That director Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville) manages to drag a brilliant performance out every every member of his whopping 23-character cast is, well, like I said... impossible. But then again Altman really doesn't seem to give a damn. He is one of the most talented directors of our age, and he puts that talent to good use here. He knows the tricks of his trade very well. He can make any character an , a suspect, and all with the angle of his camera. And how he handles that cast...!
Speaking of which, it would take entirely to much text to detail the performances of each main character, as there are so many of them. However, there are two female performances that stand out, and seem to be garnering special attention. Maggie Smith is a show-stealer. She is so wonderfully bitchy and disdainful in her role, really giddy to behold. She manages to teeter perfectly between being a part of her class, and absolutely contemptuous of it. Then, in the opposite light is Helen Mirren. A servant, her performance is composed of subtle glances which tell us just enough of her bitterness, cynicism, and ultimate love, without completely revealing her. She is ultimately very sad, and she suppresses and reveals that sadness in just the right way.
Altman openly claimed his film to be greatly influenced by the classic French film, La Regle Du Jeu, a very similar study of social classes. Does this detract from the film's originality? Not really. Upstairs-Downstairs movies are really a genre all their own. Antiwar films, interracial love stories, teen angst dramas and other specific types of movies all may express very similar themes, but they can also be very unique. Gosford Park expresses the universal ideas of La Regle, but in a different manner. It lifts the themes and settings of the earlier film, and populates them with many different characters, and situations. The tone is different as well...
In Gosford Park Altman takes a very sly, farcical approach to his material. When watching it I got the feeling that he was like a kid throwing rocks into a busy anthill. His is his greatest rock, and one the ants spend a great deal of time figuring out how to approach. Should they swarm all over it, stand aside and laugh scornfully, hide away, or blame each other? Altman's ants all take a different approach. In the end there's just this rock sitting in the anthill, and they all leave. Besides, if anyone committed the it was Altman himself.