Development on Gosford Park began in 1999, when Bob Balaban asked Altman if they could develop a film together. Balaban suggested an Agatha Christie–style whodunit and introduced Altman to Julian Fellowes, with whom Balaban had been working on a different project. The film went into production in March 2001, and began filming at Shepperton Studios with a production budget of $19.8 million. Gosford Park premiered on 7 November 2001 at the London Film Festival. It received a limited release across cinemas in the United States in December 2001, before being widely released in January 2002 by USA Films. It was released in February 2002 in the United Kingdom.
The TV series Downton Abbey—written and created by Fellowes—was originally planned as a spin-off of Gosford Park, but instead was developed as a standalone property inspired by the film, and set earlier in the 20th century (from 1912 to the mid-1920s).[4]
Plot
In 1932, wealthy industrialist Sir William McCordle, his wife Lady Sylvia, and their daughter Isobel hold a shooting party at their country estate, Gosford Park. The guests include Sylvia's sisters Louisa and Lavinia, and their husbands Lord (Raymond) Stockbridge and Commander Anthony Meredith; her aunt Constance, Countess of Trentham; the Hon. Freddie and Mabel Nesbitt; actor Ivor Novello and American film producer Morris Weissman; and latecomers Lord Rupert Standish and Jeremy Blond. Mrs Wilson, the housekeeper, assigns the visiting servants to their rooms and takes notice of Robert Parks, Lord Stockbridge's valet, who mentions being raised in an orphanage. Head housemaid Elsie tutors Lady Trentham's inexperienced maid, Mary MacEachran.
Following dinner, a silver carving knife is missing. Henry Denton, Weissman's valet, raises the staff's suspicions with intrusive questions at the staff's supper and an odd accent, which appears to be Scottish (though Mary, Scottish herself, knows he is not from Scotland). Later that evening, Henry has a late-night tryst with Lady Sylvia, despite an implied relationship with Weissman. Isobel asks Elsie to speak to Sir William about hiring Freddie, who is blackmailing Isobel over their affair and her aborted pregnancy. Freddie mistreats Mabel, whom he married for her money but overestimated her wealth, while Rupert courts Isobel. Lady Trentham confides to Mary that Sylvia and Louisa cut cards to decide which of them would marry Sir William, whose fortune was necessary to sustain their father, an earl, and themselves.
When the men go shooting, a stray shot grazes Sir William's ear. The ladies join them for lunch, and Sir William withdraws from Anthony's business scheme, leaving him financially ruined. Lady Sylvia informs her aunt Constance that Sir William may halt her allowance.
During dinner, Lady Sylvia berates Sir William and Elsie comes to his defence, inadvertently exposing their affair. After dinner, Sir William retires alone to his study for the rest of the evening, where Mrs Wilson brings him coffee. He knocks it away onto the floor and orders her to leave the mess, then demands whisky. The guests gather in the drawing room as Novello plays the piano and sings, with the servants listening outside; Freddie, Anthony, Robert, and footman George each slip away. A man, seen only by his trousers, puts on muddy galoshes left by one of the shooting party. The man retrieves the missing silver carving knife, enters the library and, finding Sir William asleep in his chair, stabs him in the chest.
The body is discovered with bumbling Inspector Thompson and competent Constable Dexter arriving shortly afterward to investigate. Henry then visits Lady Sylvia for another tryst, despite her husband having just been murdered. It is discovered that Sir William was poisoned before being stabbed. Mrs Croft, the head cook, tells her staff about Sir William's history of seducing, or raping, his female factory workers; those who became pregnant were forced to give their babies up for adoption or lose their jobs. Isobel gives Freddie a cheque, which he angrily tears up when confronted by Mabel. Inspector Thompson releases the guests without interviewing most of the staff.
Mary deduces that Lord Stockbridge’s valet is the killer. When she confronts Parks, he reveals that he is the illegitimate son of Sir William and that his mother was one of his factory workers who died soon after Sir William turned him over to an orphanage in infancy. Parks tells Mary he did not poison Sir William, leading her to realise that Sir William was already dead when he was stabbed by Parks. He tells her he did not poison Sir William, and Mary does not care who did.
As the guests and their servants depart, Freddie, his blackmail scheme with Isobel having failed, pursues a partnership with Anthony, whose business venture has been saved by Sir William's death. Despite his fondness for her, Rupert's courtship of Isobel is abruptly ended when she overhears his conversation with Mr Blond about the limits on her inheritance.
Lady Trentham and Lady Sylvia discuss Mrs Croft and Mrs Wilson's long-standing feud, and Lady Sylvia reveals that Mrs Wilson's surname used to be Parks. Mary speaks to Mrs Wilson, who reveals that she and Mrs Croft are sisters; they both had children by Sir William while working at his factory. Mrs Croft kept her baby and lost her job, though the child died in infancy, while Mrs Wilson gave up Robert (Parks). Realizing Parks was her son and that he intended to kill his father, she poisoned Sir William to ensure his only crime would be stabbing a dead body. Mrs Croft comforts Mrs Wilson as Mary says goodbye to Robert, and the last guests go their separate ways.
Characters and cast
Above stairs
Michael Gambon as Sir William McCordle, a wealthy industrialist and baronet
Kristin Scott Thomas as Lady Sylvia McCordle, Sir William's wife, daughter of the Earl of Carton, an old but impoverished family
Camilla Rutherford as Isobel McCordle, daughter of Sir William and Lady Sylvia
Maggie Smith as Constance, Dowager Countess of Trentham, Lady Sylvia's aunt
Charles Dance as Raymond, Lord Stockbridge, a baron who is Lady Sylvia's brother-in-law via his marriage to Louisa
Tom Hollander as Lt. Commander Anthony Meredith, broke and desperate, married to Lavinia
Natasha Wightman as Lady Lavinia Meredith, Lady Sylvia's youngest sister
James Wilby as the Hon. Freddie Nesbitt, a late invitee who is also son of a baron and recently unemployed
Claudie Blakley as Mabel, the Hon. Mrs Nesbitt, daughter of a glove factory owner, grew up in Leicester, and married to Freddie, who only married her believing her to be wealthy
The film is a study of the British class system during the 1930s; Stephen Fry, Inspector Thompson in the film, says that it shows the upper class's dependency on a servant class.[5] A number of secondary themes are also explored. For example, the film takes a subtle look at sexual mores during the 1930s. As it is set in 1932, between the world wars, the impact of the First World War is explored in the film's screenplay.[6] It mentions the decline of the British Empire and the peerage system. Writing for PopMatters, Cynthia Fuchs described surface appearances, rather than complex interpersonal relationships, as a theme of the film.[7]
Salon.com critic Steven Johnson notes a revival of the manor house mystery style, popularised by the writings of Agatha Christie, in the screenplay for Gosford Park. He called it a blend between this literary style and that of the 19th century novel.[8] Bob Balaban, an actor and producer for Gosford Park, says that the idea of creating a murder mystery told by the servants in the manor was an interesting one for him and Altman.[5]
Themes from the film were picked up and integrated into the series Downton Abbey by Julian Fellowes. Maggie Smith starred again in her role as a dowager countess, this time her title not being Trentham but Grantham; the family are related to the Marquess (rather than the Earl) of Flintshire.
Production
Development and writing
In 1999, Bob Balaban asked Robert Altman if there were something they could develop together, and Altman suggested a whodunit.[9] Altman wanted to create an Agatha Christie–like country house murder mystery that explored that way of life; he called the film a "classic situation: all suspects under one roof".[9][10] Altman was also inspired by the 1930s films The Rules of the Game and Charlie Chan in London.[9] Altman chose British actor and writer Julian Fellowes to write the screenplay, because Fellowes knew how country houses operated.[10] Fellowes, who had never written a feature film before, received a telephone call from Altman, who asked him to come up with some characters and stories.[10][11] Fellowes was given a brief outline of the film: it was to be "set in a country house in the '30s and to have a murder in there somewhere, but for it to really be an examination of class."[11] Altman also wanted the film to explore the three groups of people: the family, the guests, and the servants.[11] Of the call, Fellowes said, "All the way through I thought this can't be happening—a 50-year-old fat balding actor is phoned up by an American movie director—but I did work as if it was going to happen."[10]
The original title of the film was The Other Side of the Tapestry, but Altman thought it was awkward. Fellowes began looking through some books and came up with Gosford Park.[9] Altman said: "Nobody liked it, everyone fought me on it. But when you make a picture using a name, that's its name. It's not a gripping title. But then M*A*S*H wasn't either."[9]
Fellowes says the screenplay was "not an homage to Agatha Christie, but a reworking of that genre." Fellowes was credited not only as the film's writer but as a technical advisor as well, meaning he wrote portions of the film as it was being produced. He notes that in certain large scenes with many characters, the actors were left room to improvise.[12]
Arthur Inch, the retired butler of Sir Richard and Lady Kleinwort, was the consultant on correct procedures and arrangements for dining on the set. Inch is credited as "Butler" immediately before Altman as Director in the final credits. Ruth Mott was the consultant for the kitchen,[13] and Violet Liddle for the parlour maids.[14]
Casting
In Gosford Park, as in many of his other films, Altman had a list of actors he intended to appear in the film before it was cast formally. The film's casting director was Mary Selway, whom producer David Levy described as knowing many British actors.[12] Very few actors who were offered parts did not end up in the film. Jude Law dropped out of the production just before the shoot began, and he was replaced by Ryan Phillippe. Kenneth Branagh and Robert Bathurst were both tied down by scheduling conflicts. Alan Rickman, Joely Richardson and Judi Dench were also considered for roles in the film. The cast is notable for featuring two knights (Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi) and two dames (Eileen Atkins and Maggie Smith). Three other members of the cast (Alan Bates, Helen Mirren and Kristin Scott Thomas) were later elevated to that status.
Filming and editing
Wrotham Park, where the outdoor and ground floor scenes for Gosford Park were shot
Filming was conducted at Wrotham Park for the exteriors, staircase, dining room and drawing room,[15] and Syon House for the upstairs bedrooms.[16] The opening sequence outside Lady Trentham's home was shot at Hall Barn, near Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, whose grounds were also used as the scene for lunch after the shoot. Sound stages were built to film the scenes of the manor's downstairs area.[17]Shepperton Studios was used for off-location filming.[18] Filming began on 19 March 2001.[19] During production, Stephen Frears acted as a standby director, ready to replace Altman in case he was incapacitated, so that the film would receive insurance.[20]
The film was shot with two cameras, both moving perpetually in opposite directions. The cameras pointed toward no specific area, intended to cause the audience to move their eyes throughout the scene. Altman notes that most of the film's cast had experience in theatre and in film, meaning they had acted in situations where the view of the audience is not on one specific actor, and each audience member sees a slightly different image of the players on stage.[12] Richard E. Grant commented that having two cameras moving at any one time meant that none of the actors knew when the cameras were focused on them. As a result, the actors had to stay "completely in character, completely in the moment, and interact with everybody in a way that felt as close to real life as you could possibly conjure up."[21]Andrew Dunn, the film's cinematographer, appreciated the co-operative nature of Gosford Park's filming process. He shot the film on Kodak Vision Expression 500T film stock generally with two Panavision cameras, using lighting ranging from relatively dim candles to bright hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide lamps.[22]EditorTim Squyres described the editing process on Gosford Park as an unusual one, as the dual cameras used were generally located in the same areas when filming, instead of the more standard method of setting up a scene directly.[23]
Patrick Doyle composed the film's score.[24] Doyle said that it can take him up to six months to create a film score, but Altman asked him to write and compose the music for Gosford Park in less than five weeks.[24] Doyle recorded the soundtrack at the London Air-Edel Recording Studios in October 2001.[25][26] The soundtrack also features six original songs by composer and playwright, Ivor Novello.[27] Jeremy Northam, who plays Novello, sings five of the songs and his brother, Christopher, accompanies him on the piano. Christopher also performs one Novello song as a piano solo.[27] The soundtrack was released on 15 January 2002.[28]
The VHS and region 1DVD of Gosford Park were released on 25 June 2002 by Universal Studios Home Video, with the region 2 release on 3 December 2002. The critic Ed Gonzalez reviewed the DVD negatively, calling the picture quality "atrocious on the small screen", going on to say that "the image quality of this video transfer is downright lousy from start to finish."[32] However, reviewer Robert Mack generally wrote favourably of the picture quality, noting excellence in the shots' detail and sharpness and the lack of compression artefacts, but describing an unfavourable darkness to scenes filmed within the manor house.[33] Both reviewers commented positively on the film's score and soundtrack. Gonzalez wrote that "Gosford Park sounds amazing for a film so dialogue-dependent"[32] and Mack that "the audio transfer is about as good as it can get on a movie of this style."[33]
On 26 November 2018, Arrow Films released a newly restored 2K remaster, taken from a 4K print of Gosford Park, on Limited Edition Blu-ray in the UK.[34]
Reception
Box office
In its limited release opening weekend, the film grossed $241,219, hitting No. 23 in the box office that weekend.[35] In its wide release, it grossed $3,395,759;[36] by the end of its run on 6 June 2002, Gosford Park grossed $41,308,615 in the domestic box office and a worldwide total of $87,754,044.[1] With that final total, Gosford Park became Altman's second-most successful film at the box office after his 1970 film M*A*S*H.[2]
Critical response
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 87% of 165 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "A mixture of Upstairs, Downstairs; Clue; and perceptive social commentary, Gosford Park ranks among director Altman's best."[37]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 90 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[38]
Roger Ebert awarded it his four out of four stars, describing the story as "such a joyous and audacious achievement it deserves comparison with his [Robert Altman's] very best movies."[17] Ebert specifically noted a quality of the film that many Altman films share: a focus on character rather than plot.[17]Emanuel Levy gave Gosford Park an A minus rating, describing one of its themes as "illuminating a society and a way of life on the verge of extinction",[39] placing the interwar setting as an integral part of the film's class study. However, he notes that because Altman is an independent observer of the society he portrays in the film, it does not have the biting qualities of his previous social commentaries such as Short Cuts, set in the director's home country of the United States.[39]Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Chicago Reader called it a masterpiece.[40]
Gosford Park's cinematography was a focus of several critics. CNN's Paul Clinton praised Andrew Dunn's camera work, describing it as "lush and rich; the camera glides up and down the stairs of the grand estate, the period look is beautifully crafted."[41] Ed Gonzalez of the online publication Slant Magazine writes that "Altman's camera is the star of Gosford Park" and that the film's cinematography is used as an aid to its storytelling.[32]Michael Phillips placed Gosford Park at number nine on his list of Best Films of the Decade.[42] The film was placed at 82 on Slant Magazine's list of best films of the 2000s.[43]
