We all know the setup; “the lives of upstairs guests and downstairs servants at a party in 1932 in a country house in England are affected as they investigate a murder involving one of them”. But here’s where the greatness lies; Robert Altman, Bob Balaban and Julian Fellowes know this set-up too, and revel in subverting and enjoying the classic tropes of this brand of Agatha Christies parlour room murder mystery. 2001’s Gosford Park was born out of critically acclaimed auteur Altman discussing a future project with his friend Bob Balaban, who would go on to produce and star in the film. They were discussing the fact that neither had done a murder mystery. Altman’s career has spanned an obscene amount of genres, usually excelling in completely putting them on their head, and although he had worked prior in the realm of noir for his classic Phillip Marlowe adaptation The Long Goodbye, Altman had never worked in the genre that arguably would have fitted his talents best. These sorts of films typically have a large ensemble of interesting characters and multiple intertwining stories, which often describe the best of Altman’s oeuvre. The film’s script is naturally credited to Julian Fellowes, who would later use this film for the basis of his much beloved TV series Downtown Abbey, following a very similar upstairs and downstairs approach, just without a murder propelling the plot. The film is however also credited to ‘an idea’ of Altman and Balaban’s. The idea was simple, what if the film’s focus was instead not on the grand characters of the upstairs parlours and bedrooms, but rather upon the lives and relationships, to each other and their employers, of the downstairs staff, and ultimately the relationships and politics of English classes between the wars.

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Let’s start as the film does, focussing upon the grand figures of the shooting party. The first character we meet and certainly the most entertaining is that of Maggie Smith as Constance Trentham (the first of the film’s two acting nominations at the Oscars, both for supporting actress), so wonderfully dry and withering in her comments and her manner to her maid that we can’t help but love her as soon as he walks on the screen. Much the same can be said for Kelly Macdonald’s turn as her maid, who for my money is the heart of the film and is more obviously plot-wise the most Marplesque of the figures we meet. Especially more so than a fumbling and bumbling Stephen Fry, as Inspector Thompson, who is talked over and pushed aside at every turn by the party guests, and who only really manages to establish any sort of power in the proceedings when he is dealing with the service staff, who he is above class wise and almost immediately dismisses from the investigation. Thompson’s incompetence really drives the themes of misplaced power that Fellowes and Altman are clearly most interested in. Our party hosts are Kristin Scott Thomas and Michael Gambon, both delightfully dashing in their respective ways and filled with little performative flourishes that really do lend to Altman’s strong sense of naturalism in the film. Altman went about absolutely every tactic he could to establish this aspect of the film including micing up all actors at all times and going to great lengths to make every actor unaware of when they were being filmed. Charles Dance, Tom Hollander and Claudie Blakley further the field of stars upstairs and further the field of excellent performances.

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It is however as I aforementioned the subterranean lives of the service staff that take up most of the film and are key to unravelling the mystery at the heart of the picture, for underneath all of the grand tropes of the murder upstairs, it is actually a simple tale of an abuser abusing his power over his young female staff that is the crux of the piece, rather than some of the more outlandish aspects of the ‘above ground’ plots. Clive Owen sets the screen alight with what comes off as a pure distillation of effortless charisma, with a great unnerving sense of dread and anger underneath him at all times, despite never really rearing their heads. Helen Mirren is the head of the staff and offers a cold, but endlessly emotional performance, which garnered the film’s second acting Oscar nomination. The film’s sole win was for Fellowe’s screenplay, deserved, but should have been one of many. Mirren often plays opposite Eileen Atkins, Gosford’s head chef, with the two sharing multiple heated debates and both striving and filling the scenes with as much depth as score-making. It’s also notable that Atkins was the co-creator, along with Jean Marsh, of the seminal 70’s British Drama series Upstairs, Downstairs, following many similar aspects of this film’s foundation. Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi and Richard E. Grant fill out the rest of the male staff members and each receive multiple great character moments, ranging from immense grief, to great wit, to deep pain. It is this choice by Fellowes and Altman to never let a single character pass by without a moment of something deeper that leads to the film being so intricately woven and realistic and therefore so entertaining.

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There is never a scene where a servant or member of service isn’t present, this is noticeable most in the scenes of the ‘upstairs’ members of the cast. Afterall we see the ‘downstairs’ people all the time on their own and in their private moments, but we never get a private moment with any of the 'better off' characters, always adding a sense of verisimilitude and voyeurism to the film, as if we are ease dropping in on matters that don’t concern us. When of course we have been taught by the numerous films of its ilk prior that everything on screen concerns us in a murder mystery such as is, we as an audience actually take great pride in noting the small details. Altman further has fun with this in the first half of the film with repeated slow zooms into the numerous poisons around the house. All in all it leads to a sense that ‘nobody is a suspect’, rather than the common trope of any good mystery being that ‘everybody is a suspect’. Here everybody is and yet nobody is, all leading us to look further into the story and beyond the basic fronts each character puts up. Altman shakes us about and forces us to lose all that we have come to learn when it comes to these genre type films. Perhaps the most obvious examples of Altman and Fellowe’s playing around with the audience is with the introduction of the film world (and hence the fictional) into the grounds of Gosford. Bob Balaban’s character is that of a Hollywood producer who has been brought to the party for research for his latest Charlie Chan detective picture (a real series of mysteries from the years of early Hollywood). Balaban is on the phone for an extended scene, effectively narrating the ever-changing situations regarding the finding of the body. This is the absolute closest the film gets to winking at the audience, and at several points verges on breaking the fourth wall. Balaban is brought to the party by the character that most clearly forces us to recognise the world of the fictional; Ivor Novello, the real life matinee idol star of both versions (silent and talkie) of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger, a film even referred to by Maggie Smith’s character, albeit as a flop. This is factually incorrect as the film was quite a success, and whether intentional or not on Fellowe’s end, it does further add to Smith’s outrageously pompous and self-righteous character. Pompous and self-righteous being the operative words to describe most of the characters here in the film.

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What lies beneath in Gosford Park is what leads the story forward. Altman repeatedly referred to the film as a “who-cares-who-done-it”, as opposed to a “whodunit”. The grounds and characters of the upstairs don’t really fair into the outcome of the story and hence become all but set dressing, no matter how sensationally performed and scripted the set dressing is. The words “Gosford Park” aren’t ever actually mentioned in the film. The film can sometimes get in the way of itself, with its seven knighted actors and actresses, but I really do feel that all this is in service of bringing a classic Christie fashioned film to the screen, and then completely putting it on its head. I feel the film is more than just the foundation of Downtown Abbey, but a far superior, succinct and more interesting version of it with a lot more to say. I feel the film is more than just a great cast, but another jewel in Altman’s crown as the greatest director of ensemble films that we’ve ever known. Ultimately I feel the film is more than just a murder mystery and encompasses, without hyperbole, most all of human life, whilst also being a terrific whodunit in that regard. The film will never not be endlessly rewatchable, because it truly does contain multitudes, which is nowhere near surprising when you know the director’s name above the title.

- Thomas Carruthers