Gosford Park

Studio: Arrow Academy

Dec 10, 2018 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

In a dreary autumn afternoon in 1932, a gaggle of wealthy British patricians converge on the country manor of Gosford Park. Among them are lords and ladies, a countess and a knight, and an American film producer accompanied by a well-known movie star. Of course, nearly all of the above are accompanied by servants, who are squeezed in below stairs with the rest of the house’s staff and tasked with making sure their employers’ leisurely weekend – planned around a day of pheasant hunting – goes off without a hitch. However, the widely despised host of the festivities is found dead (murdered, of course) in his study, and police are left with no choice but to not allow anyone to leave the estate until the investigation is through. Everyone, as you would suspect, is a suspect.

Released in 2001, Gosford Park was director Robert Altman’s stab at the traditional manor house murder mystery as seen in hundreds of Agatha Christie adaptations over the decades. Equal parts homage and part parody, where Altman successfully bucks tradition is by showing the audience the mystery through the eyes of the servants, only taking us upstairs (where the murder has occurred) when one of the many housekeepers or valets have reason to be there. Where most other manor murders would have trained in on the aristocrats as they flung accusations at one another in various parlors and billiards rooms, Gosford Park only makes viewers privy to the upper class’s squabbles when a servant is nearby to hear it. Elsewhere, relevant backstory is regularly revealed in the form of gossip among the downstairs workers. It’s a subtle method of framing the really works well, breathing life back into a mystery genre that had become synonymous with stodginess.

It’s conceivable, too, that Gosford Park should play even better to American audiences now than it did on release, and that’s thanks to the stateside popularity of Downton Abbey. The runaway PBS hit has effectively trained its fans in the mechanics and hierarchy of a pre-War English manor house. Where viewers may originally have had a hard time keeping track of who worked for whom and under whom, anyone who’s seen the TV series will be better equipped to follow the workings both above and under stairs. Gosford Park was, of course, written by Downton creator Julian Fellowes, who had actually conceived of the series as a spin-off of the film. (Maggie Smith plays a salty dowager in both.) It goes without say that any Downton fan owes Gosford Park a revisit.

This finally brings us to the film’s absurdly stacked ensemble. Displaying many of big name actors taking on small roles for a chance to work with a great director like Altman, Gosford Park stars the aforementioned Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Kelly Macdonald, Clive Owen, Hellen Mirren, Charles Dance, Alan Bates, Stephen Fry, Emily Watson, Jeremy Northam, Richard E. Grant, and Ryan Phillippe. Altman pulls top performances from all of them, even those with surprisingly little screen time. (It’s strange to see Mirren, in particular, play a character mostly confined to the fringes of the screen.) Have we mentioned how funny all of it is?

Arrow brings the movie to Blu-ray in a new 4K restoration and 5.1 audio with optional subtitles. (Although the movie’s in English, these may be helpful – Altman encouraged the actors to talk over one another, as guests would at an actual dinner party, so it’s easy to miss some lines.) Thankfully they’ve ported over features from the old DVD edition which Altman contributed to before his death, including a full-length commentary (and one over the deleted scenes) by the director and a vintage Making Of featurette. New to this edition are a commentary by Altman scholars David Thompson and Geoff Andrew, interviews, and a well-illustrated booklet that includes original production notes, an essay, and a text interview with Altman. In all, it’s another wonderful package from the Arrow Academy line, more than worth a pickup for fans of Altman or even Downton Abbey.

(mvdshop.com/products/gosford-park-blu-ray)

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