Those who love Downton Abbey will love Gosford Park just as well. Those — like
myself — who detest Downton Abbey and
all the trends that bring it great success will love Gosford Park much more. I had the advantage of seeing Robert
Altman’s superb country house comedy a few years before the lumbering, sodden
Julian Fellowes soap arrived on television, and the film shone too brightly in
my mind for the series to obscure anything good. But I think that watchers of
the series will find great delight and refreshment in the film as well, even if
it doesn’t work powerfully enough to supplant all television from their lives.
I remember the sudden drop in
my spirits when watching Downton Abbey,
seven whole years ago, in the first ten minutes of the first episode. The
earl’s cousin and nephew have tragically perished on the RMS Titanic and the family is consequently
thrown into a constitutional crisis, since the next in line for the hereditary
position of earl and holder of the estate — i.e., the next closest male
relative — is some very distant middle-class cousin, and the eldest daughter of
the family no longer has a second cousin to securely marry. The entire
situation, from our vantage point of the 21st century, is absurd,
and, surely, any contemporary film or television show can only approach this
story from the position of recognising its absurdity. But — lo! — not only did Downton Abbey not note and lampoon this
idiocy — it positively extolled the old ways, and its six seasons merrily embraced
the feudal traditions of living and thinking and oppressing.
I suppose it took an American
to go at it the right way. Robert Altman merely begins by acknowledging what
contemporary culture often seems eager to forget: that class distinctions
exist, that the divisions are often jarringly visible and viscerally
unpleasant, and that the system that requires you abide by those distinctions
is barbarous. Here, the discrepancies between Gosford Park and Downton
Abbey are so vast as to seem astronomical. A reasonable reader may ask why
I’d bother mentioning them together in the first place. The reasons are clear
and serve a simple purpose: the common ground between the two should prove good
enough to lure any ITV-lovers into the cinematic fold. First, both are set
before World War II and in an old and sumptuous country house in England, owned
by some aristocrat and crawling with well-heeled inhabitants and servants who
know their places. Both pay close attention to the minutiae of the social and
political order and trappings of high English living. Both were filmed from
scripts written by Julian Fellowes. And, most enticing, both star Maggie Smith
as the Dowager Countess. Gosford Park
brought the grand Dame her last Oscar nomination, and, aside from the acerbic
remarks given to her by a screenwriter, it gave her a chance to bite at the
others on set in her own words as well. Hence, we have one of my favourite and one
of the most enduring lines from all of cinema in 2001: “Difficult colour,
green.” Not much to look at, but a thunderbolt from her lips when caught by an
able-bodied director.