Copyright
© 2002 by Michael
Segers,
All rights Reserved
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Check out Gosford Park
When we moved to the large old house on Isabella Street
in 1961, my
father was delighted to find in the dining room floor, a button, at the head of
the table, so that the Master could discreetly ring for service whenever he
wanted. My mother wanted no part of such a thing, because she knew who would be
in the kitchen.
And that is as
close as I have ever come to the world of servants and masters portrayed in Gosford Park. Part of the appeal of
director Robert Altman's newest film to some folks is that the goings-on
at an English estate in the 1930’s are at least as exotic as the goings-on in last
year’s Kandahar. But, gee, didn’t folks do anything except
gossip and drink tea, at least the upstairs crowd.
One of the guests wonders why they put themselves through the ordeal of
weekends like this one. (So do I.)
The
servants’ lives are equally exotic, but much less appealing. An imperious
woman announces to her maid at bedtime that she must wash a particular garment
for her to wear the next day. The
next morning, she decides not to wear it.
Servants eat in cramped quarters, share bedrooms, and wait in line for a
bath. Apparently,
there is an open season on female servants for the men on either end of the
stairs. As one maid puts it, “I am the perfect servant. I have no life.”
And, then, there
is a messy little murder…. about
three quarters of the way through the 137 minutes of the film.
But, hardly anyone seems to care, even to notice, certainly not as much
as everyone notices a bit of disrespect from a servant that means instant
unemployment and homelessness. The problem
with this film, as with other films by Robert Altman, a director who brings
together a great many people and plots into one heady mess of a film, is that
there is just too much going on. Usually in
a Robert Altman film, there is music; in this film,
the most Altmaniac moments involve a guest singing several campy
music-hall songs to widely varying responses that capture all the complexity of
relationships and emptiness of lives at Gosford Park perfectly.
That exquisite sequence only lasts about ten minutes, and I was left
wondering whether it justified the other two hours.
There must be two dozen
people slipping into and out of the current of things. A servant here, a visitor
from Hollywood there, and they all pretty much look alike: masters and servants,
at times, even women and men. (There is a reason that I refer to no actor
or character by name. I couldn't keep up with them.) There are so many plots and complications, spread
out in so many different directions that very few of the people have a chance to
distinguish themselves. Characters don’t really develop. Some character
developments, like some relationships, are discussed, but they are not actually
portrayed. The scriptwriters were just a little too busy, and so is their
script.
Oh, yes, there
was a murder. The question is not so much who-done-it as why it was done, and
again, the resolution is not shown (the strength of film) but narrated.
My father, by the way, removed the button for the bell, patched the hole, and refinished the floor, leaving no sign of a decadent society of servants and masters. As the Gosford folks disperse at the end of the film, with talk of selling the house, the experience of the past two hours and some minutes seems equally as inconsequential, and yet--we see this little world through the lens of a director like Robert Altman--strangely memorable. Keep your feet dry (and out of the spilled bloody Mary on the floor; the murder victim, after all, did not bleed), your heart full of noble thoughts (the Gosford crowd, it seems, never met so much as an idea), and your face marked by the look of wry puzzlement which characterizes this film.
POPCORN
Wry puzzlement is an appropriate response to the works of the great and aply named Edward Gorey, the author/illustrator of horror stories that just weren't horrible enough for children, and most of which were set in rambling old estates. If you don't know his work, do yourself the favor of correcting that situation.