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Gosford Park [2002]
![Gosford Park [2002]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E6TMSVM9L._SL160_.jpg)
Maggie Smith is marvellous as Constance, a dependent Countess with a quip for every occasion; Michael Gambon, as the ill-fated host, Sir William McCordle, is one of the most palpably salacious characters ever on screen; Kristin Scott Thomas is perfectly cold, yet sexy, as Lady Sylvia, Sir William's wife; and Helen Mirren, Emily Watson and Clive Owen are equally memorable as key characters from the bustling servants' quarters below. Gosford Park manages to be fabulously entertaining while exposing human shortcomings, compromises and endless need for confession. --Fionn Meade On the DVD: Gosford Park, presented 2.35:1--Anamorphic Widescreen transfer, is awash with the muted colours and sepia tones which permeate the film, the sound is excellent as the actors were individually miked, so you don't loose any of the dialogue giving away subtle plot developments. Extras are chunky, with deleted scenes, trailers a couple of documentaries. Most notable are the two commentaries which go a long way to unravelling some of the twistier plot devices and a Q&A session with the Altman and his crew filmed in New York. --Kristen Bowditch
RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £1.93 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Gosford Park finds director Robert Altman in sumptuously fine form. From the opening shots, as the camera peers through the trees at an opulent English country estate, Altman exploits the 1930s period setting and whodunit formula of the film expertly. Aristocrats gather together for a weekend shooting party with their dutiful servants in tow, and the upstairs/downstairs division of the classes is perfectly tailored to Altman's method (Nashville, Short Cuts) of overlapping bits of dialogue and numerous subplots in order to betray underlying motives and the sins that propel them. Greed, vengeance, snobbery and lust stir comic unrest as the near dizzying effects of the plot twists are allayed by perhaps Altman's strongest ensemble to date.
Gosford Park
Review date: 2008-03-09 Rating: 10 out of 10
'Gosford Park' is an atmospheric period drama set in 1930's England. It looks at the relationships between upstairs and downstairs in a country manor, combined with a murder mystery story. The murder is the least important aspect of this film and it is excellent as a social piece looking at the hierarchy and social conventions of aristocracy at that time. There is an amazing cast who all perform superbly, Maggie Smith is especially good, but they all act with skill and draw you in to their various characters. The costumes and sets add to the overall feel of the film and it is directed perfectly. It is quite slow paced, which I liked, but those expecting a fast paced thriller will be disappointed, this is one that builds in layers. 'Gosford Park' deserves all the accolades it received and is well worth a viewing.
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Reviews
No subtitles available (Just a comment on the DVD!)
Review date: 2007-08-01 Rating: 8 out of 10
It is a pity that there are no english subtitles available. It makes the understanding particularly difficult from time to time for non-native english speakers, with all that whispering going on especially in the last part of the movie.
Sure, there's a murder. but it's all done with style
Review date: 2007-07-27 Rating: 8 out of 10
The murder is the least important element of this movie. For me, the movie is all about style -- English upperclass, country house style with dollops of what it took below the stairs to keep everything running.
What makes the movie work for me are two things: that style is brought to life with quite a bit of wicked (but not malicious) humor; and second, some extremely good acting. These two elements are exemplified in the funny, mannered performance of Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello, singing Novello's popular and ickily sentimental songs (although Her Mother Came, Too is still amusing). I can't think of a performance in the movie that wasn't first rate, including those by the two Americans, Bob Balaban and Ryan Phillippe. Well, maybe Stephen Fry.
Even the heavy-going plot lines, which could easily have sunk into melodrama, are rescued by the performances of Mirren, Atkins, Watson, Bates, etc. And the bit players also were outstanding. I especially liked the chubby young scullery helper. I just hope she didn't get pregnant...and that she always washed her hands before helping out with the carrots.
Altman, for me, has made so many movies of such varying quality that it's hard to figure out where to place him. I wouldn't put this one in the same league as McCabe and Mrs. Miller or Nashville, but I think it fits comfortably along side Cookie's Fortune, another film I like a lot.
A perfect DVD if you like your films dialogue rich and musically evocative!
Review date: 2007-07-06 Rating: 10 out of 10
A perfect DVD if you like your films dialog rich and musically evocative!
It needs to be watched several times before you pick up all the clues and nuances - then I watched it several times more in short succession.
One of the really lovely parts of the movie is the music and singing of Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello! And the wonderful Maggie Smith as an impoverished Countess with some classic put down lines delivered in inimitable style!
Wonderfully evocative and everything I remember about growing up in post war Britain among the remnants of the prewar class structure is there. We all knew people who had been in service pre WWII (partly due to the depression) and there they are! There is the nouveau rich Lord hated by all and not all that far away from today's rich industrialist!
And Stephen Fry - bumbling detective seems out of place - but one suspects that is exactly how he would be in that company, in awe of the upper crust and held in ridicule by the servants for his naivety, the more you see it the more you find it not so out of place as you do at the first sitting!
If you like action thrillers, this is not it!
If you like dialog rich, subtle dilemmas this is certainly one!
10 out of 10!
American indiscretion versus British bleakness
Review date: 2007-06-03 Rating: 10 out of 10
Well played and pleasant but absolutely sinister. D.H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in reverse. Lady Chatterley is in fact a Lord. And everything is different. The Lord has the right to have as many affairs with the female servants as he wants. He has the right to have as many children with these female servants as he wants and then to have the babies abandoned and sent to orphanages. Absolutely disgusting. And what's more he may keep the servants for further use eventually. When we know that we know the murder of the Lord will be accepted by everyone in his own social class as justified, that they will cover it up for the police not to find out the murderer. And what's more they will have been backboneless enough not to murder him themselves and let the servants murder him. Here Robert Altman imagines a thriller that becomes a vicious denunciation of the deepest hypocrisy you can imagine, that of the British aristocracy. There is little to add to this tale, except that all in all only the servants have the human dignity that provides them with some human feelings, including for the son that has managed to survive and is condemned to remain officially unknown. It is also the servants who have the liking and taste for the Hollywood sentimental and sentimentalese songs that are sung for the entertainment of the ladies and gentlemen who treat that music as some charming accompaniment for their simmering hatred of the world and themselves. Of course Altman also manages to put one note against the Americans in the two characters from California, one having a typically non-Anglo-Saxon name, viz. Weissman. They are vicious enough to infiltrate the servant quarters just for the sake of a film on the very same situation, hence to guarantee the realism of the servants' side of the film. But they are also gross enough to reveal the subterfuge before the end and that reveals too how much the servants hate this indiscretion that reveals their side of ,the household to someone from the other side of the household. The gap between the two social classes that live along to one another in this mansion is wider than the distance between the earth and the moon.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Kristen Scott Thomas|Stephen Fry|Richard E Grant|Ryan Phillippe
Director(s):
Recording label: Entertainment in Video
Manufacturer: Entertainment in Video
EAN: 5017239191732
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2002-09-23
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 137 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2002-01-04
Language: English (Original Language)