Above Stairs and Below Stairs
Gosford Park is set in November 1932, near the end of the era of domestic service in the U.K. World War II has not yet started, but the status quo has begun, almost imperceptibly, to shift away from the strict social structure so integral to England for hundreds of years.
Stephen Fry, no stranger to writing and/or performing works relating to class differences, remarks, "This is a world which we have all seen in Upstairs Downstairs and films like The Remains of the Day but it's never been seen from quite this point of view. Gosford Park is shot in such a way that if there's a scene above stairs, it's only legitimately observed if there's a servant in the room everything is seen from a servant's point of view. A footman clears away an ashtray, a lady's maid brushes her mistress' hair, and that is how you piece together the world above stairs. Meanwhile, below stairs there's what can only be described as a gigantic machine with its own protocol and etiquette."
Robert Altman elaborates, "We decided that we wouldn't bring the audience above stairs unless they were accompanied by a below stairs person, so we couldn't just cut to an upstairs scene between two people and advance the plot that way. Out of this came the idea that the audience would get snippets of information about above stairs people but not all of it, and what there is would be transmitted by below stairs gossip, sometimes contradictory."
Helen Mirren notes, "There are these strange stylistic contradictions going on within: it's extremely naturalistic, but there's also a touch of melodrama."
Kelly Macdonald has the pivotal role of visiting lady's maid Mary MacEachran. It is through Mary that the audience first gains entrée into Gosford Park. When Mary is summoned above stairs, though, recalls the actress, "I was usually in the background and not making eye contact with people during scenes. I could see relationships building between the above stairs actors, and we below stairs actors are building our own relationships as well. It's interesting how there's definitely an above stairs/below stairs divide even behind the scenes amongst the actors."
Sir Derek Jacobi (cast as Probert, valet to Gosford Park owner Sir William McCordle) deadpans, "We don't mix with the Lords and Ladies above stairs, we're very, very 'umble below stairs!"
On a more serious note, Fry says, "The way the film investigates the class system, without the political banner waving, slowly reveals the ridiculousness of it the dependency of rich adults, who own massive estates, on a servant class. Hitler and the Second World War, plus the Labour government of the 1940s, are just around the corner, so it is pretty much going to be swept away."
Mirren offers, "The characters within it are who they are and think this world is perfectly normal. I don't think it's a political comment on Britain or the English class system."
Richard E. Grant respectfully disagrees, believing Gosford Park to be "unequivocally a study of the English class system. Also of people's behavior and how the class system inherently provokes duplicitous behavior: when you're above stairs you have to be one thing, and when you're below stairs you can show your true self. It's been a source of comedy in English life and literature for the last thousand years, and long may it continue."
From concept to production, the disparity between the two settings was mined: the above stairs sequences show the characters sitting around rather languidly; while, in contrast, below stairs the characters are constantly in motion to keep up with the demands of above stairs. As the cameras rolled, the mandate for below stairs was that nobody could remain still: something was going on the entire time, even if only in the background (sewing, ironing, cleaning shoes).
Yet Altman also found subtle similarities between above and below stairs: "Below stairs, there are almost more layers of hierarchy than above stairs.
Above stairs, at dinner, the same person sat next to the same person every time because of what their title was or who they were married to. But something comparable happens below stairs, where they took it even more seriously: if you are the maid to the highest titled person, you sit in relation to the head butler, emulating the same thing above stairs. Interestingly, they also dress alike the men wear tails whether they're guests or servants!" Along those lines, another custom, dramatized in an early Gosford Park sequence, is the "renaming" of visiting servants. As Gosford Park housekeeper Mrs Wilson (played by Helen Mirren) explains to the visiting servants (and the audience), the below stairs visitors are referred to by the names of their employers. Thus, Gosford Park houseguest Morris Weissman's valet Henry Denton (played by Ryan Phillippe) is addressed by the Gosford Park staff as "Mr Weissman" for the duration of his stay.
Both above and below stairs existences were thoroughly researched by the filmmakers. David Levy remembers, "I did exhaustive reading, and had a lot of fun doing it so much so that we made a point of exposing a lot of our actors to some of the same research. To get them comfortable and secure in what they were doing, we provided the above stairs actors with books on etiquette and how to address people, while the below stairs cast were given charts about functions for every hour of the day for servants in every capacity."
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