Finding Gosford Park
Robert Altman's forty-year career demonstrates an extraordinary creative range. His carefully selected ensemble casts, his collaborative working process, and his signature use of multiple story lines have resulted in numerous classic films. Now, this American original has "crossed the pond" to make Gosford Park.
Producer Bob Balaban remembers, "About two years ago, I had the very simple germ of an film idea one that I thought Robert Altman would be a wonderful director for. He and I started talking about making a seemingly traditional 1930s murder mystery, set in an English country house over several days, that was told entirely from the point of view of the servants."
Robert Altman adds, "I think I said, 'I've never done a murder mystery before, although I've done almost every kind of genre.' I love to take genres and turn them over a little bit, look at them differently. So we started talking and looked at all sorts of material, including Agatha Christie works, and none of it was quite right. But it grew from there: I didn't really want to do a 'whodunit' but rather a 'that it was done.' We decided to deal with the social issues within the period. At first we set it in 1934 or 1935, but then decided that we didn't want the rise of Hitler to color everything, so we set it just before that, in 1932. I also like that period because I was alive and I have a frame of reference for it, rather than just reading someone else's reports of it."
Screenwriter Julian Fellowes was already working on another script with Balaban. When Balaban introduced him to Altman and brought him into Gosford Park discussions, Fellowes found himself drawn to the idea's potential, the collaboration, and the project's place in Altman's oeuvre: "I think that what interests Bob [Altman] for movie projects are narratives wherein people arbitrarily have to share a geographical position, and not by emotional choice: the gathering of a family wedding, for example [as in A Wedding], or the variety of individuals employed by a Hollywood studio [as in The Player]. They are brought together, not necessarily because they want to be together, and therefore they almost always have entirely different agendas.
"It occurred to Bob that an English house party in the 1930s would lend itself to this. To him, the servant/employer situation affords a rich setting of people with completely different lives and with different aims all under one roof.
The film would be 'servant-led' and, in deference to Agatha Christie and the whole country-house-mystery genre, he decided there should be a murder which would act as a device to stop any of the parties from leaving the house.
I had to come up with the characters and the stories to flesh this idea out. I was familiar with the way these houses were run at that time, and Bob was determined that it be based on absolute truth i.e., he wanted the details of the varied activities carried out in a house like Gosford Park, above and below stairs, to be correct."
To preserve the project's foundation in truth, it was also decided early on that Gosford Park would be filmed in the U.K., and almost entirely with U.K. actors. When the project was announced in the late summer of 2000, it may have seemed strange to some that a quintessentially American director would be exploring such quintessentially English subject matter. Would the filmmaker who had so richly captured Nashville's burgeoning country music scene and The Player's closed-ranks insularity of the film industry be the right man to suss out the classes and class differences of Gosford Park? As Alan Bates (cast as Gosford Park butler Jennings) explains, "It doesn't strike me as odd because I think Robert is a great director of nuance, behavior, atmosphere, and mood these qualities are potent in all of his films. After all, this film is about people, and is shot under his wonderful, careful, watching eye. I always feel that he understands life watching everyone all the time, and being slightly amused. It's a wonderful quality."
Active pre-production began in late 2000, with the priority being to assemble an impressive ensemble cast. While that is the norm on many a Robert Altman film, this time the pool of actors was on the other side of the Atlantic.
Producer David Levy, a longtime Altman associate, praises casting director Mary Selway for her contributions: "She has incredible taste and knows everybody in London. Never before had I been in a situation where every actor who came through the door was interesting, vital, and charismatic."
Levy adds, "For the sort of actor who tends to count their speeches, this was not their project, nor Bob their director. On the other hand, if they were willing to take a little leap of faith and realize that, as an actor, they could have a lot to say as to where their character goes and they would enter into a collaborative relationship with Bob then they were going to be served very, very well."
As is so often the case with an Altman ensemble, the cast grew to embrace a wealth of talent ranging from acting icons to fresh faces. There is nothing like a Dame, and Gosford Park has two: Maggie Smith and Eileen Atkins. (The latter actress has long had an affinity for the above and below stairs contrasts, as she had co-created [with actress Jean Marsh] the classic U.K. television drama series Upstairs Downstairs some three decades earlier.) Joining the Dames are two Sirs: Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi. Among the relative screen newcomers recruited were Claudie Blakley and Camilla Rutherford.
Altman was certainly delighted with the actors who joined the project: "I think it is because of the ties to the stage that acting in the U.K. is so strong, and I think that the actors themselves generally understand and respond to ensemble work." In fact, for the actors in an Altman movie, the ensemble work is rewarding and can be less stressful. Richard E. Grant, who had worked twice with Altman before signing on as Gosford Park first footman George, explains: "It is a study of behavior and manners, and individual stories are in some way hostage to the overview, which makes it very relaxing for everybody, because you know that nobody is carrying the can it is as democratic and collaborative a process as any that I've encountered."
Clive Owen (who plays visiting valet Robert Parks) adds, "Gosford Park is classic Robert Altman: it's an ensemble piece; it interweaves; everybody has their own agenda; everybody has their own through line. It's very rich and full. Sometimes it did feel like doing theater, because everybody comes in every day and you end up figuring in scenes that you're not even scripted in being tracked through the scene. Robert works in a very fluid manner, and it's really about where he places his perspective, so every day you come in and take part in genuine ensemble work."
As he has with previous ensembles, Altman mapped out the manner in which he believes the actors, and himself, could work together which can mean working without a map: "The characters in Gosford Park had very few mandates. There are certain things that happen in the plot, and most actors will read the script and come prepared, but I don't say, 'This is the way to do it.' They have the whole sphere of their character in their head, and I don't want to cut it down to a little slice of pie. There are plenty of people [on a project] that keep track and see that we get through plot points, but if I'm just shooting to get that stuff in, then I'm looking for the wrong thing. What I really want to see from an actor is something I've never seen before, so, I can't tell them what it is.
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