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Robert Altman, one of Americas most distinctive filmmakers, journeys to England
for the first time to create a unique film mosaic with an outstanding ensemble
cast.
It is November, 1932. Gosford Park is the magnificent country estate to which
Sir William McCordle and his wife, Lady Sylvia, gather relations and friends
for a shooting party. They have invited an eclectic group including a countess,
a World War I hero, the British matinee idol Ivor Novello and an American film
producer who makes Charlie Chan movies. As the guests assemble in the gilded
drawing rooms above, their personal maids and valets swell the ranks of the
house servants in the teeming kitchens and corridors below-stairs.
But all is not as it seems: neither amongst the bejewelled guests lunching and
dining at their considerable leisure, nor in the attic bedrooms and stark work
stations where the servants labor for the comfort of their employers. Part
comedy of manners and part mystery, the film is finally a moving portrait of
events that bridge generations, class, sex, tragic personal history and
culminate in a murder. (Or is it two murders?)
Ultimately revealing the intricate relations of the above and below-stairs
worlds with great clarity, Gosford Park illuminates a society and way of life
quickly coming to an end.
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