"Gosford Manor" has been watched more than 10 times, but every time you watch it, you can find many secrets.
The reason does not lie in the obscure plot, the story of the movie is actually very simple, it is about an Agatha-style murder.
"Gosford Manor" is worth savoring because of its huge side story. Everyone in the play has his own "little secret", from the countess "upstairs" to the dishwasher "downstairs", there are dozens of roles, large and small, and you can pick up a person, and you can scream. Speaking of a lot.
In other words, everyone in the movie has blood, flesh, and story. You can't help but grasp every second of the lens to understand everyone.
However, if you watch a movie with such an idea, you will definitely collapse! Especially when there are more than two characters in a shot, your eyes will indicate that they are not enough!
Moreover, when the film only reaches the 6th minute, you will encounter a face-blind disaster similar to the "Seven Aunts and Eight Aunts" introduced by family members.
The "upstairs" nobles greeted them like acquaintances. Before you could figure out the relationship between them, the camera switched to the servant work area "downstairs".
It makes you even more embarrassed here, and dozens of people come towards you. Don't say whether you can distinguish clearly which are the aborigines of Gosford Manor and which are the servants brought by the guests. They just call their real name for a while, and then call their master's last name according to the rules of "downstairs", which is enough to make you big head.
In order to prevent the head from becoming a sticky ball, let's get to know these people "upstairs, downstairs" before talking about the movie!
Here we divide them into four parts: nobles upstairs, servants downstairs, guest servants, and outsiders.
[Nobles upstairs]
William McCordle (owner of Gosford Manor)
Sylvia McCordle (William's wife)
Isobel McCordle (daughter of William and Sylvia)
Constance Trentham (Sylvia's aunt)
Raymond Stockbridge (Sylvia's brother-in-law, a hero of World War I, can't hear with one ear.)
Louisa Stockbridge (Raymond's wife, Sylvia's sister)
Anthony Meredith and Lavinia Meredith (Sylvia’s youngest sister)
Freddie Nesbitt (married Mabel for money)
Mabel Nesbitt (Freddie's wife)
Ivor Novello (movie star, William's cousin)
Morris Weissman (film producer, friend of Ivor, pictured below)
Rupert Standish (son of a bankrupt marquis)
Jeremy Blond (friend of Rupert)
[Servant downstairs]
Jennings (Butler of Gosford Manor)
Mrs Wilson (the housekeeper of Gosford Manor)
Mrs Croft (the chef of Gosford Manor, the left side of the picture below)
Probert (William's personal servant)
Elsie (foreman maid)
George (first servant, left) and Arthur (second servant, right)
Lewis (Sylvia's personal maid)
Dorothy (store room maid, right side of the picture below)
Bertha (kitchen maid, left in the picture below)
Other unimportant handymen, laundry workers, etc. will not be introduced one by one.
[Guest's Servant]
Mary MacEachran (Constance's personal maid, on the right side of the picture below)
Robert Parks (Raymond's personal servant)
Renee (Louisa's personal maid, the one with glasses in the picture below)
Barnes (Anthony's personal servant), Sarah (Lavinia's personal servant)
Henry Denton (Morris's personal servant)
【outsider】
Inspector Thompson (a police detective, very stupid, the one on the left in the picture below)
Constable Dexter (Thompson's deputy, smarter than his own chief)
Seeing this, is your head about to explode?
To get back to the subject, even if you remove the disturbing roles above, "Gosford Manor" still has a lot of topics worth discussing, such as the British etiquette and culture, the style of clothing in the 1930s, the architectural design and beauty of the castle, and so on.
However, today we only talk about gossip!
In November 1932, Sir William and Lady Silvia invited their relatives and friends to the manor to hunt. The countess, the heroes of World War I, movie stars, etc. came by appointment, including their servants, of course.
On the surface, this is an intimate gathering between family members, but this is not the case. Some of them came to private meetings, some came to "investigate", and more came to ask for money... When the tragedy happened, the nobles in the movie didn't seem to care who the murderer was, and even came to solve the case. The agent also interrogated the people in the manor at will.
The only benefit of William being killed is that he contributed more gossip.
To a certain extent, the movie is extended from the perspective of Constance's close maid, Mary. After all, she used various clues to discover the two murderers who killed William, so let's start with her.
Mary is a novice maid, and she is inexperienced in many details.
She didn't know that when she followed the host to another manor as a guest, according to the custom of "downstairs", she had to use the host's surname as the title.
She also didn't know that on the first day as a guest, she needed to put the jewelry used by the owner in a box separately in advance, so as to avoid trouble. (Therefore, it was ridiculed by Elsie and George.)
Mary told people that she was hired because the owner planned to train her, but Elsie explained the reason: to save money.
This also proves from the side that Mary's hostess Constance is not as glamorous as she imagined, and the plot can also be seen later. In order to maintain her identity, she needs to rely on William's relief.
Although Mary is a novice, in the "downstairs" entertainment industry who is good at carrying gossip, even if she is stupid, she can break many little secrets.
She moved closer to the same star-chaser Elsie and learned that Sylvia looked down on her husband, William, because William got his position today and belongs to the "New Money" class. And those "Old Money" who rely on inheriting the family inheritance look down on such people, although Sylvia's mother's family has nothing but money.
Then Mary learned that Mrs Wilson, the housekeeper, and Mrs Croft, the head chef, had conflicts, because the two people often made small talks over the ownership of the storeroom maid, Dorothy.
In the laundry room downstairs, Mary heard more gossip!
Mabel was ridiculed by everyone because she didn't have her own personal maid. Sarah even said that her mistress, Lavinia, once said that a woman who went out without a close-fitting maid simply lost her self-esteem.
For the sake of money, Lord Carton treated his two daughters Sylvia and Louisa as commodities, and asked William to pick one to marry. From her hostess Constance, she even learned a secret that made her jaw drop. It turned out that she decided which one to marry by drawing lots.
When chatting with Elsie in the evening, Mary learned that Freddie married Mabel because he had taken a fancy to Mabel's father's wealth. Now that the money was almost spent, Freddie revealed his true colors and began to humiliate his wife.
Less than half a day after arriving at the manor, Mary discovered how secret this name was, and it was not over yet. While doing the laundry at night, she bumped into Bertha, the kitchen maid, having an affair with a man.
She thought it was William, but in the following plot, it could be seen that it was Jeremy. In fact, Mary had already witnessed the flirting between these two people before.
Early the next morning, there was another wave of gossip.
Mary told Elsie that she ran into William having an affair with a female chef last night, and Elsie directly refuted it.
At this time, a discerning person should be able to guess that the reason Elsie is so sure is that she was affair with William last night! The previous "corridor touching the chest", "table teaser", and the following "back-talking husband" can all confirm this conjecture.
Of course, it was Elsie's "back-talking guard" move that made William furious. So that after the dinner, he stayed in the study and did not come out, which also gave the killer a chance.
———Killer dividing line————
At first, everyone thought William was stabbed to death with a dagger, but after inspection, it was discovered that he had been poisoned to death before being stabbed.
In other words, there are two people in the movie who want to kill William. Why are two people? Because a killer would not be stupid enough to poison him and then risk his return to the crime scene and stabb him again.
The topic goes back to our witty Mary.
She was one of the few people who had doubts about the murder weapon. She felt that a knife from the silverware room was unreasonable, but she could not contribute any clues.
The knife disappeared on the first day they moved in, and there was nothing stolen in the manor, everything shows that this must be an internal crime, and a vendetta.
On the night when William was killed, when Mary talked to Robert about the "back-to-back guard" incident, Robert expressed his disgust for William. But based on this alone, Mary had locked out that if the murderer was Robert, the bug was too big.
However, director Robert Altman had no intention of filming a murder. His instructions to screenwriter Julian Fellows (also the screenwriter of "Downton Abbey") were: "set in a country house in the '30s and to have a murder in there somewhere, but for it to really be an examination of class."
"Gosford Manor" is a murder movie on the surface, but the core of the story is actually about the "upstairs, downstairs" class society.
Returning to the murderer of the movie, under Mary's persecution, Robert admitted from the side that he stabbed William, but he also said that he did not poison him.
So who poisoned it? Let our Mary incarnate as Miss Marple and find the clues for you!
Mary accidentally heard Sylvia tell her mistress that Mrs Wilson had changed her name. Her original last name was Parks or Parker, or Parkinson.
Upon hearing this, Mary suddenly realized that after she found Mrs Wilson, she found more gossip.
It turns out that Mrs Wilson worked in the William factory, and after being assaulted by William, he gave birth to a child, and this child was Robert. Mrs Wilson always thought that his child was sent to a foster family, but he never thought it was sent to the orphanage by William.
In fact, at the beginning of the movie, when Robert said his surname, Mrs Wilson was already suspicious, and Mrs Wilson's sister Mrs Croft was also suspected.
That's right, the two contradictory people are actually sisters, and Mrs Croft was violated by William and gave birth to a child. Because she didn't want to send her child away, she was fired by William. Mrs Croft cared for and raised the children, but he died in the end.
Mary, who had a broken view, asked Mrs Wilson: How did you know that Robert would hurt his father?
Mrs Wilson's answer is a classic: a good servant needs the talent to plan ahead. I am a good servant, better than anyone else, the best. I am a perfect servant. I know themselves better than them.
In fact, all that has been said above is just to sort out the plot from Mary's perspective.
There is no history of William's quarrel with Sylvia, nor the history of his affair with Louisa and Elsie, let alone the "cutting and chaotic" abortions that he had with Mrs Wilson and Mrs Croft, and many other female workers in the factory. History of abandoned infants.
Sylvia is not idle either. This side is flirting with her brother-in-law, and the other side is affair with the guest's servant. They are both true.
Even Isobel, who is not very handsome, has two suitors, one is married and the other only values her money.
However, Jeremy should be the poorest person, right? Two times I cheated on Bertha, I was bumped into the head, one was Mary, and the other was George.
No matter how much I have to say, it is better to go and watch this movie in person. It is fun to play with the relationship between the characters, and everyone who has seen it knows it.
In an interview, the director once said that he specially kept a lot of "FxxK" in the movie so that "Gosford Manor" could be rated as R-rated. He said that he did this because he felt that children under the age of 14 could not read the movie at all, and there was no need to sit in the cinema and suffer such torture.
In fact, this is the case! How can children understand the chaos of your circle!
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