Gosford Park’s Necropsy of The Citizen McCordle Written by Carson Zhang 1 Department of English, 2Computer science 3 Second-year undergraduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto Before Downton Abbey launched Julian Fellowes into the mainstream consciousness, he first garnered screenwriting acclaim for penning the murder mystery Gosford Park. The hit PBS series was originally intended to be a spin-off from the Robert Altman-directed film, evident in the skeleton of Downton as another 20th century British upstairs/downstairs dramas featuring Maggie Smith in a witheringly humorous role. However, the show’s brand of sentimental period drama, which became Fellowes’ trademark, is a far cry from the seething class censure of Gosford Park. Set in the pre-war 1930s and centered around a weekend shooting party at Sir William McCordle’s eponymous estate, the film uses the divide between servant and employer to depict the suffocating culture of silence that arises when powerful people abuse their authority. Where Downton boasts a vast range of beloved aristocratic characters, Gosford Park boasts a bushel of rotten apples: between hollow niceties, practically every one of the weekend residents is cruel and tormenting. The rest are tormented themselves, by those with even greater status. Of course, above all others in status and cruelty is Sir William himself, the towering patriarch of the family. Despite lacking the imposing severity that the archetype might suggest—more Charlie Brown than Charles Foster Kane—the tumultuous events leading up to and surrounding his death reveal the perniciousness of his influence. At best, his indifferences and ridiculous grievances breed countless conflicts; at worst, his violent caprices tear the lives of his defenseless dependents to shreds. As an effectively redundant leader of the household who wreaks havoc upon the estate with his whim, Sir William exemplifies Gosford Park’s sharpest condemnations against society’s hierarchical structures.
Blowing Smoke Quite literally, the presence of William casts a thick fog of secrecy over Gosford Park. In an amusing instance of pathetic fallacy, the weather prior to his demise is gray and rainy; the very next day, the sky finally opens on the country estate with Screenwriters’ Perspectives Vol. 3 No. 1 2022
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