Gosford Park’s Necropsy of The Citizen McCordle

Written by Carson Zhang

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 patheticfallacy, the weather prior to his demise is gray and rainy; the very next day, the sky finally opens on the country estate with sunny ebullience. Observing the narrative structure of the screenplay, however, in which every conflict precedes the murder and is resolved afterwards, the contrast between William’s death and the cheery weather can hardly be described as ironic. The first half of Gosford Park introduces most of the story’s plotlines, which all notably involve conflict with William: Anthony needs him to retain his army investment, his affairs with Elsie and Louisa cause tension with Sylvia, Freddie and Rupert manipulate his neglected daughter Isobel for his money—the myriad grievances Fellowes compiles against William are overwhelming, but piercing through each case’s individual nuances is a keen sense of how widely despised he is. That these conflicts simmer under the party’s polite surface is not simply a matter of courtesy, as William refuses to help anyone with his privilege. Despite having incredible means, William only uses them to serve his juvenile impulses; consequently, his ambivalence towards his dependents prevents them from gaining their own autonomy. His apathy towards Anthony’s financial plight, for instance, nearly costs the lieutenant his independence and the estate a valuable investment. Exploiting their dependence on him, William guarantees subservience and secrecy in all his indiscretions. Only in his absence can the characters finally open up to one another, and while he is not directly responsible for every suppressed secret—Dorothy’s love for Jennings being an obvious example—Fellowes’ use of pathetic fallacy illustrates how pervasive William’s silencing influence is around the entire household: like a poisonous smog, it envelops the estate.

An Eye For An Eye, For An Eye…

Before his death empowers his victims, however, William abuses his power to get away with rampant sexual misconduct. Mrs. Croft’s explanation to the other servants that he used to rape his factory workers, forcing the pregnant ones to give up either their job or their child, reveals the extent of his abuse. Still, she omits Mrs. Wilson and her own rapes and illegitimate children by William because her silence protects her from public shame and allows her to keep her job. By preying on poor women with few job prospects, William leverages their need for employment to prevent his victims from speaking out. Even in his consensual affairs with Louisa and Elsie, his privilege insulates him: Louisa would face much more scrutiny as a woman for infidelity than he would, and public knowledge of the affair between Elsie and William would—and does— cause her to lose her job. William’s patterns of abuse spread across the estate like a pestilence as Freddie and Sylvia mirror his behaviors. Moreover, Fellowes’ introduction of guests from Hollywood, a parallel setting in which people in power exploit their positions for sexual favors, further clarifies the systemic structure of abuse that William creates at Gosford Park. Though it is not explicitly stated, a terse exchange between actor Henry Denton and film director Morris Weissman is heavily suggestive of a sexual relationship between the two; moreover, the actor’s disingenuous excuse to avoid sleeping with the director suggests that their relationship is—like William’s in his factories—transactional rather than romantic. Inboth instances, the toxic iniquity of the rich and powerful spreads until every person has become a frightened bystander oradopted the system’s abominable behaviors.

The Perfect Servant

Due to the oppressive nature of William’s leadership at Gosford Park, his underprivileged victims are dehumanized until their own identities are consumed by their masters. The relationship between Sylvia and Lewis is a prominent early example of how Fellowes demonstrates the codependence between servant and master; the latter’s servitude to Sylvia leaves her no time to live her own life, for which she compensates by living vicariously through her lady. The servants’ lack of identity outside of the upstairs drama is built into the estate, which identifies a guest’s servant with the guest’s name rather than their own; fundamentally, a servant is nothing more than a master’s extra ligament in the British class system. At the film’s climactic conclusion, Gosford Park’s multiple revelations magnify the toxicity of the servant-master codependence to an abject degree by finally divulging the buried traumas of Mrs. Croft, Mrs. Wilson, and Robert at the hands of William. They each trudge forward: Mrs. Croft with anger and bitterness, Mrs. Wilson with indescribable heartbreak, and Robert with the prospect of revenge—in a dark twist, however, it is their utterly crushed spirits that make them great at servanthood. As Mrs. Wilson notes herself, the absence of personal character, substituted with mechanical devotion to those upstairs, is an essential aspect of the British class system’s perfect servant. Their overlords, on the other hand, are free to do as they please, a liberty which allows William’s vile impulses to metastasize without constraint or reproach.

Tomorrow

The quintessential example of the British class system’s failings, William is a cancerous addition to his own household, taking advantage of his position to force people into deference—whether he is throwing away his own children or forcing himself on his factory workers, the enormous privilege his wealth provides him ensures that he will not legally be held accountable for his own actions. His cruelty proves to be contagious and smothering, cultivating a threatening culture of silence among its victims. However, his assassination introduces optimism to the estate and evinces the narrowing distance between servant and master. The film’s ending deliberately ties the murder of the all-powerful William to the promise of a better Britain; the elimination of the family’s moral abscess allows everyone the opportunity to reclaim their own lives outside of his oppressive influence. The thick fog of secrecy and deception is brilliantly expunged with his murder, bringing the characters and their conflicts to catharses that cumulatively suggest a brighter, more equal future. With the death of its old patriarch, Gosford Park ushers in a new day.

Works Cited

Gosford Park. Directed by Robert Altman. USA Films, 2001. Film.