I’ve become a great fan of the British television series Downton Abbey. It airs on PBS here in the United States, typically during the winter months, and has recently concluded its third season. It is a period piece set during the first few decades of the twentieth century, and it follows the story of the aristocratic Crawley family, including the entire household staff. I am attracted to these period pieces because they remind me of the 19th century historical novels that I found so enticing, depicting as much the drama of individual stories as they intersect (and here, we have a constant interplay between the aristocratic characters and their servant staff) as they do the times and their society. I remember the criticism directed at works of this nature that failed to capture the full picture, and the sociologist Renato Rosaldo had referred to a work such as “The English Patient” (a movie set roughly during this same period) as works that appealed to an “imperialist nostalgia”. Perhaps there might be an element of this, but I would like to think that, as a Mexican-American, one who grew up in working-class circumstances and considers his politics progressive, I harbor no such nostalgia. There are, however, repeated references to Britain’s colonial administration, and to the ways in which industrial development has transformed the society. These changes help open up new dramatic possibilities that are exploited in this series.
Nonetheless, this series is what I may term a guilty
pleasure. I don’t always feel comfortable admitting (I almost wrote
“confessing”) my enjoyment for this series, even if, at times, I do feel a
measure of irritation for the sense of entitlement and the paternalism of many
of the aristocratic characters. Their diction is clipped precisely, and they
are always conscious of maintaining appearances, even if they are guilty of
many of the same foibles as their servant classes. The household, nonetheless,
is impressively stately, and the luxuriousness of the estate as well as the
sense of order are, at once, constricting as well as comforting. The head of the
household, Robert, Earl of Grantham, is a fuzzy sort of patriarch, one who is
earnest but without a hard, puritanical edge.
And of course, the dowager Countess of Grantham, played by Maggie Smith,
is a pleasure to watch, with a tart edge that is at once infuriating but also
comical and, surprisingly, warm-hearted.
The appeal of this series seems to lie not only in the evocation of a
lost age, one that would be dramatically transformed as Britain entered into
its post-colonial senescence, but also, in the interplay between the two halves
of this household.
(Servants, Downton Abbey)
There are the lords of the estate, who socialize endlessly
and who seem infinitely removed from the real-world concerns of earning a
living (as the dowager Countess huffily reveals as she questions this bourgeois
idea of a “weekend”, leisure being part of a work-day routine that is foreign
to those of her class) and of the servant classes who labor under them. This
class, comprised of many memorable characters, lives in what may be taken to be
a netherworld, a place of shadows. They never appear in the social registers of
the newspapers, and they are confined to meager lives of economic dependence,
one step above laborers and factory workers but nonetheless a dependent class. The servants have their own hierarchy, one
that mimics in ironic fashion the one that is evident above, and there is also
a strict sense of propriety and limits that keeps people within their spaces.
They occupy the lower depths of the house, in spartan surroundings, and in a
type of gloom that contrasts strongly with the tinkle and sparkle of
chandeliers and sparkling surfaces above.
And yet, for all that, there is a vitality that contrasts with the
surface veneer of calmness and glacial etiquette above.
There are many storylines in this series that confirms
itself along the lines of a soap opera. As someone who watched many telenovelas
(as soap operas are known in the Spanish-speaking world) with my parents as a
child, I recognize these structural features. It is no surprise: there is an
emphasis on melodramatic storylines, those predicated on sudden turns of
fortune and discovery, on the arrival of mysterious characters, on salacious
plotlines that emphasize affairs, abortions, and forbidden love, on households
that harbor secrets and that are riven by jealousy and ambition, on pathetic
scenes that emphasize suffering (witness the scene in which Lady Sybil dies
after giving birth, in heartrending fashion, as her family stands around
helpless) as well as celebration, and on the exaggerated roles assigned to
various characters that plainly may be divided between those of villains (note
the O’Brian character, played chillingly by Siobhan Finneran) and the heroic
(Mathew Crawley, the heir apparent who is tragically killed at the end of the
third season). There could hardly be less of a parallel with a Mexican telenova
such as “Los ricos también lloran” (1979), which details the suffering of a poor young woman
who joins what could be the anologue of the Crawley household, one belonging to the
Mexican upper classes.
(Los ricos también lloran)
But all this serves as a preface to my review of the movie
“Gosford Park” which inspired the series Downton Abbey. It is a murder mystery,
directed by Robert Altman and released in 2001. It could hardly have been a
more tumultuous year, for it also reflects a period of tumultuous change. It is
set in a period slightly after the television series, and there is a sense of
foreboding since we can’t help but reflect on the events that were to follow in
Europe. Similarly, 2001 provided a shock to the Western world and,
specifically, to the imperial ambitious of the United States, as it weathered
the terrorist attacks of 911. It opened up much soul-searching in this country,
and it coincided with the perception of diminished circumstances, of hidden
threats that were being revealed, and of a need to counter the triumphalism
that accompanied the era of globalism and the end of the Cold War just a decade
earlier.
This movie is set in another aristocratic British household,
that of Sir William McCordle, during a weekend spend with many invited guests.
Not having seen the movie when it was first released in 2001, and only seeing
it after having watched three seasons of Downtown Abbey, the similarity is very
evident. Both the series and the movie were written by the same person, Julian
Fellowes, and it presents a household that is riven by conflicts and
dissension, all of which are fairly well disguised but that bubble to the
surface. The actual murder mystery seems like an appendage to the film, for
what ultimately seems more compelling to a viewer such as myself is to follow
not only the workings of this household, and the parallel society that is
created downstairs by the servant classes, but also, to see how ultimately
fragile this household really is.
(Sir William McCordle, Gosford Park)
There is enormous wealth, of course. In contrast to the
character of Robert, Earl of Grantham, who in Downton Abbey is manifestly
incapable of administering his household and who loses a fortune in the
progress of the series, only to be rescued by an unexpected fortune deeded to
his stepson, the aristocratic head in this household is a much more successful
businessman. He furthermore seems to be a gracious host, but the dramatic
nature of this movie dictates that there will be secrets, and we will slowly
see that this family, as well as the numerous coterie of friends and aspirants
to favor, are distinguished by their own set of conflicts.
There are comical elements in the film that stand out to me.
There is, of course, the awkwardness evident in the necessity of incorporating
the valets and lady’s maid, and the way in which they tangle with one another
while seeking to hide this from their lords and employers (the valets and maids
are, curiously, referred to by the names of their peer and employers), but also
in the interactions with the American film producer, Mr. Morris Weismann, whose
crassness is the source of much hilarity on the part of the viewers, if not
necessarily on the part of the upper-class characters in the film who are
slightly offended by it.
(Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey)
Once again, Maggie Smith gives a memorable performance
as the upholder of traditional values, one with a sharp tongue and a penchant
for castigating uncouth behavior (or pretention or the lack of it, as her
biting comments are directed to servants and lords alike). And the bit with
inspector Thomsen (played by Stephen Fry) is also hilarious, as it gives
evidence to a guileless and inept character who is the last person one would
imagine would be able to solve this mystery.
Everyone would seem to have a motive for murdering Sir
McCordle, who is found in his library with a knife sticking out of his chest.
There are many false herrings planted, and his death seems woefully unmourned
by anyone in the household. But it is a mystery nonetheless, and misdirection
(in the sense of misleading the viewers) is one of the hallmarks of a good
mystery. It will ultimately revolve
around the relationship between the lord and his staff, in particular, his
servants, in a bit of domestic drama that is at once sordid as well as pointed,
for in a very symbolic way, it demonstrates the exploitative nature of the
class system, and the evidence of predation on the part of a factory owner who,
as with feudal lords of old, is able and willing to satisfy his sexual whims on
his workers who are treated as little more than chattel.
The film was engaging, then, more for the evocation of a
time and place than for the mystery which is solved by the lady’s maid, Mary, a
Scottish servant played by Mary Macdonald who, in a way, is a paragon of diligence
and investigative acumen. It is only by moving between the two worlds, that
above and that below, that the mystery is piece together and solved, while the
inept Inspector Thomsen fails to even take into account the possibility of
grievances and motives harbored by the servant classes. The movie ends on a
hopeful note, not only evident in the fact that the fired head housemaid,
Elsie, seems off to a more promising start by accompanying the American Mr.
Weismann on what one can suppose will eventually be a trip to the United States
to join his movie production (another Charlie Chan mystery, in a
meta-theatrical reference that to my mind isn’t ever fully exploited unless we
consider that the maid Mary, as with Charlie Chan, is also an outsider who
solves mysteries), but also in the full knowledge that the class system that
had been in place for centuries in Great Britain will shortly come crashing
down, as will the industrial and imperial framework that made it possible.
And with that last sentence, I can’t help but ask myself,
could I possibly have concluded by establishing a parallel with the events of
the past decade?
Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013
Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013
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