~Monday~ It was “movie night” at Jen’s tonight, as we’re “between” seasons of both Downton Abbey and Glee.
While we were approaching the end of Downton Abbey, we decided to watch…
…during our break, since it was written by the same writer of Downton, Julian Fellowes.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie, although I was surprised to read that it was nominated for a total of 61 awards (some British, some American), 7 of them being Academy Awards, including for Best Picture and Best Director. To me at least, it wasn’t that good.
One of my complaints was that it was a little hard to understand the dialogue, and I don’t mean because of their British accents. This line in the Wikipedia entry about the film is interesting to that end: “…[Robert] Mack [wrote] that ‘the audio transfer is about as good as it can get on a movie of this style’.”
I found these tidbits interesting from the Trivia section of the IMDB entry for this movie:
- There is always a servant present in each scene.
- None of the actors who played servants wore any make-up. This makes me wonder if anyone estimated the dollar savings in the production of this movie due to this fact. I’m sure it at least made the credits shorter.
- The name Gosford Park is never once said in the film.
- The wallpaper in Constance Trentham’s bedroom is hand-painted, imported from France. Even for this very small set, it would have cost the filmmakers $18,000; however, the manufacturer donated it to the production. Even so, the owners of the house demanded that the walls were re-papered to their liking (to match their bedding) after the production was over.
- When Jeremy Northam‘s character plays the piano, it is either him playing, or his brother, who is a classically trained pianist.
- The film is notable for featuring two knights (Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi) and two dames (Maggie Smith and Eileen Atkins). Two other members of the cast (Alan Bates and Helen Mirren) were later elevated to that status.