Gosford Park


"Gosford Park" is a recent installment of the tradition of murder mysteries in the legacy of "Murder on the Orient Express," "Sherlock Holmes," Agatha Christie and the like. It is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in contemporary culture.

The exercise of searching out religious significance in "Gosford Park" finds particular poignancy in the fact that there is very little overt reference to religion at all in the course of the film. It certainly does not seem at all like "Gospel Park" ( though "Godforsaken" Park would perhaps fit...). There is of course Lady Constance's reference to her "Christian" name, and a quick gibe about "Presbyterian" modesty which would also have been an oblique reference to the "Scottish" background of Mary (the main character in a film ostensibly devoid of main characters or perhaps so filled with main characters as to overshadow any particular character's claim to that role) as opposed to the predominant "Anglican" affiliations of most of the household. Indeed, religion would seem to be of nominal interest in the film. Yet, I would argue that films can not help themselves from being religious. So where does one find "religious" significance? The first question might be: where does one find significance at all?

Any interpretive quest to find meaning in anything must by necessity involve normative considerations. Normative considerations as opposed to strictly descriptive observations always involve one in issues of purpose, meaning, identity, ethics, aesthetics, values, senses of virtues or vices, basic orientations, and ultimately lead to examinations of the base paradigms which one holds to be self-evident. There are really only two disciplines to sort out normative considerations: theology and philosophy. Both these disciplines are geared to search out the big "Whys" of existence that orbit around such grand categories as "the good", "the beautiful", "the true", "the just", "the noble" and the "things to be valued among all other things". In the realm of the normative we are dealing with hierarchies of meaning and the deep questions of one's place in the universe and the purpose of life. Normative questions and issues exist and operate in people's lives whether they go to church, pray, or believe in God or not, and in fact, whether they are even aware of them or not. Indeed, most people participate in normative patterns quite unconsciously and rarely cognizant of the origins of their own behaviors and senses of propriety. They imbibe them with their mother's milk and simply grow up into them. Take rigid class structures for example.

Many traditional cultures have very fixed ideas about class. Here ideas about nobility of birth, aristocracy, position, and especially knowing one's place are paramount. Such is the stuff of which "the divine right of Kings" is made. Manners, protocol, demeanor, decorum, propriety and appropriate behaviors, "the politics of politeness" are determined by strict rules and codes of conduct. ("Know your place", "recognize your limits," "do your duty".) A perfect symbol of this in "Gosford Park" is the scene in setting the table in which the one servant uses a measuring device to establish the exact elbow-room distance between the dining gentry. Among other things the scene exhibits a sense of the "sacred space" entitled to the nobility as opposed to the lack of space and individual autonomy relegated to the servants. Of course the use of sacred objects made from shiny-luminous (and shine-able) precious metals and the inviolable sacrality of the dining ritual are also at stake here. "The order of things" is so aptly reflected in the servant's realm below by the hierarchy of seating arrangements as the servants are subsumed into the identity of their masters and mistresses: "Since when does a Duchess outrank a Baroness?" One of the most prevailing codes in such a culture orbits around Honor/Shame. The dishonor of speaking out of place or of having an ignoble birth can generate shame to the point of ostracism or at least temporary sanction.

It would be impossible to view such a rigid class system with all its economic, social, and religious reinforcements without recourse to Marxist lenses. The weight of dead men on living brains is but one of the burdens Marx (like his mentor and predessesor, Jesus) sought to lift from humanity. His soteriology was to liberate the workers from the relentless routinizations of mentality into menial tasks and the hum-drum pounding of authentic being into cogs-in-the-wheel objects of exploitation and abstractions . I will not pound home the point here, but let it suffice to say that on one level Marx's goal in creating the classless society was to bring a secularized vision of the Kingdom of God to the oppressed masses. By portraying the dichotomy of the two classes so clearly in juxtaposition, "Gosford Park" supplies the Marxist lenses with bifocals.

Ultimately, like all good mysteries, "Gosford Park" is about bringing that which is obscured to light and retrieving the truth from all the convolutions and mired motives that threaten to eclipse it. It is one of the subtle twists of the movie that in stark contrast to the self-absorbed Inspector the real instrument of truth proves to be the least assuming of all the characters. As Jesus said, "the one that is greatest among you will be the servant of all." And what of justice? Without answering the question of whether justice is ever really served or not, "Gosford Park" in the end must at least raise the question for its audiences of what justice really is, or at least, whose servant.

In a nutshell, "Gosford Park" is not about religion, it simply exudes religious categories as its ground of being. That is certainly the case if someone has any inclination to find meaning in its intricately and meticulously laid out webs of entanglement.
rlc