Development and writing In 1999,
Bob Balaban asked
Robert Altman if there were something they could develop together, and Altman suggested a whodunit. Altman wanted to create an
Agatha Christielike country house murder mystery that explored that way of life; he called the film a "classic situation: all suspects under one roof". Altman was also inspired by the 1930s films
The Rules of the Game and
Charlie Chan in London. Fellowes was given a brief outline of the film: it was to be "set in a country house in the '30s and to have a murder in there somewhere, but for it to really be an examination of class." and Violet Liddle for the parlour maids.
Casting In
Gosford Park, as in many of his other films, Altman had a list of actors he intended to appear in the film before it was cast formally. The film's casting director was
Mary Selway, whom producer David Levy described as knowing many British actors. Very few actors who were offered parts did not end up in the film.
Jude Law dropped out of the production just before the shoot began, and he was replaced by
Ryan Phillippe.
Kenneth Branagh and
Robert Bathurst were both tied down by scheduling conflicts.
Alan Rickman,
Joely Richardson and
Judi Dench were also considered for roles in the film. The cast is notable for featuring two
knights (Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi) and two
dames (Eileen Atkins and Maggie Smith). Alan Bates and Stephen Fry would later be knighted and Helen Mirren and Kristin Scott Thomas made dames.
Filming and editing in
Hertfordshire, where the outdoor and ground floor scenes for
Gosford Park were shot Filming was conducted at
Wrotham Park, a country house to the north of London, for the exteriors, staircase, dining room and drawing room, and
Syon House in west London for the upstairs bedrooms. The opening sequence outside Lady Trentham's home was shot at
Hall Barn, near
Beaconsfield,
Buckinghamshire, whose grounds were also used as the scene for lunch after the shoot.
Sound stages were built to film the scenes of the manor's downstairs area.
Shepperton Studios was used for off-location filming. Filming began on 19 March 2001. During production,
Stephen Frears acted as a standby director, ready to replace Altman in case he was incapacitated, so that the film would receive insurance. The film was shot with two cameras, both moving perpetually in opposite directions. The cameras pointed toward no specific area, intended to cause the audience to move their eyes throughout the scene. Altman notes that most of the film's cast had experience in theatre and in film, meaning they had acted in situations where the view of the audience is not on one specific actor, and each audience member sees a slightly different image of the players on stage.
Andrew Dunn, the film's
cinematographer, appreciated the co-operative nature of
Gosford Parks filming process. He shot the film on
Kodak Vision Expression 500T
film stock generally with two
Panavision cameras, using lighting ranging from relatively dim candles to bright
hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide lamps.
Tim Squyres, the
editor, described the editing process on
Gosford Park as an unusual one, as the dual cameras used were generally located in the same areas when filming, instead of the more standard method of setting up a scene directly.
Soundtrack Patrick Doyle composed the film's score. Doyle said that it can take him up to six months to create a film score, but Altman asked him to write and compose the music for
Gosford Park in less than five weeks. The soundtrack also features six original songs by composer and playwright
Ivor Novello. Jeremy Northam, who plays Novello, sings five of the songs and his brother, Christopher, accompanies him on the piano. Christopher also performs one Novello song as a piano solo. ==Release==