the Country Park vs Gosford Park

For the last several days I've devoured Gosford Park, the movie by Robert Altman. Through Google Groups I know the movie was mostly well received here in Feb 2002 with some notable dissenters. :-) I came across it when a group of friends in Berlin, some of them native speakers, were showing it and I was surprised and a bit frustrated at how little I could understand. Not because of vocabulary but for the very difficult (but probably realistic) sound conditions - some of the lines are whispered or very unclearly spoken and sometimes there is a lot of background noise. (And then there's Kelly MacDonald with her Scottish Accent.) Well, I was fascinated and decided this was a case for "deep studying", much as I had previously done it with radio programmes, and of course the one programme which seemed to get me closest to "realistic" dialogue had always been TA. So I went back home to Bielefeld with a disc and after repeated viewing (and using several web sources for extra input) I believe I have now got most of the dialogue (of which I'm a bit proud, it really is a different level from radio of any kind and I have had little exposure to English movies or TV drama). It's always a great experience when you can understand something you previously couldn't (because you understand more of the context) but some things I would still not know but for the coincidence that they are quoted on the IMDB page for the movie.

This only worked for me because I was fascinated by the movie, and I'd rate it very highly. (Well, I'm an impressionable kind of guy :->) I also couldn't help thinking about our favourite radio soap because, as others have remarked, Gosford Park pretends to be a bit "fly on the wall" too, and of course some of the content is fairly close. For example I had never seen moving pictures of a pheasant shoot before and suddenly here I have images to remember next time Brian and Matt and their rich friends have their fit of blood lust. I wondered if the beaters in today's Country Park would roughly look the same as the ones pictured in Gosford Park in 1932?

I'm actually surprised noone seems to have mentioned the connections before but you are invited to list similarities in characters or events between TA and GP if you find that entertaining. :-)

Sebastian
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