The Nobility of Servitude

My close friend Laura, who is also a friend to many of you, started waiting tables at some point back in the day, right around the same time I started working as as a "landscaper," a glorified title that, in actuality, is only a fancy name for someone who mows other people's lawns. These two things, occurring in rough simultaneity when they did, gave me an awareness of the plight of those who work in the service industry. As a result of Laura's experience, I always try to tip generously and in cash. From the landscaping, I began to understand why the term "customer" often can be secret code for asshole. These sympathies, mentioned here in such an unrefined manner, are drawn wonderfully and in all their complexity in the well-done film Gosford Park.

In the film's chaotic beginning, while Robert Parks (Clive Owen) and Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald) arrive as servants carrying their employers' baggage into the enormous country home to which members of the nobility have been invited as part of a shooting party, the audience gets a wonderful insight into the world as it exists "belowstairs." The servants down there run around in a frenzy ironing and washing clothes, putting away and organizing guns, as well as preparing hors d'oeuvres and the evening meal. One gets the impression that without this army of manpower (if you'll excuse a word with such blatantly patriarchal roots), nothing on the estate would function. Their diligence and drudgery, of course, go largely unnoticed by the ungrateful sots who employ them and whine incessantly about how difficult their lives of leisure are.

I have seen the same thing play out in reality. For instance, I've seen people berate a hostess for the long wait when the poor hostess has absolutely no control over the crowded nature of the restaurant and can do nothing to speed the dining of those who arrived early enough to be seated or who have already completed the wait. I've seen angry customers fail to tip a waitress (who had an entire bar to wait on and was actually jogging from table to table) because the service was too slow. Who do such arrogant pricks think they are? If it weren't for those service employees they so easily frown upon, these "customers" actually would have to (shudder) cook for themselves instead of enjoying a night out. When I see these kinds of things, I'm always much more fascinated with those in service; I wonder how they deal with such things and I watch how (and how effectively) they are able to difuse the situation. In Gosford Park, Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren) and Mrs. Croft (Eileen Atkins) are nothing short of heroic in their dealings with the problems that come up. For instance, when Mr. Weissman is revealed to be a vegetarian, they arrange an entirely special meal for him without losing a step in the preparation of the ridiculously elaborate feast everyone else will enjoy.

Of course, beyond all this conceptual stuff, the costumes, the acting, the set, the rain, everything about the film is quite beautiful and easy on the eye. There are few better films to watch with a bottle of wine on a rainy, cold spring day than Gosford Park.