Praise for Altman’s ‘Park’

Robert Altman’s career has been defined by its peaks and valleys. For every “MASH,” “Nashville,” “The Player” and “Short Cuts,” there has been a “Brewster McCloud,” “Buffalo Bill and the Indians,” “Quintet,” “Ready to Wear” or last year’s “Dr. T & the Women.” Altman, who is just two months shy of his 77th birthday, is a survivor.

After a long lull, Altman has scaled another peak in his 50-year career with his latest film, “Gosford Park,” which opens Wednesday in limited release. With an ensemble cast of British actors--including Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Eileen Atkins, Emily Watson, Jeremy Northam and Kristin Scott Thomas--”Gosford Park” skewers British society in the early 1930s. Just as the upper class is beginning to lose its stiff upper lip, a group of English society’s most elite visits a country home for a weekend party, while downstairs their servants exist in their own rigid society.

Altman also pokes fun at the traditional British murder-mystery genre--the kind of whodunit made famous by writers Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers--by adding a death to the mix. The detective in “Gosford Park” is no Sherlock Holmes or Lord Peter Whimsey, however, but a totally clueless buffoon played by Stephen Fry.

Even before the film’s release, Altman was named best director for “Gosford Park” by the New York Film Critics Circle and was runner-up in the category with the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. He also was nominated last week for a Golden Globe for best director, with the film getting nominations for best motion picture (musical or comedy) and supporting actress (for both Mirren and Smith).

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Compiled by Times Staff Writers