THE GINGERBREAD MAN & GOSFORD PARK: Late-Career Altman Captured With Two New Releases

In my last home video article, I mentioned that November 2018 was a good month for dead auteurs. While Robert Altman doesn’t have any unfinished or unreleased films, plenty of his output is in need of hi-definition upgrading, and November saw the release of three Altman films on Blu-ray: WB’s Brewster McCloud , Kino Lorber’s The Gingerbread Man and Arrow Academy’s Gosford Park .

The two releases I was able to review, The Gingerbread Man and Gosford Park , offer a tidy illustration of the director’s late period career. This era for Altman was often categorized as a series of peaks and valleys, failures and comebacks, and while I personally think that’s an unfortunate oversimplification, it’s a diagnosis reinforced by back-to-back viewings of The Gingerbread Man and Gosford Park — the former a forgotten John Grisham dud made as a cash grab in the wake of hits like The Firm and The Pelican Brief , and the latter nominated for seven Oscars (winning one).

Regardless of each’s quality, Altman said he was attracted to both films due to their respective genre, saying he’s never done either a legal thriller nor a whodunnit. As is his wont to do, he believes in each he was able to use viewers’ comfort of the genre to ease them, before turning conventions in on themselves in a palettable fashion. Whether he does it well is up to you to decide, and you can now do so in beautiful hi-definition.

Gingerbread Man (1998)

Back in the budding days of Wal-Mart’s $5 DVD receptacle, I remember picking up both The Gingerbread Man and Dr. T & the Women because I knew I was supposed to like films directed by Altman. Some 15 years later, with many more Altman’s under my belt, I was excited to revisit via Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray disc, despite remembering it as a fairly charmless piece of genre.

Unfortunately, the film remains relatively charmless, but what’s remarkable about the Savannah-set thriller is how little Altman’s inflection can be spotted. Of course, there are the zoom-ins and outs here and there, but the straightforwardness of The Gingerbread Man, both thematically and technically, is almost strange.

The film, based on a Grisham screenplay written previous to his novel work, is about a lawyer (Kenneth Branagh) who becomes embroiled in the troubled life of a local woman (Embeth Davidtz) and her unstable father (Robert Duvall), whom she would like to be sent to prison.

The film opens with a helicopter shot over land — Altman states the imagery reminds him of a pan of gingerbread before it goes into the oven — that purposefully disorients the viewer. It’s quite a unique moment, but unfortunately, the film quickly deflates from there.

Mismatched Collaborators

Branagh, who precipitated the project, was looking for suitable directors and eventually his rolodex flipped to Altman, who was game so long as Branagh was willing to play a flawed character — Altman said the lawyer has “been Bill Clinton-ized.” This anecdote is relayed on the commentary, but in Altman on Altman , the director goes into further detail, saying that Branagh’s motivation was, “Well, frankly, I could use the money. I’m building a house.” And that level of energy is properly conveyed in the finished product.

This is Altman’s only film with cinematographer Changwei Gu, who he said he hired because he liked his work on Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine . Strikes this viewer as a strange gamble that didn’t quite pay off. In particular, the “Grisham courtroom scenes,” as Altman calls them, stand out as particularly uninspired aesthetically. The lighting of the authentic courtroom ironically renders the aesthetic to appear quite inauthentic and ugly.

However, the film did end up with Altman’s desired touches of red throughout (something the D.P. captured in Kaige’s film) — the car, umbrella and bathrobe. So much so, that Jonathan Rosenbaum ended his review saying, “The closest thing to a fully realized character in the movie is Branagh’s red convertible, and the second closest is his cellular phone.”

Well shot or not, the film’s real problem is that Grisham and Altman don’t seem to mesh well. Or, at least, Altman isn’t able to transform the genre material into something strange and inspired the way he did with Chandler’s The Long Goodbye . And what we’re left with certainly won’t engage the author’s loyals, thus Altman’s few signature touches feel like oil separated in a watery Grisham legal thriller.

As mentioned, the film is set in Savannah, Georgia — a decision Altman made after reading John Berendt’s book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil . Knowing Clint Eastwood was prepping a film adaptation, Altman said he would only do The Gingerbread Man there if he could get in before his peer. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil came out the following year, and while I don’t remember that film being very good either, I believe its use of Savannah is more interesting than Altman’s. The former British colonial capital of Georgia is really only capitalized on when the climactic hurricane ties everything together — a trope that is both a regurgitation of Short Cuts ’ earthquake and repeated in his later films Dr. T & the Women and The Company .

Keep’em Comin’

Despite being the worst film Altman made in the 1990s, I’m very thankful for the Kino release. I’m thankful the same way I’m thankful for any Altman upgrade to hi-def status, and I hope Kino and others continue to upgrade the remaining films that have yet to make the jump — especially the obscure ones that are currently only sourceable via a lucky second-hand shop stop, like Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean , O.C. and Stiggs , HealtH , A Wedding and A Perfect Couple .

That said, I would only recommend this release to the Altman head, not just for completist sake, but because watching this film with the commentary actually proved more interesting than watching the film on its own, even if a large chunk of what the director says also appears in his book-length interview with David Thompson, Altman on Altman .

Gosford Park (2001)

If The Gingerbread Man doesn’t gel due to an imperfect collection of collaborators, Gosford Park benefits from a symphonic synthesis of gifted peers. From Bob Balaban’s conception, Julian Fellowes’ script, a superlative cast and, obviously, Altman.

The film is set in an English countryside mansion during the Great Depression, two months after Britain’s national hunger march in Britain, as Geoff Andrew mentions in the commentary. And Altman surveys the personal and professional lives of rich house guests (upstairs) and the many members of the house staff (downstairs).

It’s a whodunnit in the style of Agatha Christie or Clue — who did it, with what weapon and in what room? Balaban’s character repeatedly mentions another touchstone of the genre — he’s Charlie Chan‘s producer working on an idea that resembles the exact plot of Gosford Park — a character that Altman said stripped the film of a Merchant-Ivory/Jane Austen sensibility.

This is Altman’s second British film after Images in 1972 (which was actually shot in Ireland), and though the upper-class English might sound like an odd milieu for the director, Gosford Park finds Altman returning to a comfort zone: a commentary on a large social group, with clashing personalities and conflicting socioeconomic stratas, a la Nashville and Short Cuts . Here, the sprawling ensemble is played by a typically impressive troupe: Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas and Emily Watson, among others.

Altman’s Last Great Work

Much like with The Gingerbread Man , I hadn’t seen Gosford Park for over a decade, and revisiting it, especially in HD, was a massive treat. Also like that other movie, this one doesn’t care too much about its central mystery. Altman, as always, is interested in his characters, and in Gosford Park , the unfolding mystery becomes about how exactly class conflict is able to sink its tendrils into the most vulnerable, ruining them for generations. The film’s end is especially haunting in a way I didn’t initially grasp, and though his two following films definitely have their merits, Gosford Park has rightfully earned a reputation as Altman’s last great work.

I think the film benefits from a consideration of his other ’90s work. Not only is it one of the best films he made in the decade, but it feels much better constructed and considered, from script to screen, than works like Cookie’s Fortune , Kansas City and of course The Gingerbread Man . In that context, this film really does behold the urgency of an aging master who’s gathered a second wind. However, that’s probably the logic of an auteur determinist, considering the strength of his previous film, Dr. T & the Women . As mentioned, the case of Gosford Park ’s considerable quality is probably more reliant on the high level of Altman’s collaborators. In a new interview with one of the producers, the film is discussed within context of Altman’s recent career dip because of how risky it was to finance the film.

Arrow’s new 2K restoration (from a 4K scan, overseen by cinematographer Andrew Dunn) allows viewers to luxuriate in one of Altman’s more picturesque features. The countryside mansion carries an amber hue throughout the upstairs — Dunn longingly gazes at the ornate fixings — while the downstairs is damp and cavernous.

Another of Gosford Park ’s specific joys is its editing. Everything feels as immaculately choreographed as another one-mansion picture, Russian Ark , but this has none of the affectedness of a one-shot film. Altman as a figure has always been intriguing to me because he paradoxically is not a perfectionist, often shooting extra coverage to make up for his second-guessing, and yet, on many occasions, has been able to create something that feels perfect. The editing in Gosford Park is one such occasion.

The Supplements

Archival supplements from the original DVD release are thankfully held over here, including a making of featurette which shows us Altman specifically directing overlapping dialogue, and the cast and crew Q&A from 2001 that adds insightful detail — provided from across the stage — regarding how Altman’s films are made, technically, and to what level each contributor is given agency.

Arrow impressively adds three commentary tracks, all of which are distinct. Two are previously recorded: one with Fellowes and one with Altman, production designer Steven Altman and producer David Levy. The third is a newly recorded track with critics Geoff Andrew and David Thompson, the aforementioned author of Altman on Altman . The new track is a real treat. The two both bring a distinct knowledge of Altman’s oeuvre, film history and British history. Throughout, Andrew and Thompson bounce off each other remarkably — a known detail from one brings to mind another detail from the other.

With previous releases of The Long Goodbye , 3 Women and Images , Arrow had already garnered quite a reputation for robust, necessary releases of Altman’s best films, and their latest addition more than passes muster.

The Gingerbread Man is available via Kino Lorber, Gosford Park is available via Arrow Academy.