Downton Abbey, Season 1 + 2, UK 2010 - 2012

It seems that there isn't really much point talking about Downton Abbey as its success - primarily, though far from exclusively, in the UK and in the US - has triggered a plethora of responses and reactions in the form of blogs, websites, and so on, its reception having been overwhelmingly positive resulting in a string of Golden Globe, BAFTA and Emmy wins. As someone who watches as little television as possible it probably took me longer than most people to fall under Downton Abbey's spell. And being one of the world's greatest Maggie Smith aficionados, my main reason for watching it in the first place - on DVD - was naturally to see her camp it up in the role of the Dowager Countess Violet Grantham who, basically, is a reprise of Maggie's equally iconic Constance Trentham in Gosford Park (UK/ US 2002).

That expression - to camp it up - probably makes a lot of people cringe, and rightly so, in a way, for it seems to belittle - however unintentionally - Smith's considerable acting skills as campness may be the (part-)result of her performance, but I'm well aware that this performance is far too nuanced to be merely dismissed as camp. Nevertheless, the programme's other qualities notwithstanding, Smith is indeed the highlight of it - to me, anyway - and I look forward to every moment she comes on (which, sadly, isn't often enough, as far as I'm concerned as hers is a supporting role). However, with Downton Abbey being full of drama, betrayal, and intrigue - Smith adds the necessary comic relief, the spice, or put differently, she's the cream in the coffee.

Luckily, some fellow Maggie Smith aficionado (from GPB, it seems) has put together these two wonderful collections of the Dowager Countess' most outrageous - and camp! - remarks:

 


In case you hadn't been familiar with the Dowager Countess' wit, you now are, and will agree, I presume,  that Smith alone is worth the watch.

And having just finished watching both seasons virtually in a single week myself, I must admit that it does make for addictive viewing. That is, if you're into English heritage films in the mould of The Remains of the Day, Room With A View and especially Gosford Park and Upstairs, Downstairs. Like Gosford Park, Downton Abbey was also the brainchild of Julian Fellowes and it is quite a wonderful and accomplished continuation thereof. Never mind that Downton Abbey, being a television show, has to comply with saleable television rules including, for instance, revealing titbits of an emerging scandal right at the end of one episode to keep the viewers on tenterhooks, and similar such television gimmicks. Nevertheless, Fellowes does manage to keep it in check, though he does so better in the first season than in the second which occasionally does bear traces - if ever so faint - of Dynasty and Dallas, when, for instance, a character  believed to have perished in the Titanic disaster miraculously re-emerges. It is owed to the outstanding acting talent of literally the entire cast that highly improbable plot-lines as these still come across as - vaguely - plausible.

In fact, one of the fascinating things about Downton Abbey is exactly that: that seemingly out of nowhere a great many actors and actresses of outstanding talent have emerged who substantially add to the show's quality and merit. Naturally, they didn't just emerge - looking at their screen credits actually shows that they've been around for some time. It took meaty roles in a high-profile show such as Downton Abbey, however,  to adequately showcase their talent. I do hope that in the future we'll be seeing a great deal more of the likes of Joanne Froggat, Lesley Nicol, and Michelle Dockery, to name but a few - and please, this time on the big screen!  

Downton Abbey has 16 major characters, and that Fellowes successfully manages to breathe life into all of them, as it were, is an achievement in itself. Of course, he's already more than proved his mettle in that regard with Gosford Park. However, Gosford Park was a feature film and though at nearly 140 minutes a rather long one, to keep the lives of 16 and more characters going for over two seasons, is no mean feat, to say the least.

Apparently, due to the programme's enormous success, a third season is currently in the making, to be aired in 2013. Probably to cater to Downton Abbey's growing popularity in the US, Shirley Maclaine has been brought on board to play Cora's - Elizabth McGovern's Lady Grantham - mother.

Talk about shrewd casting!

My imagination is already running riot when I think of MacLaine's wealthy American heiress having tea with the Dowager Countess. I predict, we'll be in for a treat!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, John Madden, UK 2011

John Madden's latest offering pretty much offers what one would expect from the director who gave us Shakespeare In Love, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Mrs. Brown. My own personal favourite of the lot is the latter, though Mrs. Brown may be slightly atypical for a John Madden flick inasmuch as it's less upbeat than, say, Shakespeare in Love, to say nothing of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which is the ultimate upbeat, feel-good movie experience if there ever was one!



A motley bunch of British retirees from various walks of life but with one thing in common - a lack of funds - gather at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for that very reason: a dearth of the necessary funds to retire in dignity in their home country makes them opt for India instead. Their adjustment to their new home - or the refusal thereof - varies depending on their background. Judi Dench's Evelyn, whose late husband squandered away their money, a fact she only learns about once he's left for the eternal hunting grounds, adjusts more easily than the rest of the lot and seems a great deal more open to the pleasures and possibilities - as well as the pitfalls - of their new surroundings. Running a blog, which she originally started as a means to keep in touch with her family back in the UK, it is mainly through Evelyn's eyes - and words - that we, the viewers, get the run-down of the India experience of her and her fellow retirees first hand. It is also Evelyn, who, with her sometimes wise, sometimes utterly banal, blog entries, keeps the movie at its upbeat, feel-good pitch. Therefore, Dench is the one to provide the smiles.



However, it is Maggie Smith who provides the laughs. And uproarious ones at that! As the one who's most reluctant to leave her beloved England with all its biscuits and builder's tea behind, she's at her most uproarious, politically incorrect, hilarious, best! Her lines simply had me in stitches! To be perfectly honest, a movie this frothy and - dare I say it - at times, syrupy - would have benefited a great deal had there been more of Smith. And I'm not just saying it because I'm probably her biggest fan. No, it's just that she's the spice - the red hot chilli - in a dish that's otherwise a little too sweet for my liking. But hey, I admit that if I was able to make a wish, I'd like a DVD with all of Maggie Smith's scenes from California Suite, Gosford Park, A Private Function, Sister Act, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, cut in a row! Why, it would mean hours and hours of sheer endless laughter and first-class amusement by the world's prime comedienne, or how I choose to refer to her - the Goddess of Camp!

Adored: Maggie Smith

Portraits of the artist as a young woman

There's no other actor or actress who has the ability to make me laugh as hard as Maggie Smith does. By this, I don't mean just a particular film but rather her whole body of work and, in fact, her persona. Maggie Smithh has an inherent ability to put a smile on my face and, more often than not, to make me laugh uproariously. Such is her talent, that to achieve that, she doesn't even have to do much. Usually, a little twitch or the raising of an eye brow does the job.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Rondald Neame, UK, 1969)

It goes without saying, that by elaborating on Maggie Smith's talent to make people laugh I don't intend to belittle her other, her tragic, side. I'm not sure if it's to our fortune or misfortune that in recent years, it's usually her camp side we get to see on screen as at least as far her American films are concerned, this is why producers and directors cast her. No other actress does high camp as well as she does. However, I'm not sure Maggie Smith is always happy about being typecast in varying variations of the bitch, be that the spinster, the chaperone, or the highbrow aristocrat, for she has so much more to offer.

Serious Maggie: As Hedda Gabler in 1970

For theatre goers in London it's a different matter, of course, as they also get to enjoy Maggie in various Shakespeare parts as well as in the much acclaimed Talking heads by Alan Bennett. This, her serious side, cinema-goers rarely get to see nowadays. But I admit, that I myself am guilty of preferring her funny, camp roles to her serious ones. But why should I make excuses? After all, the ability to make people laugh, knowing how to camp it up, is indeed an art-form in itself. And a much too rare one at that. And one at which Maggie Smith is queen!

With co-star Michael Caine in Herbert Ross' California Suite (US 1978) for which she received her second of two Academy Awards.


Caricature of Maggie Smith by Australian artist Col Bodie


Beautiful, just beautiful: Maggie Smith with her first husband Robert Stephens. The two were married between 1967 and 1974.


Maggie Smith and co-star Kelly MacDonald in what probably is my personal favourite Maggie Smith film, Robert Altman's Gosford Park (UK/ US 2002). I saw the film nine times in the cinema, own the DVD, the screenplay and the soundtrack, and can safely say that I know all of Maggie Smith's lines from that film by heart. Besides being a role that brings a new meaning to the word camp and thus is tailor-made for Maggie's talent, the entire film is superbly written and brilliantly cast.

A great actress: Maggie Smith