The Shooting Party is an elegant, stately film with radical undertones very much represented by the John Gielgud's character.
However this is James Mason's film, his final movie before his death and to think he was a last minute replacement for Paul Scofield who had got injured on set and had to pull out.
Mason plays Sir Randolph who holds a weekend shooting party in his estate with fellow aristocrats from home and abroad. There are strict rules of conduct from the way you dress, the way you eat, the shoot itself and you conduct yourself in front of servants.
What we see is petty rivalries, loveless marriages, discreet affairs and the foreign aristocrats showing an arrogance to the lower orders.
The setting is Autumn 1913, they do not know it but it will be the last shooting season before the outbreak of The Great War. Sir Randolph senses that the country is changing but not yet realising at what great extent. Look at the sincere way he talks to Gielgud's pamphleteer who objects to the shooting and proclaiming animal rights. It is the servants and the lower classes who seemed to be more conservative and think things will always remain the same.
The bird shooting scenes anticipates the slaughter that will follow in the trenches a year later, the tragedy that occurs signifies a change in the rule of the games and in the final credits we are informed that several of the characters died in The Great War.
It is easy to dismiss The Shooting Party as another heritage film that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. It has a bite to it as well as being uniformly well acted.
However this is James Mason's film, his final movie before his death and to think he was a last minute replacement for Paul Scofield who had got injured on set and had to pull out.
Mason plays Sir Randolph who holds a weekend shooting party in his estate with fellow aristocrats from home and abroad. There are strict rules of conduct from the way you dress, the way you eat, the shoot itself and you conduct yourself in front of servants.
What we see is petty rivalries, loveless marriages, discreet affairs and the foreign aristocrats showing an arrogance to the lower orders.
The setting is Autumn 1913, they do not know it but it will be the last shooting season before the outbreak of The Great War. Sir Randolph senses that the country is changing but not yet realising at what great extent. Look at the sincere way he talks to Gielgud's pamphleteer who objects to the shooting and proclaiming animal rights. It is the servants and the lower classes who seemed to be more conservative and think things will always remain the same.
The bird shooting scenes anticipates the slaughter that will follow in the trenches a year later, the tragedy that occurs signifies a change in the rule of the games and in the final credits we are informed that several of the characters died in The Great War.
It is easy to dismiss The Shooting Party as another heritage film that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. It has a bite to it as well as being uniformly well acted.