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I HAD SEEN 'BEING THERE' YEARS AGO AND THOUGHT IT WAS VERY FUNNY. SEEING IT AGAIN WAS JUST AS ENJOYABLE. DON'T THINK IT WOULD ENTERTAIN THE GENERAL PUBLIC BEING SO LOW KEY AND CHARACTER DRIVEN. PETER SELLERS DOES NOT APPEAL TO SOME BUT I FIND HIM HILARIOUS.
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I saw this movie which was still in theaters at the time of Peter Sellers very tragic death...He died too young, but his legacy and scope live on...This was his most intellectually challenging role, right up there with Dr. Strangelove. He plays a character eerily similar to his real-life ability to assume a chameleonlike "hero." He's a hero in all eyes but his own...and those who knew him "back when..." His performance as an autistic, simple Everyman, and his ability to convince everyone around him after he is "let out into the wild" (having lived a very secluded TV-oriented life) is exquisite. When he shockingly discovers that the TV Remote won't simply make people and unpleasant situations "go away," he somehow adapts, where others would have been crushed under. He is saved by Society's assumptions, the vanities of others of social prominence, and by dumb luck. The tortured soul of Jersey Kozinsky, who wrote the book of the same title, seemed to be almost unwittingly captured and cast by Sellers. A MUST SEE...on so many levels...Sellers at his best...mature and childlike all at the same time...Shirley MacLaine is also brilliant in this unsung gem...Vollständige Rezension lesen
Peter Sellers' masterpiece is rare in that it transcends the very clever and well conceived book upon which it is based; taking it to places that author Jerzy Kosinski may never have imagined or intended. Sellers must have recognized something of himself deep in the character of Chance the Gardener (aka Chauncey Gardner) to have been able to so embue Kozinski's protagonist with additional dimensions; facets that bring the character to larger-than life and elevate Being There from its original satirical take on media and celebrity to a kind of celluloid shamanism. Sellers as medium, leads us to an ethereal vantage point; more Krylov's Fables than Washington Post; more Brothers Grimm than Wall Street Journal. After all the belly-laugh inducing pratfalls, word play, impressions, innuendo and slapstick...subtly, it turns out, was Sellers forte. Required viewing. A true swan song.Vollständige Rezension lesen
Probably Peter Sellers best movie, and a thought provoking comedy that is one of the funniest movies ever. Sellers character is supposedly a dim-witted gardener who is the ward of an old man who dies. Through a quirk of fate, he ends up in the home of a millionaire and his wife who recognize him as a genius. Full of comedy and plot twists. Excellent acting!
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'Being There', starring Peter Sellers in perhaps the best performance of his life (he was nominated for the Academy Award for this), and adapted from Jerzy Kosinski's brief but rich novella, is one of the great, under-rated films that fill video-store shelves, rarely to be rented or purchased, but holding great rewards for those who do. In the film we come upon Chance as 'the old man' has died, and the lawyers are coming in to close the house. As a man apart from society, there is no record of Chance even existing (which becomes important later). He is a mystery from the beginning, made all the more mysterious by his completely innocent, non-evasive manner. This is rare for Washington, D.C.! Having been turned out of the house, Chance begins his partial discovery of the real world. He experiences hatred, deprivation, and solitude for the first time, but all of this leaves little impact upon him. He continues his solitary journey until stopped by a store display of television sets, at which time he backs up to watch himself being displayed from the video camera, and is injured by a passing car belonging to Benjamin Rand, wealthy financier and kingmaker. Mrs. Rand is in the car (played astutely by Shirley MacLaine), and insists on taking Chance (who, while taking his first alcoholic drink, garbles the words to the degree that she mishears his name, becomes at this point Chauncey) back to the Rand estate, where doctors and nurses are in attendance at the sick-near-dying bed of her husband Benjamin. Chauncey floats effortlessly through this world. Without apprehension and without an image to protect and project, he is simply himself, and in so being, becomes a mirror to project the hopes of those around him. While he speaks in terms of gardening almost exclusively, others, from Mrs. Rand to the President of the United States (who ends up quoting him in a speech) believe he is a master of metaphor, and, much like a mystical text, are quick to assign their own meanings to his words. Because Chauncey is without affectation, well-mannered and, above all, a curious listener, people are charmed by him. The policeman outside the White House respond when he reports a sick tree in the park. The Russian ambassador responds when Chauncey laughs at his Russian jokes. The Rands respond because they both need, above all, hope. Chauncey becomes a cipher for all. Chance is a mystery. The President quotes him in a speech, after meeting him at the Rand estate. But who is he? The CIA and the FBI cannot find any information on him. Thus, both decide he must be an ex-agent who has 'wiped the slate clean'. Ultimately, it is unclear, purposefully so, if Chance is in fact mentally deficient or spiritually enhanced. The disturbing message of the film and novel is that even a little learning can be a soul-destroying force; ignorance is bliss, and enables one to walk on water when one doesn't know one can't. Will Chance succeed, by Chance? Will the Randian consortium in fact propel him into the Presidency? Would you, the viewer, want him as President? Filmed largely at the Biltmore Estate (pictured as if it were in the centre of the District of Columbia), this is a visually interesting film as well as an intriguing story, with superb acting performances and an ambiguous moral at the end. The very last words of the film are `Life is a state of mind.'Vollständige Rezension lesen
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