Being There
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Movie Reviews of Being There
Movie Review: I'd forgotten how good this is
Summary: 5 Stars
When I checked this out of the library a few weeks ago I remembered I had seen it in the theaters and enjoyed it. But I had forgotten how wonderful this movie is.Peter Sellers' film career was checkered to say the least, with some cloying or downright weird movies and some brilliant ones. This is definitely the best of his ouevre, and one of the best movies of all time. Definitely in my top 10.
If you have read this far down the page, you know that Sellers plays Chance, a character so "simple" that he becomes something of a Rorschach test -- everyone reads into him what they want to see. As he falls in with the rich and powerful, you are sure every minute that he will be found out, but in their own way they are even more simple than he is.
My wife hadn't seen it before, and kept asking apprehensively, "Will they catch him?" I help myself in check and kept repeating, "Just wait, it gets better."
And I'll say that to you, too. The movie just keeps getting better and better and the ending, the last image you see, is so mind-bending and so hilarious it can't be explained. It has to be seen. I can't wait for my birthday, so I can ask for it as a gift!
Movie Review: Being There: a very dark comedy
Summary: 5 Stars
Black comedy about a simple-minded man, a gardener (played by Peter Sellers), whose caretaker dies and is left on his own. By sheer accident he meets a very rich and powerful man (Melvyn Douglas) who takes him in. Before long Douglas and his important associates, including the president of the US) are interpreting Sellers's vapid, meaningless remarks about gardening as profound statements about government, philosophy, etc. It's a funny yet frightening idea (just look around at the world today), and Sellers is superb as this nonentity who has everyone fooled (he, of course, doesn't know what's going on). All Sellers can do is watch TV and garden - he can't even write his own name - yet by the end of the movie Douglas et.al. are about to run him for president. The scene at the end with Sellers walking on water is a bit much (it hits us on the head with the obvious, just in case we didn't get the connection), and at 130 minutes the movie is much too long - especially since Sellers walks around in a near catatonic state the whole time. There is much food for thought here, though. Definitely worth a watch.Movie Review: A Timeless Tour de Force
Summary: 5 Stars
Peter Sellers was quoted as having said that when he was not in a role, he was no one--that he had no personality of his own. If so, the teflon tabula rasa that is his Chance the Gardner in "Being There" is a cinematic self-portrait. That would explain, perhaps, the eerie plausibility of a character who is the ultimate empty suit. Reared in isolation, elegantly dressed in his late benefactor's cast off clothes, well-spoken through lack of exposure to vulgarity, and ignorant of everything except gardening, Chance is at grave risk of starving to death on the mean streets of Washington, DC, until, by blind--umm--chance, he is thrust, uncomprehending, into a world of wealth and power. There his taciturnity is mistaken for gravity and his endless, inappropriate references to gardening as optimistic wisdom in troubled times. The smug self-delusion of the mighty skewered in Ruth Attaway's masterpiece of understated satire is every bit as delightful to watch in 2007 as it was in 1979. Shirley Maclaine, Jack Warden, and Melvyn Douglas ably abet Sellers in what was probably his finest role.Movie Review: "Life is a state of mind".
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this movie a few years ago in a theater, and have since seen it on TV and on DVD. Although seeing it on the big screen made the movie more justice, it remains one of my favorite films of all time. I still haven't read the book it was based on, out of fear of finding flaws in the movie.
The movie is more or less one joke stretched out into 130 minutes, and believe it or not, it really works. The joke is that the simple minded Chance is taken for a genius by those who meet him, simply because he is nicely dressed and says things that they believe to be metaphors and deep words of wisdom. Throughout the movie, and their relationship with Chance, the characterd grow and develop, except for Chance himself that is.
Because of of his naivite, Chance is the least troubled, and the happiest person in the movie. At one point in the movie, another character says that "Life is a state of mind". I try to remember this and not worry so much. This film comes closer to changing my view of the world than any other movie I've seen. It's definately a favorite.
Movie Review: Vindication
Summary: 5 Stars
The bad news is, of course, that Peter Sellers died shortly after making this film. The good news is that he finished the film first. I had always believed, since his days in THE PARTY, that Sellers was a highly nuanced actor, with more authority and talent that he was often given credit for, in part due to his love of---and great skill at---farce. BEING THERE is a classic vindication, proving once and for all what a very great acting talent Sellers possessed.
It had been several years since I'd watched the movie. I found a DVD that I'd gotten for Christmas and watched it yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was as good, or perhaps better, than I remembered. Every actor is centered and believable. There is great humor involved and applied most subtly. Sorry if it sounds maudlin but I think a very good adjective might be that the film is "sweet."
Of course the best moral is the one that each viewer draws individually, but this is a rare film in that it gives us the option of walking away thinking about what we've just seen.