BEING THERE
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
Being There (1979) **** out of ***** - Cast: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart, Richard Basehart, James Noble. Written by: Jerzy Kosinski. Directed by: Hal Ashby. Running Time: 124 minutes.
Peter Sellers tried to get "Being There" made for eight years, and I'm very glad he succeeded. He plays a childlike gardener named Chance whose only knowledge about life is from what he sees on television. When his father dies, he is forced to leave his home for the very first time in his life. He proceeds to get into situations where people keep thinking he's brilliant, even though he is saying very little about anything except gardening.
I must admit that I do not understand the final shot of the film. Something odd happens which I think I understand, but I could be wrong. And even if I'm right, it doesn't make much sense.
One thing that bothered me while watching the film (and though it did bother me, it did not have any bearing on the film's rating) was watching Melvyn Douglas' performance. He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year OVER Robert Duvall from "Apocalypse Now" which I feel is a travesty. Douglas is ok in the film, but he's just a dying old man. Nothing special. But like I said, it didn't influence my opinion of the film. I just wanted to voice that opinion that Duvall was robbed.
Sellers, who's health was failing at the time of the film, desperately wanted to win the Best Actor Oscar which he had lost in 1964 for Dr. Strangelove. He came very close. He did win the Golden Globe award, but lost the Oscar to Dustin Hoffman.
As brilliant as he was as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau and in "Dr. Strangelove", "Being There" is his greatest performance on film. Just in the very first minute, before he even says a word, you can see in his eyes that this character has the mentality of a child. Many who worked on the film and who worked with Sellers in the past said that Sellers was very similar in real life to Chance, which makes his final great performance even more touching.
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related links, and reader's reviews.
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