Being There is a wonderful and highly original comedy. It moves at a deliberate pace, depends on careful
nuances of writing and performance, and pays off with big laughs in the oddest places. It's the crowning
achievement of star Peter Sellers, who excels in a role he'd wanted to play for years. The movie also
represents a career high for its director, Hal Ashby, a seventies success story with five straight hits to his
credit. Warner Home Video's new
Blu-ray presents this
elegant & eccentric show in a dazzling HD transfer.
Author Jerzy Kosinski's script (from his novel) must have been a tough sell to the studios; we can imagine the
movie being green-lit solely on the insistence of Ashby, a comedy veteran whose first films
The Landlord
and
Harold and Maude defined "out there" humor.
Being There relies almost completely on the
talents of Peter Sellers, which lately had been wasted on increasingly inane
Pink Panther movies.
Ironically, the success of Sellers' Inspector Clouseau character made the star bankable again. Without that
push, the almost abstract comedy
Being There would never have been filmed.
Peter Sellers plays Chance, an unnervingly serene simpleton who has lived out his life in the walled compound
of a wealthy man, working as a gardener. Chance has been raised and protected in seclusion, knowing only his
master and the housekeeper Louise (Ruth Attaway). Chance reacts almost in slow motion to verbal communication,
searching for the few words and concepts he understands. Television provides his sole contact with the world
beyond the garden. He watches TV constantly, sometimes imitating people's hand gestures and actions. He
understands his gardening tools, his television remotes, and little else.
Events force Chance out into the real world, alone. He's fascinated and confused by things he's seen on TV but
doesn't really understand: basketball, rides in cars, young street thugs. He asks a black woman out shopping if
she'll make him some lunch. We expect Chance to either become a mugging victim or be taken to a mental
hospital. He's instead picked up by Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine) the wife of Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas), an
ailing multi-millionaire, philanthropist and political kingmaker. Poised and relaxed, Chance answers questions
with quiet phrases, delivered with sincere concern. He filters everything he hears through the one activity he
knows and understands, gardening. That, along with a good heart and a gift for mimicry, insures that Chance is
completely misinterpreted by almost everyone he meets. Eve takes Chance for a reserved, refined gentleman named
Chauncey Gardiner. Benjamin is convinced that Chance is a worldly-wise businessman above the common fray.
"Chauncey's" non-sequitur responses are taken as sophisticated wit.
Benjamin decides to introduce Chauncey to the visiting President (Jack Warden), casting media-driven ripples
across the political landscape. Unable to find any record of Rand's new friend, the FBI and CIA conclude that
Chauncey is so powerful, his identity has been carefully erased from the public record. Chauncey charms TV
audiences and foreign dignitaries with his meaningless allusions to "growth in the garden", and is immediately
embraced by Eve and Benjamin as their most valued friend. Meanwhile, the now unemployed housekeeper Louise is
disgusted when she sees Chance on TV:
"Yes, sir, all you've gotta be is white in America, to get whatever
you want."
Not soon after Chance first steps from his master's house (to a jazz cover of
Also sprach Zarathustra,
the theme familiar from
2001: A Space Odyssey) , we see him in a telephoto angle, walking on a concrete
median amid busy Washington, D.C. traffic. With his umbrella and bowler hat, Chance immediately reminds us of
paintings by the surrealist René Magritte.
Being There is a prime absurdist comedy. General
audiences have often responded to comedies and fantasies with surreal content, even if only subconsciously:
Duck Soup,
King Kong, the musicals of
Busby Berkeley. Chance is a definite surreal hero.
He ventures forth ignorant of the perils of our modern world, and instead of being destroyed, is carried aloft
by sheer dumb luck and serendipitous fortune.
Jerzy Kozinski's slightly subversive script reinforces the notion that the air is thin at society's higher
elevations. Housemaids and street punks immediately see Chance for what he is --
"Shortchanged by The Lord
and dumb as a jackass." But the very rich are quick to misread Chance's utterly vacant poise as wisdom and
reserve. Isolated within their palatial country estate, Eve and Benjamin are emotionally needy. "Chauncey" is a
cipher, a blank slate, a Rorschach inkblot ready to reflect whatever qualities they want to see. Benjamin finds
an intellectual equal in Chauncey, while Eve discovers an understanding and passionate soul mate. The
misunderstandings proceed with a maddening logic, until almost everything Chance does or says, no matter how
minor, is a laugh line.
Former editor Hal Ashby scales and times his film to Peter Sellers' remarkably controlled performance.
Being
There is a high-wire act, a shaggy dog story; we marvel that it can stay fresh and funny for over two hours
running. As fundamentally absurd as the horror film
The Birds or the romantic fantasy
Peter
Ibbetson, Ashby and Sellers' film remains faithful to its irrational premise. The poetic finish is a final
jest, like the car driving away through the bird-landscape at the end of Hitchcock's thriller: "We've taken
this idea to its logical conclusion; we've painted ourselves into a corner and there's absolutely no way out.
That's all, folks!"
The film has an exemplary supporting cast. Shirley MacLaine misinterprets Chauncey's every word and is turned
on by what she thinks are his amorous attentions:
"I like to watch." Her orgasmic gyrations are
hilarious, yet are also a completely convincing sex scene. The elderly Melvyn Douglas caps a fifty-year career
as a master of comedy, never losing his composure opposite Sellers. Richard Dysart is the doctor who slowly
comes to realize Chauncey's true nature, and Jack Warden is diverting as a President suddenly made impotent
because Chauncey tells him he looks small on Television. Richard Basehart and David Clennon have important
smaller roles.
"Being There" is an apt title for a film whose motto is that "Life is a state of mind." The title also
expresses the film's unique appeal, one difficult to convey in words: "I guess you had to be there." A viewer
arriving late at a screening of
Being There might be forgiven for concluding that the movie makes
absolutely no sense whatsoever. That's a reaction that a surrealist would cherish!
Warner Home Video's
Blu-ray edition of
Being There
reveals visual qualities unseen in the film since its theatrical run. Ace cinematographer Caleb Deschanel
(
The Black Stallion) lights for drama, not comedy, emphasizing the enormity of the Rand house (villa?
palace?) with its high-ceiling rooms made of rich dark woods. Audio is in Dolby Digital, with alternate
English, French and Spanish mono tracks.
The extras include two brief deleted scenes and a "Gag Reel" that turns out to be more outtakes of the
flubbed-line setup used for a few laughs behind the end credits. Peter Sellers objected strongly to the
inclusion of the bloopers on the grounds that they broke the film's unique spell. He was nominated for an
acting Oscar® but the winner that year was Dustin Hoffman for
Kramer vs. Kramer. A less effective
alternate ending is included along with a trailer.
The Laurent Bouzereau featurette
Memories from Being There is really a biographical tribute to co-star
Melvyn Douglas by his granddaughter, actress Illeanna Douglas. At one point Ms. Douglas elaborates on a
perceived religious subtext, looking for symbols and shortcuts to explain the film's puzzle. The whole point of
Being There is that the only reality we know is the one we reshape to fit our subjective
preconceptions.
For more information about
Being There, visit
Warner Video. To
order
Being There, go to
TCM Shopping.
by Glenn Erickson
