{"id":27354,"date":"2025-09-02T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=27354"},"modified":"2025-09-01T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T00:04:06","slug":"the-admirable-balance-of-peter-sellers-in-being-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/the-admirable-balance-of-peter-sellers-in-being-there\/","title":{"rendered":"The Admirable Balance of Peter Sellers in Being There<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Though it\u2019s practically a cliche now, there was a time when a comedian making the leap to a dramatic role could still be considered a risky move. In the late \u201870s, though, making a movie of any kind with Peter Sellers was considered risky after a string of box office failures. It took him almost nine years to get an adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski\u2019s 1971 novel Being There<\/em> off the ground, including multiple appeals to the author himself. But his persistence paid off. When the film was finally released in 1979, it garnered Sellers a nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. He died just seven months later. It remains one of his most fascinating performances in a career with no shortage of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the book, the film follows Chance, who has spent his entire life inside the house of a wealthy old man. The opening sequence takes us through his morning routine, which involves being woken by the television. He tends to the garden, is fed by the maid Louise, and tends to the garden some more. The television is omnipresent throughout; no matter what room he\u2019s in, there\u2019s usually a set nearby and it\u2019s usually turned on. Chance\u2019s interest in programming is blandly egalitarian. He flips through channels at random, with little more than a gentle smile on his face. Occasionally he imitates a gesture he sees or picks up a phrase he hears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But his life is about to change considerably: Louise informs him the old man has passed away. After a visit from two attorneys in charge of the estate, who are nonplussed by his inexplicable presence, Chance is forced to leave the only place he\u2019s ever known. Up until this point, director Hal Ashby hasn\u2019t ventured beyond the confines of the old man\u2019s house. When Chance steps outside for the first time to the strains of a disco version of Strauss\u2019s \u201cAlso sprach Zarathustra\u201d, the hermetic seal of the film is broken as well. The world is far different from the one he\u2019s seen on television, though: the old man\u2019s house is in a run-down urban D.C. neighborhood full of empty lots, garbage, and homeless people. When Chance asks for help, he\u2019s met with rejection and ridicule, and even threatened with a switchblade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not a cautionary tale of Chance falling into abject poverty, though. He is soon rescued, in a sense, when he\u2019s injured by a car owned by Eve Rand (a delightfully game Shirley MacClaine). He\u2019s spirited off to the palatial mansion she shares with her much older husband Ben (Melvyn Douglas, in an Oscar-winning performance) who is dying of a rare blood disorder. Ben was once a self-proclaimed political kingmaker and still wields considerable influence in Washington. He\u2019s also clearly a man used to being told what he wants to hear and is charmed by Chance\u2019s platitudes about gardening and the passing of the seasons. Soon enough, Ben is inviting him to sit down with the President, who later quotes him on television, setting off a race in the press to figure out who exactly this Chauncey Gardiner, as he\u2019s mistakenly \u201crebranded,\u201d is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In an era when our country\u2019s current leader listens to Fox News hosts and online influencers rather than experts, this all might sound a bit quaint. But that\u2019s also part of its considerable appeal. At a time when straight talk sounds a lot like sycophancy, there\u2019s something to be said for a man with a knack for metaphor. \u201cGoobledygook,\u201d Louise declares when she sees Chance\u2019s appearance on a Dick Cavett-like talk show. But it\u2019s his blankness that allows people to read whatever they want into him, and that includes viewers seeking to make a symbol out of his simplicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a monumental task for Sellers, who\u2019s in almost every scene and must maintain a steady temperament throughout. A lesser actor, one lacking in the confidence to keep the audience\u2019s attention, might adopt physical tics or a halting voice to convey Chance\u2019s mental deficiencies. But ironically it takes a great intelligence and humility to play a fool, and Sellers\u2019s performance is a model of control. Unsurprisingly for an actor who fought so hard for a role, he threw himself into the preparation for Being There<\/em>, working alone with a tape recorder to perfect his unmodulated delivery. During filming, he reportedly refused most interviews and kept his distance from the rest of the cast (MacClaine, for her part, called him \u201ca dream\u201d to work with).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would not be Sellers\u2019s final film \u2013 that honor dubiously goes to The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu<\/em>. But it epitomizes what his biographer Ed Sikov called his gift of \u201cplaying men who have no idea how ridiculous they are.\u201d There\u2019s a dignity to Chance that transcends his mundane surroundings but also leaves him at an impossible remove from them. Ashby didn\u2019t come up with the closing image of Being There<\/em> until well into production, but it\u2019s a perfect gracenote to the mysteries of Chance\u2019s existence. What is happening in that final moment? And how is it happening? The answers don\u2019t matter because Chance would never think to ask the questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Being There” is available for digital rental or purchase,<\/a> and is available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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