Being There (1979)

Editor's Note BEING THERE is based on Jerzy Kosinski's short comic novel about a simpleton, Chance (Peter Sellers), raised in isolation whose only education came from watching TV. When he's forced out of the house where he worked as a gardener by the death of the wealthy recluse who raised him from infancy, he's fortuitously struck by a limousine carrying Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), the wife of a wealthy industrialist. He's mistaken, because of his well-tailored suits, for a man of means and taken to dinner with her husband, Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas). There, as Chauncy Gardner, his blank affect is taken for seriousness and his literal pronouncements about gardening for metaphoric economic predictions. Soon he's meeting the president (Jack Warden) and becoming a star on TV--where he's a natural. Kosinski was well known to be personally fascinated by the power of television. In BEING THERE, which he adapted for the screen himself, he presents a comic fable about a man whose entire sense of reality came from watching television. Sellers is marvelous as the always-deadpan cipher in whom everyone he meets sees whatever it is they need to see. Shirley MacLaine, Jack Warden, and Melvyn Douglas give outstanding performances in this biting satire directed by Hal Ashby.

	Richard Basehart
	Peter Sellers
	Shirley MacLaine
	Jack Warden
	Richard Dysart
	Melvyn Douglas
	Charles Schram - Makeup
	Andrew Braunsberg - Producer
	Jerzy Kosinski - Writer
	Don Zimmerman - Editor
	Robert Benton - Set Designer
	James Schoppe - Art Director
	Michael Haller - Production Designer
	Dianne Schroeder - Director of Photography
	Frank Westmore - Makeup
	Caleb Deschanel - Cinematographer
	Johnny Mandel - Composer
	Hal Ashby - Director

"I like to watch."----Chauncy Gardner (Peter Sellers) to Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine)

Entertainment Weekly
"...Deadpan farce....Sellers in his greatest performance..." -- Rating: A- 01/15/1999 pp.64-5

New York Times
"...A stately, beautifully acted satire....Sellers never strikes a false note..." 12/20/1979 p.C20

Chicago Sun-Times
"...A rare and subtle bird that finds its tone and sticks with it. It has the appeal of an ingenious intellectual game..." 05/25/1997 p.5

Premiere
"[Chance] is a cipher both funny and frightening, making utter vacancy look like Zen inscrutability." 04/01/2004 p.64

Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] strange, evocative swan song whose charm is still strong after 30 years....It's an uncanny part for Sellers, who by repute was an empty vessel into which characters were poured." 03/01/2009

Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "Peter Sellers redeemed himself with one last major turn in BEING THERE....This is an exceptional comedy..." 04/01/2009