Being There
Being There
•
2h 10m
Directed by Hal Ashby • 1979 • United States
Starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas
In one of his most finely tuned performances, Peter Sellers plays the pure-hearted, childlike Chance, a gardener who is forced into the wilds of Washington, D.C., when his wealthy guardian dies. Shocked to discover that the real world doesn’t respond to the click of a remote, Chance stumbles into celebrity after being taken under the wing of a tycoon (Melvyn Douglas, in an Oscar-winning performance), who mistakes his protégé’s horticultural mumblings for sagacious pronouncements on life and politics, and whose wife (Shirley MacLaine) targets Chance as the object of her desire. Adapted from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, this satire, both deeply melancholy and hilarious, is the culmination of Hal Ashby’s remarkable string of films in the 1970s, and a carefully modulated examination of the ideals, anxieties, and media-fueled delusions that shaped American culture during that decade.
Up Next in Being There
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The Making of BEING THERE
The following documentary about the production of BEING THERE, created in 2017, features interviews with producer Andrew Braunsberg, screenwriter Robert C. Jones, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, and editor Don Zimmerman.
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Hal Ashby at the AFI
In this audio excerpt from a January 1980 seminar Hal Ashby gave at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, the director discusses his film BEING THERE.
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Jerzy Kosinski on “The Dick Cavett Show”
A legendary raconteur, “Being There” author Jerzy Kosinski was a frequent guest on talk shows in the 1970s and ’80s, included several visits to “The Dick Cavett Show.” He discusses the upcoming film of “Being There” and his approach to writing during this February 2, 1979, appearance.
