Being There (1979)
Directed by Hal Ashby

Film Review

Hal Ashby, one of the lynchpins of the 1970s American counterculture movement, concluded a remarkable decade of filmmaking with this inspired satire, loosely adapted from a 1971 novel by Jerzy Kosinski.  Ashby had already won acclaim for his groundbreaking comedies Harold and Maude (1971) and Shampoo (1975) and garnered further praise with his Vietnam drama Coming Home (1978).  Being There is another off-the-wall feather in Ashby's cap, a film which proved to be horribly prescient of the changes that would come about in western society over the following decade.  The film anticipates and takes great delight in mocking society's ever-growing obsession with self-advancement and vacuous celebrities.   'Being there' (i.e. rich and famous) is the only thing that matters for the generation whose entire philosophy is based around the word 'me'.

Being There was not only a triumph for Hal Ashby - one of his funniest, most intelligent and most provocative films - it also allowed the British comic actor Peter Sellers (famous for playing Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films) to make a remarkable return to form, after years in which he had drifted into pitiful self-parody.  As the film's simpleminded hero (appropriately named Chance), Sellers turns in one of his best performances, which is impressive not because of what the actor does, but because of what he doesn't do.  Chance is a non-person, a blank slate onto which others project their own impressions of who he is.  All of the humour in the film comes from the absurdity of people seeing only what they want to see and not being able to see what Chance really is.

Unusually for an actor who is renowned for his comic portrayals, Sellers plays Chance with deadly seriousness, presenting him as a dull but likeable middle-aged man who has mentally not advanced beyond childhood.  Everyone who meets Chance sees him as something totally different, a projection of their own personality - he is the perfect shape-shifter.  Without the slightest conscious effort, Chance becomes a celebrity, a political confidante and object of desire (for both sexes).  And once the celebrity ball has started rolling, it is of course impossible to stop it.  We all know where it will end - with Chance in the White House, like so many spoiled nonentities before him.  This is Sellers' most subtle performance, and possibly his greatest - matched only by his unforgettable turns in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964). Tragically it was also to be one of his last - he died just a few months after the film was released.  Being There is also distinguished by some impressive performances from Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas, the latter of whom won an Oscar (for Best Supporting Actor) for his role as the credulous magnate Ben Rand.  Sellers was also nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, but he lost out to Dustin Hoffman (in Kramer vs. Kramer).

The most controversial aspect of the film is its enigmatic ending, which shows Chance apparently walking on water.  Our willingness to try to ascribe some deeper meaning to this whimsical flight of fancy (which has no connection with what goes before and could easily have been omitted) stresses Ashby's evident frustration with modern culture, and cinema in particular.  Rather than take things at face value and admit to seeing nonsense when it comes our way, we feel impelled to see more than is actually there (in this case, some kind of pseudo-religious allegory).  Like the deluded fools who are so willing to see Chance as a business genius, we cannot resist the perverse allure of everything that is shallow and meretricious, giving talentless non-people an easy ride to millionaire status whilst true genius starves by the roadside.  It was probably no comfort to Hal Ashby to know he was right, as the American film studios rejected him and his kind en masse in the early 80s as they went after more lucrative gains in mainstream mediocrity.  Oh, the irony of it.

Film Synopsis

Chance is a middle-aged man who has spent his entire life in a large house in Washington D.C.  The only two people he knows are his benefactor, a successful business man, and a black woman who brings him his meals.  Mentally retarded, Chance cannot read or write, and his sole occupation is tending to his master's garden.  His view of the outside world is limited to what he sees on television.  When his benefactor dies, Chance is told he must leave the house immediately.  Shortly after he walks out onto the street, he is injured by a car belonging to the business magnate Ben Rand.  Rand's wife insists that Chance accompany her back to her city mansion to be examined by her husband's personal physician.  Despite being almost bed-ridden, Rand takes an instant liking to Chance, mistaking his childlike observations for shrewd allegorical comments on business.  The President of the United States is equally impressed by Chance when he pays Rand a personal call to ask for political advice on how to revive the ailing economy.  After the President has quoted Chance in a television broadcast, Chance becomes a media sensation.  Everyone is curious to find out who he is, but for some reason there are no records of his past history...