Review of Being There (1979) by Vadim D — 05 Apr 2015

From the opening titles featuring the jazzed up arrangements of Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, you are somehow drawn into Chance's blinkered tv reality, Seller's portrayal being simultaneously empathetic and comedic, his own personality seemingly invisible as he literally inhabits the character of Chauncy Gardiner giving what was surely the ultimate performance in any of his films.

The plot itself is fairly far-fetched it has to be said, the simpleton gardener ending up almost as a presidential advisor and lauded by the media once he's taken in by a kindly but ailing billionaire. The issues it raises are intriguing - the premise of who being as important as what you know, questioning our perception of those deemed simple, the clash of generations, the often ambiguous nature of information gained through television, authorities and political authority in particular.

The closing lake scene wrong-foots the viewer, pulling the rug of certainty from under us and forcing us to re-evaluate everything we've just witnessed, adding another, ethereal, dimension to the film. At that point it felt as if Chance had undergone some sort of other-worldly transformation into the comedic equivalent of Eastwood's man with no name, allowing us to over-write our own narrative onto his blank canvas of a past.

Definitely worthy of a couple of hours of anyone's time I would say this is one of those must see movies. How Sellers failed to win an Oscar for this is something of a mystery as his performance was simply mesmerizing, a role he was surely born for. It has to rate among my top 20 films, one of those that you tend to watch again and find things that you missed on previous viewings, a true test of a great film in my opinion.