Best Sunday Afternoon Movie Ever! BEING THERE

[zero]

I've never been a particularly big Peter Sellers fan but I picked up a bunch of old movies from the library and threw on Being There. It's basically the story of this man Chance who is a gardener for a wealthy old man who dies at which point he has to leave the house he has lived in his whole life and go out in the world. He is struck by a car carrying Shirley McClaine's character who is the wife of a very influential political kingmaker who is also dying. Basically through being this incredibly simple laconic childlike man he is mistaken (or taken) for being a genius of some sort; poet, philosopher, king.

Plus you get to hear the whole version of Eumir Deodato's 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' that Phish based their version off (I recall Mike saying in an interview once that everyone presumes that their version is based on the Kubrick film but it's actually Hal Ashby's Being There).

Oh and best ending ever!

BEST outtakes!

[Scarlet Begonia]

That movie is one of my dad's favourites, so I have seen it a few times. I mostly remember it from when I was little although I should give it a watch again to re-visit it.

I agree the ending is great. It really illustrates that we do create our own reality and our beliefs or lack there of really can "carry" us a long way. Don't want to say too much and spoil it. :-)

[Prost]

I have not seen the movie Being There but I have heard the version of 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' by Eumir Deodato and it's insane!

[Freak By Night]

This movie ties in with jambands quite well.

Oteil Burbridge, from the Allman Brothers, is in this movie. A bit part, he plays one of the youths who harass Peter Sellers near the beginning.

[mark tonin]

"I like to watch, Eve." Or something like that. Makes me smile and laugh thinking about it.

Peace, Mark

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

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Easily one of my favourite movies; I still haven't read Jerzy Kosinsky's original novel, which is apparently a short but very good read. I got to thinking a lot about it after seeing the Peter Sellers episode of The Muppet Show last week - especially with his saying to Kermit that he couldn't talk about himself because "I don't exist." Chance the Gardener is a character who everyone projects want they want on to, but he doesn't seem to have an identity himself.

Kind of a nicer vision of the same problem for the actor character in Mephisto, come to think of it.

[Dr. J]

For years, whenever I was at an educational workshop/conference and people asked me who I considered to be my greatest mentor in the field, I would always answer Chauncey Gardiner. They would nod and i would smile because I knew they didn't have a fuckin' clue who I was talking about and I was being serious great movie.

[zero]

The weird thing I noticed is I went to return the movie to the library right after watching it and it was a crisp early Spring afternoon and I found myself, you guessed it, just being there. I was walking slowly and methodically like Chauncey and looking around at the world with a bewildered amazement, I even noticed I clasped my arms behind my back instinctively like Chauncey. It was a cute, funny and quite meaningful experience.

I suspect there is a great deal one could say about this film. The enduring metaphor of the garden will strike many at first as having of course a biblical ring consistent with the ending. However I would say that Hal Ashby is actually quite likely referring to Voltaire's Candide in which the final metaphor is that of cultivating the garden. Candide and company decide to give up their philosophic ideals in exchange for productive practicality. This change in focus shows that Candide has recognized the imperfection of his world and man’s inability to comprehend let alone conquer the evil in his world. Of course there are copious satires and criticisms of life in the TV age, I suspect Marshall McLuhan would have liked this movie very much, this also is very consistent with reading Being There as a revised Candide. Consider this take on Candide read as a comment about Being There:

Voltaire uses an absurd tone and presentation of the story, which clearly incites laughter. Yet the often exaggerated, outlandish, and senseless events in the novel force the reader to confront the overdone, unbelievable and irrational nature of the real world. Thus, the tone of Candide, which is usually ironical and satirical, underscores the theme of the work as a whole.

[zero]

By way of a big pat on the back for myself I searched 'Being There' and 'Candide' right after posting and came across this almost identical interpretation. It's made all the more compelling by the fact that at my uncle's funeral, who died quite young through misadventure, I invoked Voltaire's metaphor of cultivating the gardens we still have left in my eulogy.

It seems to me that a worthy point of reference is Voltaire’s "Candide". At the end of that story the idealistic Candide has become thoroughly disillusioned with life and the various philosophies he has encountered. His solution is "Il faut cultiver notre jardin." (We must develop our garden). His friend Martin agrees and adds with even greater clarity, "Travaillons sans raisonner – c’est le seul moyen de rendre la vie supportable." (Let’s work without thinking – that’s the only way of making life bearable). Candide’s solution is to return to nature and the simple life, unquestioning, undoubting – this is the way to happiness as opposed to his wordly wise adventures which led to unhappiness and cynicism.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I like that comparison, especially in light of all the maniacal chatter among the powerbrokers at the cenotaph in the background, as Chauncey innocently strolls off across the water (one of those Jesus-y motifs that for me recalls Nietzsche's characterisation of him as a simple free spirit).

[Im going home Donny]

Think I'll have to check this out...man do I feel lame....I was watching road trip and scarey movie 3....haha....they were on t.v. I was feeling way lazy.....

[zero]

I think if you could handle the pacing of it you would really really get a lot out of it. It's a bit of an acquired taste as it is a really droll part for Peter Sellers who is already an acquired taste but it makes some really big statements.

[Im going home Donny]

cheers Luke...I've made a note to self.

[Kelly-Anne]

My favorite movie of all time is "Sunday Morning coming Down" It's about a sinner whose been out all night drinking, playing music and smoking his mind out. And while walking home, he's starts contemplating his plight, he smells someone cooking chicken, and then has a beer for breakfast instead of a healthy breakfast of eggs and bacon, and it wasn't bad, so he had another one for desert.

He tells the lord that he'd rather be stoned as it's Sunday and he's all alone. That the lonely sidewalk has made him sad.

But then he walks through a park and see's what he could have been. A father a daughter on a set of swings. He stops near a church and hears a choir singing songs about the lord and in the distance he hear the fading ringing of church bells. And he realized that like his life, his memories are nothing more than a hollow trail of whoring, drinking and smoking cigarettes that weren't smoked the night before.

I think it's stars Christopher Reeve and Shelly Long.

[zero]

I am in the midst of writing that movie as we speak.