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Being There (1979) | July 20th, 2005

Being There(1979)

Be warned I’m testing out the Spoiler Plugin for word press. I’m not sure how well it works - or if it works at all over RSS/Atom/etc.

If it doesn’t let me know !

I don’t know how to explain this movie. One person I read said it was a thinking man’s Forrest Gump. There is a lot more subtly and in many ways a lot more plausible chain of events. So it’s not an entirely fair comparisson. Gogol (The Ukranian writer) has a play call “The Inspector” where a nobody is mistaken for a very important goverment official incognito. There are some over tones of this in the movie. They are connected but tangental - mostly because Chance (The main character of the movie) is completely incapabale of guile of any sort.

I particilarly loved when he tried to tell the book agent that he didn’t want to write a book because he doesn’t write. The book agent promises to find a ghost writer. Then Chance reveals that he cannot read. The book agent says he understands - everyone is too busy to read. This exchange happens over and over again thru out the movie. Chance gives his answer and the people hearing it fill it in with their own version which makes him endlessly popular.

I won’t lie - after 20 minutes I was ready to walk away from the movie. If a friend (hi Morris) hadn’t told me it was his favorite movie of all time I would have stopped. The movie gets off to a slow start and it’s very nature makes it hard to imagine where they are going to take you. I made it all the way thru in the end and I’m glad that I did. I was laughing a lot by the end. Peter Sellers gives one of those performances which at first seems so effortless you think - that’s not really acting - but as it keeps going you realize how amazing it is that he is able to strip away all of his personality and charm and replace with a blank slate.

Spoiler Alert


I was really with the movie up until that very last scene. In that the character walks on water. At first you’re not sure if that is what is going on until he dips his umbrella up to it’s hilt to show that the water is not solid.

Reviews I read online seem to be split about this.

The first and most obvious is to consider it a biblical reference. I thought about that a lot and I just don’t think that makes very much sense. There is nothing “Christ-like” in Chance. Sure he’s nice
but that is about it.

I think the second and more fitting explanation is a reference to cartoons. You know when the rabbit runs off the cliff and can keep going because Bugs just doesn’t think about it , but Elmer Fudd could never do that. I think this fits a lot better with the person that Chance is portrayed as. I think they were trying to demonstrate that Chance is so innocent and ignorant of the world that he could walk on water because he just doesn’t know any better.

Personally I think it wasn’t really necessary. It takes it from the absurd but plausible into the realm of the fantastical. Which I sort of think is a shame since it let’s the other characters in the film off - they aren’t just the shallow oblivious people they seem to be - they were better but Chance has powers beyond our imagination.

Bottom Line: Great movie - just be prepared to let the film unfold and rope you in.

4 Responses to 'Being There (1979)'
  1. Cory:
    July 20th, 2005 at 10:02 am

    I read the book last month and really enjoyed it. I’ve heard from others that the movie was excellent, guess I’ll have to check it out now.

  2. anniet:
    July 20th, 2005 at 10:29 am

    The spoiler showed up in bloglines.

  3. HeadGeek:
    July 21st, 2005 at 7:11 am

    I read a review that compared the book and the movie - they are each true to their medium - meaning that the book sees the story from Chance’s view point. You get to experience his thoughts on what is going on. THe movie is completely external to Chance - so it may be a little weird to not know what he is thinking (which you get from the book). He’s apparently more of a simpleton in the movie than the book because of that.

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