In one of the most provocative films of its time, Peter Sellers plays a simple-minded gardener whose only knowledge of life outside the walls of the elegant Washington house where he lives comes from television. When the master of the house dies, however, Chance must inevitably face the real world. This piercingly simple yet brilliantly crafted set-up leads to numerous comic but also heart-wrenching moments. A delicate and timeless satire of, among other things, American political life, the charmingly witty Being There is a classic work by the underappreciated cinematic titan Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude), working from a screenplay by Jerzy Kozinski (The Painted Bird).
Hal Ashby (1929, Ogden, Utah – 1988, Malibu, California), a representative of the New Hollywood generation, will be remembered for the movies he contributed in the 1970s to a key chapter in the history of post-classic American film. He gained recognition in the 1960s as an editor when The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966) and In the Heat of the Night (1967) brought two Academy Award nominations. Then came the black comedy Harold and Maude (1971), the psychological drama The Last Detail (1973), the comedy Shampoo (1975), the biopic of folk singer Woody Guthrie Bound for Glory (1976), the drama Coming Home (1978), and the social satire Being There (1979), in which Peter Sellers shines brightly in one of his final roles. Although Ashby worked extensively in the last decade of his life, none of his final eight pictures made much of a splash worldwide.
