Being There

[poliphilo]

My fascination with Peter Sellers has a lot to do with him looking like my father.

It's something to do with the forehead. And- harder to pin down- with the way he carries himself.

There are shots in Being There where it's definitely my father up there on screen.

Being There is one of my favourite movies. I watched it again last night. Sellers made a lot of cruddy films- many of them cruddier than they need have been because of his appalling behaviour on and off the set (Blake Edwards reckons he was certifiably insane)- but Being There is immaculate.

Comments

[currawong.livejournal.com]

P.S. Did you ever see Sellars in an early straight dramatic role, in a film called, "Never Let Go"? It was a strong and very unsettling performance which would have sent his career down a completely different trajectory if the fans of the "Goons" and his other comedies hadn't howled with outrage. They detested the film in which their endearing idol perfectly portrayed a heartless sleaze.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen that.

Yet.

I'm a Sellers completist so I'm going to have to.

There are other straight performances. In Hoffman, for instance, where he plays a misogynistic creep. Afterwards he was so bothered by what he saw on screen that he tried to buy the negative with a view to burning it.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen "Hoffman" ...and I bet it's impossible to see,

"Lolita" and "Strangelove", I think, must be counted as American films despite being filmed in the UK. "The Matrix" and "Star Wars", episodes 1 & 2 were filmed in Sydney, but I dont see them as Australian films.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I own Hoffman on DVD.

(DVD is wonderful, innit? Suddenly all these rarities are available!)

You're probably right about Strangelove and Lolita; they're both American subjects. Though it has to count for something that the two stars of Lolita were British.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Hmmm ... I wonder if "Hoffmann" and "Never Let Go" are the same film by different names? The plot of the latter revolved around a car theft racket.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, they're different. Hoffman is about a guy who blackmails a girl into spending the week-end with him.

No dodgy motors anywhere to be seen.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Nope ... I just looked it up ... different film entirely ...so we both have some tracking down to do.


Incidentally, the Johnathan Miller "Alice" has never screened here, and I'd love to see it... if only to counter the hideous versions with Fiona Fulleton, (musical, with GHASTLY music) or the recent one with Whoopi Goldberg which to my mind amounted to molestation of a minor.

I've never seen the interesting sounding Hollywood version with the likes of W.C.Fields and Gary Cooper.

Have you seen the bizarre and rather frightening version by the Czech animator Svankmajer? It's extremely creepy.
Check out the truly bizarre and amazing cast in this version:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088693/

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Miller version is available on DVD from the BFI.

I haven't seen the Svankmajer. I'd like to.

As for the Fullerton version, I caught the opening once and hastily switched channels.

I have, perversely- seeing as how I hate and despise all things Disney- a certain regard for the Disney cartoon. It's not Lewis Carroll, but it looks gorgeous.

As for the American TV version- Telly Savalas as the Cheshire Cat? My brain hurts.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I saw the Disney with my grandmother when I was about nine, so i was just the right age, and I was entranced ...and the music was, like much of the music in early Disney features, rather good and the final sequences with the cards, hypnotic.

I had a love/ hate with Disney ... hated the Americanisation of English classics ... hated "Walt Disney's Peter Pan", "Walt Disney's Pinocchio" etc. (the NERVE!) ...but every now and then, something like the "Pink Elephants on Parade" number from "Dumbo", (which I didn't see until I was an adult), or "The Dance of the Hours" from "Fantasia" would, just for a while, make me nine years old again.

I knew the casting of the American TV. version would make your jaw drop.