The Michigan Daily-Saturday, March 29, 1980-Page.5 PETER SEL1IER S IN 'BEING THERE' Kosinski on film: there, but not all there By OWEN GLEIBERMAN A few years ago, Paddy Chayevsky ook some half-baked ideas about the vils of American television and con- octed a jumbled, heavy-handed farce bout a news anchorman who goes razy and becomes the TV-culture's p messiah. Network had an ap- lingly sardonic tone, and it took a ew honest potshots at American fads. the script was such a chaotic ulish of McLuhanesque sociology nd Mel Brooksian overstatement that he basic satirical framework was uried under an avalanche of cartoon reachiness. The movie was like a away snowball, spinning down a hill nd gaining such size and speed with very turn that one lost sight of the easing, tantalizing "What if?" at its enter. Still, aside from Chayevsky's pedan- ivel, there was something fun and ocative about the notion of a movie reated around a single absurd circum- tance-a gimmick. You didn't have to espond to the stilted satire to get a few icks out of all the general looniness. Being There goes Network one better, ot only because its nutty premise is eirder and cleverer, but because its reators understand that less is more. e movie's point-that Americans see hat they want to see, instead of what's e-has no more earthshattering nsight than Network's, yet it's one of he most ingeniously sustained gim- icks ever put on the screen. The tone s modest-too modest. Being There is a hin, safe, sedate, ultimately one- imensional wafer of a movie, the kind f thing high school English teachers dore because it's elegant and high- oned yet as dryly digestable as a Ritz racker-low-calorie food for thought. et it has a pleasant, low-key charm a load of wit. The movie's as tran- ent as glass, but it's only on leaving he theater that one may wonder why so uch time and money was lavished on his eccentric little project in the first lace. PETER SELLERS brings the film its alm comic resonance as Chance, a ysterious man of about fifty who s-quite literally-a nothing. Chance s never ridden in a car, never read a k, never even stepped outside the hington, D.C. residence he shares th a nameless old man. Instead, he's pent the days tending the house's tiny 'ackyard garden and watching his right, big television, which he stares t like some crazed video mystic, swit- hing channels every few seconds, umbling the words to himself, even imicking the physical actions of the ple he sees. When the old man dies and the house ssessed, Chance finds himself a eless infant, with no one around to undle him up and leave him at some tranger's doorstep. Armed with his uitcase and trusty electronic channel elector, he enters this strange new orld like an alien, and arrives at the mmense, sprawling Gothic mansion of Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas), a rominent Washington banker and residential advisor in the last thrones f a terminal illness. Rand is a stock t-fisted conservative (in this case, a heart of gold) but finds a friend *n Chance, who listens to his non-stop tream of right-wing babble with the patience of a sage, interjecting oc- casional asides about gardening which Rand takes to be wise, weighty philosophical pronouncements on the state of the nation. Soon, Rand has the Washington jet set convinced that Chance is a savior. The whole town is buzzing about him-foreign diplomats, political elite, even the president ck Warden), who's frustrated because his top government agents have combed their documents and can't seem to find a clue to Chance's background. From there, Chance rides the talk-show circuit to national glory-an empty prophet, a cretin, the ultimate "created" sensation. THE MOVIE unfolds at a langorous, almost plodding pace, and several Ithy scenes pass before the central viewpoints with near-equanimity of in- sight. Here, he's another victim of the Julia syndrome, devoting astonishing amounts of craft and sensitivity to a wan little anecdote that plainly doesn't deserve it. Not that any of his efforts are wasted. The movie expands what was essentially a mechanical satirical tract into a humanized story about a warm, kooky bunch of characters with too much fuzz in their brains to see what's in front of them. Ashby includes plenty of clips from old TV shows like Get Smart and Mr. Rogers, and the laughs they get are more than jolts of recognition. Seeing those old clips is like being reminded of especially em- barrassing moments from our past. The combination of the silly and the outdated is almost beyond camp, and we may wonder how we watched those shows, but we did, and so, by im- plication, have all the reckless idiots in Being There who get sucked into believing that Chance has a message for them. But Chance (or, as he mistakenly comes to be called, Chauncey Gar- diner) speaks only of what he knows, and all he knows is gardening. Since he's incapable of assembling the sim- plest metaphor, everything he says is ridiculously literal: when Chance tells the President of the United States that, "In a garden, growth has its season," he means it. But everyone takes his weak-voiced offerings about spring and summer and severed roots as profound, poetic evocations of what's happening within the country's economic cycles. On a Johnny Carson-type talk show, Chance's modest claim that spring will follow winter is greeted as a plug for hope and optimism, and Chance, the cockeyed optimist, is a hit. It has nothing to do with what he says, or what he is; "being there" is everything. IT'S NICE TO see Peter Sellers in a classy role-the release of each new Pink Panther installment was starting to sound like a death knell for a washed- up jokester. As Chance, Sellers manages to look both distinguished and vaguely silly, with his elegant greying coiffure and slightly-too-small suit, and he gives a hilarious deadpan perfor- mance. Sellers' facial control is ex- traordinary-for the movie's two-hour duration, he's forever in this spacey limbo between normal human repose and an inanely blank, gaga-eyed stare. In some ways the role appears curiously undemanding, especially during some botched outtakes that Ashby inserted with the closing credits. (Just why this footage is includedis slightly mysterious; I hope Ashby doesn't think he was playing any illusion-and-reality games.) But Sellers brings it every nuance of restraint and pathos he can, and it's obvious that he had a ball playing this zombie. Chance, though, isn't just mindless; he's personality-less, a well-dressed blob, and the joke beings to run out of steam midway through the movie. Reviewers have taken Ashby to task for his quasi-mystical ending, but by the time the last scene rolled around I was waitng for something, anything, to break up the somewhat momotonous flow of Kosinski's curt, message-ladden scenario. The flaw was in not in- troducing the mystical element earlier, when it might have saved the movie's limited vision from growing a coat of See BEING, P.10 s " ,.,~ TONIGHT CINEMA GUILD TC PRESENTS 'ONIGHT THE GODFATHER, PART I1 If you saw Part I last night, don't miss the show tonight; The Carleone family is back to continue its passionate and bloody saga in the best sequel ever made. ROBERT DENIRO is electrifying, DIANE KEATON is serious, and AL PACINO is Al Pacino at his best. Coppola paints a chilling portrait of the tradition of power. $1.50 7:00 & 9:00 at OLD ARCH. AUD. rCINEMA Il I I1 PRESENTS KINGS OF THE ROAD (WIM WENDERS, 1976) Bruno, the King of the Road, and Robert, "Kamikaze," travel the back roads of Germany, Bruno repairing old cinema equipment, Robert on the run from a failing marriage. They move through a series of towns, postcard scenery, humorous incidents, and interesting discoveries*all to the tunes of Ameri- can Rock 'n Roll. The King and Kamikaze make two revelations: that the Americans "have colonized our subconscious" and that everything must change With Rudiger Volger and Hanns Zischer. Winner of the International Critics prize at Cannes. In German with subtitles. (178 mir). ANGELL HALL 7 & 10:15 $1.50 Tomorrow: BREATHLESS (Godard) I rl I I- Indulging in his favorite occupation, Chauncy Gardiner (Peter Sellers) placidly watches television in Being There, Hal Ashby's new 2dantin of the Jerzy Kosinski's novel. gimmick comes into focus. At first, Being There even looks like an Americanized Every Man For Himself And God Against All, Werner Herzog's visionary fable about a saintly man- child in a heartless world. Chance's fir- st steps in the Washington metropolis take him on a mini-odyssey into the heart of urban chaos. Fording off a gang of thugs with his channel selector, staring with wide-eyed fascination at the city's neon glow, Chance greets his new environment with tough, inadver- tantly courageous defiance. But Kaspar Hauser, the hero of Every Man For Himself, was Herzog's surrogate, a deformed visionary who could see everything for what it is; Sellers' character is simply a vehicle for some benign social satire. Despite a few half-hearted attempts at charac- terization (notably a "romantic" sub- plot that includes an autoerotic sequen- ce with disturbing overtones-distur- bing, because they're never explored), Chance remains an unobtrusive non- entity, as blank as a cleanly scrubbed blackboard, wandering through an ab- surd universe he has neither the desire nor the ability to understand. Herzog's film was slow and plodding, too, but there was a dreamy Teutonic passion to it, and it was clearly the work of an ob- sessive sensibility. Watching Being There, one gets the feeling that a lot of things intrigue Hal Ashby, but that nothing obsesses him. The movie's hollow, cavernous atmosphere (highlighted by Caleb Deschanel's lush cinematography) recalls Warren Beat- RESUMES THESES - DISSERTATIONS COVER LETTERS REPORTS SOFT COVER BINDING 24-HOUR TURN AROUND THE TYPING POOL 612 SOUTH FOREST ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48104 (313) 665-9843 OFFICE HOURS MONDAY THRU FRIDAY 10:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. ty's musty Heaven Can Wait, but at least that gimmick movie was padded out with some high-gloss glamour and larger-than-life romance. Being There is a comic thesis film, detached and blandly consistent. THE NARROWNESS of the movie's vision is traceable to its source-Jerzy Kosinski's satirical novella, which Kosinski himself adapted. It's difficult to say exactly what drew Ashby to this odd, cold fable. Perhaps it was the mildness of the satire. Ashby's never been a particularly derisive social critic, and even his most politically conscious films (Shampoo, Coming Home) draw their strength from the richness of feeling he imparts to characters, and from his generous ability to present a number of clashing * 4 " VmK. TRYOUTS Ann Arbor Civic Theatre Presents an Original Play LADMY IAMHERtby Diane Monach Try-out times: 7:50-10:00 p.m. March 30, 31 April 1 Mass Meeting, Sunday March 30-7:00 p.m. 338 S. Main ROLES: EIGHT MEN, FOUR WOMEN A period comedy set in 1815 England J10" * The Ann Arber Fi mCopernive Presents at MLB: $1.50 Saturday, March 29 CANADIAN ANIMATION FESTIVAL (McLaren et al.) 7:00-MLB 3 Since the 1930's with John Grierson ("father of the documentary") as the director of the National Film Board of Canada has pfoduced some of the most socially-aware and technically dazzling animated films ever made. Award- winning shorts from a studio internationally known for its support of contro- versial, innovative directors. "The farthest reaches of an art form."-FILM NEWS. CLAY ANIMATION 8:40-MLB3 More than any other art form of three dimensional animation, Clay offers a wide range of possibilities. Included in this diverse collection are films by Art Clockley, creator of the Gumby television series, a wacky play comedy entitled KING TUT GOES TO McDONALDS (X-Rated), and THE LITTLE PRINCE, a film just released by the Academy Award winning clay animator Will Vinton. SUPERSHORTS: DEVO, ASPARAGUS, RAMONES0:20-MLS3 One of the most consistently hilarious, engrossing and entertaining programs of short films ever assembled. Titles include Bruce Connor's MONGOLOID, Susan Pitt's ASPARAGUS, Vincent Collin's FANTASY, PUNKING OUT (RAMONES) and from the incredible Chuck Statler, we feature three new ELVIS COSTELLO shorts, five DEVO films and the outrageous MADNESS in ONE STEP BEYOND. This is what living is really all about. i !e I A m n u AD NGDPEI (Rnner Vadim. 1959) 7:00-MLB 4