My Oscar video pick of the week is a good-natured and heartwarming story made in 1979 about a simpleton (read: mentally challenged) who goes from being a nobody to knowing the President of the US. Being There tells the story of Chance the Gardener, aka Chauncey Gardiner, who doesn't seem to exist. He has learned everything he knows from watching tv. After a slight misfortune he meets Eve (played nicely by Shirley MacLaine) and her husband, financial tycoon Rand. Peter Sellers plays Chance and I haven't seen a lot of Peter Sellers's films but I know a good performance when I see one. Sellers is truly wonderful in the movie and doesn't play Chance as a victim or a joke. Everyone who meets Chance/Chauncey is quite taken with him. Because of his silence and cryptic answers and the suits he wears people think Chauncey is a brilliant, intelligent and well-bred man. What I knew about this movie before watching it: It was Sellers's penultimate (I really like that word) role, he had been nominated for an Oscar, it had a man who was dying. I did some research after watching the film and found out that the thinking is Sellers lost the Oscar (to Dustin Hoffman) because of the blooper scene that played over the end credits. It's quite funny, don't get me wrong (although the scene was NOT in the movie) but it did not fit at all with the rest of the movie and should not have been played over the credits. It was a violation of the movie and I believe that's why Sellers didn't get the Oscar that year. I've seen Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer (the role he won for) and I believe Sellers had the better role and was more talented. Not to mention dashing, sexy. Melvyn Douglas who played the financial tycoon won the award for Supporting Actor and Shirley MacLaine should have been nominated for her performance for the masturbation scene alone. I also read after watching the film that Laurence Olivier had been offered the role of Chance but didn't want to be in a scene in which MacLaine had to masturbate (it's one of the best scenes).
Sometimes the Academy gets it so right and sometimes they get it so wrong. Sellers was robbed but don't let that stop you from seeing Being There.