Spirituality & Practice: Film Review: Being There, directed by Hal Ashby

Spirituality & Practice: Film Review: Being There, directed by Hal Ashby

Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Being There
Directed by Hal Ashby
Warner Bros. 12/79 DVD/VHS Feature Film
PG

"The emergence of celebrity in America is not based on depth," writes Jerzy Kosinski. "It is based on visibility and accessibility, a smile, a figure. It is based on appearing as a person of importance. The question asked is not 'Is he a good man?' It's 'what circles does he move in?' " Being There is a very funny and thought-provoking movie that can be seen as a fairy tale, a political story, and a religious parable on the nature of identity in a media age. Director Hal Ashby's adaptation of Kosinski's 1971 novel is a tour de force of sensitivity and well-realized pacing.

Chance (Peter Sellers), an individual of mysterious origins, is the gardener in the Washington house of a wealthy and eccentric old man. His only pastime is watching television. When the owner dies, the lawyers for the estate force Chance to leave. He finds himself out on the street with no birth certificate, driver's license, checkbook, or medical records. And Chance can't read or write.

Dressed in one of his employer's custom-tailored suits, he looks like a successful businessman. At least that's what Eve (Shirley MacLaine), the wife of a rich and powerful industrialist, thinks when her limousine bruises his leg. She offers to have a doctor check him at her home. When he says, "I am Chance, the gardener," she hears, "I am Chauncey Gardiner." Her husband Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas), an old and ailing patriarch, takes an immediate liking to the soft-spoken and self-confident visitor. Chance is asked to stay with them during his recuperation.

While the President (Jack Warden) is in a meeting with Rand, he asks Chauncey's opinion of the economy. "In a garden, growth has its season . . . as long as the roots are not severed, all will be well." The Chief Executive uses the line in a speech and the press is soon clamoring to know more about this new economic advisor. Invited to appear on TV, Chauncey is an instant success. Although Rand's doctor (Richard Dysart) has his doubts about the man, both the CIA and the FBI fail to come up with any information on him. Chauncey wows a Russian diplomat at a reception on Capitol Hill and is eventually seduced by Eve. In the end, Rand dies and passes on both his estate and his wife to Chauncey. There is even talk among influential businessmen that Mr. Gardiner is presidential material.

One of the hallmarks of a parable of this type is that it can serve as host to a treasure trove of interpretations. Here are a few to try on: play with the idea of Chance as the Jesus of the electronic age, living by the TV Bible, speaking in botanical parables, and hailed as a savior by the media-dominated society. Or how about seeing the old man as God, Chance as Adam, and TV as his mythology. The lawyers are the angels who send him out of the garden. Eve takes Chance home to tempt him with the fruits of popularity and power. Or see Chance as yourself experiencing all the ways in which others try to force you to play a part in their movies. Others have hailed the political prophecy of Being There— individuals have been elevated to high political office for simply coming across well on television. Or here's a final one to process: the film is simply a very savvy meditation on being present — being at the right place at the right time.

The crash

In a way similar to how the world bank, its governing countries and corporate clients operate, Americans were convinced by the american dream, that owning a home was a sure equity cushion, a guaranteed source of ever increasing income and growth for the common man. Well maybe if we had treated our homes like corporate property and protected ourselves from any fault, but we didn't. The equity was never real but we believed enough to borrow against it and live well, much as so many third world countries believed when offered the same projections by like minded bankers.

This is nothing more than loan sharking. Knowing and petitioning a potential customer to borrow money while the provider is aware the loan can never be repaid.

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Liberal? Really?

Most tend to put others on a pedestal when they should just mount a mirror upon it and see who really deserves to be on that pedestal. This need to revere others is so prevalent it disgusts me. So much potential is wasted on outward praise of others. Obama who? What we need is not a leader but one who sets an example, who shows a way not the way, who can express true liberalism through individuality. A president who does his job as administrator and not as King.

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Economics

Both Friedman and Keynes are wrong. They are both opposite extreme economic concepts that clashes not just because of their basic tenets but because they both seek consensus. Consensus comes through compromise and both ideas have become religion and don't work on compromise. Ideas on both sides are good. Its obviously difficult to satisfy large global and national groups by force. Use what works, keep it simple. Eliminate the greed. Current economics is no different than a game that involves betting. The old idea of barter could never work. Currency is need to drive an economy. Any game has rules and most are simple. The most important being cheating. The game must be played above board. All transactions must be transparent. No reason to hide anything unless you are cheating.
Likewise its bad business ethics and logic to extend credit to those who show they can't pay it back.

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Home bound

Traveling from The Cape

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Who Is To Blame?

Who Really Is To blame?

The Fed did a lot to create this financial crisis by pushing for a deregulated market during the Clinton admin, happily celebrated and promoted by Clinton, as he cheered Wall Street on... happily pushed even further by Bush then even further by Obama.

The Fed did, during Bush and Obama, push for Fed assistance to so called "banks too big to fail".

Loans to unqualified recipients were pushed by Fannie & Freddie, pushed on by every admin no matter their Party. Without fail, those unqualified accepted those loans; the claim by too many of not knowing anybody is a claim to not knowing simple arithmetic.

Bailouts began with Bush and continued under Obama despite public outcry to stop and the appearance of promise by Obama, to stop it, though he was surrounded by former employees of said banks.

At this moment the unemployment rate is climbing, acknowledged by Obama. Stimulus did help for awhile but also increased debt and in the end will do nothing because the response from those receiving stimulus wasn't what was expected. Public and private recipients of federal funds are doing what you should expect from those in a panic; hoarding. They're all hoarding the cash sprung from our taxes.

The claim by Republicans and Conservative Dems is that Government can't and shouldn't create jobs though left wing Dems believe otherwise. Gov't can do a lot to create jobs that can't be construed as welfare, but so far haven't done anything of substance that will last. First thing and every American I know who discusses it with me states it simply; this country's infrastructure needs a lot of work and so far, as previous admins have responded, nothing has been done. The most obvious way to get people working is to repair infrastructure. To all the rest of us Americans that seems obvious. Put the money and work and the solution in the hands of those who will benefit most from it. Instead of trusting bankers to take our tax dollars and churn them through the economy the smartest way would be to create jobs for those who need it, pay those who most need and do most to contribute, to do what is most needed, repair the American infrastructure, increasing confidence in American people for they, with their own hands, will make things right. Americans will save more of it than they used to considering the fact that most Americans in the last 30yrs have not, but many will just as quickly spend that money, doing what the banks aren't doing, putting it through the system, through the engines of economy. Instead of creating money from thin air, create money from the real value of employment. Both sides argue about value or lack thereof in the economy, that money is worth nothing without something of value, likewise that only gold is of any value, but to whom? Not everybody has gold or access to it. But everybody has access to one thing, the ability to work. Thinkers spend more time debating than they spend acting. This county needs to get making things again, and one of the most important things is making our country again. Democrats, Republicans and members of parties of all sorts have one thing in common; the inability to think for themselves, the inability to think out of the box you put yourselves in. By its very nature, accepting the cause of any party causes divisiveness where only arguments are voiced without answers.

From my droid

What can I say from my droid while sitting on the bowl.

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Equations

The reality we perceive is virtual, a metaphor for a structure of reality still unknown.

Too simple we are to perceive what is real. What keeps us from realizing is fear of this unknown.

We are equations built from equations embedded with variables solved through interaction with other variables.
We are, we see the result of variables in formulas. We, our reality is but equations within equations whose results figure into yet other equations with further results appearing as we encounter and/or interact with other equations. A single person is an equation. Introduce another person that is another equation and the result is another equation with new results. We exist as individuals, as equations while still integral to other equations, other individuals. While we exist as individual equations we have an effect on integral equations. Numbers dictate all. Our existence can be expressed in numbers whose values, if we knew, could predict the future. We are complex equations interacting with other equations of varying complexities. Perhaps this is why so many metaphors for the structure of reality exists in computers. 

Programs are developed not just with code but modules of code, repeated clusters of code that are used instead of writing the same code over again. Imagine that as the nature of reality and u will note the similarities between us all. As if templates are produced and modified by environment and experience from the moment of conception through death. These similarities are those modules of code we share with each other that cause similarities in us all. Much of our natural tendency to group comes from our need to be with our own. What nature has planned is the intelligence that has fruited in us and that has as a consequence given us consciousness. Silly to say plan but a seed was laid and we are the result. We are the result of a single kernel of data reacting to a whole other evironment of data. We are in constant interaction with other data constantly adjusting and changing and producing results. The reality we exist in no matter the number of dimensions we perceive exists is a massive ongoing calculation of various data. The quantum organic computer model we seek we exist in already. We will eventually reach a state of ability and existence within which we will be able to modify every instance of data ourselves.

We will come to know the math.

Perception...

Its about perception...

listen... its not that reality doesn't exist... it does, but what we perceive as reality is a reality of our own...
though because we interact we share similarities and a common "reality"
listen, what we don't see, can't perceive is reality...
fear guides us,
fear blinds us
that is reality
its hard not to find guidance and comfort in fear...
because we really don't want to see...
don't want to see whats over the edge

but what if whats over the edge is... the end

the end is relative...

to what...

to your personal reality.

Kathryn Bigelow wins DGA Award

Kathryn Bigelow wins DGA Award

At least directors know a good film director when they see one...