{"id":16416,"date":"2012-07-02T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=16416"},"modified":"2012-06-20T14:24:40","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T19:24:40","slug":"being-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/being-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Being There"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rivershare.polarislibrary.com\/search\/searchresults.aspx?ctx=16.1033.0.0.1&amp;type=Keyword&amp;term=being%20there%20sellers&amp;by=KW&amp;sort=RELEVANCE&amp;limit=TOM=*&amp;query=&amp;page=0#__pos3\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-16422\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Being-There.jpg?resize=171%2C253&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"171\" height=\"253\" \/><\/a>Somehow I never got around to watching 1979&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/rivershare.polarislibrary.com\/search\/searchresults.aspx?ctx=16.1033.0.0.1&amp;type=Keyword&amp;term=being%20there%20sellers&amp;by=KW&amp;sort=RELEVANCE&amp;limit=TOM=*&amp;query=&amp;page=0#__pos3\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Being There<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0. A\u00a0cultural touchstone at the time; it still holds up when you watch more than thirty years later. I was looking for\u00a0movies set in Washington, D.C. and thought now was the time to watch this &#8211; thinking it would be a bit of a chore.<\/p>\n<p>However, it is wonderfully absorbing.\u00a0A certain calmness and serenity\u00a0takes hold of you,\u00a0the longer you watch it. Peter Sellers was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as Chauncey Gardiner, (the character tries to communicate his name as, Chance the gardener and is mis-heard by a wealthy benefactor played by Shirley McLaine). Melvyn Douglas (who <em>did<\/em> win an Oscar) becomes very fond of Chauncey and imbues his simple statements about gardening and nature with metaphorical wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>This is a beautifully made and acted film. Peter Sellers, in his last role, inhabits the character with a solemnity and simplicity that makes it a completely unique character. Chance\/Chauncy&#8217;s only experience of the outside world was through television,\u00a0and there are frequent clips of commercials and shows of the day. \u00a0It&#8217;s really fun to see &#8220;Basketball Jones,&#8221; again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somehow I never got around to watching 1979&#8217;s Being There\u00a0. A\u00a0cultural touchstone at the time; it still holds up when you watch more than thirty years later. I was looking for\u00a0movies set in Washington, D.C. and thought now was the time to watch this &#8211; thinking it would be a<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/being-there\/\">[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[524,241],"class_list":["post-16416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvds","tag-comedy","tag-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-4gM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16416"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16512,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16416\/revisions\/16512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}