Being There (1979)

[Milburn Stone]

Streamed this movie the other night; first time I'd laid eyes on it since it came out in 1979.

It was better than I thought it was back then!

Back then, I contemplated it to determine "what does it all mean?" Now, I mainly appreciated it as a very funny comedy about human nature. Then, I puzzled. Now, I laughed. At how a blank-slate person will cause all others around him to write on that slate, and see what they most need to see, and/or project their own personalities onto him. And love him as they'd love looking at themselves in the mirror.

Even the ending [warning, spoiler] in which he walks on water...Back then, I was all like "wait, is he Jesus?" Now I saw it more simply, as a comic expression of how everyone believed he could do anything. The colloquial walk on water, in other words, not the symbolic or religious walk on water.

Great cast. Including Jack Warden being Jack Warden as only he can.

[Tom Holmberg]

It's a great movie.  Too bad they don't make them like that any more.  (BTW, the book's good too.)

[AimingforYoko]

On 6/25/2022 at 1:24 PM, Milburn Stone said:

Now I saw it more simply, as a comic expression of how everyone believed he could do anything.

See, I believed it was because he didn't know he couldn't.

[Milburn Stone]

4 minutes ago, AimingforYoko said:

See, I believed it was because he didn't know he couldn't.

Well dang, maybe he is God, and the garden he loves tending is the Garden of Eden!