Review by Gary Tooze

Runtime: 2:09:50.866 / 2:10:12.137

LPCM Audio English 1152 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1152 kbps / 24-bit

• Theatrical trailer (2:44)

Summary: In one of his most finely tuned performances, Peter Sellers plays the pure-hearted, childlike Chance, a gardener who is forced into the wilds of Washington, D.C., when his wealthy guardian dies. Shocked to discover that the real world doesn’t respond to the click of a remote, Chance stumbles into celebrity after being taken under the wing of a tycoon (Melvyn Douglas, in an Oscar-winning performance), who mistakes his protégé’s horticultural mumblings for sagacious pronouncements on life and politics, and whose wife (Shirley MacLaine) targets Chance as the object of her desire. Adapted from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, this satire, both deeply melancholy and hilarious, is the culmination of Hal Ashby’s remarkable string of films in the 1970s, and a carefully modulated examination of the ideals, anxieties, and media-fueled delusions that shaped American culture during that decade.

***

 'Being There' is based on Jerzy Kosinski's short comic novel about a simpleton, Chance (Peter Sellers), raised in isolation whose only education came from watching TV. When he's forced out of the house where he worked as a gardener by the death of the wealthy recluse who raised him from infancy, he's fortuitously struck by a limousine carrying Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), the wife of a wealthy industrialist. He's mistaken, because of his well-tailored suits, for a man of means and taken to dinner with her husband, Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas). There, as Chauncy Gardner, his blank affect is taken for seriousness and his literal pronouncements about gardening for metaphoric economic predictions. Soon he's meeting the president (Jack Warden) of the United States and becoming a star on TV--where he's a natural...

The Film:

Excerpt from Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times located HERE

Solid image with much improved color rendering from the older DVD edition. From the comparative sample below you can see the Blu-ray is brighter but seems to have less information in the frame. I wouldn't say this is a stellar Blu-ray and has some expectant areas of improvement with a smooth cleaner, tighter image that supports surprising dimensionality. Without overly focusing on one visual element I think it's fair to say that it shows less-than-usual demonstrative superiority, in all aspects, over standard definition. Technically this is a little better than a single-layered Blu-ray with the disc utilizing 28 Gig of space and the feature taking up 26 Gig of that. The bitrate is a modest 27 mbps. I'd say the Blu-ray image is consistent, competent but not of demo quality. Its reasonable but not overwhelming.

The Criterion is advertised as a "New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel". Upon close inspection it can look quite different from the 2009 Blu-ray. Contrast dramatically improves, colors cool and tighten and there is significantly more information on the edges - losing a hair on the bottom of the frame. Detail also improves and the overall image brightens... the Criterion 1080P uses AVC (as opposed to Warner's VC-1) and beside each other it's really no contest.      

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

1) Warner - Region 1,2,3,4 - NTSC TOP 2) Warner - Region FREE - Blu-ray - MIDDLE 3) Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray BOTTOM