Being There | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Hal Ashby |
Produced by | Andrew Braunsberg |
Screenplay by |
Jerzy Kosiński Robert C. Jones (uncredited) |
Based on |
Being There by Jerzy Kosiński |
Starring |
Peter Sellers Shirley MacLaine Melvyn Douglas Richard Dysart Jack Warden Richard Basehart |
Music by | Johnny Mandel |
Cinematography | Caleb Deschanel |
Edited by | Don Zimmerman |
Production
company |
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Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date
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Running time
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130 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $7 million |
Box office | $30,177,511 |
Being There is a 1979 American comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Its screenplay was adapted by Jerzy Kosiński and the uncredited Robert C. Jones from the 1970 novel by Kosiński. The film stars Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Richard A. Dysart, Jack Warden, and Richard Basehart.
Douglas won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Sellers was nominated for Best Actor. The screenplay won the British Academy Film Award for Best Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium. It was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay.
In 2015 the United States Library of Congress selected Being There for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Chance is a middle-aged man who lives in the townhouse of an old, wealthy man in Washington, D.C. He is simple-minded and has lived there his whole life, tending the garden. Other than gardening, his knowledge is derived entirely from what he sees on television. When his benefactor dies, Chance naively says he has no claim against the estate, and is ordered to move out. Thus he discovers the outside world for the first time.