If I'm honest, the only way I can tell this is a comedy, is that people keep saying it is. Left with no influence I would think this was a drama. #BeingThere #TCMParty

And that's a fundamental difference from the book too. Chance's rise to power/fame may be alarming on the big picture level, but the movie explores the possibility that he is actually improving the lives of those in his immediate orbit just by...well! #BeingThere #TCMParty

That's beautiful, I think you just added the most value so far to all my attempts to watch this movie. #BeingThere #TCMParty

Peter Sellars. This movie has become an LOLSOB watch in this era. #TCMParty #BeingThere

Sooo true. If it wasn't for major talent still actively acting, I don't think we'd ever get storylines about older characters! #BeingThere #TCMParty

The satire of #BeingThere is more acidic in the novel. As Ellen Gilchrist put it in her piece on the film for Sight & Sound in the late 1990s, the movie is significantly more humane in how it treats the characters as people, not just symbols of A System That Does Not Work. #TCMParty

I've never been able to get through it.
For a comedy, it's really quite depressing. #BeingThere #TCMParty

Yes, for the other main characters I think everything is dying, Chauncy "plants seeds"

But they probably saved money using the Biltmore in the winter as opposed to the summer 😆

#TCMParty #BeingThere

Which reminds me how this is the kind of movie it's hard to imagine as a mainstream wide release now: The central characters are all middle-aged or considerably older. #TCMParty #BeingThere

#BeingThere is one of the only comedies I've seen that really justifies the 2+ hour runtime. #TCMParty

And all these men are in the "winter" of their lives... #BeingThere #TCMParty

They REALLY lean into it though.
It seems inform the pace, mood, lighting and colour palette. #BeingThere #TCMParty

I have seen #BeingThere once with an audience, 20 years ago in fact as part of a college-based film club. The "room upstairs" discussion was the first one to bring the house down. #TCMParty

Things have gone downhill creatively for the Biltmore Estate in recent years; used to be used in movies like #BeingThere and now it's a backdrop for Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. #TCMParty

#BeingThere among other things has you (or at least me) never thinking of Cheech and Chong's "Basketball Jones" quite the same way again #TCMParty

Other December 1979 releases besides #BeingThere included All That Jazz, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Wise Blood, 1941, The Jerk, Kramer vs. Kramer, Roller Boogie, The Black Hole, The Electric Horseman, Going in Style, Scavenger Hunt, Chapter Two, and The Electric Horseman. #TCMParty

That's a great point! It's very much a winter movie.

Well, like he says, there's lots to be done during the winter... 🤷‍♀️

#TCMParty #BeingThere

There's a fascinating number of actors who have copped to taking inspiration from Peter Sellers' work in #BeingThere; Tony Shaloub did so for the character of Adrian Monk, and Will Ferrell for Buddy the Elf! #TCMParty

If you don't remember the WaPo ad in #BeingThere, you don't get to get to sneer about the Kennedy Center protests as just being about a building. #TCMParty

Aside from the clips involving in-universe characters all the TV clips are actual material you might have seen on TV in 1979. #TCMParty #BeingThere