My explanation of Being There (1979)

It's secretly the key to understanding 2001: A Space Odyssey!

Being There was Peter Sellers last film and one of his few good films that’s NOT a collaboration with Stanley Kubrick. As a matter of fact, Sellers and Kubrick define each other so much, that Peter Sellers can make a Stanley Kubrick movie without Stanley Kubrick and that’s exactly what Being There is and it doesn’t even try to hide it.

For example, throughout the beginning of the movie we hear (a slightly modernized) version of “Also sprach Zarathustra” which is the same classical music that famously was used in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. We even hear it during a scene that is essentially a one on one remake of a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But Being There goes much further than just being in the vein of Kubrick and trying to emulate him or trying to be a Kubrick movie without Kubrick. It’s actually NOT trying to be that, because it’s even more ambitious than that. It’s the missing key to understanding all of Kubrick’s work! Yes, that’s a lofty claim and honestly I don’t know if the movie really succeeds at that, but that really is what it’s trying to be. The references to Kubrick are so numerous and so specific that there is simply no doubt...