Prefect lead and an inventive script create solid - if plodding - entertainment.
There isn't many special people on this earth or ex of this earth:
Hendrix, Elvis, Kubrick, Scorsese, Hitchcock, Olivier, but Sellars is up there with them. He was like all great actors when he got good material he could take it in to outer space and he was - without doubt - the best character actor this country (the UK) ever produced. A bit mad maybe, but genius often is. Journalists always ask "who was the man behind the mask" as if this is going to be as interesting as the people they play on screen. Unless you love the country and roses and English rural life you won't understand the true Sellars. He could be a party animal when he wanted to be - but it was too much effort. (As close-friend Spike Milligan once said, he was the laziest man he ever know. "He bought elasticised shoes so that he wouldn't have to bend down and tie up the laces." ) Was Sellars a nice man? Not really, but if you marry someone you take on the good and the bad - and money cushions the blows. Not that anyone deserves to get hit. We only see one slap in this movie (on Brit Ekland), but we know there were loads more. Sellars was not a tortured genius, but more a child trying to find the life and the party that he read about in magazines. He tried everything from drugs to sex to photography (still and moving), but never found a true hobby. He always looked like a man that needed one. In time everything was junked or put to one side - even people. People have used the word selfish and - at times - autistic, but this is how the talented (with wealth to match) can live. With servants all your needs are taken care of. You don't even have to drive your own car. Focus comes in short, three minute, bites before the shout of "cut." Rush not only looks like Sellars, but gets the blank eyes and the dour down pat too. He can't act like him though and he doesn't drag your eyes to him when he is in the company of other actors. Stealing scenes was Sellars stock-in-trade. He (Rush) puts on the familiar costumes that all film buffs know about and prances about in them - but it is pastiche. Good though Rush is (and nobody could be better) he is an Elvis impersonator not the real Elvis. Being There - his own personal favourite film - gives this film something to end on (climax would be the wrong word) and it is wise that his troubled third marriage is only mentioned in the credits. No one had anything good to say about (the now late) Lynne Frederick. There is quite a bit of talent knocking about in the bit parts. Charlese Theron is good as Britt Ekland, but a bit too big and a bit too certain to be the doe-eyed innocent/sex-pot (as the mood took her) who couldn't act and was one step above being a groupie. She comes across better here than in real life. The talentless Blake Edwards is given the roasting that his mediocrity deserved, but it is a bit cruel. Hollywood films are made in back rooms and not on the studio floor. Stamina means more than talent. Jon Lithgo is actually a good actor but here he has nothing to cling on to but his wig. The worst bit about this movie is the cod home movie making. For some reason in black and white (Sellars actually shot a lot in colour) and in that liney fake chopped-up style that looks turn of the century. Why? So the audience wouldn't be confused? Sellars lived a short life. He laughed, cried and broke down, got up again in order to fall over once more. A fuller life than most of us know and a life that only show-biz can create. I love to be entertained, but I often wonder what the world of make-believe does to your head. Where nothing is real and everything has a second take. Would effect us all after a while. I enjoyed this film, even though it is really just a jumped-up TV movie made by a journeyman director.. meteor02 watch Shrek 2 movie
Being there : Peters sellers was a genius , nothing else to tell! The movie tells the adventures of mentaly disabeled person who reflects to us the crazyness of our modern society!.
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The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is the most profound, complex, disturbing, and, yes, funniest bio movie I've ever seen made for TV..
Enjoyably unusual
Geoffrey Rush has got all the plaudits for his performance as Peter
Sellers in Steven Hopkins' portrayal, and all of the praise he has gotten is widely deserved. Rush puts in a truly remarkable performance as Sellers, particularly in his portrayal as the character Dr Strangelove. Hopkins has done a masterful piece of directing, with the autobiographical asides being particularly well done, if a little unusual with Rush becoming each of the main characters (not that Sellers didn't do similar of course in Dr Strangelove!). There is no doubt that Sellers was a flawed individual - I mean, what kind of person would really treat Britt Ekland like that? - but he was also a comic genius, and this comes across as an honest and accurate portrayal of the man. It's criminal that this film isn't eligible for the academy awards as it's not getting a cinema release in the USA, as Rush and Hopkins would both be strong contenders. Rush is backed up by a number of strong backup performances by Charlize Theron, John Lithgow (superb as Blake Edwards, and would also deserve an Oscar nomination), Stephen Fry and Sonia Aquino as Sophia Loren (although her double, newcomer Kate Burrell was actually better in my opinion!). And does Emily Watson ever get sick of being typecast as the long suffering woman in such films? She doesn't seem to, and I find that curious! Would definitely recommend seeing, as I found it quirkily good.. |
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