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Insomnia
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
As I type this, I am lying in my bed gazing at the slightly out of focus light of the moon outside my window. I have often thought of moving my bed into the other room with an overhead fan, but would regret losing the view of the silvery glow that the moon effuses over the night sky.
Presently I am afflicted by a slight headache and an overactive mind that is constantly jumping from one idle thought to the next. The overall effect feels like a computer that is overheating because it attempts to run more operations than it can handle. It cools the system down to plaster this internal logorrhea on to something, like a Pollock painting in prose.
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of seeing the Peter Sellers film “Being There”, and while I feel my typing on an iphone too insufficient to fully express how I felt about the film, I can express a few thoughts on it now.
Produced in 1979, directed by Hal Ashby and adapted from the novel by Jerzy Kosiński, “Being There” tells the story of a gardener named chance who has spent his entire life raised by television under the care of a man reffered to in the film only under the name of “the Old Man”. After the Old Man dies at the outset of the film, Chance is forced out of the home and into the real world for the first time in his life. He soon falls into the company of rich, powerful socialites who mistake his simple-minded obsession with television and gardening as apt, folksy wisdom about the state of American affairs.
The film is unique as a satire in that it doesn’t rely on ridiculous, over the top gags to make its point, but instead employs a subtle, malevolent subtext to make a striking commentary about politics and culture. It truly is a brilliant film driven by the wonderful performance of Peter Sellers, backed by Shirley MacClaine as Eve Rand, a wealthy socialite who becomes smitten with Chance.
After writing all of this I can find myself closer to sleep, so I’m glad this opportunity to speak my fevered mind.
One Response to Insomnia
Jens | June 21st, 2010 at 8:54 am
Peter Sellers. Love that guy.