So Far, So...

The Man Who Wasn't There

Hi Hello & Welcome to this week’s look at the movies and movie people that matter to me.

So this week is a biggie. A biggie for me personally and maybe a biggie for many of you too. This week I take a very quick look at a genius, a mad, terrible, frightening, appalling, cruel, brilliant, stunning, breathtaking, one-off genius -

PETER SELLERS

Now due to his genius I’m going to focus not on just two films this week but on three. Even then however it’s almost painful how many Films of his I simply adore but am going to have to leave out, but the three I’ve chosen to look at I’ve chosen for a specific reason - they show off not necessarily (although they do of course) his genius comedic abilities but rather his incredible character acting skills, something that often gets lost underneath his most popular and mass appeal comedy work such as The Pink Panther’s and Clouseau (of which the 60’s & 70’s Panther’s I can never get enough of for sure).

So that’s why this week I’m putting the spotlight on two movies relatively early on in his career and on one - his penultimate movie - right at the end, namely LOLITA (1962), DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) and BEING THERE (1979).

But before I start in earnest though let me share these with you -

PETER SELLERS is a creative and artistic hero of mine, and imho was a bonafide genius - BUT - as with most geniuses he was a fucking asshole, a lunatic, a sociopath, a classic self-loathing narcissist. He left a trail of emotional and psychological devastation in his wake. He was too often a grade A, loathsome, vile, cunt. Now I say this in case this piece be accused of being some saccharine hagiography. I’ve read more than enough to know that Sellers was a shit of the highest order on far too many occasions - professionally & personally - to far too many people. BUT. He was also many many things wonderful & beautiful too. This is the lot of the genius. You’re either able to embrace it all and understand how it is the one helps inform and make the other - the genius - or you’re not. This is just one of the ways in which Artists & Creatives are different from most people - not better, just different. Way it is.

He was a dark motherfucker. Most great comics are, need to be. They only get to see the light, the greater wider context from which they extrapolate their comedy by also seeing and embracing the dark, the shite, the goddam fucking awful. They go to the places that ordinary folk are too fucking scared shitless to contemplate the thought of let alone go to, wallow and create in. This is why Comics are my heroes. They’re Astronauts - Astronauts of the filthy, awful, fucked up, beautiful and glorious human condition.

Ok, so Sellers in perspective, let’s go.

“There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me but I had it surgically removed.”

- Peter Sellers

RICHARD HENRY SELLERS was born in a pretty ordinary suburb of Portsmouth on September 8th 1925 to Bill and Peg Sellers. His low-level variety entertainer parents started referring to him as Peter not long after he was christened in a sort of homage to his elder brother who was stillborn.

Sellers made his stage debut at only two weeks old when he was carried on stage, apparently to a rousing rendition of ‘For He's a Jolly Good Fellow’ and the family constantly toured, causing much upheaval and unhappiness in the young Sellers' life (the cliche ‘born in a trunk’ could’ve been invented for the young Peter).

From day one the most important relationship in his life was with his Mother, Peg, and from day one the unhealthiest relationship - outside of himself with himself - in his life remained that with his Mother. He was an only child and Peg dominated the merry fucking hell out of Sellers the child and later man. It doesn’t take a cod-psychologist to work out that all his later many many problems with women stemmed from his entirely cloying, claustrophobic, oedipal and totally fucked up relationship with his domineering mother.

In 1935 with Peter aged 7 the Sellers family moved to North London and settled in Muswell Hill. Although Bill Sellers was Protestant and Peg Jewish, Sellers attended the North London Roman Catholic St Aloysius' College in Highgate. The family may have been far from rich but Peg insisted on an expensive private schooling for her son, and this decision would prove to be one of the healthiest and most helpful parenting decisions of her life as Sellers became a top student at the school and although prone to laziness his natural talents & intelligence shielded him from criticism by his teachers and so he shone.

Skipping ahead massively Sellers got involved with ENSA (the Entertainments National Service Association) during WW2, his drumming and impersonation skills giving him an early taste and experience of performing in the kind of Vaudevillian style his parents had for so many years. After a short unsuccessful spell in the RAF Sellers ended up touring with Ralph Reader’s Gang Show across India & Asia for a spell (no doubt influencing his love of Indian accents we saw right across his career and life) and after being demobbed he did a short spell drumming at the famously saucy Windmill Theatre in London’s West End before famously calling a producer at the BBC pretending to be the then famous Radio star Kenneth Horne and getting himself an in at really the only place to be in the late 1940’s - the jolly old BBC. This eventually of course led to his meeting Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and the formation of the hugely important and influential GOONS.

Skip quickly we must however lest this brief column turn into something not very brief at all, and so riding on the back of the huge success of THE GOONS Sellers made his way into Film, and after numerous small parts in various forgettable movies he finally got a large’sh part in The Ladykillers (1955). However, in the final cut director Alexander Mackendrick left not just 40 minutes on the cutting room floor but most of Sellers’ part too. But the film was a hit and so Sellers was in a hit, never a bad thing.

Sellers was already starting to go a bit bonkers however. He started not just seeing but heeding Astrologers and at one point after a session became convinced that Vaudevillian legend Dan Leno was haunting him and guiding his career and life-decisions. Tom Thumb (1958) was an important break for him, as was I'm All Right Jack (1959) of course along with The Mouse That Roared (1959) and in 1961 he starred opposite Sophia Loren in the iconic but of it’s time The Millionairess. Sellers helmed his first movie in ‘61 - the disastrous but still interesting Mr. Topaze, but in 1962 he appeared in a little seen or referenced movie that changed the entire course and trajectory of his career and life - Waltz of the Toreadors. How so? Kubrick saw it. Cue ‘Quilty’.

Stanley Kubrick saw Toreadors and asked Sellers to join his production of Nabokov’s LOLITA (1962).

As ever these columnal ramblings of mine on movies aren’t about me showing off how smart I am when it comes to the movies so I’ll not now go into a huge plot and character breakdown of the movie but rather, just encourage you to watch the movie yourself and make up your own mind. What I will say is that Kubrick quickly discovered on set that that he’d discovered a fellow genius in Sellers.

Sellers being Sellers he started entertaining the Cast & Crew - whether the cameras were running or not - with insanely brilliant improvisations as his character ‘Clare Quilty’. It may sound simplistic, but sometimes this is how Art & Creativity can be in terms practical and filmic, and so Kubrick simply started filming Selllers’ brilliant improvisations, which in turn led to Kubrick falling hard for Sellers and thus the character of ‘Quilty’ (and ‘Dr. Zempf’) expanded beyond all recognition from the original script. And why not! Although well on the way to being bonkers Sellers was a fucking genius.

But as I said earlier the reason why I’ve picked these three movies in particular is because Sellers’ Acting in them is off the charts incredible, and his ‘Quilty’ in Lolita is just extraordinary. Sellers is possessed. To an extraordinary and of course insane degree. The wonderful James Mason didn’t stand a chance in any scene with Sellers, and not just because of their very different acting styles. Sellers is mesmeric, his energy sucking you in. You can almost picture the maniacal, dark as fuck, introspective, obsessive Kubrick stood behind the cameras with an artistic erection. He’d found one hell of a muse, one hell of a fellow genius & artistic lunatic.

Make what you will of Lolita - that’s up to you - but what I can do is tell you that it’s worth watching for lots of reasons chief among them being Sellers. Lolita is black slapstick and at times it’s so far out there that you gasp as you laugh. At its best it makes most of the “New American Cinema” look frankly square and an inspired Sellers creates almost a new comic pattern—a crazy quilt of psychological, sociological commentary so “hip” it’s surrealist. Try it.

Of course Lolita then led directly to DR. STRANGELOVE (1964).

Sellers already had The Pink Panther (1963) in the bag when Kubrick cast Sellers almost immediately he’d completed post-prod on Lolita. Kubrick asked Sellers to play three roles: US President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove and RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake. Sellers was initially hesitant about taking on these three divergent characters, but Kubrick prevailed thank fuck. As ever and again if you want a smart-assed treatise on the film you best go elsewhere as I like Films to speak for themselves, that is after all what they’re there to do. But what I will say is that Kubrick & Sellers were in a fully fledged bromance during filming, and this harmonious oneness of creativity, artistry, comedy and darkness just crashes out of the screen when watching it. The movie was helped obviously by a phenomenal cast including George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynne, Slim Pickens and even a young James Earl Jones - but Sellers absolutely fucking dominates. He has the time of his freakin’ life. Kubrick gave him a playground and Sellers just had a nutso ball. But as with Lolita the quality of Sellers’ acting is so immense as to be staggering. Yes there’s the bonkers-brilliant throat grabbing stuff in the wheelchair etc, but there’s extraordinary subtlety and finessing by Sellers amidst the broader stuff, some really incredible character acting.

Every time you see a truly great Film you discover more and more new things with each viewing. Could be layers of narrative, could be a shot, lighting, something in the editing, the set, costumes - whatever. But on a recent re-viewing I just found myself laughing out loud at what George C. Scott does at times with his face. That’s all, nothing poncey or clever, just world class facial acting that had me pissing myself laughing.

Strangelove is one of the the greatest dark-comedy films ever made imho, and I love it to the moon and back. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe you’ll think it overhyped and another example of a Kubrick film it’s “cool” to dig but which actually ain’t all that. This is the joy and challenge of Art, the joy and challenge of Films - there’s no right or wrong, only opinions. But if for whatever reason you’ve never given this one a spin, I’d strongly suggest you do. This guy thinks it’s immense. End of.

Sellers was flying and a player. Over the next fifteen years he stormed Hollywood and the world with Clouseau of course, hated and loved working with Blake Edwards (more on that later), got us laughing with a chicken, parodied James Bond, was divorced and married four times, had three children he was a pretty crap Father to, frequently clashed with his directors and co-stars, too often lost the battle with depression, suffered heart attacks, and of course became more and more bonkers, more and more of an appalling asshole.

By the late 1970’s Sellers was not a well man, physically or psychologically. But something good happened to him professionally. Since 1971 Sellers had been telling all and sundry publicly and privately how much he wanted the play the character ‘Chauncey Gardiner’ from Jerzy Kosiński’s novel Being There. Now he was about to have this long held dream come true.

The parallels between Chance the gardener and Sellers in BEING THERE (1979) are hugely apparent if you’ve seen the film and will become hugely apparent if you haven’t yet. As ever I’m loathe to in any way lessen the film speaking for itself or your enjoyment of it, but suffice to say that Sellers plays a character almost without any character, without a personality. Of course this is not entirely true, but as a premise for dark comedy when this character/non-character comes into chance contact with not only the outside world for pretty much the first time but some of the most powerful and influential people in the outside world, then as you can imagine there’s all the darkly comic foundation you could ever want on a treatise about the simplicity of life versus the ridiculously over-complicated and bullshit life, societal and cultural constructs we’ve insanely created.

Sellers is magnificent in the film, truly magnificent. His control and subtle character acting are exquisite in the extreme. If ever there was a part an Actor was destined to play, then it was Sellers as Chance the gardener.

Shirley MacLaine is as wonderful as ever, Melvyn Douglas and Jack Warden fabulous too, and the great Hal Ashby helms beautifully. Well, apart from the end credits. For some unbelievably dumb assed reason it was decided that the film's end roll over an outtake known as the "Rafael outtake."Sellers was later furious the outtake ran, believing (and I agree with him) that it took away from Chauncey's mystique. Sellers also believed the outtake was what prevented him from winning the Oscar in 1980. That may or may not be true but I 100% believe he should have won the Oscar for his performance that year. The Oscars though, lets not get into that bucket of horse shit.

Just watch it is all I’d say. It’s wonderful.

Sellers made just one more film after Being There and it’s so fucking awful I can’t even bring myself to share the title with you. But Sellers’ legacy had long been secured, and what a legacy. There are so many extraordinary as well as just downright hilarious performances to choose from. He was Chat Show gold too of course. He made himself into something unique and special even though he never saw or felt that about himself.

“As far as I’m aware, I’m nothing. I have no personality of my own whatsoever. I have no character to offer the public. I have nothing to project. When I look at myself I see a person who strangely lacks what I consider the ingredients for a personality.”

He was happy only when he was working. He knew what he was about and what he was - had a sense of life-purpose if you will - when he was working and performing. He was only truly happy in these moments I think. All else outside of these was turmoil and darkness for him. He was a wildly happy performer but a desperately sad and unhappy man. Tears of a Clown and all that. Except the ‘Clowns’ are SO important. The ‘Clowns’ are I believe the most important humans on the planet right now. Have been for decades actually. They’re the only ones telling the truth, teaching us about us, highlighting the past and predicting the future - all the time making us laugh.

Sellers was a great ‘Clown’. He was his own Dan Leno. And he was Everyman even though he himself didn’t know what kind of a man he was. He was a Genius. And a Shit. But he was mainly a Genius.

So that’s it for this week, except for three extras I couldn’t not tack onto the end. I’ve tweeted these many times and they’ve always been received well I’m pleased to say, but just in case you missed them or just fancy another look here’s the main man himself with a cracking ‘Michael Caine’ story on The Late Late Show in in 1970 -

Blake Edwards in 1996 on working with Sellers:

- Peter Sellers

- Yeah

- Genius?

- Yeah

- Comic?

- Yeah

- Genius?

- Yeah

- Dark side?

- Crazy

- Crazy?

- Certifiable

- Certifiable?

- Had he not been Peter Sellers I think he very likely could’ve ended up in an institution.

And one of Sellers’ last TV interviews just a few months before he died.

So that’s your lot.

Good Night & Good Luck, and look after yourselves and each other.

Michael