As the end of another year draws nigh, we ponder the future and reflect on the past. A December double bill of timeless masterpieces at the Castro compels me to contemplate the cultural importance of repertory cinema, our relationships to screens big and small, and the unchanging nature of human nature. Join me, if you will: Take a shot of melancholy, add a dash of bitters, garnish with ironic bemusement and enjoy a refreshing cocktail of Criticâs Grog.
An odd introduction, perhaps, to a pair of comedies. But Peter Sellersâ brilliant turns in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Being There (Thursday, Dec. 13) are tinged with madness and, dare I say, despair. Stanley Kubrickâs savage 1964 satireâfeaturing Sellers in three roles, plus macho men George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden at their peaksâof humankindâs race to mutually assured destruction remains simultaneously hilarious and horrifying; itâs dated only in the sense that weâve swapped instantaneous nuclear annihilation for slow-motion environmental destruction.
Sellersâ slack-jawed portrayal of the dim-witted gardener elevated to the White House in Hal Ashbyâs audacious Being There (1979) was viewed at the time as a critique of minor Hollywood actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan. It turns out that Chanceâs obsession with televisionââI like to watchâ is one of the filmâs most famous linesâand his habit of repeating things heâs heard out of context is more reminiscent and prescient of the current (at this writing) occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania.
Peter Sellers is one of a handful of comic geniuses in the history of movies. Letâs raise a glass to his memory and his movies, and the pleasure he continues to give us.
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