A chance encounter

A stray reference in a piece in the FT led me to an old film (from 1979) called 'Being There', starring Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine. A film based on a book by Jerzy Kosinski (reference 2), itself based on a much older book by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz (reference 3). While the IMDB entry is to be found at reference 1.

A film which turned out to be most entertaining, if a little long at just over two hours. No violence and little sex, but plenty of entertaining material about the antics of the rich and powerful. Set in the US, but I dare say it might just have well been set almost anywhere, with the original coming from Poland. Perhaps one could set up a cottage industry transposing the film script to the customer's country of choice.

Furthermore, for me there was also a serious message about the way that we project whatever it is that we want to hear onto the vague, not to say inane, utterances of others. Which translates into a rhetorical device which is useful to politicians, salesmen and their kind. Contrariwise, about the conversational gambit whereby you assume the person with whom you are talking has more or less the same take on whatever it is you are banging on about as you do. Which often results in the pub with your prefixing your remarks with phrases like 'as you know', 'as you know yourself' or 'you must have come across the situation where'. Even when you should have known that this is not the case at all. Or perhaps when you did know, but used this trick in an attempt to promote your own point of view. Another rhetorical device.

Film stars use a similar trick, in that they present an essentially blank canvas onto which the filmgoer can easily project whatever fantasy suits. With the result that the film is liked and film star makes money. I believe that this was particularly the case with screen beauties of the silent era.

PS: being of an impatient turn of mind, I bought this film from Amazon, rather than checking first to see whether I could get it from the well-stocked CeX of reference 4 for a tenth of the price. And they are only just down the road, people that I pass on foot several times a week. Rather more excuse this morning, when I bought the 1932 book from Amazon, much less likely to turn up on a charity shop book shelf.

References

Reference 1: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/.

Reference 2: Being There - Jerzy Kosinski - 1970.

Reference 3: The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma - Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz - 1932.

Reference 4: https://uk.webuy.com/.