Reassessing Jerzy Kosinski
At the conclusion of Hal Ashby’s remarkable Being There, which celebrates its forty-fifth anniversary this month, comes a scene that has only acquired greater resonance and relevance since it first appeared. At the funeral of the plutocrat Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas), the US president (Jack Warden) is delivering a heartfelt but somehow trite eulogy. As the pallbearers march away with Rand’s casket, which will be buried in the family mausoleum, talk turns to who should replace the president; the film has already suggested that he is suffering from erectile dysfunction and, wickedly, equates this with his falling popularity ratings.
