The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
Directed by Stephen Hopkins
Produced by Simon Bosanquet
Screenplay by Christopher Markus
Stephen McFeely
Based on The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
by Roger Lewis
Starring Geoffrey Rush
Charlize Theron
Emily Watson
John Lithgow
Miriam Margolyes
Peter Vaughan
Sonia Aquino
Stanley Tucci
Stephen Fry
Music by Richard Hartley
Cinematography Peter Levy
Edited by John Smith
Production
company
HBO Films
BBC Films
Company Pictures
HD Vision Studios
Labrador Films
De Mann Entertainment
Distributed by HBO
Release dates
  • May 21, 2004 (2004-05-21) (Cannes)
  • October 1, 2004 (2004-10-01) (United Kingdom)
  • December 5, 2004 (2004-12-05) (United States)
Running time
 121 minutes
Country United Kingdom
United States
Language English

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a 2004 British-American television film about the life of English comedian Peter Sellers, based on Roger Lewis's book of the same name.[1] It was directed by Stephen Hopkins and stars Geoffrey Rush as Sellers, Miriam Margolyes as his mother Peg Sellers, Emily Watson as his first wife Anne Howe, Charlize Theron as his second wife Britt Ekland, John Lithgow as Blake Edwards, Stephen Fry as Maurice Woodruff and Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick.

The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film and Rush won Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. It also won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for Rush.

Synopsis

The film shows Peter Sellers as a complex and tormented genius,[2] whose success as a film star concealed his difficult and relatively unhappy private life. This "troubled life" is the primary focus of this biopic, which personalizes "one of the greatest comic actors in the history of the British cinema,"[3] and shows the many masks he wore and characters he played as an actor.[4]

The film makes clear that much of his success and identity were dependent initially on his domineering and doting mother. Eventually this success, first in radio and eventually in film, led to his succumbing to destructive mood swings and insecurity, and contributed to the deterioration of his marriages. Discovering his gift for comedy, his ego began to undermine his personal relationships with friends and co-workers. His personality became more turbulent. His own personality often merged with that of his film characters, and his self-learned skill as a "method actor" was used to mask his real self.[5]

Sellers is also shown aspiring to be a leading man in the James Bond satire Casino Royale which prompts ridicule from the film's crew.

Cast

Many familiar faces have small roles in the film: Edward Tudor-Pole (former Tenpole Tudor lead singer and second presenter of The Crystal Maze) plays Spike Milligan and The League of Gentlemen's Steve Pemberton plays Harry Secombe. Mackenzie Crook of The Office also has a small role as a luxury automobile salesman and Richard Ayoade from The IT Crowd in a bit-part as a photographer. Ray Ellington was played by his son, Lance Ellington.

Production

The role of Sellers was acted by Geoffrey Rush, "who approached the role with the enthusiasm of a hungry child in a candy store," notes a reviewer.[5] Rush impersonates most of the important characters that Sellers played in his film career. Director Blake Edwards is played by John Lithgow, and the film exposes some of the behind-the-scenes personality conflicts between Sellers and Edwards, which contributed to their unhappy and tumultuous working relationship, despite the success of their films. In the interview for the film, included on the DVD, Edwards credited Rush with portraying Sellers' characters with uncanny similarity to the real Peter Sellers, and claimed, in 2004, that it was the best acting he'd ever seen Rush perform.

Actor Geoffrey Rush stated in interviews that the film was itself structured to be reminiscent of a Peter Sellers film. However, it was darker than Sellers' actual films since it depicted Sellers' troubled experiences in his life (including his tantrums and mental instability). This included at various times Rush (as Sellers) dressing up to play other characters in his life (several were ultimately edited out, but are included within the special features on the DVD).[6] In these instances he broke the fourth wall to give a monologue to the audience.

Roger Lewis: "It was the melancholia of Sellers I was drawn to; all those shuffling little ghostly figures he used to play in Boulting brothers films, or Clouseau, with those soulful, mournful brown eyes. For all the success and the women, he is rather a lonely and melancholic figure. And that is what redeems him." Hollywood was immediately interested in adapting Lewis's biography. In the mid-1990s Madonna's company Maverick bought the rights, but the Sellers project did not get off the ground. Many different writers worked on the screenplay, among them Lee Hall; eventually the writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely came up with a script to tell the story. Director Stephen Hopkins ultimately distanced himself from Lewis's book, and said he was inspired by Sellers's 16mm home movies, which were featured in a 1995 BBC Arena documentary, "The Peter Sellers Story", directed by Peter Lydon.[7][8]

Some reviewers have stressed that in order to appreciate and understand much of the Sellers story and his iconic status, they should have seen some of his leading works, including his Pink Panther roles directed by Blake Edwards, and his roles in both Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and Hal Ashby's Being There. The latter film is considered by critics to be the "crowning triumph of Peter Sellers's remarkable career,"[9] and in a BBC interview in 1971, Sellers himself said that more than anything else, he wanted to play the role of Chance.[9] Being There (which earned him an Oscar nomination) is shown to be the one film about which Sellers was truly passionate since it gave him an opportunity to display his skills as an actor, not just as a comedian (it is also suggested that he identified strongly with the main character).

Reception

The Belfast Telegraph notes how the film captured Sellers's "life of drugs, drink, fast cars and lots and lots of beautiful women".[10] Although the film was widely praised by critics, both Lord Snowdon and Britt Ekland were highly critical of the film and the enactment of Sellers;[11] Ekland believed that the film left the audiences with the wrong impression, saying "the film leaves you with the impression that Peter Sellers was essentially a likeable man when in reality he was a monster. He may have been a brilliant actor, but as a human being he had no saving graces at all".[12] Snowdon disagreed with Ekland's verdict, and with the film, and stated that Sellers "had a light touch, a sense of humour, I can't bear to see him portrayed as somebody who was apparently without either ... The man on the screen is charmless, humourless and boring - the one thing you could never say about Peter."[12]

Accolades

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.[13] The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film and Geoffrey Rush won for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. Rush also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie.

57th Primetime Emmy Awards

References

  1. ↑ Lewis, Roger (1995). The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. London: Arrow Books. ISBN 0-09-974700-6. 1108 pages. Published in the U.S. via Applause Books A very comprehensive biography, with very comprehensive index.
  2. ↑ HBO The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, DVD description
  3. ↑ "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  4. ↑ "IMDB synopsis of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". IMDb. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  5. 1 2 "Draxblog Movie Reviews: The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)". DensityChecker. 26 October 2005. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  6. ↑ "Life and death of Peter Sellers (2004) (import): Amazon.co.uk: Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, Peter Vaughan, Stephen Fry, Charlize Theron, Stephen Hopkins: Film & TV". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  7. ↑ Peter Lydon at the Internet Movie Database
  8. ↑ Being Peter Sellers, The Independent, 28 April 2004
  9. 1 2 Smith, Danny. "Giving Peter Sellers a Chance: Danny Smith talks to Jerzy Kosinski", Third Way, Feb. 1981 pp. 22-23
  10. ↑ "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers: The monster who made us laugh". Belfast Telegraph. 8 October 2004. Retrieved 4 August 2012. (subscription required)
  11. ↑ Brook, Danae (19 September 2004). "Peter Sellers did call my wife 'Ma'am darling' but then he fantasised about a lot of things". The Mail on Sunday. London. p. 39.
  12. 1 2 Weathers, Helen (29 May 2004). "Britt bites back". Daily Mail. London. p. 48.
  13. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
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