Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17036 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-04-18
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 122 minutes

Synopsis
A co-production from the BBC and HBO, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS is a compelling dramatisation of the late comic actor's life. Geoffrey Rush (SHINE) stars as Sellers, delivering a remarkable performance that deftly vacillates between the light and dark sides of Sellers' personality. Diving headlong into his character, Rush portrays Sellers' many cinematic triumphs--including a wonderful turn as bumbling detective Inspector Clouseau--as well as offering a harrowing glimpse into his personal life. Taking his radio work with THE GOON SHOW as a starting point, director Stephen Hopkins traces Sellers descent into the hands of his own personal demons. Illustrating how Sellers' relationship with his mother deeply affected him, Hopkins' film progresses to show how his personal failings began to get the better of him. Known for having an uncontrollable temper and succumbing to many bouts of selfish, and explosively violent, temper-tantrums, Sellers hit some remarkable low points in his life. Talking of 'dark nights of the soul' may have become something of a cliche when discussing the private lives of cinematic funnymen, but the beatings that Sellers meted out to several of his wives should be classified as just that. Ultimately, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS is an unflinching portrait of a highly schizophrenic performer who couldn't bring even a modicum of the happiness he gave to millions of people on the cinema screen into his personal life. Despite his talent, it becomes hard, if not impossible, to warm to Sellers, with Hopkins leaving little room for remorse for the late actor, who died from a heart attack in his 54th year.

Customer Reviews

and the winner is: Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush will no doubt win every award available to him in this bravura performance for this BBC/HBO production. Based on the rather tabloid-sleaze biography by Roger Lewis, it presents a portrait of a demented, self-obsessed man who hurts everyone he comes in contact with. Taking into consideration the final facts stated in the film (he left his children $ 2,000.00 apiece) there is probably more truth than one would care to believe in this account of Peter Sellers, which starts with his appearances on The Goon Show, shows his twisted relationship with his mother, the women he abused in various ways, his difficult behavior on the movie sets, and ends during the time of "Being There", the award-winning 1979 film about a gardener who becomes a politician.

Geoffrey Rush is phenomenal as Sellers; and I especially like the scenes when he becomes his mother, as well as Blake Edwards. Rush is made to look somewhat like Sellers, but it is the body language and the verbal inflection that makes this portrayal so convincing.
Others in the cast are also excellent: Miriam Margoyles as his mother, Emily Watson as wife # 1, Charlize Theron as Britt Ekland, Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Fry amusing as celebrity psychic Maurice Woodruff, and the very underrated John Lithgow once again terrific as Blake Edwards. Sonia Aquino is impressive in the small part of Sophia Loren.

The direction by Stephen Hopkins is stylish and well-paced, and the score by Richard Hartley is peppered with Tom Jones singing "It's Not Unusual", and other songs that fit into the timeline from The Animals, The Kinks, and more.
A way above average Cable TV production, it's a riveting look at a great talent gone wrong, and a "must see" for Rush's performance alone. Total running time is 122 minutes.

For Artistic License’ Sake Exclusively
If the acronym in my title escapes you, let me state here definitively that I find the premise of this movie to be FALSE. Peter Sellers comes away from this depiction looking worse than Adolph Hitler (borne out by several of the reactions registered in reviews herein), and I think it’s all a lot of poppycock and balderdash!

I wonder how many viewers of this dazzlingly stylish film will bother to watch it with the audio commentary by Geoffrey Rush and director Hopkins, wherein they clearly admit that several of these “incidents” never actually occurred, but were done for artistic convenience, for example, to try to convey years of tension and tribulations in a moment’s time, as is the case in a scene where Sellers supposedly bashes Blake Edwards at a latter-day Panther premiere. Similarly, I have read Michael Sellers’ comments (his son) following the release of the film, and he stated that the bathroom/pill scene never happened.

I am not suggesting that Sellers was not a tremendously complicated, sometimes troubled, frequently difficult person. But the version of Sellers that is brought to life like a chimera here is not one that was arrived at with a sense of compassion, balance and realism. Imagine if your own life story were being told—and at every juncture, in every situation, you were depicted in the absolute worst light. Every negative magnified and every positive minimized. Such is the nature of the book upon which this movie is based. We all have moments and characteristics we aren’t proud of, but they do not define the totality of us as people. Peter Sellers’ totality was an incredibly complex one.

I have to give more weight to The Peter Sellers Story—As He Filmed It, a BBC Arena documentary (see dvd listing) which undoubtedly influenced the making of this film at least in concert with Roger Lewis’ snipey book. Surely Rush and Hopkins had access to the same bank of Sellers’ home movies in arriving at this skewed, if brilliant version, there can be no doubt. To me, the most poignant testimonial to Peter is from that documentary, the very first we hear, from Anne (Sellers) Levy, his first wife, who states: “I would think I probably laughed more with him than anybody I’ve known in my life…probably cried more, too.”

Despite the Sellers that is incarnated in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, I would still pay the price of admission to have shared the laughter of Richard Henry Sellers.

Evaluating this movie as a piece of artistry within the film genre, I greatly admire the performances, particularly of Geoffrey Rush, who somehow does evoke the spirit of Sellers. In terms of capturing the flavor and energy of the Sixties, the film is spot-on.

But if you come away from this wanting to dismiss Sellers as trivial and self-indulgent, you will miss out on a very uniquely gifted man. Go watch Dr. Strangelove, Hoffman, The Optimists, Being There. If you believe there is nothing at the core of this man, as an actor, he will truly have duped you.

Somewhat chaotic at times, but never boring...
"The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" is, simply and as the title strongly suggests, a movie based on the life of British actor Peter Sellers. Of course, we don't know exactly how accurate this film is, but we know for certain that many of the things it tells us about actually happened.

Who was Peter Sellers?. According to this movie, and to many people who knew him, Sellers was a brilliant actor, but also a troubled man who slowly started to lose his grip on reality. Geoffrey Rush plays Sellers in different periods of his life, from his radio days in The Goon Show to when he started his filming career, spurred by his ambitious mother Peg (Miriam Margolyes). Sellers became well-known quite quickly, specially after playing Inspector Clouseau in "The Pink Panther". Unfortunately for him, as his fame grew so did his temper tantrums, that slowly alienated him from his family and friends. In the end, he didn't know who he was, or rather, he was merely the characters that he had played.

I would like to point out the fact that I think this movie has some splendid performances by a strong cast. First of all and more importantly, Geoffrey Rush is outstanding as Peter Sellers. Notwithstanding that, Emily Watson (as Anne Sellers, Peter's first wife), Charlize Theron (as Britt Ekland, his second wife), Miriam Margolyes (as Peter's mother) and John Lithgow (as director Blake Edwards) are also noteworthy in their roles, and help the spectator to forget that he is watching a movie, instead of glimpsing scenes from real life.

Stephen Hopkins, the director of "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers", mixes scenes of what could have been Peter's "real life", with Peter's recreations of those scenes from his own point of view. Hopkins also reproduces scenes from some of Sellers' films, something that I found specially enjoyable. All in all, I can say that the result is somewhat chaotic at times, but never boring. Whether you are a fan of Peter Sellers or not, I think that you are likely to enjoy this movie based on his life...

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