Being Human (film)

Being Human
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bill Forsyth
Produced by	Robert F. Colesberry
Written by	Bill Forsyth
Narrated by	Theresa Russell
Starring	Robin Williams John Turturro Bill Nighy
Music by	Michael Gibbs
Cinematography	Michael Coulter
Editing by	Michael Ellis
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	May 6, 1994 (1994-05-06)
Running time	122 minutes
Country	United Kingdom Japan
Language	English Gaelic Friulian
Budget	$40,000,000
Box office	$1,519,366

Being Human is a 1994 drama film starring Robin Williams.

Plot

The film portrays the experience of a single human soul, portrayed by Williams, through various incarnations. Williams is the only common actor throughout the stories that span man's history on Earth.

An attempt on director-screenwriter Bill Forsyth's part to depict by visual means the ordinariness of life throughout the ages, Being Human is deliberately slow in its pace in order to emphasize how slow life often is. The structure is one of vignette-like character studies of one man (actually at least four distinct men, all with the same soul) who keeps making the same relationships and mistakes throughout his lifetimes.

In the first incarnation, which he appears to be an ancient Celt, his family is taken from him by raiders due to his cowardice and hesitation. Before his wife is taken away she says "Don't lose the children!" The next incarnation is in Ancient Rome in which he, Hector, is a slave to a "foolish master" who loses his fortune and is compelled to commit suicide by his debtors and orders Hector to join him. Hector longed to be free to find the children and wife he had before he became a slave but he has fallen in love with another slave and forgets his waiting family. The third incarnation he is a Scottish crusader on his way home to his children. The master from his life in Rome as a slave is now a crusader trying to decide to be a priest or not in this incarnation and they travel together until Hector finds his soul mate from the life in Rome. She is a widow in this incarnation and wishes Hector to join her family but his duties to the children in Scotland pull at him. In his fourth incarnation, Hector is finally forced to confront his capacity for cowardly indecision that recurs in his lives. He is a Portuguese man in the renaissance shipwrecked on the coast of Africa. He is the master in this life, his wife from the first incarnation is shipwrecked with him as his spurned lover and the raider who spirited her away is her steadfast friend. In the fifth incarnation he is a modern man in New York paying the consequences of cowardly indecision and gaining the strength to address the children he lost lifetimes ago. He is joined in this life by his master/slave/friend, soul mate, and former wife/lover and her husband/raider from life times past support him but are people who are trying to find their own way through in this life just as in the past lives.

Production

After poor test screenings, Warner Bros. instructed Bill Forsyth to trim 40 minutes from the film, as well as add narration and a happy ending. Forsyth subsequently disowned the film.

Cast

• Hector: Robin Williams.
• Lucinnius: John Turturro.
• Julian: Bill Nighy.
• The Priest: Vincent D'Onofrio.
• The Pre-Historic Shaman: Robert Carlyle.
• Hermes: Simon McBurney.
• Dom Paulo: Hector Elizondo.
• Boris: William H. Macy.
• Beatrice: Anna Galiena.
• Francisco: Jonathan Hyde.
• The Storyteller: Theresa Russell.
• Alvarez: Ewan McGregor

External links

• Being Human at the Internet Movie Database
• Being Human at Box Office Mojo