In Hal Ashby's film of Jerzy Kosinski's novella (I came across it today in Hillhead Library) and screenplay Being There, Chance the gardener (played impeccably by Peter Sellers) is quickly evicted by unscrupulous lawyers, when the old man dies, from the big house where he has lived all his life as the gardener. He suddenly finds himself outside the high-walled garden and the even higher-walled brownstone house in Washington D.C. which has up until now been his world.
We watch amusingly as the simple and socially inept Chance (everything he knows he has learned from television and his garden) makes his way through the streets of late 70s Washington to the sound of Deodato's funk version of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. The music is strangely appropriate.
Within hours of setting foot outside he is fortuitously taken in by a wealthy industrialist whose chauffeur inadvertently hits him with his car. Within days, Chance's simplicity and slowness (words that have, sadly, in a world obsessed with speed and sophistication, become pejorative terms) are (mis)taken for profundity, which in a way, emulating the deep-rooted plants he once tended, they are. Some days later, Chance, through having been introduced to the President through the wealthy industrialist receives a presidential nomination. His frugality of form and austerity of speech (in short, his naturalness) have led him to what is considered the most powerful post in the world. Passing through a gauntlet of paparazzi in the hallway of the big house where he now lives, Chance goes out into the (Edenic) garden where he is caressed by a gentle breeze. He sees the fresh shoots and slender stems of taut branches, and listens to the wind whisper through the bushes. 'Not a thought lifted itself from Chance's brain. Peace filled his chest.'
The film version's coda sees Chance in a more overt pose, taking the most direct route to a drowned tree, and walking across the water of the pond. This is the same peace as we find in Chance's chest at the end of the novella, though now it is televisual. He is the master of his self.
It is no coincidence that the names Chance and Christ share a similarity. Christ's walking on water was a metaphor for levity and living lightly. Like the birds in the sky, they had escaped karma and the cycle of birth/rebirth through a genuine forgiveness forged out of simplicity and slowness. Chance, in his naturalness, left no trace, and his footsteps left no mark. He walks on water because his un-captive mind does not profess to know....
It is curious to note that this was Sellers' last performance (if you can excuse his appearance in The Bride of Fu Manchu the folowing year) before dying at the tender age of 54. When he was offered the part of Chance, Sellers immediately knew what he was up against:
Within hours of setting foot outside he is fortuitously taken in by a wealthy industrialist whose chauffeur inadvertently hits him with his car. Within days, Chance's simplicity and slowness (words that have, sadly, in a world obsessed with speed and sophistication, become pejorative terms) are (mis)taken for profundity, which in a way, emulating the deep-rooted plants he once tended, they are. Some days later, Chance, through having been introduced to the President through the wealthy industrialist receives a presidential nomination. His frugality of form and austerity of speech (in short, his naturalness) have led him to what is considered the most powerful post in the world. Passing through a gauntlet of paparazzi in the hallway of the big house where he now lives, Chance goes out into the (Edenic) garden where he is caressed by a gentle breeze. He sees the fresh shoots and slender stems of taut branches, and listens to the wind whisper through the bushes. 'Not a thought lifted itself from Chance's brain. Peace filled his chest.'
The film version's coda sees Chance in a more overt pose, taking the most direct route to a drowned tree, and walking across the water of the pond. This is the same peace as we find in Chance's chest at the end of the novella, though now it is televisual. He is the master of his self.
It is no coincidence that the names Chance and Christ share a similarity. Christ's walking on water was a metaphor for levity and living lightly. Like the birds in the sky, they had escaped karma and the cycle of birth/rebirth through a genuine forgiveness forged out of simplicity and slowness. Chance, in his naturalness, left no trace, and his footsteps left no mark. He walks on water because his un-captive mind does not profess to know....
It is curious to note that this was Sellers' last performance (if you can excuse his appearance in The Bride of Fu Manchu the folowing year) before dying at the tender age of 54. When he was offered the part of Chance, Sellers immediately knew what he was up against:
Most actors want to play 'Othello', but all I've really wanted to play is Chance the Gardener. I feel what the character, the story is all about is not merely the triumph of a simple man, an illiterate. It's God's message again that the meek shall inherit the earth.
Perhaps the paradox of the novella/film is that in being 'not all there' (in being 'unworlded', in not conforming to the rush and roar of progress, and to the coded constructs of a topsy-turvy society) you are in truth 'all there'...
A 'down-to-earth' philosophy leads Chance to new heights...
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