The reason I know
it was his last film is because I learned it from watching his biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers in
which he his portrayed by Geoffrey Rush. In that movie, whether it is 100 per
cent accurate or not, Sellers pursues the role of Chance in Being There with great enthusiasm
because he saw it as chance to prove he could play something other than a
comedic role for which he had become known for. Seeing Rush play Sellers
playing Chance before seeing the actual movie makes for an interesting
experience, like a dramatic behind-the-scenes. When I did watch Being There when it played on TV I
couldn’t help but think about Sellers’ motives to get that role and everything
else that was happening off screen.
In the biopic,
the character of Sellers says he has no personality, hence his desire to lose
himself in the creations he made for the screen. The character of Chance in Being There is similar in that regard,
as he has spent his entire life in the home of a millionaire in Washington,
D.C. All he does is tend the garden and the only interaction he has with the
outside world is through his television. It is easy to imagine a character like
that today since even though television is slowly being phased out, screens are
everywhere, and human interaction is taking a nosedive.
After the
millionaire dies, Chance finds himself wandering the city streets for the first
time in years while the theme from 2001:
A Space Odyssey is playing as though he were an astronaut exploring a
strange new world. When a street gang gets in his way, Chance brandishes his TV
remote at them and presses on a button hoping they will go away. Normally a
person this disconnected from reality would either end up dead or in a mental
institution within a matter of days, but that wouldn’t make for much of a
movie.
Instead the story
veers into political satire when a car belonging to business mogul Ben Rand
(Melvyn Douglas) and his wife Eve (Shirley MacLane) accidentally hit Chance.
The couple does the right thing and take Chance to their home to recover, and
while asking for his name they misunderstand it to be Chauncey Gardiner instead
of Chance the gardener. Due to his formal clothing and demeanour they also
assume he is an upper class businessman, and start to take everything he says
as words of wisdom even though he is just spewing out gardening terms. The
misunderstanding goes even further when the Rands introduce “Chauncey
Gardiner,” genius on all things about the economy, to their good friend the
president of the United States (Jack Warden).
Even though
Chance is a clueless simpleton, he rises to fame and gets applauses while
appearing on national TV, allowing Chance to finally see the other side of the
screen. All he does is talk about how to tend the garden, but everyone assumes
he is telling brilliant metaphors about foreign policy. Then again, when was
the last time you didn’t hear anyone says something on a talk show that was not
just a metaphor that could mean anything? If delivered correctly by a person
who sounds fairly intelligent, anything can come off as clever.
Compared to just
about any role Sellers had previously owned Chance might seem like an easy job,
but a restrained performance is just as good as an outlandish one. There is
also something slightly endearing about Chance, with his simple love of
gardening and naiveté regarding anything that does not take place outside his
beloved TV set. He may not be a smart man, but he is certainly not a bad one.
It is a great final performance for an actor who in the end proved he could do
more than fall down the stairs for laughs.
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