Well—surprise. Being There is, in fact, a
good film that gives the audience a rare dose of “something to think about”
while supplying a constant stream of funny stuff. Even more surprising was
Kosinski’s screenplay, with which he, to use an arcane adjective, miraculously
salvages what worth there was in his weakest novel and retools it to fit the
medium like a nut and bolt.Kosinski’s novel concerned the doings of a gardener
with intellectual disabilities named Chance, whose worldview is limited to
tending a garden and watching unwholesome amounts of TV. He’s forced to leave
the only home he’s known when the old man who cared for him dies. Nattily
dressed in a suit from the old man’s wardrobe, Chance meets Eve Rand, wife of
Benjamin Rand—a dying multimillionaire industrialist and kingmaker courted by
presidents, senators, and foreign dignitaries. Chance’s name is eventually misconstrued
as “Chauncey Gardiner.” When a Soviet
ambassador recites his favorite Russian poet, Chance simply smiles and nods.
His vague, uncertain replies—rooted in television and gardening metaphors—are
mistaken by others as visionary truths. These desperate elites, hungry for a
voice of optimism in a world of money, power, and deadpan cynicism, cling to
his half-wit utterances as if they’re the insights of a poet.
Ashby must have had a long talk with Kosinski and given him
some needed pointers. Gardener is taken to be a man of supreme taste and
intellect. He impresses Benjamin enough to earn an introduction to the
President. Asked what the country should do to stimulate economic “growth,”
Chance draws from the only field he knows—gardening—and delivers a homily about
strong roots and springtime renewal. From there, he’s catapulted into national
celebrity. The President, enchanted by “Chauncey Gardiner’s” unique
philosophical optimism, quotes him (with due credit) during a televised State
of the Union speech. The President, impressed by "Chauncey
Gardiner's" philosophical optimism, quotes him during a televised State of
the Union speech. Chance attracts attention from a leading business magazine,
appears on a talk show, is investigated by the CIA and FBI, and impresses a
Soviet ambassador who thinks he is a genius.
Kosinski’s novel was a shaggy dog story. Once the punchline
landed, readers had to wade through too many pages watching the same joke play
out in minor variations. Kosinski, dealing with a genre—the comic novel—that
didn’t suit him, couldn’t quite develop the premise. His real strength as a
novelist lies in grim fatalism. His best characters—cast-iron, post-existential
types brutalized by life—navigate bleak and violent encounters with an eerie
grace. His prose, terse and distanced, has elevated novels like Steps, The
Painted Bird, The Devil Tree, and Blind Date.
But in Being There, his detached tone left the
humor dead on the page. Fortunately, Ashby coaxed him into adjusting that tone
for the screen. The dialogue remains spare, but the lines carry greater weight.
Ashby pulls powerful performances from his cast, bypassing Kosinski’s
subtleties and translating them into broader comedy.
Peter Sellers, like Chance, is magical. Where the novel’s
character was flat and abstract, Sellers brings him to life as a wide-eyed,
well-meaning idiot savant—an uncomprehending soul riding the wave of events
that lift him ever higher. Shirley MacLaine as Eve, Melvyn Douglas as Benjamin,
and Jack Warden as the President all flesh out their roles with an unerring
sense of closed-system gullibility. Ashby wisely avoids buffoonery. He has his
actors treat their characters’ quirks as givens within everyday interaction.
There’s a matter-of-factness about the film that I admire. Being There manages
to be funny without descending into slapstick or drawing-room farce. This
perspective reflects Kosinski's belief that life consists of random
events—hence the name "Chance"—that influence the course of history
in ways humans think they control.
