If answering, please provide an authoritative source - url or other.
In the last scene of "Being There," Peter Sellers - Chauncy Gardiner - Chance the gardener - walks on water. He walks onto a pond, stops, attempts to measure depth with his umbrella.
What was the director / playwright getting at?
Was the director / playwright indicating -
- Chauncy wasn't told he couldn't walk on water, so he did?
- Chauncy, with no documented birth, was a "type" of Jesus Christ (showing one or more but not all salient characteristics of Jesus)?
- all the events of the movie were a farce, really could not have happened, the joke is on the movie-viewer - since apart from Jesus no one can walk on water?
- or what?
This is not a question for the faint of thought. Again, if answering, please provide an authoritative source (a tactically wise thing to do if you want to get best answer of any set of answers).
2007-01-02 04:38:53 · 7 answers · asked by Running_Dad 3 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Movies
It meant he could walk on water because he didn't know he couldn't.
Back in the 1970's, there was a mentally challenged man who lived not far from me. My brother and his cousin used to visit the family often. The mentally challenged man could play any stringed instrument. Once when he was playing the banjo my brother asked the man's father how he could play so well although mentally deficent. The man's father replied in all seriousness, "He's so dumb he doesn't know he can't play".
2007-01-02 14:13:29 · answer #1 · answered by The Notorious Doctor Zoom Zoom 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Chance The Gardener
2016-10-01 11:23:41 · answer #2 · answered by axelrod 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You're asking for someone to provide an "authoritative" source for something that's 100% a matter of opinion. Good luck. Since Hal Ashby obviously MEANT for that final image to be vague and subjec to interpretation, I don't think you're likely to find THE answer.
Don't go looking in the source material (Jerzy Kozinski's novel) either; that image doesn't appear in the book.
However, if you'll settle for my humble interpretation...
I don't believe that we're ever intended to believe that Chance is REALLY walking on water. He's not god, nor is he miraculous in any way...except for the fact that he's a true innocent, and therefore free to interact with the world in an atmosphere free of guile or hidden agendas.
A number of films have contained images of people supposedly "walking on water," where it was subsequently revealed that there was a walkway of some sort just under the water's surface. I think Ashby is quoting from those scenes, and having a little fun with them besides.
The only "miracle" here is that Chance just naturally FINDS the "hidden" path...but then, isn't that what he'd been doing all through the film? Every time he speaks -- whether to a gang of street toughs, to a beautiful woman, or to the President of the U.S. -- he runs the risk of being found out, exposed, and humiliated. But -- and it strikes me that this is the essential theme of the film -- he never errs, and that's because WE'RE so desperate to encounter a person who has ALL THE ANSWERS. Chance is the perfect "blank slate," and people make him out to be the thing they most want in their lives.
And we, as the audience, probably react to Chance the same way.
So who can blame Ashby for having a little fun at our expense at the film's end. In essence, he seems to be asking: "Oh, did you REALLY think that he was anything more than a simple gardener? Do you REALLY believe that he can walk on water???"
2007-01-02 05:24:20 · answer #3 · answered by shkspr 6 · 3⤊ 1⤋
Peter in the reference "upon this rock" when it is looked at closely the word Petros means stone and not rock at all and all Christians are referred to lively stones in the New Testament, who form the New Testament Church.. The Roman Catholic Church has no justification for claiming their church is founded by Peter or that it is the true Church and Christians know that the Church was founded in Jerusalem by the Apostolic Church Fathers. Feed my sheep means Peter was to deliver the Gospel of salvation as stated in Christ's great commission and to go into all the world preaching the Gospel, the food being the bread of life the Word of God through Christ.
2016-03-29 04:36:21 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Being There Ending
2016-12-16 12:40:02 · answer #5 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not sure myself but you should check out IMDB.com and look it up. There is all kinds of info about all the movies and characters and story lines and plots. It might help you.
2007-01-02 04:45:20 · answer #6 · answered by Haven17 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
what was he facing when he was doing that? It was not just a "pond" he dipped his umbrella into!
think maybe he was Shrub's inspiration...?
2007-01-02 04:46:55 · answer #7 · answered by silentnonrev 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋