Can any one explain the end of "Being There" when he walks on Water?

Answer 1

Holy s.hit, I love that movie. It's one of my favorites on the whole earth.

I always thought the end was bizarre, too. The first respondent is certainly right to an extent. But walking on water also contains this weird religious reference (Jesus was the only one, historically, who supposedly walked on water). So Chance's character has this redeemer connotation - perhaps he can redeem these greedy, selfish idiots - but it's rather ironic to think of a redeemer as such a clueless, dumb, and aloof (albeit kind) person. Everyone in the movie turns out rather dumb in his or her own particular way.

His cluelessness about the world except the world he's seen on TV can be read in both positive and negative lights: positive because he's not aware enough to know a person isn't supposed to be able to walk on water and so isn't embarrassed to try it. Who's to say one will always fail at walking on water? It's not impossible to walk on water on TV (or in the very movie we've just watched). The cluelessness is negative, of course, because it suggests that you don't need to have brains to stumble into power and money, and that people are easy to fool nowadays. See George Bush.

Chance is magic and walks on water like magic. Others _transform_ him in their minds into whatever they want (even the president) while, in his own mind, he is not at all what they think he is.

Answer 2

Being There is a black comedy that satirizes politics, celebrity, media-obsession and television. The final scene is open to interpretation but in light of the mood of the rest of the movie is probably meant to be no more profound or meaningful than Chance's misinterpreted pronouncements. It is what it is. Something else to talk about and be misinterpreted. As in attaching connotations to Jesus and religion.

Answer 3

If people believed in him, this man could do anything.