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How the Last Shot in Being There Actually Got Made - by Michael Dare

The script for Being There ends as both Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine take walks in the wood. They
run into each other. She says "I was looking for you, Chance." He says "I was looking for you too." They take hands
and walk off together.

But near the end of production, somebody went up to Hal and said "How's it going?"

"Great," Hal said. "Sellers has created this character that's so amazing, I could have him walk on water and
people would believe it." Hal stopped and thought. "As a matter of fact, I will have him walk on water."

Hal was out on location, miles from Hollywood. The last thing on earth he needed was to contact the home
office to discuss the idea of Chance walking on water. It's an idea that wouldn't pitch or read well. If it had been in the
script, there would have been endless arguments over what this Jesus allegory was doing in the picture. Only if
you've actually seen the film do you realize that it's not a Jesus allegory at all. Chance can walk on water because
nobody ever told him he couldn't, not because he's the resurrection of Christ.

Hal knew he could make it work, just as he knew that there was no way in hell the studio would approve of
more money for such a controversial shot that wasn't even in the script. He decided to do it anyway.

First, he called Robert Downey, who had a scene in Greaser's Palace where the main character walked on
water. Hal knew that Downey didn't have a lot of money, so he asked for advice on how to do it. Downey told him it
was simple. Just go to an airport, get a certain kind of platform, and place it in the water. Hal followed Downey's
advise and got the shot for less than $10,000.

Second, he had to deal with keeping the shot a secret. There was this one, very well dressed kid around the
set who was officially called a PA, but whom Hal suspected of being the studio spy. Hal called him into his office and
read him the riot act.

"I'm going to ask you to make a decision right now that's going to affect the rest of your life," he told the kid.
"I'm going to ask you to decided whose side you're on. I know you've been watching me because you want to learn
how to make movies. I also know you're watching me to make reports to the studio behind my back. I'm about to
change the end of this movie because I've come up with a better one. The studio can't know about it or they'll shut
me down. This is it, kid. Decide. Are you on the side of art or commerce?"

The kid kept his mouth shut. The shot got made. The studio was pissed but they used the shot anyway. Hal
didn't give them a choice. He didn't even shoot the ending in the script.
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Why the Film was Released with Two Different Endings

Hal always wanted to use a series of outtakes for the final credits. Obviously that's one of the things you
have to do at the last minute, because until the final edit is locked down you don't know what the outtakes are. So Hal
handed in the film with the TV commercial ending just to get the film in on deadline, then got to work on the outtakes
ending.

When he tried to hand it in, the studio refused to accept it or send it out. The film opened small, to just a half
dozen theaters. Hal personally went to each theater, went to the projection booth, knocked on the door and said to
the projectionist "Hi, I'm Hal Ashby, the director of the film. The studio put in the wrong ending, but I've got the right
one with me. How about if we edit it in?" The projectionists were all thrilled to meet him and gladly helped him out.

When the studio found out, they got the last laugh. Hal's contract specifically stated that he was to be paid
his director's fee "upon proper delivery of a completed film." They didn't consider receiving a film with two endings
"proper delivery," and they used that as an excuse not to pay him. Ten years later, when I first met Hal, he still hadn't
gotten paid for directing Being There.

BEING THERE - BY ROGER EBERT

On the day that Kasparov was defeated by Deep Blue, I found myself thinking of the film ``Being There''
(1979). The chess champion said there was something about the computer he did not understand, and it frightened
him. There were moments when the computer seemed to be . . . thinking. Of course, chess is not a game of thought
but of mathematical strategy; Deep Blue has demonstrated it is possible to be very good at it without possessing
consciousness.

The classic test of Artificial Intelligence has been: Can a computer be programmed to conduct a conversation
that seems human to another human? ``Being There'' is a film about a man whose mind works like a rudimentary A.I.
program.

His mind has been supplied with a fund of simplistic generalizations about the world, phrased in terms of the
garden where he has worked all his adult life. But because he presents himself as a man of good breeding (he walks
and talks like the wealthy older man whose house he lived in, and wears the man's tailored suits) his simplicity is
mistaken for profundity, and soon he is advising presidents and befriending millionaires.

The man's name is Chance. We gather he has lived all of his life inside the townhouse and walled garden of a
rich recluse (perhaps he is his son). He knows what he needs to know for his daily routine: Where his bedroom and
bathroom are, and how to tend the plants of the garden. His meals are produced by Louise, the cook. The movie
provides no diagnosis of his condition. He is able to respond to given cues, and can, within limits, adapt and learn.
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Early in the film he introduces himself as ``Chance . . . the gardener,'' and is misunderstood as having said
``Chauncey Gardener.'' Just the sort of WASP name that matches his clothing and demeanor, and soon he is telling
the President: ``Spring, summer, autumn, winter . . . then spring again.'' Indeed.

Chance is played by Peter Sellers, an actor who once told me he had ``absolutely no personality at all. I am a
chameleon. When I am not playing a role, I am nobody.'' Of course, he thought himself ideal for this role, which
comes from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski. Sellers plays Chance as a man at peace with himself. When the old man dies,
the household is broken up and Chance is evicted, there is a famous scene where he is confronted by possible
muggers, and simply points a channel changer at them, and clicks. He is surprised when they do not go away.

Sellers plays Chance at exactly the same note for the entire film. He is detached, calm, secure in his own
knowledge, unaware of his limitations. Through a series of happy chances, he is taken into the home of a dying
millionaire named Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas). The millionaire's wife Eve (Shirley MacLaine) establishes
Chance in a guest suite, where he is happy to find a television (his most famous line is, ``I like to watch.'')

Soon the rich man grows to treasure his reassuring friend. The family doctor (Richard Dysart) is perceptive,
and begins to have doubts about Chance's authenticity, but silences himself when his patient says Chauncey ``has
made the thought of dying much easier.'' Chauncey is introduced by Ben to the president (Jack Warden), becomes
an unofficial advisor, and soon is being interviewed on television, where his insights fit nicely into the limited space
available for sound bites.

Satire is a threatened species in American film, and when it does occur, it's usually broad and slapstick, as in
the Mel Brooks films. ``Being There,'' directed by Hal Ashby, is a rare and subtle bird that finds its tone and stays with
it. It has the appeal of an ingenious intellectual game, in which the hero survives a series of challenges he doesn't
understand, using words that are both universal and meaningless. But are Chance's sayings noticeably less useful
than when the president tells us about a ``bridge to the 21st century?'' Sensible public speech in our time is limited by
(1) the need to stay within he confines of the 10-second TV sound bite; (2) the desire to avoid being pinned down to
specific claims or promises; and (3) the abbreviated attention span of the audience, which, like Chance, likes to
watch but always has a channel-changer poised.

If Chance's little slogans reveal how superficial public utterance can be, his reception reveals still more.
Because he is WASP, middle-aged, well-groomed, dressed in tailored suits, and speaks like an educated man, he is
automatically presumed to be a person of substance. He is, in fact, socially naive (``You're always going to be a little
boy,'' Louise tells him). But this leads to a directness than can be mistaken for confidence, as when he addresses the
president by his first name, or enfolds his hand in both of his own. The movie argues that if you look right, sound
right, speak in platitudes and have powerful friends, you can go far in our society. By the end of the film, Chance is
being seriously proposed as a presidential candidate. Well, why not? I once watched Lamar Alexander for 45
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minutes on C-SPAN, as he made small talk in a New Hampshire diner, and heard nothing that Chance could not
have said.

The film is not flawless. There are two sex-oriented subplots, and neither one is necessary. The story of the
president's impotence could have been completely dispensed with. And the seduction attempt by Shirley MacLaine,
as the millionaire's wife, requires her to act in a less intelligent way than she should. MacLaine projects brains; she,
like the doctor, should have caught on, and that would have created more intriguing scenes than her embarrassing
poses on a bear rug.

In the much-discussed final sequence of ``Being There,'' Chance casually walks onto the surface of a lake. We
can see that he is really walking on the water, because he leans over curiously and sticks his umbrella down into it.

When I taught the film, I had endless discussions with my students over this scene. Many insisted on
explaining it: He is walking on a hidden sandbar, the water is only half an inch deep, there is a submerged pier, etc.
``Not valid!'' I thundered. ``The movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the
image it is not permitted to devise explanations for it. Since Ashby does not show a pier, there is no pier--a movie is
exactly what it shows us, and nothing more,'' etc.

So what does it show us? It shows us Chance doing something that is primarily associated with only one other
figure in human history. What are we to assume? That Chance is a Christ figure? That the wisdom of great leaders
only has the appearance of meaning? That we find in politics and religion whatever we seek? That like the Road
Runner (who also defies gravity) he will not sink until he understands his dilemma?

The movie's implications are alarming. Is it possible that we are all just clever versions of Chance the
gardener? That we are trained from an early age to respond automatically to given words and concepts? That we
never really think out much of anything for ourselves, but are content to repeat what works for others in the same
situation?

The last words in the movie are, "Life is a state of mind." So no computer will ever be alive. But to the degree
that we are limited by our programming, neither will we. The question is not whether a computer will ever think like a
human, but whether we choose to free ourselves from thinking like computers.