Thats the proof that the movie worked and established an emotional link between the viewers and the main character, so that they - or rather we - feared that Chance might be exposed anytime in a particularly cruel and pathetic way.

"It's almost offensive how American movies portray people with with handicaps as messianic figures who never do anything but bring love and enlightenment in to the lives of others. At least in Forrest Gump everyone in the movie recognized that the main character had a disability".
Except that Being There is a purposefully absurdist satire while in Gump we're expected to accept the protagonist and the whole holy fool business at a face value. And Chance doesn't exactly bring anything to anyone, he's just "there", a blank slate upon whom others project their delusions.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

I completely, totally disavow gmierz1's comment.

Plua eight even sadder years of Barack Hussein Obama.

That "almost impossible suspension of disbelief" gave us eight years of GW Bush.

Difficult to watch because of how completely asinine and stupendously unbelievable the developments are.
Hey Fuzzy. The film isn't meant to be taken literally.
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

Difficult to watch because of how completely asinine and stupendously unbelievable the developments are. The suggestion that we're supposed to believe that the elite, educated class of the United States would not recognize Chance as being mentally handicapped within minutes requires an almost impossible suspension of disbelief and sheer gullibility. It's almost offensive how American movies portray people with handicaps as messianic figures who never do anything but bring love and enlightenment in to the lives of others. At least in
Forrest Gump
everyone in the movie recognized that the main character had a disability (save for the military drill sergeant) and weren't duped like complete pinheads. The message seems to be that Americans (especially white ones) are all dupes incapable of recognizing when the Emperor has no clothes, but here they're presenting a straw-man case, given the sheer impossibility that anyone in the real world could observe this man (either in person or on television) and mistake his retardation and simpleton platitudes for profundities. A horribly smug and condescending movie.

The final walking on water scene was curious and I like the interpretations that some people have thrown out there in other posts.
He wasn't walking on water. He walked out into a shallow portion of the lake, then found that the water all around where he was standing was deep. Chance - get it?
My real name is Jeff

what makes it great!
'The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.'-Al McGuire

I saw the movie
"Being There"
once, and, having had problems myself (which I won't disclose.), I found it rather sad, and have never wanted to watch
Being There
again since.

This message has been deleted.

The only scene I really struggled with was the aforementioned bedroom scene with Shirley MacLainelike it was physically hard to watch the whole scenestill a great moviebut I understand what the original poster is talking aboutthis movie gives me anxiety.
Even the most primitive society has an innate respect for the insane.

I like to watch!

Yeah I know what you mean, I had to hide behind a quilt some of the scenes but it wasn't as hard to watch as most romantic comedies where they keep doing dumb things or have something to hide or some other part that keeps me on edge. The only scenes that were that bad where the ones where Eve tried to kiss him or played with herself for him and he was copying the TV and watching it and I was just so on edge that he would be found out. And the Russian ambassador bit and the talk show a little. But it wasn't too awful.

Oh God, I'm glad I wasn't alone feeling itconstantly! Though, I was able do adjust a little towards the ending. And even laughed out loud couple of times.
But movie itself is still brilliant - because of this uncomfortable feeling, too.

His encounters with 'real' people did rub on a lot of personal and societal issues. Our problem as the audience was that we KNEW Chance was socially and maybe even mentally impaired. I think the value in this movie lies in realizing that certain things do make us uncomfortable and whether or not it's a natural feeling or conventions produced by over-civilization.

I felt exactly the same way about this film. It's a series of cringe-inducing awkward moments - the worst kind, too. Where you know that the other characters who interact with Chance are believing they're speaking to someone who's not really all there (if you know what I mean). And then everything Chance says is usually followed by silence, so there were constant scenes of people looking confused. I felt like I was watching an awkward "Meet the Parents" scene over and over again. It's hard to explain, but it was difficult to get through 2 hours of that. The haunting ending made it worthwhile, though.
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of its pupils.

I think that the black woman in the beginning was very patient, but, like most people, she had a breaking point, had reached her limits, lost her patience, and ultimately left Chance.

Watching Chance's journey through the outside world is like watching a tightrope walker, or those Buster Keaton movies where the hero casually and repeatedly avoids near-disaster. You are supposed to experience a degree of unrelieved tension.
There, daddy, do I get a gold star?

There was some characters that I'm sure he felt uncomfortable around. Like that black woman in the beginning? She was creepy as Hell. She made gave me the willies.

Chance is an empty vessel because when it appears it could be serendipity or chaos.
Ever tried, ever failed?
No matter.
Try again, fail again.
Fail better.

I know that might be a message, perhaps even an official message, of the film but I prefer to think that Chance is, to use a term that I hope will not be used in future, 'idiot savant'. This is a terribly biased term used to describe 'a person who is extremely unworldly but displays natural wisdom and insight'. I propose that the supposed unwordliness, taken as a mental illness by some, may actually be a totally conscious, intelligent, choice to oppose change.
In a world supposedly obessesed with status, the world still uses terrible bias in deciding what it regards as being a good 'status'. A gardener who works and lives in a stately home and who has the respect of his upper class employer should be regarded as a man of some status indeed.
Any miserable, cynical, person can achieve a job that pays well. Chance sought not wealth but to be in relatively comfortable environments with pleasant people, which just so happened to be mainly rich people because they have less reason to be suspicious about someone employed as a gardener than they do about someone employed in a 'political' role.
I suggest that Chance was more like a magic vase where most observers can only see an empty vessel but, hidden at the side, are huge reserves of 'stuff'.
It is a British stiff upper lip in a way where you wear your learning lightly so as to not belittle but have a deep dedication to duty. Although Chance's academic learning may have been truly light, I strongly think that his emotional learning was not but it is something that, wisely, he would only reveal to someone who was as truly, dedicatedly, innocent as he was. A bit of a Jesus figure, a sacrificial lamb in the eyes of the many shallow. The ending where he walks on water is not only a metaphor for 'he performed miracles because he never allowed himself to think he couldn't' but also a suggestion that 'still waters run deep' and that there IS actually considerable depth to Chance, it's just that the modern, cynical, sarcastic, world does not have the mindset to want to recognise it as such.

Great analogy! I love the movie but you do have to get it.

"by diyinventor Tue Oct 29 2013 10:26:52
Like Obama really."
Kill yourself.
Piece of shiat.