My friend Gianni has apartments both in Milan, Italy and Cannes, France. He is a painter and a gardener and while successfully practicing both arts, Gianni expresses interesting ideas around the function and the role of the garden in modern life which are both philosophical and classical. This I find irrestible.

In a recent conversation, he was referring to the modern garden as our search for paradise; however constrained in space it might be. Gianni has and is creating both large and small gardens all over Southern Europe from Sardinia to Greece to Cannes and St. Tropez. He speaks of his gardens as offering a place to contemplate; a refuge from the stress of modern life.

Beautiful garden sloping towards the sea from the entrance to the Grand Hotel, offering many pleasurable delights for the eye and the nose, as well as places for contemplation.

Gianni maintains that once you, as a custodian of your own garden, begin to see the patterns of all of life played out, in microcosm, in your garden, you will view the world differently – most often with awe and wonder!

Many years ago, I co-produced and directed a few episodes in a television series entitled: “The Search for Paradise,” a 13 part series on the history of gardens. It is a fascinating subject – but I was, and still am, strictly an observer of this unique and living expression of human kind’s yearning for Eden while Gianni is a functioning practitioner of this philosophic idea being wrestled into life!

Gianni also points out that throughout the past the garden has been about a “lost paradise” whereas modern urban man’s search is for the “lost garden.” He points to a simple but serene garden that he has installed on the modest terrace of an apartment in Cannes. Here you can sit and meditate, or, if you so desire, practice the ancient, spiritual art of yoga. A lack of space is not an excuse for not having a garden – a fundamental characteristic of our need for spiritual sustenance.

Gianni meditating in the terrace garden in Cannes, which he has just completed.

Or, you can join with Gianni in the care and upkeep of the garden itself, take instructions from him and begin to experience, in your garden, the confluence of “natural contact with natural time.” This is exciting for Gianni – and for his clients. Gianni is currently at work on a new project based upon the work and ideas of Hieronymous Bosch, the 16th century Dutch painter. Gianni, like Bosch, is interested in “heretical” ideas and would like to see them played in a “new-form” garden – which would be very interesting indeed! I would like to see this garden!

A detail of Hieronymous Bosch’s "A Garden of Earthly Delights."

So, the young child who swung in the trees of the expansive and beautiful garden of the famous 18th century Villa Folli in Milan, which was under the stewardship of his master gardener father, has become an artist imbued with the love of nature as well as an aggressive determination to break “new ground.” Gianni is an exciting man!

And, in recognition of the idea of the repetitive patterns in all of nature, I’m suggesting that we think about the strange and beguiling movie “Being There” starring Peter Sellers, directed by Hal Ashby and based upon the novel by Jerzy Kosinski. 

In addition, I’m suggesting a wonderful two-part French film(s) entitled “Jean de Florette” and “Manon of the Spring,” directed by Claude Berri.

And, as a third film, in the "paradise" theme I’m recommending "Lady Chatterly," a French film directed by the young Frenchwoman Pascale Ferran.

Movie Review:

Being There

Directed by Stanley Kubrick — MGM 1956
Starring: Peter Sellers, Mervyn Douglas

“Time Out,” while publishing a tepid review of this film, also pointed out that “Hal Ashby is perhaps the least-feted of the great American directors of the 1970’s. 

I, for one, have always enjoyed Mr. Ashby’s work but, upon some reflection, agree with “Time Out” in that “Being There” is, in the end, a bit of a bore.. 

This film is the intelligent rendering of a very difficult, intellectual conceit or idea to the big screen – and that alone makes it noteworthy. I personally think Peter Sellers is terrific as the central character, Chance Gardner; but that the film, as a whole, is at least as tepid and unfulfilled as “Time Out” comments – and, while we’re at it, I didn’t like the novel “Being There” or, for that matter, the author – who struck me as vain and possessing in marked display, the qualities of a gifted fraud! 

He would have done well on the cote d’azure as the famous writer in exile – but, of course, that is who he was – a famous writer in exile. 

So, why did I choose this movie to accompany a story about a friend of mine? Because the “idea” is so precious and valuable while being so fragile at the same time.

Chauncey at work in the garden of an influential Washington insider.

We are asked to believe that Chance (Peter Sellers) has lived his entire life in a kind of monastic state – never having left the garden of his master/benefactor in Washington D.C. Thus his view of the world, life itself, when expressed, is in terms of garden metaphors. “If the roots are deep, the flowers will do well.”

Because his current benefactor is a political heavyweight, each of Chance’s pronouncements carry with them a “gravitas” beyond Chance’s meaning, elevating him to the highest level of political punditry and, in so doing, revealing the poverty of American political commentary.

In my opinion, “Being There” is a slight comedy; most often treated as a serious satire - but how good a satire is it? Well, opinions differ as they will on most works of art.

However, Peter Sellers is masterful in the role of Chance – probably the best acting of his career and when you pair this outing with that of Dr Strangelove, we are able to see his great talent in full relief.

A "Chance" commentary on the state of the union for the press.

And Hal Ashby directs with a stately pace that helps us “buy” into the concept; delicate though it is.

But there are three French movies that have come to mind while, in effect, “trashing” “Being There” as being more pertinent to our topic.

They are: “Jean de Florette,” “Manon of the Spring” and “Lady Chatterly.”

Movie Review:

Jean de Florette

Directed by Claude Berri — 1986
Starring: Gerard Depardieu, Yves Montand. Daniel Auteil

If we take our need or desire to create a personal garden, however humble, as our inner drive to recapture the “lost paradise,” then “Jean de Florette” plays its action out against a background of this “fallen Eden” as the principle characters struggle to recreate this paradise against both the difficult odds of nature itself; and the willful chicanery of acquisitive and greedy neighbours who hold to themselves the exact location of the free-flowing spring that would save Jean and his family from financial and moral ruin as a devastating drought settles over the rugged and beautiful Provence.

“Jean de Florette,” a beautiful and sensual film, ends in tragedy – but, a Part II soon is unveiled – “Manon of the Spring.”

Movie Review:

Manon of the Spring

Directed by Claude Berri — 1986
Starring: Yves Montand. Daniel Auteil, Emmanuelle Beart

Manon is the grown-up daughter of Jean de Florette who died of exhaustion during the drought and water crisis. Manon was very young then, discovered the treachery of the “friendly” neighbours and ran away into the hills of Provence..

Manon has become a beautiful young girl and an itinerant shepherdess exuding a ghostly presence while plotting her family’s revenge.

But, it is the ambience of the Provencal woods, the simple farmers, the heartiness of the meat and produce and the all-pervading “joi de vivre” that stamps this movie as truly being played out in Paradise.

Crushing, hard work is essential in this French paradise but, at its heart, “Manon of the Spring” is like a fairy tale – a Disney movie without talking squirrels! However, it’s a movie with a very real edge; a curious edge of authenticity and romanticism that renders the “garden” of Jean and Manon, mean as it is, something Gianni would say is worth longing for!

Movie Review:

Lady Chatterly

Directed by Pascale Ferran, Based on the novel by D.H. Lawrence — 2006
Starring: Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coulloch, Hippolyte Girardot

Imagine this! The British, literary classic of sex and class being made into a sensitive, love story by a gifted young French woman. Ms. Ferran chose the second version of the novel upon which to base her film and according to the October 26th, 2006 issue of the International Herald Tribune “Ms. Ferran, who doesn’t speak English, has done a work of excavation, to plumb the sensual experience at the heart of the writer’s vast landscape.”

And sensual it is, as the film opens itself to the glorious sights and sounds of the outdoors that surround the gamekeeper’s cottage. As a love story, rather than a sex story, “Lady Chatterly” allows us to rejoice with the lovers in the “garden” that surrounds Sir Clifford’s estate. To be in love – and to consummate that love outdoors enveloped with sun and shadow while being cooled by fragrant breezes– may be what the Garden of Eden is all about! 

Pascale Ferran is not interested in “smut or violence but puts her film’s ear to the ground so it could pulsate to its vibrations!”

This is her first major film; and a very good one as John Thomas and Jane Chatterly (the controversial literary creations of D.H. Lawrence) find their paradise in the filmmaking sensibilities of a young, French woman.