What a wonderful movie. “I like to watch TV,” Peter Sellers’ Chance the gardener says in this 1979 modern fable, adapted from his own novel by Jerzy Kosinski and directed superbly by Hal Ashby of Harold and Maude fame. I do, too – and the chance to watch this movie unedited and uninterrupted, in its original screen ratio, is one reason why. Director of cinematography Caleb Deschanel, who filmed the equally gorgeous The Black Stallion the same year, worked with Ashby to craft a stunningly beautiful film from start to finish. Especially the finish – though I also adore the moment when Chance takes his first walk outside his comfort zone, to the tune of Deodato’s jazzy reworking of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Pure cinema. Pure brilliance. And Shirley MacLaine, by the way, is brilliant too, as one of many people who see in Chance only what they want to see.