The Truman Show (1998)

 

The Truman Show (1998)

 

“Nothing you see on this show is fake. It's merely controlled," says Marlon, but who is actually Louis Coltrane, who spends most of his life pretending to be Marlon, and who is, in turn, played by Actor Noah Nicholas Emmerich, pretending to be Louis.

 

This movie, about a guy who doesn’t know his life is actually a TV show, embraces a certain Paranoid delusion like no TV or film drama that I can think of, not even “A World of Difference” (1960) and “Special Service” (1989) from the original and rebooted “The Twilight Zone” TV series, which it clearly borrows from. In the Real World this is recognized and diagnosed as a Mental Disorder, one of the variants of Schizophrenia, and in the wake of this film, that Disorder was nick-named "The Truman Show Delusion." A perverse element of this delusion is that at least some of those afflicted seemed happier than the other Schizophrenics under the care of Doctor Joel Gold of Bellevue Hospital in New York City, who coined the nickname.

 

The premise is simple, but there is a complex World hidden inside the simplicity:

 

Truman is under Surveillance all the time. Everyone he knows is an Actor in league with the Secret Masters Surveilling him. Every event in his life has been wholly created by those Secret Masters. Why? Because right outside this Illusion that he’s not aware of yet, he’s the star of a hit TV show with millions of fans, all strangers to him.

 

Maybe the greatest achievement of this film is its sweet-natured feel, because it’s a lie. It’s actually a viciously brutal Satire on our Addiction to Faked Realities of other’s lives, and how our Consumer-Driven Culture has crippled our ability to honestly empathize. Think of this as “Dawn of the Dead” (1978) without Horror, Zombies, or Violence – WHAT? You may think there’s nothing left if you take out the Horror, Zombies, and Violence? That means you’re just one of the Sheeple who would watch “The Truman Show.” Or maybe, you’re Truman.

 

“The Truman Show” was a full-frontal assault on the dishonesty of Reality TV, a then un-named genre, but never-the-less, already had a vibrant history as one of the most cancerous consumables of our Media Landscape. It probably started with a radio show, with “Queen for a Day” (1945, and migrated to TV in 1948) which was rightfully described by Mark Evanier as, "one of the most ghastly shows ever produced…tasteless, demeaning to women, demeaning to anyone who watched it, cheap, insulting and utterly degrading to the human spirit."

 

Reality TV would not be a recognized Genre until about five minutes after this film’s release. In 1997, in Europe, there was “Expedition Robinson” and “Big Brother,” which both moved to the USA in 2000, with “Expedition Robinson” being renamed “Survivor.” The TV show “Big Brother” was especially telling, as the title references George Orwell’s Dystopian SF novel “1984” (1949), suggesting that its Producers despised the show’s Participants, or Audience, or both.

 

Jonathan Rosenbaum, while complaining about the film, accidently demonstrated its brilliance, “This same sort of underlying contempt for the American public can be found in most places where cultural decisions are being made. It's the standard media position right now: don't blame yourself or your editor or producer or agent or studio or network; blame the audience, which is supposedly calling all the shots. By this reasoning, [Character] Christof is a holy seer, and his flock consists of a planet full of jerks. It's a characteristic form of contemporary doublethink: the public is disparaged for enjoying stupidity, and the media-savvy instigator of that stupidity is declared a genius.”

 

Ummm … has Rosenbaum watched TV recently? If this shit exists, then it has an Audience, ergo, the Audience is to blame -- Well, the Audience and the fact that Reality TV has low-production costs (so different from this film), and low-production cost equate to profitability even with a smaller Audience share.

 

David Thomson got closer to the point because he realized the Audience response told us what the film meant. "Our dependence on, and loathing of, TV -- as if TV had become the base level of visible existence." Or as Character Christof (Ed Harris), says, “We accept the reality which we are presented.”

 

Our two main Characters are Christof and Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey). Truman is the unwitting victim of Christof’s Tyranny, but it should be said, Truman is an incredibly well-treated rat in Christof’s cage. That’s an essential plot point, because this film is ultimately about the nebulous aspiration for Authenticity, that a happy life of lies is worth less than a scary life of truths. The movie makes us cheer Truman’s eventual rebellion against lies, only hinting at the disappointments that freedom will bring him.

 

So, Truman is a Prisoner, but all of his Jailers are obligated to live a lie so he doesn’t know that he’s a Prisoner, so who is more a rat in a cage? Character Hannah Gill, the Actress who plays Truman’s wife Meryl (played by Real-World Actress Laura Linney) says, "My life is 'The Truman Show.'" The fakeness of their relationship is obvious to Truman even before he understands the reason, and he asks her, “Why do you want to have a baby with me? You hate me.” She’s utterly contemptable, but there’s a few scenes where it is tragically obvious that she’s more desperate a rat than Truman.

 

As Truman slowly realizes there’s something wrong, the Terror of the supporting Cast who have no other lives to live is palatable.  There are several moments where the Actors and Actresses around Truman pretend certain things aren’t actually happening because they were unscripted, they have no idea how to react spontaneously (hmmm… Method Acting but no Improv Skills, how interesting).

 

That Truman’s life is a Fraud isn’t a surprise twist, we’re informed of it up-front. That’s probably the most subversive aspect of the film, because it indicts us, the Audience, for our Voyeurism. The sheer impossibility of Christof’s enterprise is deftly negotiated because we learn the elaborateness of it only incrementally. Because it comes piece meal, it’s easier to digest, more believable, and more fun. In this film, God, or the Devil, is in the details, and there are a lot of them. The entire of Seahaven is under a geodesic dome, the weather is controlled (there’s a great bit where a rain cloud follows Truman and Truman alone), the moon is motionless in the fake sky (it’s actually Christof’s window on the world he created), and the sun moves under the Producer’s command. There’s a forest, an ocean, and about 5,000 hidden cameras that follow Truman everywhere he goes.

 

It creating all these details wasn’t cheap, the $60 million dollar budget is the largest former Art-House Director Peter Weir ever got to play with up-to-that-point, and none of it was wasted. The Casting was flawless and the Verisimilitude even more so. Much praise should be bestowed on Production Designer Dennis Gassner and Cinematographer Peter Biziou for turning Real-World Seaside, Florida into the fake Utopia of Seahaven Island that has a sign proclaiming, "It's a Nice Place to Live." Apparently, this film got a lucky break akin to that of the movie “Minority Report” (2002), in both cases, the lead Actor, Tom Cruise in “Minority Report” and Carey here, already committed as the lead, wasn’t available because of his heavy scheduling. This delayed the two productions, thereby extending the pre-Productions, and allowed more time to get all the World’s details perfect.

As the film begins it is day 10,909 of this 24/7 Broadcast Phenomena, which means that people have been watching the show for almost thirty years. Truman addicts who go to sleep with the TV on and have sets installed in their bathrooms so they don't miss anything. The whole enterprise is financed through Product Placement, so those around Truman hold up products so the labels are readable, are the ultimate “Social Influencers,” an obnoxious media tactic that has been with us as long as there has been media enough to influence us, but only named and recognized about ten-years after this film’s release. “The Truman Show” managed SF most telling achievement; Predicting the future by describing the present.

 

Though the Voyeuristic themes effectively makes the audience the Villains (well, us and Christof), it encourages that same Audience to identify with Hero Truman; a nice piece of “doublethink” that, unlike the Orwellian version, encourages expansive, instead of regressive, thought. There’s poignancy in seeing Truman knowing he’s unfulfilled but not knowing why, and then a heart-thumping expectation as he slowly figures it out. It should be said that Carey, previously known for his exaggerated antics, shows restraint here, but that restraint is grounded in the same talents displayed in his most exaggerated roles. Truman has a painted-on smile, and a Terror underneath. He’s like Jimmy Stewart trapped in “The Twilight Zone.”

 

Truman longs for a girl he barely knew, Lauren, who was played by Actress Sylvia (Real-World Actress Natascha McElhone), who, after being fired from the show, advocates for his release from bondage, which Truman doesn’t know, as he was told her family moved to Fiji. To encourage him not to want to follow, the local travel agency displays terrifying (and very funny) posters to dissuade him from ever leaving Seahaven.

 

And far crueler tricks were played on him. As Truman entered his teens and started to long for a larger world, Christof stole Truman’s faux-father from him by staging the death of the character Kirk, who is actually Actor Walter Moore (Real-World Actor Brian Delate) and deliberately created a phobia of water in the boy, both to increase his control and the purposes of good TV drama and higher ratings. Regarding Christof’s character, Director Weir said, "I enjoyed his excesses, his exploitation of emotions… He sees himself as a god. And what director hasn't wanted to say, 'Cue the sun!'"

 

Regarding Christof’s name, should we be thinking Of Christ, or Off Christ? One “f” if you believe this film mocks the reflexive need for Religion. While “ff” means you insist this film rails against Secular Media replacing Religion with commerce. Either one works.

 

Anyway, Christof describes himself as a “Televisonary,” and explains the purpose of his epic fraud, "We've become bored with watching actors giving us phony emotions. We're tired of pyrotechnics and special effects. While the world he inhabits is to some respects counterfeit, there is nothing faked about Truman. No script, no cue cards. It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life."

 

Truman’s “true” history is something Christof brags about. Truman "auditioned" in utero, chosen from among five unwanted fetuses because his birthday met an air date, and legally adopted by the Corporation that runs the show. It sounds like a dicey gamble because the key to the success of the show is what a nice guy Truman is: Every morning, he greets his neighbors across the road with his catch phrase "Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”

 

How could that be predicted prenatally? Did Christoff just get lucky? Or did he condition Truman that well? Seahaven is unconditionally a trap, but it evokes the Ambivalence more than Fear.

 

Probably the most aggressive Utopia-builder in the History of the USA was Walt Disney, and the Main Street USA section of the theme parks Disney Land and Disney World (opened in 1955 & 1971, respectively) were an idealized vision of his childhood home of Marceline, Missouri. He also built the planned community of Golden Oaks, Florida, which abuts Disney World. Journalists and Historians have often written of, and marveled at, Golden Oak and its residents’ total commitment to translating Disney’s Fantasy into a livable Reality. Reading these analyses, I’m struck how the Authors seem uncertain, should they be mocking or admiring?

 

The film contains a laundry list of issues common in Dystopian SF: the pressure to conform, the stifling of our children’s creativity (and not just Truman’s, when a young schoolboy goes off-script and exclaims, "I'd like to be an explorer like the great Magellan!" The teacher quickly covers with, "Oh! You're too late! There's nothing left to explore!"), the abandonment of the Real-World in favor of Artificiality, our collective unwillingness to think for ourselves. But the Architect of all these abuses doesn’t seem at all like the Character O'Brien from Orwell’s “1984.” Christoff instead seems more the embodiment of over-bearing Parenting, and maybe that’s this non-Ideological film’s most perceptive Political Statement. Villainous Christoff actually does love Truman, and because of that, he’s is just another rat in the cage, without anything to live for without Truman. He sees himself as the man/child’s father, and all the selfish cruelties he inflicts reflect that degenerate love.

 

With Truman’s escape, we cheer. But what is he pursing? A woman he barely knows, and one who barely knows him. Apply any critical thought, and his happy ending will be short-lived. But apply that that thought twice, and the necessity of that next (un-filmed) hurt is necessary. Christof left his son unprepared for life, but Truman still has to enter that life. In the end Christof pleads with Truman to stay, “The lies out there are the same as the ones in here,” but in Seahaven, Truman is, “protected.”

 

Michael Brearley and Andrea Sabbadini wrote in the academic publication, the “International Journal of Psychoanalysis,” that Truman was, “a prototypical adolescent at the beginning of the movie. He feels trapped into a familial and social world to which he tries to conform while being unable to entirely identify with it, believing that he has no other choice (other than through the fantasy of fleeing to a far-way island). Eventually, Truman gains sufficient awareness of his condition to ‘leave home’—developing a more mature and authentic identity as an adult, leaving his child-self behind and becoming a True-man.”

 

Truman’s audience aren’t given a lot of screen-time, but when they appear, it counts. A crowd at a bar. Two old ladies on a sofa with a Truman sampler cushion. An apparently lesbian couple who seem as home-bound as the senior citizens. A geek watching in his bathtub. A few Japanese spectators communicating with wild hand-gestures. When Truman rebels, they, and we, cheer. He fulfills our belief in the Indomitability of the Human Spirit, so this is basically a Frank Capra SF film -- but there’s also a brutally telling detail. Cut to the TV audience in a bar: they cheer his triumph, and then, with that narrative fulfilled, they collectively demand that the channel be changed and forget all about him. Truman was no more real to them than Reality TV’s “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” was any more real than the scripted drama “Scandal” (both first airing in 2012).

Wrote Edward Guthmann, “‘The Truman Show’ is so compelling because we're all, like Truman, starving for authentic experience. We're all aware, maybe only subliminally, that the values we were told to respect have in fact been bred out of the culture by a barrage of brain-suck advertising, by the acquisition of gadgets and the wall of media noise.”

 

We are also becoming more and more observed, and we know it, even when we can’t see it (in the urbanized areas of the USA, we are unconsciously caught on camera 75 times a day, if you live in urbanized England it’s more like 300 times). With that realization is also the question, how will we be judged? Benson Parkinson observed, “I brought my two early-teen-age daughters to ‘The Truman Show.’” He then asked them, “‘Haven't you ever had that feeling that life isn't real and you're being tested?’… ‘Well, yeah!’ one answered, wide-eyed, ‘but I didn't know anybody else did.’"

 

One of Dr. Gold’s patients who suffered from the “Truman Show Delusion” stated, “I realized that I was and am the center, the focus of attention by millions and millions of people ... My family and everyone I knew were and are actors in a script, a charade whose entire purpose is to make me the focus of the world's attention.” Suddenly, he doesn’t sound that crazy.

 

One of my ex-girlfriends was emphatic that the reason movie was brilliant was, “Because it’s real.” She also, progressively, withdrew from life, became less social a and more apt to watch Reality TV and shop on-line around the time this film came out. A later girlfriend, younger than the first, lived a life of extreme transparency on social media, maybe thinking that transparency was the new Utopia. She started withdrawing from that shared-sphere since 2018.  

 

This film was Written by Andrew Niccol, and this is his second produced Screen Play. Of his (to-date) nine films, six have been SF, and he’s directed seven of them. Given is commitment to SF, his commitment to re-examining the same themes repeatedly, but in new ways each time, and his consistently high critical praise, he could easily be called this generation’s Nigel Kneale.  Niccol’s films all address characters who live some form of intricate lie, the Tyranny of Conformity, our relationship with Technology, Surveillance, the delusions bred by being in Authority, and/or how external obstacles to our aspirations are often more irrational than the obstacles we create for ourselves. His focus on external, over his main Characters’ internal, obstacles, strongly suggest that Niccol’s main, over-riding, theme, is Paranoia. Niccol’s has also convinced interviewers that he is personally Paranoid. When Sheila Johnston asked “[W]hat he's working on now, he replies: ‘I'm scribbling a few things, but I wouldn't tell my own mother in case she ripped it off.’"

 

Regarding this film, the perfect dramatization of a known Mental Disorder, he was asked if it “had its roots in personal neurosis” and he replied, “It's always been a daydream of mine…You can decide if it's healthy paranoia or not. I think everyone questions the authenticity of their lives at certain points. It's like when kids ask if they're adopted."

 

Many reviewers noted that this is a boldly off-beat film for Hollywood, but Niccol disagrees, "There's no end to what we'll watch … People look into a fireplace for hours and contemplate things. TV's just an electronic fireplace sometimes. There's also this blurring of fact and fantasy - you even have this word in America: infotainment. It's hideous."

 

Niccol’s first produced Screenplay was also the first film he Directed, “Gattaca” (1997). He was given an impressive budget for a double-first timer, $36 million. The film was much admired, but bombed. Hollywood didn’t lose faith in his talent, but under no circumstances were they going to let him Direct this film, which would inevitably cost much more. Niccol then lobbied for Weir to Direct, who had a much longer, and more profitable, track-record.

 

Weir then pulled off something impressive, he got Niccol not only to revise his script (that’s a fact of life) but massively over-haul it, to the point that though the themes remained intact, the tone and action were all turned upside down. The original “The Truman Show” script actually pre-dates that of “Gattaca,” was much darker, and “Originally, I set it in New York, and Truman was an Everyman trapped in an everyday routine."

 

Weir explains why such massive changes were needed, "You have to serve the strict logic of the story…If you build Manhattan, you must be making money beyond what any show could generate. And why recreate something that is already there and full of problems?"

 

Weir’s films are consistently thoughtful and idiosyncratic. He’s got a rare talent of mixing gentleness and cruelty that is on display here. His lightening of the tone of the story may have been his masterstroke. His also a Director that great Actors want to work for, because of his track record of drawing career-best performances out of them.

 

During the film’s post-Production, Princess Diana was killed in a car crash while being chased by Paparazzi. Weir said, "It was hard not to make comparisons. If there had been cameras trained on her that last night, people would have gone on watching. The romantic tryst at the hotel ... she's coming out of the Ritz ... and then - oh, my God! - she's going to die. It was fascinating to me, the agony the audience was feeling - I call them the audience. Yet the paparazzi were working for them. We are complicit in creating the monster."

 

 

It was Weir who sought out Carrey, not the other way around. Carrey’s previous attempt at a more serious film “The Cable Guy” (1996) was the financially successful but broadly hated (I know that sounds like a contradiction, but that’s the way it is). Reportedly, it originally had a light-hearted Script that got progressively darker in later drafts (so, like the reverse of this movie). The story had a more-than-passing resemblance to an earlier Weir film, “The Plummer” (1979) and though Weir disliked “The Calbe Guy,” he fell in love with Carrey’s creepy performance. "I thought, 'What a man touched with genius!' If this were the silent era he would be up there with Keaton and Chaplin. And he was able to suggest why people watched ‘The Truman Show,’ because he's funny and you can patronize him: he's a little goofy, a boy-man. His whole development as a human being is arrested; he's in desperate trouble really. There were warnings that we would go down in flames.”   

 

Niccol observed that since Carey was already a big-star, he was conditioned by life to walk into the role as Truman, “He lives in a bubble already, so in a way it's casting to type."

 

And it can’t be ignored that Carrey’s pre-existing popularity was financially essential for the film. “The Truman Show’s” opening weekend was stupendous, pulling in ticket sales equal to half the budget in three days, and its popularity just kept growing. The cover of “Esquire” magazine declared it, "The Movie of the Decade." It got three Oscar nominations and garnered many other awards and made multiple critics “Year’s Best” lists. It ultimately grossed almost $265 million.

 

Going back to Critic Rosenbaum’s complaint, this film asked the question, who is at fault for our Media Landscape, the Producers, or the Consumers? The film hits you hard with the question, but Weir admits he’s uncertain of the answer. "There has always been this question: is the audience getting dumber? Or are we filmmakers patronizing them? Is this what they want? Or is this what we're giving them? But the public went to my film in large numbers. And that has to be encouraging."

 

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3gI9ms8Fdc