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In terms of a tripped out notion of reality, The Truman Show
is perhaps the most unsettling thing since Total Recall.
The Truman Show grounds itself in a horrid daydream that
I think most people have thought about at one time or another
– that the whole world is in on a joke, and the joke is
on you.
Such is the case with Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), who grew up
and has lived on a giant TV set, made up to look like a normal
town, for his entire life. Hidden cameras are placed all over
the town and put his life on the screen for the rest of the world
to see 24-7. All of the other people in this artificial town are
actors, including Truman’s wife (Laura Linney) and best
friend (Noah Emmerich). The whole world is watching Truman –
and he has no idea. Truman just goes about life, happy, trusting
and carefree while the director of the show, a beret wearing man
named Christof (Ed Harris), conducts the proceedings of the whole
world around him.
The core of the film is made up of Truman’s progressive
discovery of what’s going on. I’m not totally convinced,
however, that someone reared like Truman was would actually come
to the conclusions that he does on his own. Granted, some pretty
strange things happen. A light falls from the sky and one day
the radio describes everything that Truman is doing at the moment,
among many other things. But I don’t feel like we get enough
strange stuff for long enough that it would actually lead Truman
to conclude, on his own, that there are cameras everywhere watching
him at every moment. Maybe it’s just that such a conclusion
needs to evolve over a good period of time, and we only have a
few hours to make it happen.
The Truman Show evokes a lot of existential ideas and
is just as fun to think about after the fact as it is to watch.
There are some potential parallels of Truman’s world and
our world on a spiritual level; exploring the film on that level
could bring out some interesting ideas. It also provides for some
satire in a number of ways. Most significant is that of the television
industry and what television producers and advertisers will do
to make money. I also love ideas about TV watchers who almost
live their lives through Truman or who otherwise have no life
outside of watching TV – people who, in a sense, are just
as trapped in “The Truman Show” as Truman is.
In the end, The Truman Show leaves us on something of
a cliffhanger. I’d love to see a sequel that picks up right
where it left off. But perhaps it’s best that it leaves
us where it does, with the opportunity to imagine for ourselves
the effects of waking from a dream we never would have dreamed
could ever be real in the first place.
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