THE TRUMAN SHOW, MY COLLEGE PROJECT
The Truman Show is a satirical comedy-drama film written by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca).
The film begins with the simple life of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) in an idyllic island town called Seaheaven. Truman has a wife (Meryl), a job, a best friend (Marlon) and everything seems to be normal, but soon you realize that he has been living all his life in a constructed reality show.
Truman is now around his 30s and he doesn't know he is surrounded by a huge stage with 5000 cameras placed everywhere in town, followed 24/7 by the public on TV: he doesn't know that wind, sun, rain, day and night, sea and sky are all special effects of the TV set.
Christof is the main director (in the story, not in the production itself) who controls every aspect of Truman's life: everyone on the set, apart from Truman, knows the truth and are professional actors.
Soon, we start watching parts of Truman's memories that explain why he can't leave the town. In fact, the director invented a few tricks to build a kind of phobia in Truman and prevent this man from discovering his false reality, like “killing” his father in a storm while they were out fishing, instilling in Truman the guilt and the fear of water. It comes obvious that everything is planned to run the show for financial purposes.
During the 30th year of The Truman Show, Truman starts to see something wrong in this perfect world. The first thing he notices is a spotlight falling from the sky that was part of the artificial constellations and quickly turned by the director Christof, through the local radio program, as an airplane's light fallen from the sky.
One morning, while Truman is going to work, the radio in the car picks up a conversation of the show's crew, so he starts to notice some abnormalities in his lfe, such as the way that the same people appear every day at the same time or his “pretend-wife” Meryl's tendency to advertise the products she buys.
At a certain point Truman also meets his supposedly “dead” father on the stage, dressed up like a homeless. It is clear that his intention is to alert Truman about his life, but quickly he is sent away before he can speak with his son.
So the movie plays alternating the reality show and Truman's memories.
We also watch Truman at college. When he is a teenager he falls in love with Sylvia, but the actress is not meant to play the wife role and “marry” Truman so, even in this case, the director manipulates the events to introduce a young Meryl on the set. Despite the plans Sylvia falls in love with Truman too and she tries to inform the young man about his fake life, the false island and all the actors, but soon her pretend-father comes to take her away. This is a clue moment because when Truman asks her father where they are going he says “to Fiji” and she whispers “Get out of here, come and find me” and we understand why he is so obsessed to leave for Fiji. All these years Truman kept Sylvia's college jacket and collected pictures to make a puzzle of her face.
After he met his dead father and remembered Sylvia, Truman decides to face his mother and tell her about his dad. Even Truman's mother is an actress and plays clever with his feelings to let him feel guilty for the family loss and let him give up with the search and all his plans: with all her manipulations she wants to keep Truman in his childhood, stop him from growing up and leaving the controlling family.
Truman goes back home and meets his wife: he discusses with her about leaving the island but she insists to stay and create a family as they already planned. Here, in this special and sad moment we see again how Meryl is not emotionally touched but she is heartless, professional actress that emotionally blackmails Truman and feeds him with bad emotions. Also she uses this particular moment to advertise some products.
One morning Truman decides to follow his wife and go on an unprepared stage nearly messing up the staff that was pretending to making a surgery, but the crew finally takes him away.
At this point Truman is convinced to leave and he is planning to escape to freedom: we see him going to a travel agency to book a flight but the lady checks on a computer and states there will be no flights to Fiji for a month. This is one of some hilarious scenes of The Truman Show; In fact we've already watched at the beginning of the film Truman walking into a building and behind a lift he can see members of the staff having lunch (his wife, that works as a nurse in a clinic, will say later that was a scene of an accident where the lift fell down); now at the travel agency we see a picture on the wall with a plane in a storm saying “it can happen to you”. Again it is clear that everything is controlled to keep Truman on the stage and carry on with his normal life.
But Truman is determined to find a way to leave the island behind him and jumps on a bus. Here again we smile, when the actor “bus driver” can't, obviously, leave the town and he announces the bus is broken. Sadly this is another drama when we see the driver genuinely saying “I'm sorry, son”, so we question if he is sorry for the broken bus or for everything that happens to Truman.
Truman's paranoia starts to come out clearly. We see him sitting in the car watching what is going on around him and his wife Meryl appears. She sits by him so Truman proves to her it is not just paranoia but cars, people, the world around is running in a big loop. Everything is part of the big stage, repeated and planned.
Meryl tries again to let Truman down but this time he is sure to prove he is not mad: he runs away with his wife in the car spinning around a roundabout and ending in the traffic jam. He states he wants to go home and after another turn by the roundabout he goes back to the same street, and notice there is no traffic anymore. Understanding this is a big plan he wants to leave the city with Meryl to Atlantic City and he now must face his fear of water crossing a bridge. This is a hilarious moment where he closes his eyes and lets Meryl drive to the other side. Meanwhile they pass over a forest fire and with a relief we think this is the end. But soon Truman has to face another problem: a leak in the nuclear station, where he tries to run away from the roadblock but some members of the crew (actors) finally stop him and bring him back home.
Truman at home has to deal with his wife who in the middle of an argument starts to advertise a Cocoa Hot Drink. Her strange behaviour annoys Truman that becomes verbally aggressive so Meryl, thinking she might be in danger, calls for help to the cameras. Before this situation escalates the director sends Marlon on the set with some beers to cool Truman down and the two friends end having a very touching conversation about honesty, friendship and feelings. Every word that Marlon says to Truman is told by Christof via a microphone. Everything said has, as purpose, to keep Truman on the island and let him think this is only a sort of paranoia. At the end Marlon introduces to Truman his father. Here again we can see how the director manipulates the TV show and Truman's life: now that his father is back there is no reason to leave.
After this touching moment, we watch a short interview with Cristof and we can see the backstage of The Truman Show: the director explains the ways he tries to confine Truman on the island, but because his wishes are to leave and explore the earth they have to instil in Truman the fear of water (killing his father). This as built a kind of agoraphobia with neurosis to keep him trapped in a false self and let Truman feel guilty.
Also Cristof explains how they make money from the show: everything on the stage (from food to houses) in on a catalogue on sale.
Cristof tells us Truman's story: he was one of few unwanted children and he became the first child adopted by a social network. He really believes he gave Truman an opportunity to live: at the end, Cristof says, we accept the world as it is. This is the reason why Truman never questioned what's around him.
Sylvia phones the reality show and she starts arguing with Cristof about Truman's freedom, but the director simply says that if Truman was really determined to leave, nothing could stop him.
Back on the show, as we are audience, we see that Truman is apparently back to normal: his behaviour is again funny, hilarious, calm. We watch Truman playing in front of the bathroom mirror as usual but if we really pay attention, at the end he seems to talk to the cameras. Is Truman really back? The crew thinks so. And that is what Truman wants them to think.
One night, after planned everything, Truman can finally escape from his house-prison and disappears. The director sends Marlon on the stage but he soon turns off the cameras realizing that his “son” had a run. Now we see how Cristof is playing God: he turns the lights on confusing the night and day, all actors and the crew look for Truman in each corner of the island. They finally find Truman sailing a boat, facing his fear of water and Cristof turns the show on air again. So all the country is following Truman online while Cristof tries every trick to stop him, even the possibility of him dying. Cristof gives up. Truman lays down unconscious on the boat. The storm is off and the sunshine is back on. Truman wakes up and the boat crashes at the end of the “sky” (the boat breaks the stage panel painted as sky and clouds). We can clearly see how Truman feels: on one side he is relieved but on the other side is like he lived a lie. He jumps down off the boat to reach a closed door “EXIT”.
Christof grabs the microphone and playing God again, his voice comes from nowhere. He asks Truman to stay, he tells him his story and why he wanted this perfect life for him. Truman is silent, he asks if anything was real and Cristof replies: “You are real. Say something. You are on TV!”. With his last smile Truman says: “In case I don't see you: good afternoon, good evening and good night!”, he gives a big bow to the audience and walks through the door, free.
The Truman Show is a brilliant movie and I didn't expect Jim Carrey could play a drama role, but it is well mixed with irony which makes him the perfect actor.
We could say that The Truman Show it is not really a movie, but it is a Reality Show in a reality show: in fact the film is all constructed by watching it with the eyes of the public and audience, framed into a TV frame (apart when they play Truman's memories). Sometimes instead we see to the reaction and comments of the people watching the show.
We need to analyze the two main figures in the movie: Truman and Christof.
If we rearrange the name Truman we can easily find out it is “True man”. So is he really a true man? Is Truman a real man, with a real personality and feelings or he is only a product of what surrounded him, and the result of a special enviroment? Of course he lives in a fake habitat but what we see in Truman is true and real. Even the director (in the movie) at the beginning of the film says that everything we see is real because there is no plan, everything comes from Truman himself and because he doesn't know he lives in a fake life, all must be real and true.
But we must make a consideration: is Truman really free and true? All the decisions he makes are manipulated by the director and the crew of the show (for example the boat accident). So after a first analysis when we could say that Truman is a free man in a fake enviroment, we have instead to consider that all his choices are made a consequence of the enviroment, and predetermined by Christof to drive Truman on a certain pattern (again, for example, Sylvia and Meryl).
At a certain point, when Cristof answers to Sylvia's phone call he states that Truman has always been free to go and the reason he doesn't leave the island is because he feels safe and he never questioned what it is around him. This is not actually true in fact we see so many times how Cristof manipulates the reality show to keep Truman on the stage, not only for commercial purposes but because he deeply believes this is the best place where his “son” must stay and be safe.
Consequently we can analyze Christof, the director. It doesn't take a genius to simply rearrange the words as “Christ of”, as Christ of Truman. Infact the director is Truman's creator, he is powerful and controls every aspect of his life. Controversial opinions find instead the figure of Cristof as a meaning of “Christ off” or anti-Christ, the evil side of the (Sea)-heaven and transforms Truman into the second Adam.
At the end of the movie in a provoking scene Truman sails the boat and Christof orders to run a huge storm to stop him. But his rebellion has determined and Truman keeps sailing. When a member of the crew says “We can't let him die in front of a live audience!”, sadly Christof replies “He was born in front of a live audience...”: we see the director is a God tyrant, who selfishly wants to destroy a human being for his own purposes. In some points, in my opinion this is a similar behaviour of God in the Old Testament where he is a tyrant, genocidal, infanticidal, vindictive and unforgiving figure.
At the end of the stage finally Truman reaches a door and his way out to freedom. There he is stopped by Christof who explains everything.
“Was nothing real?” Truman asks.
“You were real”, Christof replies.
At the end Truman walks through the door with his famous sentence and we see the face of Christof, hopeless, rejected. And the world so quickly forgets about Truman as two security guards demand each other “Wanna see what else is on?”.
We can see the movie is constructed with different themes, based on the will to break free from a controlled enviroment we are put under. We've discussed a religious theme, but it can be applied to the Media and the power of communication. In fact also the media can manipulate the public opinion, becoming powerful and out of control and the technology has an important role in this process.
Everything, from internet to entertainment areas such as theme parks, shopping centres, are monitored by cameras and security guards. We can believe this is organized for our own safety but nothing can't stop us thinking that behind it we have a society controlled by media, political groups and companies.
Political organizations can make us think that a controlled environment is for our safety and well-being. But all the time it is to lead us all in one planned dirction which suits them.
The Truman Show gives a metaphor of our own situation in many aspect of life: the island is a fake land where we live surrounded by media, information, politics, advertising, giving us an illusion of the real world. So we can divide the film in three different phases:
- a world in a world. Since Truman lives on the stage he doesn't realize there is a real world outside the studio. So it is in our lives, we live routinely but some of us, who want to reach goals, put every effort without knowing how long it will take and if they will succeed or fail.
- The fear. In order to reach our goals we need to fight and win against our fears. We can lose, feel pain, discouragement and frustration and these obstacles could stop people living their dreams. The metaphor in the movie is Truman's fear of water and the real obstacles such as storms, waves, wind that want to stop him living the island.
- Determination. Commitment, consistency, dedication are needed to go forward, no matter how painful is the path we have to follow. So the we see Truman's determination to leave the island because he believes there is something over, something that he needs to fight for. He faces all his fears and finds the way out of the studio for the real world. Here again we analyze the name Truman as “true man”, because he refuses to let the world decide who he is, but as a true man he decides who he is.
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