The Truman Show

The Truman Show (in Spain, El show de Truman (una vida en directo); in Latin America, The Truman Show: Story of a Life) is a 1998 American science fiction comedy-drama film directed by Peter Weir, written by Andrew Niccol, and produced by Edward S. Feldman, Niccol, Scott Rudin, and Adam Schroeder. The film stars Jim Carrey in the role of Truman Burbank; adopted and raised by a corporation within a simulated reality television show that focuses on his life, until he finds out and decides to escape. The rest of the cast is made up of Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Ed Harris, Holland Taylor and Brian Delate.

The Truman Show originated from a script by Niccol inspired by an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Special Service". Unlike the finished film, it was a science fiction thriller film set in New York City. Scott Rudin purchased the script for production with Paramount Pictures as distributor. The tape was to be directed by Brian De Palma, but Weir was eventually hired as director; him making the film with sixty million dollars, twenty million less than what was originally estimated. Niccol rewrote the script while production waited for Carrey to join the project. Most of the filming took place in Seaside, a planned community located in the Florida handle.

The film was a box office success, received acclaim from film critics, and was nominated for Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and Saturn Awards. The Truman Show has been studied as a dissertation in Christianity, metaphilosophy, simulated reality, surveillance, existentialism and reality television.

Plot

Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), is in front of the cameras even before he was born, although he was not aware of this fact. Truman's life is filmed through thousands of hidden cameras—24 hours a day—and broadcast live around the world, allowing executive producer Christof (Ed Harris) to capture Truman's true emotion and human behavior as he puts himself in certain situations. Truman's hometown, Seahaven, is a set built under a dome so large that it includes an artificial sun, firmament, and sea, its size being visible from space; this set is populated by actors from the series and the crew, allowing Christof to control every aspect of Truman's life, even the weather or the length of days.

To prevent Truman from discovering his false reality, Christof has used every means to quash his sense of exploration and desire to get out of Seahaven (including faking his father's death on a fishing trip to instill in him a fear of the water).). However, despite Christof's control, Truman has been known to behave in unexpected ways; especially falling in love in his teens with the extra Sylvia (Natascha McElhone), instead of Meryl (Laura Linney) the actress destined to be his girlfriend. Although Sylvia is quickly removed from the series, explaining to Truman that her family had to move to Fiji, he still remembers her. In addition, Sylvia has started the "Free Truman", a campaign that fights for Truman to be freed from the series. After this Truman, as it had been planned by Christof, begins a relationship with Meryl and finally ended up being his wife; despite which he has never forgotten Sylvia, making it a habit to buy women's magazines to cut out from the photographs the features that remind him of the girl.

During the show's 30th year on the air, Truman discovers facts that seem out of place; like a spotlight used to simulate the night sky that almost hit it when it broke loose (after what is quickly announced on local radio that it was a landing light that had broken off from a plane), a conversation about a "Truman Show" by part of the film crew on his car radio (describing his morning commute to work), the fact that he discovers a repetitive pattern in the way people (the extras) move down the street, and the disturbing coincidence that causes Every time something arouses Truman's suspicions, some media outlet instantly delivers a piece of news that rationally explains the phenomenon.

These events make Truman begin to question his life, realizing that much of the city seems to revolve around him. Truman tries to escape from Seahaven; But he is prevented from doing so by a series of convenient events such as no flights, bus breakdowns, traffic jams, and an apparent leak at a nuclear power plant. Meryl can't take the stress and quits the show, and Christof brings Truman's father back; hoping that his presence will make Truman stop trying to escape, so the version for Truman is that he survived the accident and, being amnesiac, wandered for decades until he remembered who he was and after recovering his memory, he returned to Seaheaven.

Though for a while Truman's life seems to have returned to normal after reuniting with his father and meeting a new work colleague that Christof has introduced to be his new girlfriend. However, it only turns out to be a temporary relief, Truman soon isolates himself and begins to stay alone in his basement. One night, Truman manages to escape from the basement undetected through a secret tunnel, forcing Christof to suspend the show for the first time ever. This causes a surge in viewership, with many viewers (including Sylvia), wishing Truman could get away.

At Christof's command, each actor and cast member begins a citywide search; Having no results due to lack of light, he decides to bring the day forward by activating the city's artificial sun. Meditating a bit, they decide to search the sea and discover that Truman is trying to flee by boat and they restore the broadcast; but Christof decides to cause a big storm to try to capsize the boat and exploit Truman's phobia, however, he is inspired by a portrait of Sylvia that he has made with his magazine clippings and ties himself to the boat to avoid giving in to fear. Truman's determination leads Christof to end the storm, while the entire public sides with Truman and disapproves of Christof's attempts to force him to stay. As Truman recovers, the ship reaches the edge of the dome, crashing its bow into the sky painted on the wall. Truman, terrified, for a moment believes that there is no way out; but he discovers the existence of a nearby flight of stairs, which leads to a door marked "Exit."

Seeing that he is escaping his world, Christof speaks directly to him through a powerful sound system, trying to convince him to stay, showing in his demeanor that he feels part Truman's father and part God. He argues that there is no more truth in the real world than there is in his own artificial world and that he must stay there since he is free from the dangers of the world, and his duty is to bring joy to the people who tune it in; Impatient with Truman's silence, Christof becomes excited and demands that he speak since he is live for the whole world. Truman, after thinking about it for a moment, says his famous phrase: "And in case we don't see each other, good morning, good afternoon and good night!" and bowing to the camera walks through the door towards the real world. Viewers celebrate Truman's escape, as Sylvia quickly leaves her apartment to join him.

The executive team orders the cut of the broadcast. As the show has ended, the show's audience is shown looking for another show to watch.

Cast

• Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, chosen between six unwanted pregnancies and first child legally adopted by a corporation. Truman is unaware that his daily life is continually transmitted to the whole world. He has a job in an insurance company and is married, but he begins to perceive that his scope is not what it seems to be. Robin Williams was taken into account for the paper, but Wier selected Carrey after seeing him in Ace Ventura. Carrey took the opportunity to show himself as a dramatic actor, moving away from comic roles. The actor, who at the time normally charged $20 million for film, agreed to do The Truman Show for 12 million. At first, the joint work between Carrey and Weir was difficult (the Carrey contract gave him the right to demand rewriting), but Weir was impressed with Carrey's skills to improvise and the relationship between them became more interactive. The scene in which Truman declares "this Trumanian planet of the Burbank galaxy" in the bathroom mirror was Carrey's idea.
• Laura Linney like Hannah Gill acting like Meryl Burbank, Truman's wife, a local hospital nurse. Because the show depends on site advertising to be funded, Meryl often shows several products he has recently purchased, one of the many rarities that make Truman question his life. His work is mainly about acting as Truman's wife and ultimately having a child with him, despite his reluctance to do both. Linney studied Sears catalogues of the 1950s to develop his character's poses.
• Ed Harris as Christof, the creator ofThe Truman Show». Christof is dedicated to the program at all costs, often supervising and running his course in person (rather than through attendees). Dennis Hopper was originally chosen for the paper, but he left the project during the film in April 1997 due to creative differences. It was replaced by Harris at last. Hopper later stated that he was fired after two days because Weir and producer Scott Rudin had made a deal that if both did not approve Hopper's performance, they would replace him. Other actors rejected the role after Hopper's abandonment. Harris considered Christof playing with a hump, but Weir didn't like the idea.
• Noah Emmerich as Louis Coltrane interpreting Marlon, Truman's best friend since childhood. Marlon works as a vending machine operator for the Goodies company and promises Truman to never lie to him, despite the latest events in his life. Emmerich said, "My character suffers a lot. He feels really guilty for cheating on Truman. He's had serious drug addiction problems for many years. He came in and out of rehabilitation." Very little of this is shown in the finished film, but several deleted scenes show Louis actively expressing his guilt over Truman's situation, and in a sequence he sees Truman during his escape and Louis deliberately says nothing. His name is formed with the names of two musicians jazzLouis Armstrong and John Coltrane, and in a scene he plays the trumpet.
• Natascha McElhone as Sylvia interpreting Lauren Garland (partner of Truman University). Sylvia was hired to appear extra as a student named Lauren. She gets romantically involved with Truman and tries to reveal the truth about her life, but she's away from her life. show before he did. Then it becomes opposed to "The Truman Show», demanding Christof release his protagonist.
• Brian Delate like Walter Moore playing Kirk Burbank, Truman's father. When Truman was a child, his character drowned to install in his son the fear of water that would prevent Truman from leaving the set; however, he appears again on the set when Truman is an adult. This causes Truman to begin to question his life, and as he tries to escape from it, the screenwriters are forced to write a plot where Kirk had not drowned but suffered from amnesia.
• Holland Taylor as Alanis Montclair interpreting Angela Burbank, Truman's mother. Christof commands him to try to convince Truman to have children.
• Harry Shearer (cameo) like Mike Michaelson. Michaelson leads «TruTalk», a news and entertainment program about «The Truman Show» that is transmitted during the morning.
• Paul Giamatti as Simeon, one of the main effects operators of the program. It is troubled when ordered to try to kill Truman through a storm.
• Peter Krause like Laurence, Truman's boss. In the office, Laurence often interrupts Truman when he talks about his dreams of moving to Fiyi.
• Philip Glass, who composed and executed part of the music of the film, makes a cameo as a key player.
• Philip Baker Hall as a chain executive that transmits “The Truman Show».

Production

Andrew Niccol completed a one-page treatment titled The Malcolm Show in May 1991. The original draft had the tone of a science fiction thriller and plot it was set in New York City. Niccol stated, "I think everyone questions the authenticity of his life at some point. It's like when kids ask if they were adopted." During the fall of 1993, producer Scott Rudin purchased the script for a little over $1 million. Paramount Pictures simultaneously agreed to distribute the film. Part of the deal called for the project to be directed by Niccol, his directorial debut, but Paramount felt that the $80 million or so budget would be too high for him. Paramount wanted a well-known director and he paid Niccol extra money to step aside. Brian De Palma was in negotiations to direct before he left the United Talent Agency in March 1994. Directors considered after De Palma included Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and Barry Sonnenfeld; before Peter Weir was hired in early 1995, after being recommended by Niccol. Bryan Singer wanted to direct but Paramount settled on the more experienced Weir.

Weir wanted the film to be funnier, he felt Niccol's script was too dark; he stated: "Where he [Niccol] made it depressing, I can make it light. He could convince the public that they can see a show of these dimensions all the time ». Niccol wrote sixteen drafts of the script before Weir considered it early for filming. Later in 1995, Jim Carrey signed on as the lead; but due to commitments with The Cable Guy and Liar Liar, he was not going to be available to start filming for at least minus another year. Weir considered Carrey perfect for the role and preferred to wait a year rather than cast another actor. Niccol rewrote the script twelve times, while Weir created a fictional book on the history of show. He imagined backstories for the characters and encouraged the actors to do the same.

Weir toured locations in eastern Florida but was not convinced by the scenery. Stages at Universal Studios were reserved for the Seahaven-set story before Weir's wife showed him around this Seaside, a master-planned community located in the Florida mango. Pre-production offices were immediately set up in Seaside, where most of the shooting took place. Other scenes were filmed at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, California. Norman Rockwell paintings and postcards from the 1960s were used to inspire the film's design. Weir, Peter Biziou, and Dennis Gassner studied surveillance techniques to create certain plans.

The general aesthetic was influenced by television images, particularly commercials. Many shots feature characters approaching the camera with their eyes wide open, and interior scenes are heavily lit; because Weir wanted to remind audiences that "in this world, everything is for sale". trying to transition to computer-generated imagery (CGI). CGI was used to create the upper parts of some of the large buildings on the downtown set. Craig Barron, one of the effects supervisors, said those digital models didn't have to look as detailed and aged as they would normally on film due to the artificial look of the entire town, though they did imitate slight blemishes present in real buildings.

Music

The soundtrack was composed by Burkhard Dallwitz, who was hired after Peter Weir received a tape of his work while he was in Australia during post-production. Portions of the soundtrack were composed by Philip Glass, including compositions present in previous works (Powaqqatsi, Anima Mundi and Mishima). Glass and Dallwitz won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score. AllMusic rated the soundtrack album four out of five stars and called it "one of the most intriguing soundtracks of 1998".

The film also includes Frédéric Chopin's "Romance-Larghetto" from his First Piano Concerto performed by Arthur Rubinstein, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Rondo Alla Turca" from his Piano Sonata No. 11 performed by Wilhelm Kempff, " Father Kolbe's Preaching" by Wojciech Kilar performed by the Polish National Philharmonic Orchestra and "20th Century Boy" performed by rockabilly band The Big Six.

Themes

Religious analogy

Writer Benson Y. Parkinson of the Association for Mormon Letters noted that Christof represented Jesus as either "off-Christ" ("Christ-off") or Antichrist, comparing his character as a megalomaniac Hollywood producer to Lucifer. The conversation between Truman and Marlon on the bridge can be compared to that of Moses and God in Exodus.

In C.S. Lewis and Narnia for Dummies by Rich Wagner, Christof is compared to Screwtape, the character in Letters from the Devil to His Nephew by C. S. Lewis.

Media

In 2008, Popular Mechanics magazine named The Truman Show one of the ten most prescient science fiction films. Journalist Erik Sofge argued that the plot reflects the falsehood of reality shows. "Truman just lives, and the popularity of the show is the direct voyeurism of him. And like Big Brother, Survivor and every other reality show on the air, none of its environments are real. He found it an unsettling coincidence that Big Brother had debuted a year after the film's release, and also compared the film to the 2003 show The Joe Schmo Show: "Unlike From Truman, Matt Gould could see the cameras, but the rest of the contestants were paid actors, playing roles of various reality-show stereotypes. While Matt ultimately took all the prizes in the fixed contest, the show's constant gag was in the same existential rank as The Truman Show". Weir stated: "There's always been this question: Is the public getting dumber? Or are we filmmakers patronizing them? Is that what they want? Or is that what we are giving them? But the public attended my film in large numbers. And that has to be encouraging."

Ronald Bishop of the Journal of Communication Inquiry suggested that The Truman Show showcased the power of the mass media. Truman's life inspires viewers around the world, his lives are controlled by his. Bishop commented: “In the end, the power of the media is asserted rather than challenged. These movies and TV shows appropriate our charm (and disenchantment) with the media and sell it back to us."

Simone Knox, in her essay Reading The Truman Show inside out, argues that the film itself tries to blur objective perspective and spectacle within the film. Knox also draws a shot of the camera angles for the first scene.

Psychoanalytic interpretation

An essay published by The International Journal of Psychoanalysis described Truman as:

A teen prototype at the beginning of the film. He feels trapped inside a family and social world he tries to adjust to while incapable of identifying himself completely with him, believing that he has no other alternative (apart from fantasizing about fleeing to a distant island). Finally, Truman manages to be sufficiently aware of his condition to "leave the house": developing an identity as a more mature and authentic man, leaving behind his children's side and becoming a True-man [true man].

Utopia

Parallels can be drawn with Thomas More's 1516 book Utopia, where More describes an island that has only one entrance and one exit. Only those who belong to the island know how to move safely through the tricky gates. This situation is similar in The Truman Show because there are limited entrances into the world Truman knows. Truman does not belong to that utopia to which he has been implanted and a childhood trauma keeps him scared at the possibility of leaving that small community. Utopian models of the past tend to include individuals similar to each other and with much in common, comparable to More's Utopia and real-life groups such as the Shakers or the Oneida Fellowship. in Truman's world are similar to each other with respect to their common effort to keep him oblivious to reality. The suburban “picket fence” appearance of the set of the show is reminiscent of the “American dream” of the 1950s. The concept of the “American dream” in Truman's world is an attempt to keep him happy and ignorant.

Premiere

Originally, the theatrical release was scheduled for August 8, 1997, but Paramount Pictures pushed it to November 14 of the same year. The date was moved back to early 1998 and later to the summer of the same year. NBC bought the broadcasting rights in December 1997, about eight months before the film's release. In March 2000, Turner Broadcasting System bought the rights to broadcast the film through TBS.

Reception

The Truman Show received acclaim from film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a positive score of 94%, based on 125 reviews, with an average score of 8.4 out of 10. The site's consensus reads: "A funny, sensitive, thought-provoking film, The Truman Show is noteworthy for its remarkably prescient insight into celebrity over-the-top culture and a nation with an insatiable thirst for the private details of ordinary lives." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 90 out of 100, based on 30 reviews, being billed as a "universally acclaimed" film.

Rating the film four out of four stars, Roger Ebert compared it to Forrest Gump, stating that it had a fair balance between comedy and drama. He was also impressed by Jim Carrey's dramatic performance. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "The Truman Show is emotionally engaging without losing the ability to deliver sharp satirical questions like also get lots of laughs. Strange film that is disturbing despite functioning perfectly within industry standard norms." He named it the best film of 1998. In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Truman one of the hundred best characters of the last twenty years.

James Berardinelli commented that the film is not "your typical summer blockbuster with special effects" and liked Carrey's "charismatic, subtle and effective" performance with those of Tom Hanks and James Stewart. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote, "Undeniably provocative and reasonably entertaining, The Truman Show is one of those simply plotted movies whose concept is both clever and silly." Tom Meek of Film Threat said that the film was not funny enough but that he still found "something gratifying in its wacky appearance".

Awards

At the 71st Academy Awards, The Truman Show was nominated for three statuettes, but failed to win any. Peter Weir was nominated for the Best Director Award; Ed Harris was nominated for best supporting actor; and Andrew Niccol, for best original screenplay. Many believed that Carrey was going to be nominated for best actor and that the film would be nominated for best picture, but in the end it did not happen. Likewise, The Truman Show It was nominated for the Golden Globe Awards in the categories of Best Dramatic Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Jim Carrey and Ed Harris won the awards for Best Actor in a Drama and Best Supporting Actor; respectively, and Burkhard Dallwitz and Philip Glass won the award for best soundtrack.

At the BAFTAs, Weir (directing), Niccol (original screenplay) and Dennis Gassner (production design) were honored. It was also nominated for the award for best film and for best visual effects. Harris was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Peter Biziou for Best Cinematography. The Truman Show was a hit at the Saturn Awards, where it won Best Fantasy Film and Best Film. script. Carrey, Harris and Weir were also nominated. The film won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Performance. At the same time, in 2006 the American Film Institute proposed that it be included in its 100 Years...100 Inspirations list.

The delirium of The Truman Show

Joel Gold, a psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital Center, revealed in 2008 that five of his schizophrenia patients believed they lived inside a television show. Gold called this syndrome "The Truman Show Delusion" and attributed the delusion to a world in need of publicity.

Gold noted that some patients were happy with their syndrome while others were tormented. One of them traveled to New York to see if the World Trade Center had been demolished, believing that the attacks of September 11, 2001 had to do with the plot of his show. Another climbed the Statue of Liberty, believing that as part of the show he would meet his old high school girlfriend there. In August 2008, the British Journal of Psychiatry reported similar cases in the UK. This delusion has also been informally called "Truman Syndrome".

After learning about this condition, Andrew Niccol, writer for The Truman Show, said, "You know you've made it when you have a disease named after you."