The Truman Show
Made: 1998
Cast: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris, Noah Emmerich
Director: Peter Weir
Screenwriter: Andrew Niccol
Cinematographer: Peter Biziou
Producer: Ed Feldmen
"Good morning!"
"Good morning, Truman!"
"Oh, and in case I don't see ya: good afternoon, good evening and good night."
The Truman Show is a movie about a man who actually is the center of his universe. It stars a man named Truman, who is unaware that his whole life is being broadcasted to the world as a tv show. Eventually through a series of accedents by crew members and the cast, Truman begins to doubt his false reality. The movie shows great intelligence and a very original idea: a 24 hour reality tv show without the knowledge of its star. The precedents had been set in Albert Brooks' Real Life from 1979 with the pioneering idea that real life is more interesting than fictionalized life. The reality tv-show based world on the 21st century got the ideas of The Truman Show down pat, but missed the heart and the art. The movie is humorous in tone but at the same time insightful into the eyes of someone who wants to be in control of their own destiny.
Truman (played by Jim Carrey) is a pretty odd guy, so he is entertaining to watch. The audience is let in on the secret from the get go that he is a living television show, and we see many audience members who are Truman-obsessed. Truman's wife (Laura Linney) and best friend Marlon (Noah Emmerich) are even in on the gag, but are pretending to be Truman's confidants and do what they can to subtly keep him in his man made prison. "I'd kill for a desk job!" says Marlon. This man made prison is called Seaheaven and is a large dome that contains a world in itself, while the real world goes on outside. In the movie it is the "largest visible structure from space", again showing people's obsession with entertainment. The creator of the Truman show is Cristoff (Ed Harris), who is the closest thing to a villain the movie has. The movie begins with Cristoff talking about the "falseness of actors", and how this isolated world is "worth it". He is not a bad man, but will do anything to keep Truman his and he considers Seaheaven his artful gift to the world. His utopia is a place where Truman cannot get hurt, so in his eyes, he is not a villain. These supporting characters will do what they can do to keep Truman's illusion up, but an illusion it is, and even these characters are not perfect.
The movie has a paranoia to it, which is reminiscent of Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and it seems that Cristoff would rather kill Truman than let him escape his world. The movie has many great special effects and camera angles, courtesy of cinematographer Peter Biziou, a true maverick of oddball cinema. A quick look at his resume (Life of Brian, Time Bandits, Bugsy Malone, Pink Floyd: the Wall, Richard III) and there is no surprise that Biziou is attracted to the idea of a world filled with cameras. The multiple angles from hidden cameras that the audience can see but Truman cannot gives a great excuse to play with the points of view. The bizarre made accessible, it is also an homage to the vignette views used in silent cinema. The phony dialogue of this alternate reality draws one in to Truman's point of view, which is not unlike Jim Carrey himself. Carrey who had shown comedic talent before in films like Dumb and Dummer and The Mask is a standout dramatic actor here, and shows depth later revealed in The Majestic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. As unique as Truman is, it is almost impossible to imagine him as anything but a Carrey creation. Is Jim Carrey playing himself in a movie about a character, or playing a character in a movie about himself?
The director of the movie is Peter Weir, and this is his best movie to date, other contenders include Master and Commmander (2003) with Russel Crowe, Fearless (1993) with Jeff Bridges, and Witness (1985) with Harrison Ford. All these movies have a common theme of renegades and rebels who break out of the world or their prisons even if its at the cost of their own life; an example of that being 1981's Gallipoli starring Mel Gibson. Exploration is another key theme in Weir's movies, whether it is the never ending desert in 2010's underrated The Way Back or exploration of aliens and the unknown recesses of the mind like in his masterwork Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), about a group of school girls that go missing on a mountain in Australia. He has been making movies since the 1970's, but Truman Show sums up a very personal and profound statement. He shows the "phony" reality of movies in scenes like where a prop light falls out of the sky or when the rain falls only on Truman and nothing else. The character of Cristoff is almost Weir himself, or any other director of a movie, where a person can control the actions of others. Weir is Australia’s greatest director and one of the more underrated directors in movie history, probably because he makes mainstream movies in subtle manner. They are always about fascinating characters, and Truman is his best.
No matter what Peter Wier saw and brought to the movie, the vison is just as much due to writer Andrew Niccol. Niccol originated the idea for a show in the 1990's but it was deemed to bleak and too abstract for mainstream acceptance. He is an interesting writer-director, and much more into "hard" sci fi like his films Gattaca, Simone, and In Time. they all deal with the falseness of reality and the fleeting of our time on earth, and Gattaca stands along side Truman Show as a revisionist masterpiece of late 90's cinema. Through rewrites and countless revisons to add humor, through the fine tuning of Weir and the comic timing of Jim Carrey, we have the movie that is before us: a true unison of three minds. Composer Phillip Glass creates a great score that draws on the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, the pulsating marches of fascist mentality, and the undertones of existentialism. It is one of the great film scores of all time.
Truman is fun to watch, but does have a deeper sense of dread to his actions, like he knows something is off center with his world (Niccol's theme winning over in the end). Advertisements are placed everywhere, which make up for there being no commercials on the show. Some hilarious reasons why he should stay on the island include one about how many airplanes every year are struck by lightning, the city of Seaheaven is voted "best in the nation", and his fear of water because his father drowned long ago (well, I guess that last reason isn't that funny). The "tell" scene of the movie, where you can tell what the movie is actually about, is at the end where it is like a silent movie for about five minutes and Truman reaches the end of the "ocean". It is a true movie moment where no words are needed, and true sympathy is reached, the om of emotion that most movies reach for. Truman deserves the chance to control his own destiny and will allow nothing to hold him back anymore. As much good as Cristoff was trying to do, Truman has no right to be a prisoner. No one does.