The Truman Show (1998, USA)

Director

Peter Weir

Cast

Jim Carrey (Truman Burbank), Laura Linney (Meryl), Ed Harris (Christof), Noah Emmerich (Marlon), Natascha McElhone (Lauren)

Screenplay

Andrew Niccol

Format

Live action, colour

Language

English

Running time

96 minutes

Classification

PG

Distributor

Paramount Home Video

Genre

Fantasy drama

Setting

Seahaven town (a TV set), contemporary

Main characters

Truman Burbank

Narrative focus

Truman as he discovers what is really going on in his life

Synopsis

Truman is the unwitting star of a TV show that has been on air constantly since his birth. He is completely unaware of the fact that people watch his every waking and sleeping minute. However, he begins to realise something is wrong and sets about discovering what it is. As he starts to question the world around him his sense of self begins to change. He embarks on a mission to discover who is really controlling his life and finally realises that he must break free.

Background

This film is widely regarded as an outstanding example of Hollywood fantasy drama as a comment on the times and a compelling personal drama about what it is to discover one's identity and aspirations.

Andrew Niccol had written the science fiction movie Gattaca (1997), which is also about identity. Jim Carrey was a well-established comic star but this film gave him more serious material. Peter Weir is an Australian director, famous for stories about men breaking out of a system, notably Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Mosquito Coast (1986). Weir is adept at combining mainstream genre requirements with something more unexpected.

While the film appears to comment on 'reality TV', it was released a few years before this television genre took off.

Commentary

The Truman Show combines personal drama with an incisive critique of contemporary media. Peter Weir frequently stages action and composes shots so that the real world is imbued with a fantastical and certainly uneasy sense of the overly perfect. The lighting for much of the film is high key, which means the images have a flat, bright quality. It appears almost too perfect and artificial, which as we discover is exactly the situation - the world that Truman inhabits is a television studio set. For those scenes where Truman finds himself challenged by his environment and therefore compelled to question it, the lighting changes. Several key sequences, when issues are raised that Truman has to deal with, occur at night. The film uses a barrelling effect to suggest we are watching some of the action through a hidden camera, for example when Truman goes to cross the water. A barrelling effect is achieved when a wide-angle lens is attached to the camera and the rim of the lens is just about visible at the edge of the frame.

Also recommended

Quiz Show (US, 1994, Robert Redford), set in the 1950s and based on a true story, is about TV producers rigging the questions in a TV quiz show to ensure their favoured (good-looking middle class white candidate) wins over the previously victorious working-class Jewish 'upstart'.

Teaching suggestions (Key Stage 3, age 11-14)

Citizenship focus

• Significance of the media
• The importance of resolving conflict fairly
• The legal and human rights and responsibilities underpinning society.

Subject link

Art and Design: examine how costume and set help to convey meaning and atmosphere.

Geography: Artificial environments

Top and tail

• Watch the production credits at the end of the film and count the number of different jobs that went into this Hollywood production. Identify the range of different jobs in the lighting department, the camera department, the sound department and the set design department. What is a matte artist and how is this important in the film?
• Who are the producers of the film? Which Hollywood studio produced the film and how does this make the film's critique of television, in some ways, contradictory?

Sound and image

Watch the scene where Christof feeds lines to Marlon and stages the reunion of Truman with the man he thinks is his father.

• What camera shots does Christof decide upon for the climax of the scene?
• When does Christof decide to fade-up the music?
• When does he decide to go in for the close-up?
• What is the effect of this delay on the emotional power of the scene?
• How do the television audience react to this scene?
• How do you react to this scene in the film and if it is different, why?

Spot the shots

The idea of 'The Truman Show' is that it operates by using 5000 hidden cameras. Watch the scene where Truman meets Lauren in the library and then they go onto the beach.

• Does the scene on the beach seem more 'real' than the other scenes and if so, is it?
• What camera angles are used in this scene?
• When is the barrelling effect used and when is it not?
• When is music used and when is it not?
• How many 'crew' would be standing around filming every scene of actual film?
• What are the different levels of 'reality' footage in the film?

Discussion

The following questions can be used as a starting point to focus discussion before generalising the issues that the film raises.

• What is the format of the Truman television show and how is it unique?
• Watch the interview scene with Christof (the producer of the show).
  • What human rights are denied the star of the show?
  • What might be the ethical problems reality TV shows face?
  • What other kinds of British television show does it remind you of?
• Why is the main character called Truman? Use the internet to do research on the Hollywood Studios to find out the significance of his surname, Burbank.
• What goes wrong on the set of the show that reveals the constructed nature of Truman's world – and all Hollywood films?
• What kind of scenes in the show are deliberately censored by the show's producers and why?
• What kind of scenes in the show are exploited for the greatest impact by the show's producers and why?
• What is product placement and why is it important for the producers of the show?
• Who are the network executives and why are they so pleased by the success of the show when Truman is reunited with his father?
• Why does Truman ultimately choose the problems of the real world above the perfect utopia of Seahaven?

Practical production work

Students could make a documentary which exposes how the media attempt to manipulate audiences. Get students to video a scene using a hand-held camera and natural lighting and sound. Then they should video the same scene using a fixed camera position, adding artificial light and a musical soundtrack. Which gives the effect of seeming more 'real' and which more 'fake' and why?