Matthew Watson GCSE English Coursework
Film Study:
The Truman Show
The Truman Show is a film directed by Peter Weir.
It is all about how the public spend too much of their time watching television and how we also like the idea of voyeurism.
The film has two main characters Christof and Truman Burbank, the
latter being the star of the show, which charters Truman's life, twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. Christof has been filming Truman ever since conception. Truman doesn't know this, and in fact he knows nothing about his real family. Everything around him has been scripted and he is on a film set all the time. He is like Christof's pet, he controls everything Truman does. He controls whom Truman meets and talks to e.g. when Truman sees his father again in the streets and from out of nowhere some people come and take him away, preventing Truman from talking to him. Even the weather is controlled in the Truman Show when Truman attempts to leave the island a storm conveniently starts and only affects his boat and not the island, but when he reaches the end of the shows set the storm comes to a sudden end. The set in question is the second only manmade structure completely visible from space.
He chose to pick Truman instead of the other babies in the ward, purely on the basis
that Truman was born on the day of the shows launch. This was the first time in history that a television corporation has been able to adopt a baby. Because of this fact the viewers who have watched the programme since then in a way regard Truman as a surrogate child, they eagerly follow his every move.
The affection the audience feel for Truman has helped the show to attract billions
of viewers worldwide. This is kind of a similar affection as to that of the affection the viewers of the 7 Up television series felt towards the children who starred in the series. This programmes is a good comparison to make to The Truman Show because we follow a group of random seven year olds and every few years we return to the same group and see how they have changed in the way they think and feel,
a fly - on - the - wall programme if you will. Also The Truman Show is like a soap opera were we are familiar with all the characters but are also the cliff hangers at end of each programme are interlinked in to the next programme and help to keep the continuous flow of the series. Due to the fact that the show "does not sleep."
Also we finish this hybrid of modern television with an element of reality T.V.
For example the Big Brother series, a show where a group of television producers headhunt the nation for an elite group of contestants to compete for a cash prize.
The contestants normally consist of a funny person, a beautiful person, a homosexual, someone of different race to the rest of the group and someone who they know will act as a catalyst in the whole situation, some to upset all the other characters. There is also a connection to The Truman Show because there are multiple camera angles to let the viewer see the contestants every ...
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For example the Big Brother series, a show where a group of television producers headhunt the nation for an elite group of contestants to compete for a cash prize.
The contestants normally consist of a funny person, a beautiful person, a homosexual, someone of different race to the rest of the group and someone who they know will act as a catalyst in the whole situation, some to upset all the other characters. There is also a connection to The Truman Show because there are multiple camera angles to let the viewer see the contestants every move.
It's other appeal is that the environment is that of the classic 1950's America,
Everyone knows everyone, everyone likes everyone. Everything about this small
fictional town of Seahaven, a small picturesque island an island so perfect that no one has yet found reason to leave. This town is perfect for multiple reasons it could be perfect due to the perfectly manicured lawns, the white clapperboard houses or the picket fences. There is the classic old style grocery store on the corner with it's brown paper bag and every worker from the shop assistant to the newspaper retailer quite often gives the American trademark phrase of "Have a nice day!" Which, quite honestly everyday is perfect in the sense of weather anyway. The parks and public space in this town are also super clean, there is always someone cleaning up these public areas, especially when Truman is around, all the cleaners all have earpieces on, the audience know they have earpieces to keep in contact with the shows headquarters so they can make sure Truman is still following routine, but Truman may believe they are deaf or something. But if this was 1950's America there should be no black Americans socialising with the whites due to integration. This is a sign to the audience that there are modern aspects to this classic 1950's seaside town.
The Truman Show has some amazing technology going on, with over 5000 cameras
constantly beaming out to the world. These cameras have multiple angles, which allow them to follow Truman's every single move, the camera loves him. These cameras are able to follow his every move thanks to the multiple places were they are hidden.
They are hidden for example in the bathroom cabinet - when we see him grooming
himself every morning, in his mum's necklace - she moves it to show us what Truman's up to on several occasions, in the cars dashboard - we see Truman every morning driving to work, in the bin at work - we see him piecing together his first love Lauren Garlands face back together as a collage of articles from beauty magazines for the wife, also last of all we see the camera's in his boat in the mast and boat's main cabin watching Christof's attempted assassination on Truman when he tries to sail away to from the island.
The camera also seems to cut frequently to the show's viewers, for example, the man
who always seems to be in the bath watching The Truman Show, the old ladies with
their Truman show cushions and blankets - who have to reassure each other that
Truman is going to be OK when sailing away to freedom, the security guards eagerly
watching the show in anticipation of the first televised conception. There is even a mother who leaves her baby crying in the back room just so she doesn't miss out on any of the programmes. Also, the Truman Show cut to various Truman Show bars around the world, bars that are covered in Truman memorabilia and were Truman Show fans can socialise with other Truman Show fans. These people appear to spend all their time watching the Truman Show, there is a certain sense of privileged voyeurism. They can watch other peoples lives on television without having their lives watched and interfered with, they also may be a little nosey and like to know all about other people's lives. But with all this technology and overheads you may wonder how the Truman Show manages to cover their finances the answer to this question is answered throughout the film.
At the start of the film the director informs us that the show generates the Gross
National Product of a small country. You have to remember the show has no breaks for adverts so therefore there are product placements throughout the film.
For example every morning Truman is always pushed against a billboard for a few seconds by the two twins - advertising Kaiser chicken, etc, Mococoa drinking chocolate, the Chef's Pal, etc. Even though the show has a very retro feel to it, the cars in the programme are always the latest models and are always the top brands of car. Truman's car itself is very new and made by one of the worlds top brands. By the show having the latest brands of car it means the Truman Show producers can ask the car companies to pay top dollar in order to have their car featured on the show,
It also probably works out cheaper for the shows producers to have car companies provide cars then them buying prop cars. We are informed in the film that everything in the show is for sale and everything is available from the Truman Show catalogue,
for example you can buy Truman cushions, t-shirts and baseball caps. When we are in Truman bar there is an old episode playing when Truman meets Lauren for the first time and the member of staff tell us, all you can watch that on the Truman Show video collection. The viewers can even buy videos of the Truman Show, to watch at their pleasure. I think this could be Peter Weir's way pf telling us that the modern world is full of product placements and advertisements, that the world us a very commercial place to be living in, in this century.
In the last half of the film Truman starts to realise that everything isn't quite what
it seems and that something is seriously wrong in his life. When he is reminiscing at a book of photos of his life, he realises that in his wedding photos that Meryl is crossing her fingers - meaning she doesn't mean the vows she made.
In the 'final showdown' with Meryl she thinks that Truman might harm her and so she proclaims to the camera, "I can't work in these conditions it's unprofessional,
someone help me." At which point Marlon comes through the front door, Truman has finally realised by this point that someone or thing has been watching him and that something is seriously wrong with the picturesque town of Seahaven.
Truman now proceeds to make his bid for freedom using a sailing boat - he has a will to succeed so badly that he confronts his fear of sailing on the sea.
Christof now begins to realise that he is finally losing Truman and that the show will finally come to a close if he can't stop him from leaving. So he accesses the shows computerised weather station and tries to kill off Truman a tactic, which shocks the show's workers. As the storm continues Truman braves the weather and tries to sail on, but he loses his grip and falls in the sea, but his will is to great for him to die and so he climbs back in to his boat and sails on for freedom. When he finally reaches the end of the set and is at the set's exit, Christof makes one last bid for trying to save his show. Truman hears a voice from the 'heavens' asking him to stay, the Christof tells him to stay and that his life was actually a television show with him, the show's star.
But he has had enough and vows to leave the show and thus, he does. To Christof, Truman was nothing but a piece of property of which he had ultimate control;
Truman was his opportunity to play God to an innocent human being. He believed that he had the right to bring a baby in to this world for the purpose of his own good and also believed that when Truman had a mind of his own, he believed he could kill him off, because Truman was his creation. In a way Christof has created his own Garden of Eden, with Truman as Adam, Meryl as Eve and Lauren as the forbidden fruit, which Truman has taken a bite from and now wants to make his bid for freedom.
I think through The Truman Show the film's director Peter Weir is putting on
Display some of his theories and believes in to practice. He believed that on the whole the inhabitants of the world spend far too much time watching television.
We have to remember that this film was made 5 or 6 years ago in a time before reality television regularly graced our television screens with it's presence. Maybe the Truman Show gave the producers the idea of viewing a group of people for 24 hours through multiple camera angles and showing the results to a world, even if it was done so in a more humane way at least they would be game show contestants and wouldn't be oblivious to the fact they were being shown to the world without their consent. But with shows like "Big Brother," "Shipwrecked" and more recently "Eden" a show which has been billed as being the Truman Show without controllable weather, all these shows have been successful for multiple reasons,
The potential audience chose who they want to be on the programme - therefore the programmes producers will know that the programme will actually have an audience.
But what does this say about us; the viewer's do we enjoy privileged voyeurism -
Do we like the fact that we can pry on other peoples lives without them seeing in to ours. Is reality television the modern equivalent of the Roman gladiator games -
where we often saw innocent members of the public being pitted against warriors and wild beasts just because it gave the audience a thrill. And maybe today's T.V. corporations are doing exactly the same thing in a bid for their precious ratings we are already seeing these corporations going in head to head battles with other corporations billing their programmes at the same time as the other corporations programme in a battle just to see who comes off the winner of the 'ratings war.'
Maybe Weir's warnings were right, maybe television does have the effect to kill off a nation, well we do tend to have to video some programme in our live s for some reason as can't afford to miss out, maybe this could be the reason for the Sunday afternoon omnibus's who knows? That's something we'll have to think about for ourselves, do we spend too much time watching television?
What would do if our favourite television programme was axed, would there be riots who knows.
