What for you are the most important thoughts and ideas that The Truman Show prompts?

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What for you are the most important thoughts and ideas that The Truman Show prompts?

I find it striking how the film shows how people can’t distinguish real world and reality TV.  Weir uses the technique of presenting us with three different worlds; Truman’s world, the world of Christof and his cast, and the world of the audience at home watching The Truman Show.  By showing these three contrasting world’s, Weir is able to show us how the media use manipulation to gain the response they desire.  For example the scene where Truman is reunited with his ‘father’.  In this scene Christof is dictating and pulling the strings.  He says, “Easy on the fog” and “cue the music”.  The Camera then moves to the audience at home watching the show.  It shows their reaction to Christof’s manipulation, they are emotionally attached and pleased that Truman has been reunited with his ‘father’.  By showing this world of the audience at home, Weir is able to show us how our reactions are similar to those of the audience at home.  We are also manipulated by Christof and are emotionally attached.  Weir then shows the cheers from Christof and his cast and the shouts of “well done everybody, congratulations” and “that will get the ratings up”.  By using this technique, Weir is able to demonstrate - to a full extent - how the media use manipulation for their own gain.

In the first scene of the film, where Truman says his opening line “in case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night”, a middle distance shot is used, allowing us to see Truman’s surroundings.  We see the immaculate lawns, perfect blue sky and pastel- coloured houses.  These aspects are typical of Seahaven and we soon learn how everybody seems to have a job and everywhere is always clean and the population is all white middle class.  Seahaven reflects the America Dream that all man be equal in a sanitised world.  The use of bright colours, (the bright blue sky and the pastel- coloured houses for example), and bright light by Weir helps present Seahaven in this way.  By presenting these perfect aspects of Seahaven and portraying a sanitised utopia, the film subconsciously brings attention to itself that it is not reality, yet just like Truman, we accept it as reality.  This leads me to agree with Christof’s statement, “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented”.  In the scene where Christof says this statement, Weir shows a clip of the two police officers from the audience at home nodding, acknowledging this statement.  This technique of showing the reaction of the different worlds allows Weir to show us how our reaction is similar to the audience watching at home and how we also ‘nod’ and accept this statement because we too are accepting Seahaven as reality.

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During the course of the film, an array of techniques is used in order to prevent Truman ever wanting to leave Seahaven.  For example when a flashback of Truman’s childhood is shown during the scene of “Trutalk” and a young Truman says to his teacher “I want to be an explorer” and she says to him “it’s too late, there’s really nothing left to explore”.  This response from his teacher is designed to discourage Truman from pursing this and make his aspiration to explore seem pointless, and therefore removes any thoughts of ‘exploring’ anywhere but Seahaven from his mind.

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