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.
The forged relationship with Marlon is also a key technique used in an attempt to keep Truman in Seahaven. When alone with Marlon, Truman expresses his feeling that everybody is “in on it”, Marlon in reply says, “you’re the closest thing I have to a brother” and “the last thing I would ever do is lie to you”. This makes Truman trust Marlon and value his friendship, therefore he is prone to stay. While Marlon is saying these things, Weir shows – by showing the world of the backstage cast and Christof – that it is in fact Christof dictating what Marlon is saying. By using the technique of showing Christof watching Marlon on the screen while dictating to him, Weir again demonstrates the manipulating power of the media. Christof is using Marlon to manipulate Truman so that he will stay in Seahaven under his control.
The fact that Truman lives in a world where his destiny is controlled, leads me to the question: is Truman’s world imaginary? It is difficult to differentiate imaginary and reality (this is the concept Weir explores). This leads me to consider what makes a world real. Reality is defined by relationships with others, faith and material possessions. Throughout the film, Truman embodies these characteristics to the fullest and therefore is can be said that Truman’s world is not, nor ever will be, imaginary. This is perhaps why Christof says to him in the final scene, “The world out there is no more real than the world I’ve created for you”.
Truman’s wife and mother try to manipulate him to stay by the things they say to him. For example when Truman is with his wife, Meryll, and his mother - going through photo albums. Meryll turns to a wedding photo of Truman and her and says, “Look Truman, the happiest day of our lives”. This remark is designed to play on Truman’s emotions and remind him of the ‘happy’ times he has had whist in Seahaven, and ultimately persuade him to stay in Seahaven. His mother then plays with his emotions and says, “Id like to have a grandchild before I go”. Both Meryll and Truman’s mother then leave the room and turn on the TV for Truman. By leaving Truman alone, their intention is that he will look through the albums and reminisce over happy times at Seahaven. Meryll strategically put the TV on as she left, as a show comes on saying, “you don’t have to leave home to find out what the world’s really like”. This capitalises on what Meryll and Truman’s mother said to him and makes leaving Seahaven not seem like such a great “adventure”.
I find it disturbing that Christof and his cast go to such lengths to keep Truman oblivious of the real world and keep him under their control at Seahaven. A ‘forest fire’ is staged to prevent him leaving and when he goes to the travel agents to get a flight to Fiji, Weir zooms in on the posters saying “travellers beware!” and “it could be you”. By zooming in on these posters, Weir hopes to highlight the manipulating powers of the media. These posters are premeditated by Christof as a means of inflicting agoraphobia on Truman. Also, by staging the drowning of Truman’s ‘father’ at sea, Christof is able to make Truman afraid of the sea. By doing this he hopes Truman will be so afraid of the sea that he won’t try and use it to escape from Seahaven. This is an effective technique, as when Truman prepares to board the ferry, he comes across a strategically placed sunken boat. This is enough to trigger his agoraphobia and he opts not to board the ferry.
Also, when Truman phones up to get directory for ‘Sylvia Garland’ , he is told there is ‘no directory’ and meanwhile his colleague points out a newspaper headline saying “the best place on earth” (referring to Seahaven). By telling Truman there is ‘no directory” for ‘Sylvia Garland’, Christof hopes that Truman will lose hope of finding Sylvia and thus remain in “the best place on earth”. By showing the newspaper headline, Weir is trying to show us that we are also manipulated via newspapers today.
Weir tries to expose how the media use product placement in society to manipulate us. He does this by exaggerating the ‘adverts’, for example when Marlon takes a sip of his beer and looks into the camera and says “hmm now that’s a beer”. By making this form of advertising so obvious in the film, Weir is trying to make media transparent to us. The fact that we see how Truman doesn’t seem to pick up on the obvious product placement, reflects how we don’t pick up on the manipulation techniques of the media today. This is an effective technique used by Weir, as it shows us just how controlling the media can be. They try to control what we wear, buy and even what we eat via advertising.
The film also seems to have some deep rooted symbolism. For example, the choice of names – Christof (Christ- of) and Truman (true man). In the interview, Christof is portrayed as a superior being by Weir via camera angles, most of which are from below his face to reiterate his superiority. An event from the film symbolising Christof’s god-like figure is when he speaks through the clouds and says, “I am the creator”. Also by placing Christof in the “omnicam ecosphere” and showing him directing where and how hard the storm should hit, Weir makes Christof seem like a god.
In this film, satire is used because it highlights a folly in mankind (that is, the curiosity and invasion of the privacy of others) to help us understand the gravity of the media playing with someone’s life. With Christof’s team of technicians, all aspects of Truman’s life are under-control.
Overall, the main concept Weir is trying to convey is how people can’t often tell the difference between real world and reality TV, and how the media use manipulation for their own gain. The utopia that is Seahaven is made to look like a giant sitcom or cartoon through the use of flat and idealized lighting and intense colours. The strange thing is that just like Truman, we accept this as reality. Weir also makes the use of product placement so obvious, for example when the two men Truman meets on his way to work push him into the advertising board which is advertising “Kaiser Chicken”. This makes us realise how the media use manipulation to try and control and influence our lives today.