Peter Weir's "The Truman Show": The ultimate hidden Camera Special

Peter Weir′s The Truman Show:
The ultimate hidden camera special

by

 Nadine Klemens

Inhalt

1. Introduction 4

2. The movie 5

3. The Truman Show with regard to Weir′s complete works 6

4. Docu-soaps and their appeal 8

5. Docu-soap elements in The Truman Show 10

6. Creating and perceiving reality 14

7. The Truman Show as a satire of the media 21

8. Conclusion 23

9. Works cited 25

10. Transcript 26

11. Filmography of Peter Weir 28

12. Stills 29

1. Introduction

Through a spy hole in a bathroom cabinet we see a man in pajamas talking to himself in the mirror. Or is he talking to us? After a while, we hear a voice of a woman, telling him that he will be late. With a sigh, the man turns around and leaves the bathroom. There is an insertion: on a black screen, we read the white letters "Day 10, 909"- then we see the man through another spy hole, dressed in a business suit, leaving his house for work. He greets his neighbors with a wide grin, and the neighbors enthusiastically greet back. As he adds "Oh, and in case I don′t see ye: Good afternoon, good evening and good night!", they react as though they think this was extremely funny. When the dog of his next-door neighbor comes to greet him, the man freezes, on his face an expression of terror. He waits till the dog moves back and is about to get in his car when the camera suddenly pans and we see a theatrical light falling out of the sunny sky. Suspiciously, the man goes to examine what has crashed down on the street in front of his house. He does not know what to think of the light, which has a tag on it, designating it as "Sirius". In disbelief, he gazes into the sky- is this how stars look like?

The man is called Truman Burbank, and we are watching Peter Weir′s movie The Truman Show (1998). The movie is not a typical feature film as it mixes feature film elements and docu-soap elements. By confronting his audience with elements of its daily TV-programming, the docu-soap, Peter Weir establishes a satire of the media that leaves its viewers with the uneasy feeling that reality is not always what it appears to be.

To show this, I will first give a short summary of the movie, depict its style and structure, and explain Peter Weir′s thematic concerns. Then, I will describe docu-soaps and their appeal in order to explain which features of the docu-soap we can find in The Truman Show. After that, I will analyze the different levels of reality in the movie and the role of the audiences, that is, the tension between the perception of the viewers of the TV show inside the movie and the perception of the movie audience. Finally, I will discuss what Weir criticizes in The Truman Show, and what makes this movie a satire of the media.

2. The movie

The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998) tells the story of the 29-year-old insurance agent Truman Burbank who has been legally adopted by a TV station and, unbeknownst to him, is the star of a 24 hour-TV show. He lives in the idyllic island town Seahaven, which in truth is an immense stage set enclosed in a giant dome with a ceiling that creates the illusion of a sky. Any kind of weather you can think of, wind, rain, moon, and sun, is created by a high-tech special effects program. Truman′s wife Meryl, his mother, his best friend Marlon, and every Seahaven ′citizen′ are actors designed to make Truman′s world seem real. He is being watched by a multitude of cameras and is kept on the island by a clever psychological programming. As a child, he lost what he believed was his father in a storm on a boating trip near the island. In reality, of course, the storm was generated by technology and the ′father′ was an actor pretending to die. The incident implanted in Truman a sort of aquaphobia, a fear of going on or over water. In this way, he is kept from leaving Seahaven, and discovering that beyond the water are the walls of the studio dome that encloses his world.

However, mistakes made by the crew and cast cause the illusion to break down. Slowly, Truman begins to worry that he is being watched and tries to verify that his fears are well-founded. Recognizing that there is a plot against him (even though he still does not know the true nature of it), he makes a number of unsuccessful attempts to escape. After that, he pretends to adjust back into his daily routine to then use a trick to get away undiscovered. He sets sail on the water that once terrified him for what he believes is the horizon of freedom. But the producer Christof, who has been playing God with Truman′s life, is not willing to give him an easy way out of the show. He generates a storm over the boat and would not hesitate to kill him. Truman persists, but, as he travels towards the open sky, his boat suddenly hits the wall of the studio dome. Shakily, he walks along the wall and up some stairs till he comes to a door. Christof then speaks to Truman as a voice from above and reveals the truth to him, at the same time trying to keep him inside the show. He tells him that life is safer in the world he created for him, where he is a star. Truman, though, does not give in and walks through the door to the outside world. What expects him there is left open, and one can only guess that he might get a chance to live an authentic life in the ′real′ world.¹

The Truman Show is mainly built of close and medium shots, there are hardly any long shots. It mixes feature film elements with elements of docu-soaps. At the beginning, there are mainly docu-soap shots so that the movie audience is part of the show inside the show, that is, it is part of the voyeurs that follow Truman wherever he goes. Later on, the audience is increasingly kept off-balance as there is a frequent change between docu-soap shots and feature film shots, the latter mostly showing the creators of the TV show and the TV audience in front of their TV sets. The fact that the shots showing Truman′s daily life are kept in pastel colors and that the actors wear outdated clothes help the movie audience to distinguish between the different levels of reality. The pastel color world of Truman resembles an America in the 1950s or 1960s, and Seahaven is a pleasant and idyllic place where everything seems to be perfect and nice.²

3. The Truman Show with regard to Weir′s complete works

[...]

1 see transcript, p. 23

2 The style and the compositions of the frames will be analyzed in detail later on.