The Truman Show (1998)
Rated PG
Directed by Peter Weir
Who has also done Dead Poets’ Society and Master and Commander
Written by Andrew Niccol
Who has also done Gattaca and The Terminal
Cast/Characters
Truman Burbank
Meryl Burbank/Hannah Gill
Marlon
Christof
Lauren/Sylvia
Jim Carrey
Laura Linney
Noah Emmerich
Ed Harris
Natascha McElhone
Introduction
Tagline: All the world’s a stage (line from Shakespeare’s As You Like It)
In this movie, Truman is a man whose life is a fake one... The place he lives is in fact a big
studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors
who play their roles in the most popular TV-series in the world: The Truman Show. Truman
thinks that he is an ordinary man with an ordinary life and has no idea about how he is
exploited. Gradually, Truman gets wise. And what he does about his discovery will have you
laughing, crying and cheering.
www.imdb.com
Awards
Nominated for various awards in the following categories: Supporting Actor (x4), Director
(x5), Screenwriter (x5), Actor (x3), Cinematography (x2), Best Film (x7), Special Effects,
Supporting Actress, Costume Design,
Won awards for Fantasy Film, Screenwriter (x4), Production, Supporting Actor (x4),
Original Score (x2), Director (x3), Actor (x3), Art Direction
Won Golden Globes for Original Score, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor in 1999.
Won the David Lean Award for Direction at the BAFTA Awards in 1999.
Won a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1999.
Nominated at the 1999 Oscars in three categories.
Nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Film at the 1999 Broadcast Film Critics
Assoc. Awards.
In 1999, Peter Weir was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion
Pictures by the Directors’ Guild of America.
Won Screen International Award at the European Film Awards in 1998.
Won Best Foreign Film at two Australian, one Spanish, and one Dutch Film Festival.
Reviews
The Truman Show by Roger Ebert
June 5, 1998 http://rogerebert.suntimes.com
You accept the world you're given, the filmmakers suggest; more thoughtful viewers will get
the buried message, which is that we accept almost everything in our lives without examining
it very closely. When was the last time you reflected on how really odd a tree looks? Truman
works as a sales executive at an insurance company, is happily married to Meryl (Laura
Linney), and doesn't find it suspicious that she describes household products in the language
of TV commercials. He is happy, in a way, but an uneasiness gnaws away at him. Something
is missing, and he thinks perhaps he might find it in Fiji, where Lauren (Natascha
McElhone), the only woman he really loved, allegedly has moved with her family…
The trajectory of the screenplay is more or less inevitable: Truman must gradually realize the
truth of his environment, and try to escape from it. It's clever the way he's kept on his island
by implanted traumas about travel and water. As the story unfolds, however, we're not simply
expected to follow it: We're invited to think about the implications. About a world in which
modern communications make celebrity possible, and inhuman.
Until fairly recently, the only way you could become really famous was to be royalty, or a
writer, actor, preacher or politician--and even then, most people had knowledge of you only
through words or printed pictures.
Television, with its insatiable hunger for material, has made celebrities into ``content,''
devouring their lives and secrets. If you think ``The Truman Show'' is an exaggeration,
reflect that Princess Diana lived under similar conditions from the day she became engaged
to Charles.
Carrey is a surprisingly good choice to play Truman. We catch glimpses of his manic comic
persona, just to make us comfortable with his presence in the character, but this is a wellplanned performance; Carrey is on the right note as a guy raised to be liked and likable, who
decides his life requires more risk and hardship...
Ed Harris also finds the right notes as Christof, the TV svengali. He uses the technospeak by
which we distance ourselves from the real meanings of our words. (If TV producers ever
spoke frankly about what they were really doing, they'd come across like Bulworth.) For
Harris, the demands of the show take precedence over any other values…
I enjoyed ``The Truman Show'' on its levels of comedy and drama; I liked Truman in the
same way I liked Forrest Gump--because he was a good man, honest, and easy to sympathize
with.
But the underlying ideas made the movie more than just entertainment. Like ``Gattaca,'' the
previous film written by Niccol, it brings into focus the new values that technology is forcing
on humanity.
Because we can engineer genetics, because we can telecast real lives--of course we must,
right? But are these good things to do? The irony is, the people who will finally answer that
question will be the very ones produced by the process. 
The Truman Show by Todd McCarthy
April 27, 1998
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117477427.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0
A gemlike picture crafted with rare and immaculate precision, "The Truman Show"
amusingly and convincingly presents a nuclear community as a vast television studio. An
outstandingly successful change of pace for comic star Jim Carrey and a tour de force for
director Peter Weir, this clever commentary on media omnipotence is unusual enough to be
perceived as daringly offbeat for a major Hollywood studio production, although all of its
ideas will be perfectly accessible even to the most general audiences. Carrey's youngest and
dumbest fans might not get what they crave, but viewers primed for something a bit out of
the ordinary will find themselves swept away by the film's ingenious flights of fancy and
emotional dynamic.
A fable about a man whose entire life, unbeknownst to him, has been the subject of a
staggeringly popular, 24-hour-per-day TV show, pic trades in issues of personal liberty vs.
authoritarian control, safe happiness vs. the excitement of chaos, manufactured emotions, the
penetration of media to the point where privacy vanishes, and the fascination of fabricated
images over plain sight. But as lucid and concentrated as the film's point-making is, its
saving grace is its lightness, its assumption that modern audiences are just as savvy about the
media as are its practitioners and don't need to have lessons hammered home.
As fresh as "The Truman Show" may seem, Andrew Niccol's original screenplay actually has
numerous antecedents, beginning with Paul Bartel's bracingly insidious 1965 short "Secret
Cinema," which he later remade as an "Amazing Stories" episode. Viewers may also think of
such "filmed reality" pieces as "An American Family," "Real Life" and "Stuart Saves His
Family," not to mention MTV's popular "The Real World." But perhaps the strongest flavors
stem from Patrick McGoohan's brilliant TV series "The Prisoner," with its pristine, Big
Brother-controlled island setting from which the hero felt compelled to escape…
In a superbly executed succession of scenes that employ a variety of lens types and points of
view, Truman's daily routine is covered: his jaunty salutations of neighbors, his trip (in
invariably ideal weather) to the newsstand and then to his office at a large insurance
company. In the course of things, however, slight cracks appear in his life's perfect veneer
that arouse his suspicion: Truman sees a homeless man he's sure is his father, and a radio
malfunction allows him to briefly overhear the transmissions intended for the "extras" who,
in fact, constitute the population of Seahaven and make up the supporting cast for his "life
story."
Once the curtain has been raised on the wizardry behind Truman's existence, those around
him go into panicky damage-control mode, with his wife and mother trying to sustain his
innocence as long as possible. But beginning with an abortive escape attempt and a staged
reunion of Truman with his long-lost father, the hand of Truman's "inventor" and
manipulator, Christof (Ed Harris), becomes increasingly evident. Directing the most-watched
TV show in the world from an elegant perch high above Seahaven, this master conceptual
artist and soap opera fabri-cator tries to turn the adversity of Truman's discovery of the truth
to the program's advantage. Above all, of course, Truman must not escape, and story's final
stretch is devoted to his perilous attempt to cut the strings with which Christof so minutely
controls him.
Matching the firm hand Christof maintains on Truman is the absolute rigor Weir and Niccol
("Gattaca") demonstrate in their telling of the story. Every last detail is perfectly in place,
every possible thematic innuendo and sly joke is inserted in just the right place and to
correctly judged effect. Those who prefer their cinema more spontaneous and less calculated
will no doubt blanch, but one can't help but admire the staggering intricacy of what the
filmmakers have achieved, and shudder at what less talented artists might have done with
similar material.
Dominating the proceedings from start to finish is the visual perfection of the "settings"
Christof has created as the backdrop for Truman's life and, by extension, of the film itself.
Shooting at Seaside, Fla., Weir and his ace team, led by production designer Dennis Gassner
and cinematographer Peter Biziou, dazzlingly reveal a veritable velvet coffin under glass, a
"safe" haven that the self-styled benevolent fascist Christof can convincingly argue is "the
best place on Earth." Biziou's extensive use of different lenses is particularly noteworthy, and
the special effects that are actually part and parcel of the Seahaven lifestyle are all the more
effective for their gingerly use.
Occasionally letting fly with some vocal and physical antics, Carrey delivers an impressively
disciplined performance that is always engaging and fully expresses the conformist habits
and potentially rebellious inner desires of his character. The other dominant actor here is
Harris, who carries the final stretches of the picture and is commanding as the man who
would be a god. Linney is purposefully arch as Truman's wife, Noah Emmerich is quietly
outstanding as the hero's lifelong best friend and confidant, and McElhone vibrantly
represents the woman who, from afar, acts as Truman's greatest inspiration and cheerleader.
Film's musical elements are beautifully orchestrated from among Burkhard Dallwitz's
original score, rhapsodic elements contributed by Philip Glass and numerous classical
excerpts. 
pa·thos
–noun
1. the quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms
of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity or compassion.
2. pity.
Allusions, References and Noteable Notes
Branding
The process of creating a brand, the visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image associated with a
company or a product.
www.avatar.co.nz/resources/web-site-design-web-marketing-definitions-b.html
"If the customer has heard of us, we've done our job."
The process by which a commodity in the marketplace is known primarily for the image it projects rather
than any actual quality.
www.medialit.org/reading_room/article565.html
Media
The plural form of medium; the term has come to mean all the industrial forms of mass communication
combined.
www.medialit.org/reading_room/article565.html
The forms of publication. Traditional advertising media include newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio
and television. Digital interactive advertising media started with the Internet, accessed at an indoor
computer, but is quickly spreading to television, cellular devices and outdoor locations.
themarketingskeptic.com/glossary/
The different means of communicating information to reach large audiences.
www.mdk12.org/mspp/vsc/social_studies/bygrade/glossary.shtml
Prevalence
The quality of prevailing generally; being widespread;
Product Placement
The process by which manufacturers or advertisers pay a fee in order for branded products to be
prominently displayed in a movie, TV show or other ...
www.medialit.org/reading_room/article565.html
An unofficial form of advertising in which branded products feature prominently in films, etc.
freespace.virgin.net/brendan.richards/glossary/glossary.htm
Product placement advertisements are promotional ads placed by marketers using real commercial
products and services in media, where the presence of a particular brand is the result of an economic
exchange. When featuring a product is not part of an economic exchange, it is called a product plug.
Product placement appears in plays, film, television series, music videos, video games and books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement
Thoreau’s Walden is a novel chronicling his social experiment in isolating himself from society
to gain a more objective understanding of it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden
Reality Television
Reality television is a genre of television programming which presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or
humorous situations, documents actual events, and features ordinary people instead of professional
actors. Although the genre has existed in some form or another since the early years of television, the
term reality television is most commonly used to describe programs produced since 2000. Documentaries
and nonfictional programming such as the news and sports shows are usually not classified as reality
shows.
Critics say that the term "reality television" is somewhat of a misnomer. Such shows frequently portray a
modified and highly influenced form of reality, with participants put in exotic locations or abnormal
situations, sometimes coached to act in certain ways by off-screen handlers, and with events on screen
sometimes manipulated through editing and other post-production techniques.
In competition-based programs such as Big Brother and Survivor, and other special living environment
shows like The Real World, the producers design the format of the show and control the day-to-day
activities and the environment, creating a completely fabricated world in which the competition plays out.
Producers specifically select the participants and use carefully designed scenarios, challenges, events,
and settings to encourage particular behaviors and conflicts. Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor and other
reality shows, has agreed with this assessment, and avoids the word "reality" to describe his shows; he
has said, "I tell good stories. It really is not reality TV. It really is unscripted drama."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_television
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box
set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the
play…The acceptance of the transparency of the fourth wall is part of the suspension of disbelief
between a fictional work and an audience, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were
observing real events.[2] Although the critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible
screen that forever separates the audience from the stage,"[4] postmodern art forms frequently
either do away with it entirely, or make use of various framing devices to manipulate it in order
to emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of the production, according to the artistic desires
of the work's creator.
Speaking directly to the audience through the camera, in a film, play or television program, is
referred to as "breaking the fourth wall."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall
The problem of Free Will vs. Determinism has puzzled philosophers for thousands of years. It
is a profound problem for without free will there can be no morality, no right and wrong, no
good and evil. All our behaviour would be pre-determined and we would have no creativity or
choice.
Free Will is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to
choose a course of action from among various alternatives (ie: we choose our own course of
action). Determinism, in philosophy, theory that all events, including moral choices, are
completely determined by previously existing causes that preclude free will and the possibility
that humans could have acted otherwise (ie: our course of action is planned for us).
More reading at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/ and
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/159526/determinism#
Text as Story
 What is the symbolic importance of the characters’ names?
 Which archetypes are portrayed in the film? How are they developed?
 How is the theme of confinement developed symbolically in the film?
 What are the challenges of a modern audience who are immersed in “reality television”
culture that didn’t exist during the original creation of this film?
 How do you characterize Christof’s opening statements about Truman’s “realness”? Does
ignorance prevent Truman from being as “real” as Christof claims? Or is it that very ignorance
(such as the innocence of children) which makes his “realness” truly beautiful?
 What are Christof’s reasons for creating Sea Haven? Do you agree or disagree with him?
Why?
 What do you think Weir is trying to say about being critical viewers of our environment?
Text as Technique
 How do certain directorial choices (camera angle, lens length, mise-en-scene) help convey the
idea that Truman is trapped in his world?
 In which ways does the director’s use of camera angle break down the “fourth wall”?
 How does Weir create dramatic irony in the film? How is it used (perhaps “accidentally” by
Christof, probably purposefully by Weir) to create pathos?
 What is the impact of sound bridges that show Christof’s orchestration of Truman’s life?
Key Quotes/Selections
Quote
Scene
Significance/Relevance