We never change
During my creative writing's class, our lecturer played us a movie starring Jim Carrey "The Truman Show". Directed by Peter Weir and Michael J. McAlister, the film was released in 1998.
As the plot unfolds, we are introduced to the lead actor in the movie, Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey), an insurance salesman, who lives in an impeccable world: the people are always nice, the town is always clean, and the sun always shines (almost).
In the show, Truman has a endearing wife in Meryl (Laura Linney) who has the queer characteristic of speaking like a commercial at times, on top of a great friend in Marlon (Noah Emmerich). The creator (or god) of this show is Christof (Ed Harris) who has constructed a large artificial world for Truman, in a giant closure.
However, his world falls apart when he discovers that his life (over 5000 cameras are used to record Truman's life) has been in the footing of a popular, 24-hour-a-day television show (The Truman Show has been the highest rated show on network TV for about thirty years). More shockingly, both his wife and mother are just part of the acting crew. He then endeavors a courageous exit out of the "safe" dome, after thinking through to follow his heart to the real world.
One knows that live television is not a new concept; after all, TV was traditionally a mostly live medium. During my childhood days, unrehearsed TV consisted mainly of news broadcasts and sporting events.
Nevertheless, today, shows like The Amazing Race, Cops, and the recent introduction of make-over shows (The Swan) on TV, have exemplified the insatiable demand the audience has for "the real thing". As such, we can see an influx of live depictions of other people's worlds one could ever imagine. With the reality shows' boost, it evoke more thoughts as to whether our society could ever be this radical. With each viewing, one can help feeling such live shows may have gone overboard (with the exceptions of Diva on a Dime, The Apprentice)..
Acting wise, this wasn't his one of Jim Carrey's best performances, albeit enjoyable. Certainly, one has to give credit to the duo directors for their witty, most ingenious picture of reflecting the satire on the media who tamper with us, as well as the audience who promotes it.
For the latter, why they can't just watch the news is really beyond my comprehension?
posted by Pfeiffer at
12:25 PM
1 Comments:
I remember the first time I watched this particular movie, the experience was particularly moving. Towards the end before he finds a wall, I was almost rooting for the feller to overcome his odds. Being a hollywood funded movie meant for the 'entertainment' seeking crowd, the ending was fitting. Matter of fact, I also liked the ending since it gave a sense of hope to us who similarly are trapped in other confines.
Do we always find happy endings even when we seek with earnest? Me thinks life is not always fair - try to look up match point, a woody allen movie that deals with life handing out good and bad hands regardless of individuals motives and effort.
Guess a similar treatment to this movie would have been a good way to push the story through too. Anyway, this is not meant to be a critique to the film and It works fine the way it is too ::)
So just in case I don't come back, good afternoon, evening and night.
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