samreganedwards’s review published on Letterboxd:
//The Truman Show
Have you ever existed for a second in your life? I haven't.
So when I see myself as Truman, see myself as the audience of Truman, see the audience of Truman, see myself as the audience of the audience of Truman, see myself as Truman, it's nothing new.
My total issue with the film is that it takes its nothing new and does nothing with it.
[I am currently making a film I would describe as nothing new, which its pre-release viewers have described as so novel and different that its unique aspects should be gutted.
The first third of my film stands as context for more context, where The Truman stands as context for nothing. To be considered anything, it must be either 'complete', finished, entertainment, or forced into being a text, forced into being controlled by the reader, made, in itself, worthless.]
To put more directly:
The idea of a televised life, and the censoring and self-censoring of a life put on display, is interesting, is now omnipresent, is, in The Truman Show, hinted at, and explored not-at-all.
The idea of a controlled life, a life of controlled information, of utter limitation of perception, is present in The Truman Show, is not at all explored and in reality, (n)ever present(ed).
The concept of scale, abandoned.
Rape, ignored.
Before I take up the issues above, and the lines "you never had a camera inside my head" and "you'll find nothing more real out there than I've made for you in here!", I will address the film at its entertainment level, concede the validity of the writerly, and then spit 'I find it lacking'.
The CGI in the film, barring the zoom-out of the Dome, is invisible. The matte paintings are fantastic. The illusion of illusion and illusions are wonderful, shallow, convincing.
The moments of satire are quippy, compelling, funnny. The actors acting for the audience-as advertisers, displaying anti-authenticity - places the audience of the show within the film without having them within frame or soundtrack. It turns the film we're watching into a film-within-a-film, haunted by its fictional spectators. If you know everyone else in the world loves this film, the film-within-a-film's spectators are doubled by the 'real world''s 'real' spectators.
(A brief aside: The opinions I've heard from people - C, R, O, S - could just as well be the opinions of the fictional spectators of the fictional show. They mirror the film-world's attitudes.
Some people I'm aware of recount the plots of films as though they are reality.
I'm sure I sometimes do too, it is fun, and a convenient way of reliving our history as oral storytellers without having to live through stories first. Without having to discover a person who will tell you it.
There was this man inside a TV show since birth, never knew it. Eventually he figured it out and escaped - God I feel so powerful to reduce something so potentially complex to something so simple.)
This film's ability to turn the mundane -- watching the film, walking down the street -- and the extra-mundane -- an extra walking down the street, an extra watching a TV show -- into images of such importance, is magic, is street magic, is movie magic, is done in The Girl Chewing Gum, is performed by reality-TV audience votes and fandom, and is a common element of sci-fi, (after Delaney, as I've heard from McTiernan and Danskin, the genre has an inherent ability to make the metaphorical literal,) here being used to make acting literal, to make watching important.
So it is actually insane to me that despite the implication of myself and the screen, of myself and the audience, of the many audiences, the film asks you to turn yourself off. To, once the screen is dead, stop thinking.
Don't get me wrong, it makes sense. You are to the film the film itself, and the film is so contained, so you too must be so contained.
I suppose I did not, in fact, concede the validity of the writerly reading of The Truman Show. Oh well... It is fun and big and happening, which are elements I like in other films, but The Truman Show tries to /touch/ me, tries to engage. And when I do, spits in my face. Shuts it all down.
A writerly reading ignores the metatextual elements - which themselves are the selling point of the film. A readerly reading, an attempt to hold the film and gaze lovingly at it, tells me he hates me. I ask why, and there are no answers, there is nothing more to explore than would be present in anything.
"I'll see what else is on."
But I've started so I'll finish (with notably less enthusiasm):
The characters and actors fuck.
On screen, cut to windows, fade to black.
This is censorship. I wonder how Truman fucks, as Truman has been taught how to fuck by Christof's injections. Truman has been taught not to swear, has been taught to confide to an extent. Has had all of his conversations with one man (Christof), who wants to be seen, who wants to remain unseen, who has never in his life fucked. Who delegated fucking to a woman willing to give birth to the next monstrosity. North West is the first televised conception. We know how Kim K fucks, we know quite a bit (never enough) of who and how Kanye does. Truman can never express sexual desire, is always repressed, is never not under the constraints of televisually acceptable. Has learnt that there is no way to be beyond the televisually acceptable. Truman goes to his hometown university - I assume it is college rather than High School because they all look so old, and have a library, but I am not American - that contains no political or transgressive art, nothing that would irk advertisers. Sick. That world, as our worlds are, are what make up Truman's thoughts and expressions. He cannot think anything unbroadcastable. Truman is always already sanitised.
I suppose I only find this upsetting because everything I've ever thought and been has been unbroadcastable, unknowable, and good. Truman is knowable, broadcastable, neither good nor bad, merely is. Truman is more a prop than he is a man. This is not even mentioned by the film. It could contitute an entire film.
Truman does not have to censor himself, he merely contains nothing that wants censoring, has been deprived of the ability to produce unwanted thoughts.
Rebellion is a human right. That's why hypernormalisation fucks people up so much.
(What about "You're too late, everything's already been explored."? That is about a controlled life.)
A controlled life, is shown, briefly depicted.
But what does that do to a person? To have and know their free will means nothing, to have nothing have ever gone wrong, nothing ever irreparable. The two instances of trauma are in Susie (or whoever goes to Fiji) and his dad. Nothing happens when his Dad comes back, no reaction from Christof, no recognition of the role of the Homeless in Streetport (or wherever he lives).
The problem is that to think of this, you would have to live and be outside of the Dome, and when we get outside of the Dome - the film ends. What does life mean to a man like Truman, whose skills mean nothing.
"Nothing out there is more real than what I've made for you in here."
Imagine if Truman was the type of person to stay.
What would that mean say an do? Must we reject the father?
The fact is that nothing here is real, we are all just different structures and systems, and some feel more real than others, more fundamental. But that's just because they've stayed around for longer, or because they're nicer or meaner and we want to want to believe is more or less real. Motivated reasoning.
"You never had a camera inside my head."
No but you're not exactly subtle, Truman.
The concept of scale is so important to the film they spent the most expensive CGI shots on it, the mention the advertisers, but there is no nitty gritty. That's fine, but like all else, lacking.
Rape, ignored.
What does consent mean to Truman?
What could consent possibly be in Truman's situation?
This review is mid.
It raises more questions than it answers.
Both of those facts, just like the film itself.
It's just, the moment you try to engage with it, oppositional toward you for trying to. It says you are the viewer, these people with clearly lesser lives than Truman. It's a big fuck you to everyone watching it. And everything of interest to me lies outside the scope of the film. (Maybe that's what makes it engaging? Maybe that's what makes everything else more engaging.)
I used to be immensely solopsistic and obsessed with Truman-esque concepts.
Now I'm not. Character progression, I guess. Jeez.
P.S.
Perhaps The Truman Show was necessary. For its time, for the progression of film-as-a-medium. I'll concede that, even with this bitter taste in my mouth.
