25 years of "Truman Show": Hardly any other movie was so clairvoyant
"Good morning!" Truman Burbank cheerfully greets the neighbors. "Oh, and in case we don't see each other again today: Good afternoon, good evening and good night!" He is a ray of sunshine, this insurance salesman played by Jim Carrey in the idyllic island village of Seahaven. But the blissful man will soon find out that his whole life has been nothing but a lie for 30 years, watched by millions around the world as a reality show and soap opera on television.
25 years ago, the film "The Truman Show" by Australian director Peter Weir was released in German cinemas (12.11.). ZDFneo is showing it on November 10, and it is available to stream on Paramount+.
The film, which seemed to come from the future, ushered in a new era in 1998. Today, the media satire (screenplay: Andrew Niccol) seems like a harbinger of many current phenomena.
When "The Truman Show" was filmed in Florida and in studios in Southern California in 1996/97, reality TV was still in its infancy. The Dutch television format "Big Brother", for example, in which ordinary people share a house monitored by cameras for several weeks, only started in 1999, and then as a franchise in Germany at the beginning of 2000 (initially on RTLzwei).
Participants in reality formats now usually display a degree of performativity because they know about the cameras. In this, of course, they differ from the naïve Truman.
This is how Truman's reality is structured
The movie gradually explains how the world of Truman, who has lived ignorantly in a gigantic studio since birth, is constructed. He was adopted by the production company, family and friends are all actors who also have to do product placements. Around 5000 installed cameras document Truman's life around the clock for hundreds of millions of fans.
Nobody in the town is interested in what happens beyond the shores of the island: "Who needs Europe?" is the headline of one fake newspaper, for example. Truman was inflicted with ethically highly questionable traumas, such as the death of his father at sea, which he allegedly caused.
The art world is conducted by Christof (Ed Harris), the megalomaniac creator of the permanent series. The TV man, who even has the power to make the sun rise in the studio, says that we have become bored of watching actors give us false emotions. Even if Truman's world is fake, there is nothing wrong with Truman himself, he says.
One fateful day, however, the lies begin to crumble for Truman by chance, for example when a spotlight falls from the "sky", Truman meets his "dead" father or it rains very strangely, namely only sporadically above him. Truman becomes skeptical ("I have the feeling the whole world revolves around me") and threatens to see through the game. Christof must fear for his cynical life's work.
A mental disorder is named after the film
The resonance of the film about the total surveillance of an individual became apparent a few years later, for example in medicine and psychiatry, where scientists speak of Truman syndrome. People with Truman delusion are convinced that they are constantly being filmed by hidden cameras (for the entertainment of others).
Director Weir recently told BBC Culture that the film is also about a more fundamental paranoia. When he met actors auditioning for the film, some told him that they identified with Truman because in their youth they "felt like a fraud that everyone was acting around".
The movie resonates on
In the years that followed, the multi-layered themes of the film found their way into culture and society - with reality shows and docusoaps on television, but also on another level after the attacks of September 11, 2001. New laws allowed states to increase surveillance to combat terrorism. Since then, many people have become increasingly afraid of losing their privacy. In the years that followed, surveillance also became more possible thanks to billions of cell phones - both for security agencies and corporations.
Mass voyeurism like in the movie also gripped the whole world, at the latest in social media culture. Today, many feel as if they are living for an audience and for the entertainment of others. Thanks to online platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, we can now all become Trumans via online identity.
"The Truman Show" also deals with the philosophical question of what we understand as real. Christof proclaims: "We accept the reality of the world that is presented to us. It's as simple as that."
In social media, however, we are confronted with a reality that is orchestrated in many ways. The world Christof created is Truman's truth. We all find ourselves in echo chambers of our own truth. The ambiguity about what is real seems to be growing - think of the images generated by artificial intelligence in 2023, for example.
Truman's self-empowerment at the end
The 1998 film ends with Truman trying to escape from the city built especially for him in a sailing boat. Christof tries to capsize the boat by creating an artificial storm. But Truman finally reaches the wall of the sky dome. He discovers an escape staircase and a door into the dark - actually the exact opposite of a light at the end of the tunnel.
Christof speaks to Truman like a god and implores him to stay in Seahaven. He will find no more truth in the real world than in his artificial home. But Truman's weariness and curiosity win out. He chooses the exit.
Who in Truman's shoes would have the courage to escape all the illusions?
Despite the film's release date being mentioned as November 12 in some German cinemas, it's also being shown on ZDFneo on November 10. This makeover of 'The Truman Show' is a perfect example of how the movie's themes have continued to resonate in the era of social media, where millions live their lives as if they're on a constantly broadcast reality show.
The examining of the movie's impact on contemporary media culture also highlights how its essence has become a foundation for future considerations regarding the untangling of truth from mass media create-a-life projects, such as artificial intelligence-generated images that dominate 2023.
Source: www.dpa.com
