The A posteriori le cinema series is an opportunity to celebrate the 7e art by revisiting key titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
Like every morning, Truman Burbank kisses his wife, Hannah, and goes to work under a radiant sun, greeting passers-by and neighbors on the way. The scene is idyllic. However, it turns out that this is what it is, a “scene”, since, unbeknownst to the young man, his whole life is nothing but a vast reality show filmed in a huge studio by d countless hidden cameras. Star and prisoner at the same time, Truman finally sees clearly, but his thirst for freedom, which compromises the most watched show, antagonizes Christof, the megalomaniac who pulls the strings behind the scenes. Satirical science fiction when it was released 25 years ago. The Truman Show (The Truman Show) has become incredibly compelling over time.
Unveiled on June 5, 1998, the film began to take shape in screenwriter Andrew Niccol’s mind around 1991. Two childhood obsessions inspired the concept.
At the British Film Institute (BFI), in 2018, Niccol talks about the premiere: “When you are a child, as a defense mechanism, you think the world revolves around you. Most people get away with it, but I guess I never did. »
In the newspaper The Independent, the same year, he evokes the second: “It’s up to you to decide if it’s a healthy paranoia or not. I think everyone questions the authenticity of their life at times. It’s like when children ask [à leurs parents] if adopted. »
Thus Truman’s growing sense of alienation – legitimate in his case – emanates from that felt by the screenwriter. This explaining that, the story was initially very dark: a science fiction thriller set in New York. Master of the theme of voyeurism, Brian De Palma was then to direct the film, possibly with Tom Hanks in the lead role.
When the Paramount studio imposed Jim Carrey, the biggest star of the moment thanks to the delirious box offices of the films The Mask (The mask), Ace Ventura Pet Detective (Ace Ventura investigates) and his suite, De Palma passed. After considering among others Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg and David Cronenberg, the studio hired Peter Weir.
The first thing the director of Witness (Witness under surveillance) And Dead Poets Society (The Society of Dead Poets) was to commission a rewrite in order to accentuate the comic and satirical dimensions. This revision of the tone, which wanted to be in tune with the image of the star, was accompanied by a displacement of the action in this artificial island community that Truman could not leave, Christof having instilled in him, from childhood , a paralyzing fear of water.
Moreover, although the place straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting looks like it was built, precisely, in a film studio, it is a real city: that of Seaside , in Florida.
An unexpected legacy
Interestingly, because of his success, Jim Carrey was going through a bit of what Truman is going through towards the end of the film, when he realizes he’s being watched all the time: wherever he goes, the actor was chased by paparazzi. There is no doubt that this “on the spot” experience influenced the dramatic aspect of his interpretation.
On this point, The Truman Show is the movie that proved that Carrey was much more than a grimacing genius. Critically acclaimed, the film garnered excellent revenue and received a plethora of various nominations.
His legacy even spilled over into the medical field. THE ” Truman Show delusion or “Truman Show type delirium”, you know? It is the American psychiatrist Joel Gold, of the Bellevue hospital center, who thus named an affection echoing the film.
“Doctor Gold met his first ‘Truman patient’ when a man was admitted to Bellevue in 2003 complaining that his family members were actors hired by the production of a reality show about his life. Other “Truman patients” followed, including a visual artist, journalist, Columbia University student and film producer. All believed the same thing: that they were being filmed. This specific form of delirium had not been documented before the release of Jim Carrey’s film in 1998…” can we read in Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madnessbook co-authored by Joel Gold and his brother Ian, a neurophilosopher.
Far from being annoyed, Andrew Niccol had noted to the BFI in 2018: “You know you have succeeded when you have a disease that bears your name. »
Run away or kiss the camera
However, it is in the university sphere that the film exerts the most fascination, as evidenced by a number of ethical, philosophical and even religious analyses.
Much has also been written about the prophetic nature of film versus reality television. In vulnerabilityJames Charisma recalled in 2018: “Television shows featuring hidden cameras, real people and unscripted situations have been around for a long time. Candid Camera And The Dating Game, in the 1950s and 1960s. But it was not until the early 2000s, with the success of Survivor, Big Brother And american idolthat reality TV has entered the mainstream. […] Christof summarizes, in the first scene of The Truman Show : “We are tired of seeing actors give us false emotions… If the world he inhabits is, in some respects, counterfeit, Truman himself has nothing false. No script. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s authentic.” »
In this case, isn’t it Shakespeare who wrote that “the whole world is a stage”?
Also in 2018, Sherry Lansing, who oversaw the production of The Truman Show while she was the head of Paramount, explains in a retrospective article by Vanity Fair “I didn’t think this film was going to be premonitory. […] When I watch reality TV and the people who live in front of the camera, […] I wonder how much of that is real, and how much of it is just because these people are on camera. »
In the same publication, Andrew Niccol notes a fundamental nuance: “Truman fled the cameras, while our society runs towards them. No more secretly broadcasting a life when we broadcast it ourselves. »
This is what distinguishes The Truman Show Quebec film Louis 19, whose hero agrees to be filmed and is aware of the camera. With its protagonist who discovers that his city is “reconfigured” at night by shadow beings who study its inhabitants, DarkCity (dark city) is a closest relative. is also death livewhere a dying author is unknowingly filmed for a TV show.
Hence this conclusion full of acuity of Andrew Niccol in Vanity Fair on the “reality” component of reality TV: “When you know there is a camera, there is no reality. In this respect, Truman Burbank is “the only real reality star”. »
The film The Truman Show is available in VOD on all platforms.