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The Truman Show Reality shows can become real dangers. by Elise (March 19, 2004) |
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After a very big success in the USA, reality shows arrived in Europe about 3 years ago. These telecasts with no cultural or intellectual interest, but with a big money interest, have multiplied and nowadays you can’t watch tv whithout finding one of these shows. It consists in watching some people all day long in a house to see their reactions …It looks like a zoo, don’t you think The difference is that you are behind your TV screen. But the danger is to push perversity too far, like this great movie " The Truman show " shows us . Truman Burbank leads what seems to be a simple life on the island of Seahaven. He has a loving wife, a best friend he can tell anything to, and a decent job as an insurance adjustor. But he doesn’t know that everything is false. In reality, when he was a baby, Truman was abandoned. So a rich producer adopted him to make the biggest reality show ever seen. He made Truman grow up in a false world full of cameras and actors. For that he had a real city built on an island under a dome. Everybody in this town was acting around Truman. To keep Truman under control, they drowned his father in front of his eyes when he was a young boy. So now Truman is afraid of water, he can’t escape because he lives on an island! He is the prisoner of a reality show . Outside, in the real world, everybody watches "Truman show". They like him and they live with him but no one thinks that he is a real man and that he has got the right to live a real life! Fortunately, a group becomes aware of that and tries to make Truman understand by having the man who acted as his father before enter the city. Truman recognizes him but the producer, who is always watching him, makes his actors intervene . But it’s too late. Truman begins to wonder if his life is true. He falls into a paranoïa and has doubts about everything. He realizes little by little that he is manipulated. He doesn’t know what is true anymore. But the producer doesn’t want to tell him the truth because thanks to him, he is very rich !He doesn’t care whether Truman is unhappy , he only cares about money. So he invents explanations and keeps on making his actors play. If you want to know if Truman will gain his freedom or if he will be convinced of the actors’ lies, I advise you to watch the film because it’s a very very good film that makes you think about the role of the media in our society. It tells you that you have to stand back from television because it’s something that can control your by showing you a false reality. And we are the only wrongdoers because if we accept what they show us as reality we make this system go on and on… I’m not telling you not to trust everything because it would be paranoïa but you have to be careful and not let TV think for you. |
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The Truman Show
1998 ,directed by Peter Weir, with: |
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Jim Carrey as Truman |
Laura Linney as Meryl, Truman’s wife |
Noah Emmerich as Marlon,
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Ed Harris as the director |
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And also Natascha McElhone (as Sylvia), Holland Taylor (as Angela Burbank, Truman’s mother), Brian Delate (as Kirk Burbank, Truman’s father) … This great movie makes you think. Think about yourself, about society, about life. That’s what I found very good and original in this film. It deals with society problems and media problems with a particularly interesting and touching story . The casting is a little surprising because we are used to seeing Jim Carrey in funny roles but in this film (which is more dramatic than funny to me), he plays Truman with an unintended sensibility and deepness. The other actors are also really good, particularly Ed Harris in the role of the director who takes himself as God by controlling Truman’s life. |
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If you wish to react to this article, write to the editor. I find this film interesting. The fact that Truman starts to find that he is being filmed gives you the desire to see the end . This film is a real success. Vince (LAT Blois) I have never thought that a real man's life is controlled by someone and put on tv for people to enjoy. I think it's an adventure and a successful adventure. my foreign teacher first let me touch this film and from then on I have still been looking for the film on the net. However there is no result. So I really want to know where I can enjoy it. I consider it to be treasured up for ever. Cai Ting, 23 (China, Hubei province, Wuhan), Oct 6, 2004 (March 11, 2005) Julie A . (YGTP) |
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