The Truman Show (movie)

The Truman Show produced in 1988 didn't get watched by me until about 2005. (I was a little late I guess.) It came recommended to me by a friend who loaned me a copy of the movie.

The film was an huge financial undertaking by Paramount Pictures who I read spent over 60 million dollars on it's production. It is rated PG, written by Andrew Niccoli, directed by Peter Weir and stars Jim Carey. In the film, Carey plays a character named as Truman Burbank, a major television star, and the catch is, even though he is so very famous, even though he is a so famous and the whole world watching his every move on TV, he does not even know it.

An unwanted pregnancy, his birth broadcast is on television and he is adopted by a corporation and then his whole life is aired to to the world, captured on film as his whole existence is lived out on a sort of Hollywood film set. Everything he has ever done, every emotion he has experiences as been done for "reality" TV, filmed by hidden cameras.

He lives out his life captive to a world created just for him by the creator/ director and it is as if everything is planned, scripted for him as the camera shows the watchful eye of a curious John Q. Public, his life. Even the weather is controlled by the director.

At the age of 30 though, Truman is catching on to the oddities of his captive life in his constructed world. Realizing things are just a bit weird and out of his control he begins to wonder and we watch as he begins the inward journey of discovering the world he has always known is not what he thought, in fact he strangely feels like he is always being watched. Meanwhile, outside his world, in the "real world of consumers" people are in fact watching him, on TV's. Producers are trying to keep him oblivious to reality, worried he night find them out and the show would be over and Truman fans are rallying for his escape.

My friend recommended the movie because of it's presentation of religion. The movie is an obvious commentary on television and how we view reality which is interesting to me too, but I must I too was impressed with the profoundly religious connotations that left me considering their 60 million dollar message to the viewing world.

For example the director of the Truman set is Christof, who by the way, lives in the "moon."
With a director named Christof... you have to wonder at the connotation... does the director and creator of Truman's world represent Christ, (God) or Anti Christ? Since this "God" figure lives in the "moon" you have to wonder how does this relate to perhaps a "moon God"?

And what reality is Truman escaping from? What reality is he escaping to? What is there really beyond his universe or the universe of television viewers everywhere? Is Truman rejecting God or Satan as he appears to walk on water and climb a stairway to the real world outside of his set which he finds at the edge of the universe, the only universe he has ever known. The analogies... spiritual, philosophical, psychological, cultural.. are nearly endless in this film and quite intriguing.