In Peter Weir’s “The Truman Show,” Jim Carrey plays Truman Burbank, a friendly insurance salesman who is married to a sweet-as-pie woman, Meryl (Laura Linney). The seemingly happy couple lives in the town of Seahaven, a perfect setting, where lays row after row of pastel-colored houses, with manicured lawns and friendly neighbors. But such perfection has been achieved not through normal societal development, but rather has been entirely fabricated for the purpose of a television show. In fact, Seahaven is the largest set ever built, a sort of dome where everything has been perfectly reproduced to look like the picture of an iconic American town, and in which every citizen is in fact an actor playing a part on “The Truman Show.” Every citizen, that is, except for Truman, who is the star of the world’s most popular television show of all time, unbeknownst to him.

The film opens on day 10, 909 of Truman’s life, a day which is about to offer him the first clue that the world he lives in is not all it seems to be when a cinema light suddenly falls from the sky, apparently coming from nowhere. But the 5,000 cameras that have been installed in Seahaven by Christof (Ed Harris)—the creator and “televisionary” of The Truman Show—continue to take us along Truman’s journey as more clues unravel, until he soon realizes that he is indeed trapped in a world that is deprived of reality and in which he can trust no one.

But as a member of the audience, it is almost unavoidable to see how Truman’s difficult journey toward finding the truth eerily echoes the culture of fear that is part of today’s society, guiding the decisions of most, and leading us to either overreact to problems which we face or—as is the case for Truman— to simply live undisturbed for 30 years rather than search the truth even if it means facing its painful reality. Indeed, when Lauren (Natascha McElhone ) confronts Christof and accuses him of having imprisoned Truman in this fake world, Christof responds that “Truman prefers his cell” and that it is simply fear that has kept Truman from really finding his own truth. Simply resigned to our fate, and not wanting to challenge our lives, Christof points out that “we accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” In many ways, this televisionary is right: most pursue the possibilities that are offered them and which appear to be the safest, because they also are the easiest.

The culture of fear that exists for Truman in Seahaven innocently begins when he is only a schoolboy and when, in all the vigor and enthusiasm of his youth, he proudly announces to his schoolteacher and classmates that, like the great Magellan, he will be an explorer when he grows up. Swiftly, his matronly teacher pulls down a map of the world and promptly proceeds to discourage this young soul with the words: “You’re too late! There’s really nothing left to explore.” Indeed, the colored map of the world, already chartered, compartimentalized and categorized, serves as one of the first “proof” given to Truman that he should abandon any ideas of freeing his self, and discovering his own soul.

Not long after we first meet Truman, he seems to be, more than ever before, ready to finally break free of his world. But carefully planted elements in the town of Seahaven only further serve to strengthen his fear of the world. The fear of open waters has been implanted in his mind by Christof, who created the scenario of Truman’s father drowning when Truman was only a boy. Therefore, a carefully placed sunk boat is enough for Truman to cancel his trip away from the island, on a small ferry. But Christof’s manipulation goes further. When Truman attempts to book a flight to Fiji, we see a poster in the travel agent’s office that depicts a plane being struck by a lightning, with the caption: “It could happen to you!” When Truman finally drives across the bridge that leads away from his town—with the reluctant help of his wife—and heads into the distance, we see roadside panels gravely cautioning: “Forest fire warning! Extreme danger!” At that moment, it is hard not to feel that we, like Truman, are trapped in a world of chronic alarms—even if ours have largely been color-coded from green to red.

But by now, Truman has figured out the truth about his word: although he does not understand the reason why, he knows that his world is being controlled and manipulated, and that the residents of the town are “on a loop,” going around the block in a specific order, such as the lady on a bike, the person with flowers, and the Volkswagen Beettle with a dented fender, all of which keep reappearing in this sequence behind the driveway of his home. Truman finally realizes that these human puppets are only playing the roles of normal citizens, and he decides to no longer live in this manipulated world if it means he is not experiencing truth.

Although Truman plans various escapes, his attempts are frustrated by the creator of The Truman Show. When he determinedly walks in to the travel agent’s office to book a flight to Fiji—the farthest place he can dream of going—he is told that no flights are available for at least a month. He then buys a seat for a bus ride to Chicago only to find out that the bus will not budge, until it is announced that there is a mechanical failure that will prevent the trip from proceeding. Truman then finds himself driving away from Seahaven, through the forest fires that miraculously appear right in front of his car, until he is tackled by the police for attempting to pass through an area that has been sealed off due to a “nuclear accident.” Brought back by the police to his home, Truman is once more put in his “cell,” the place from which we can better watch him.

Indeed, Truman’s hometown of Seahaven is used by Christof as a sort of Panopticon, a place in which the audience can observe Truman’s every move, but from which Truman can never see his audience, even if he can “feel” them, or senses being watched. Director Peter Weir chose the architecture of the urban development of Seaside, Florida, in order to portray Seahaven, a place that is drenched in insufferable predictability and “niceness.” The traditional neighborhood design of Seaside enabled Weir to create the perfect studio setting of Seahaven, being sufficiently small and quaint to allow Truman to have a contained life that could be filmed and easily followed by Christof’s cameras. Many of the outdoor scenes were shot on location at Seaside, as were the scenes filmed in Truman’s home. Although the architecture is wildly different from that used by Terry Gilliam in his film “Brazil,” we can still find in Weir’s world the Orwellian quality that was present in “Brazil.” Although both worlds are manipulated and controlled by a higher authority, Gilliam uses the help of fascist architecture to represent this oppression, while Weir uses the sweeter aspect of new urbanism in order to achieve a similar feeling of imprisonment. But in using a seemingly more “friendly” architecture in his set design, Weir succeeds in bringing this Orwellian world closer to our reality.

Just like Brazil’s protagonist, Truman’s deeper need to escape his world eventually prevails, and after his previously futile attempts to leave Seahaven, he finally plans the perfect getaway, being able to fool his surveillants so that he may reach—undetected at first—the sailboat which will take him to the end of Seahaven’s “perfect world” and in to freedom. After braving his deepest fear, that of drowning, and after storm and sun, Truman finally hits the wall of the studio, a beautifully painted mural of a false horizon. As Truman reaches the final exit door of Seahaven’s set, Christof reaches out to him for the first time ever, and his voice resonates through the studio as if he were God: “There’s no more truth out there than there is in the world I created for you. The same lies, the same deceit. But in my world, there’s nothing to fear.” This time, Seahaven’s culture of fear is directly “spoken” to Truman. There is no time left for insinuations. “You’re afraid,” Christof adds. “That’s why you can’t leave.”

But as Truman walks out through the door, out of the set and into society’s frightening reality, we are left to wonder why many of us never take this leap of faith. Christof may not be the one manipulating our world, but we are still allowing our selves to be controlled by our very own fears. Truman’s courage makes us wonder if we will ever have the audacity to free our selves from what was created for us, or if we will simply continue to accept the world with which we are presented, as Truman did until day 10, 909.

Works Consulted:

Glass, Fred. “Brazil by Terry Gilliam.” Film Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4. (Summer, 1986), pp. 22-28.

Smith, Neil. “Which New Urbanism? The Revanchist '90s.” Perspecta, Vol. 30, Settlement Patterns. (1999), pp. 98-105.