- Title
- Peter Weir's The Truman Show and Sartrean freedom
- Creator
- Falzon, Christopher
- Relation
- Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Sartrean Perspective p. 17-31
- Publisher
- Berghahn Books
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2011
- Description
- In Peter Weir’sThe Truman Show(1998), Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) gradually discovers that since birth he has been the unwitting star of a reality television show, watched by a global audience. His home town of Seahaven is in fact an enormous studio set filled with hidden cameras; all those around him, including his wife Meryl (Laura Linney) and best friend Marlon (Noah Emmerich), are really actors; and his life is being orchestrated from behind the scenes by the show’s producer and director, Christof (Ed Harris). A series of unusual events lead him to question his situation, and he makes increasingly bold attempts to escape. Finally he takes to the sea, and, surviving a storm that Christof throws at him, arrives at the edge of the huge sky-painted dome that surrounds his world. Christof announces himself and tries to convince him to stay, but the film ends with Truman walking through the door marked 'Exit' that leads to the real world outside. This chapter will focus on the manner in which the film engages in existentialist concerns, and Sartre's existentialism in particular.
- Subject
- The Truman Show; film studies; existentialism; Jean-Paul Sartre
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1325361
- Identifier
- uon:25241
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780857453204
- Language
- eng
- Hits: 1123
- Visitors: 1464
- Downloads: 0