The Truman Show as a study of 'the Society of the Spectacle'.(Film As Text)(Critical Essay)

THE MEANING AND THE theme of The Truman Show--both the film directed by Peter Weir (1998) and The Show that Christof (Ed Harris) produces and directs--pivot around the above statement, by Chrisof.

But things are not what they seem ...

When, over half-way into Weir's film, Christof is interviewed on The Show, as part of The Show, for the eager and sycophantic diegetic audience of fans, he is asked why Truman (Jim Carrey) 'hasn't come close to discovering the true nature of his world'. But while Christof may believe the answer he gives (see above) we, as the extra-diegetic audience whose loyalty isn't guaranteed, experience increasing suggestions that Truman suspects all is not as it seems to be; that the life he is experiencing in Seahaven may not be all there is to existence on planet earth.

This idea, that things are not what they appear to be, is one of the core seductive illusions offered by the world of the media to audiences; through cinema especially, but also through TV. Yet Christof's project and its continuing success is dependent upon his explanation, which in turn is contingent upon Christof's God like capacity to keep Truman believing that what he sees and experiences is all there is. This could be considered as a realist epistemology (theory of knowledge), as expressed for instance by the nineteenth century German philosopher Nietzsche: 'most people think that nothing but this wearying reality of ours is possible'. But this is a limited and flawed theory, because it presumes that existence is stable and fixed. Such a position is contrary to the position of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, that 'you can't step into the same river twice'. If the nature of existence--that things …