Fact or Fiction explore

• CKV/AC
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

Did you like
The Truman Show?

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Fact or Fiction

The theme this term is fact or fiction. You have watched the film  Truman Show. In the upcoming lessons  we will start

reading and doing the assignments  Explore and

Expand.  Followed by the in-depth preliminary research.

Finally you choose one of the three in-depth assignments. Your teacher will let you know when assignments need to be finished. 

The Trumanshow

The Truman Show is an American film (1998) directed by Peter Weir. The film was written by Andrew Niccol . Starring Jim Carey  as Truman Burbank.

The story is partly based on a story by Philip K. Dick, Time Out of Joint (1959) and on an episode from the popular science fiction series Twilight Zone (A World of Difference).

READ:

1. The whole world of Truman is built on fiction. You can say that a film is always fiction, even if it is based on facts.

2. "The Truman show" had predictive gifts. This parody on reality TV was released before shows like 'Big brother' came to light.

3. The Truman Show  Syndrome is a delusion in which the patient assumes that everything in his or her environment (friends, neighbors, job and media) is all staged.

To what extent do you think it is important that the content of a film is derived from reality? Write your opinion on this in about five sentences.

Truman lives in a 'fake' world, with fake family, fake news etc. He's being manipulated. Do you ever feel like you're being manipulated? And if so, by whom or what?

Read this review; Journalist Jann Ruyters

shares what she feels is the deeper meaning of this film.

More than the concretization of the philosophy that television pictures shape our reality, The Truman show offers a rather pessimistic view of free will, imagination and autonomy of the individual. You get back from imagination what you put into it, the film says. Raised by soap actors in a world of pretty pictures, Truman has developed into a rather stupendous cartoon character - by no means a curious Alice in Wonderland - who is also for a long time wonderfully content with this superficial pseudo-existence. I

In the shape of over-acting comedian Jim Carrey, Truman is hardly distinguished from his hysterically smiling fake wife or from his stereotypical fake buddy. This fits within the film's argument, but at the same time diminishes the emotional impact of the story. Carrey may play a much more subdued character compared to previous roles, but he is still a plastic and rather chilly actor. This makes him suitable for the first half in which Truman still unknowingly blends in with his surroundings, but when his suspicions grow and he sets out to investigate, the ‘cardboard’ Carrey still evokes little compassion

Since the caricatured enemy (director Ed Harris) also evokes little fear, Truman's heroic journey into reality outside the soap opera never becomes very exciting. However, this lack of intensity is entirely compensated for by the film's inventiveness, which isn’t heart-warming but surely is inspiring. Larger and smaller philosophical questions keep bubbling up while watching The Truman Show. Are you actually a prisoner as long as you are unaware of your prison? Can you still speak of the difference between real and unreal if you can sustain the unreal 24 hours a day? Can you develop your own identity when all you have seen around you are roles? These are questions that the film doesn't readily have answers to, but that can keep a discussion going for quite some time, and will provide writing journalism with countless new angles. And that's how it should be with a Hollywood classic from the 1990's.

Describe in 5 sentences what -in your opinion- is the deeper meaning of the film.

Assignment

The director (Christof) actually plays for "God", he determines how Truman's life goes.  What are his motives? Can you show someone's life to the rest of the world without him/her knowing?  

 Asssignment: Write an e-mail (or letter) to Christophe where in you share your opinion about making a show like the Trumanshow. Upload your email in Magister-opdrachten.