With Rene Descartes’ Second Meditation, Descartes
has the idea of existence, in regards to whether a thinking entity truly
exists, with his famous saying “cogito ergo sum”. Using that philosophy, and
looking at The Truman Show; we know Truman was real, if anything, he was the
realest thing in that situation, but I’m asking is if his surroundings, his
life that was a fallacy. Was that real?
Even though it was staged, and the
actors actually lived around Truman, if it’s still there, still thinking and
responding to Truman, does that make it a reality nonetheless? Was Truman being
deceived his entire life just because his reality was different than ours, or
was he being saved from our reality.
We see that Truman is the most lively in the movie.
He doubts, he wants adventure, hes curious. We don’t see this in the other
citizens. No one wants to leave; everyone is fully content with their
lifestyle. It seems so farfetched, to be completely content with ones life.
Truman realized that there was something deeply
wrong with his life, he tried to escape, tried to figure it out, and became so
helpless that he risked his life to leave. At the end, when Truman is given the
chance to keep living this fake life, that the real world was the evil one; He
relentlessly says his quirky comment then steps out of the dome.
I’m glad that
Truman did leave. I'm glad that he did not succumb to the unknown and his fears;
instead, having enough strength to be willing to sail across water to find the
exit. I believe if Truman didn’t leave,
he would have never been happy. He would have constantly wondered what was real
or not, contemplating many things, even possibly losing his will to live or
becoming mentally ill. In the film, we saw Truman driving in circles, scaring his
wife because he felt like he was crazy, because this town hes always known was
starting to fall apart around him, filling him with so much doubt.
So in this instance, or this circumstance, is Truman’s
TV life a reality or not? Well As terrible as the fact is, it is still a
reality. Even though his family, and friends were just actors, and the town was a massive stage,
the fact that Truman was real, was thinking, made the stage a reality. Christof, and the actors, tried to
force him to fall in place the way the creators wanted, like with his first love, he still had free-will. He still questioned, he still doubted, the audience didn't lose hope on Truman, and were actually very joyous to watch Truman finally leave the dome.
Obviously, the stage, the dome, the town, is not real, but because Truman is on
stage, not even acting, just being his natural self, it becomes alive. “I think, therefore I am”. When Truman stopped thinking it was real, that’s when
everything started falling apart. I think this is my life,
therefore it is (real).
I like this movie for this assignment purely because it seems so simple: Truman's life was a tv show, only he didn't know about it and all of his 'friends' and 'family' were actors. The idea of television and tv programs is inherently false for us. We know that actors are just doing their jobs, reading a script, pretending. But Truman turns this just slightly on it's head by presenting us a character who isn't an actor. For him, this tv show is a reality, it is his life. I don't remember the exact moment Truman begins to doubt his surroundings, but I do agree with your argument, Truman's doubt in his reality leads to his reality falling apart. Ben mentioned in his post the well known phenomenon of driving home and, once you pull into the driveway, realizing that you have no idea how you got there. I'd say that, at some point, Truman experienced a similar thing. As Truman's life went on the way they'd always gone on, he became safe, content, even comfortable with the way his world functioned. He was still driving. Ben went on to explain that sometimes there would be something different about his drive home, a car wreck for example. This new element would pull him from his autopilot and he would become aware of himself and the car and the act of driving once again. This time, when he pulls up to his driveway, he knows exactly how he got there. When Truman begins to doubt the world around him, he's pulled from his state of autopilot. He's aware of himself, his surroundings, he's looking and seeing, he's completely in control. This is his car wreck. With Truman looking and questioning the world around him it can do nothing but fall apart, it isn't reality. A lie that big simply isn't sustainable under the weight of someone's doubt. But, of course, even after Truman leaves the dome, he's still Truman. He still grew up in that house with actors for parents, he was still married to an actor, he still grew up on a set. These things may be a lie, but they are still experiences that shaped his life, who he became. No matter how false it was, it was still Truman's life and that's what makes this film so interesting for me. It seems simple but for Truman it will never simply be a tv show filled with actors. It'll always be his life, his childhood, his friends and family. Of course it's amazing when he still decides to leave the dome, he's looking at everything he's ever experienced: friends, family, a wife, his job, and accepts that while it was all real for him, it wasn't reality, it wasn't real for them.
ReplyDeleteThis is a small comment not related to class, but I really like the gif usage and formatting of this post. It looks really nice.
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