The Truman Show: Existentialism

Plot:
In the Truman Show, Truman's whole life has been directed, for your viewing pleasure. Since he was born, he was under the eye of the camera, in an entire metropolis constructed specifically for his world. Everyone he knew was an actor, but Truman himself was genuine, which made his reality TV show, The Truman Show, one of a kind. Everything goes according to plan - Kristof's plan, that is - until one day, a beautiful young girl, Sylvia, catches Truman's eye, but not the girl scripted as the love interest, Meryl. In their one night fling, Sylvia tries to reveal to Truman what is really going on, only to be carted off the show right in front of him. For the next decade or so, Truman lives happily ever after with Meryl, but things start to go wrong. First of all, he sees his dad on the street, who had died in an episode when Truman was just a boy. He also picks up radio interference from which he can hear the set crew, and one day he decides to go to a different building and behind the elevator he sees them before they can drag him away. These small infractions instill a deep sense of suspicion within Truman, and he tries everything he can think of to escape, only to be faced with forest fires, staged hazardous waste spills, and a freak storm. Eventually, he ties himself to the boat, encouraging "them" to kill him. When he finds a way out, at the end of the set, Kristof tries to convince him to stay, warning him that people on the outside are monsters, and that Truman's fake world is the greatest truth he can find. Truman makes the decision to exit, with his trademark line "Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight," and a bow. 

Existentialism:
Truman experiences a great crisis when he begins to realize that every day, everything and everyone is exactly the same. He starts to think along the lines of "what if?" There are forces controlling his world, as Kristof plays God, but Truman begins to question God's plan and tries to make a new world for himself, free from this perverse religion. He is completely alone in this world, everyone has lied to him and betrayed him in some manner or another. His wife is in it for the money, every day is planned and to be profited from. When Sylvia is taken away from him and he is alone on the beach, his alienation is complete: there is no one left in his world on his side. Once he realizes how alone he is, he tries to escape the absurd society that imprisons him. Although society may be rooting for him to stay structured within itself, he needs to find a way to live outside these prescribed bounds to truly find himself.
His greatest scene of existentialist thought is on the boat, braving the storm he knows is designed to do nothing but stop his journey. He was willing to face his fears, and brave death in spite of everything working against him, in order to be free on his own terms. This is his absurd courage in the face of death, as well as in the face of the unknown. Upon his decision to exit the set of Seahaven, he is casting in his lot with the dangers of the outside world, but at least he can finally be his own man. He can create a life that is truly for himself, away from the prying eye of his global fanbase. The movie also deeply explores the Hitchcockian theme of voyeurism. The idea that the whole world invests so much time into watching this one man live his life, knowing that the ethics behind it are spotty, shows how much we crave the ability to live vicariously through those actors we see on the screen.

Review:
I enjoyed this movie a lot. Jim Carrey always makes me laugh, and the idea, kind of like the Matrix, is perfect to spark each viewer's imagination, to make me think, "Is any of this real?" My dad remembers thinking along these lines, where he would try to reason through each scenario in his life, and how "they" would pull that off. However, it is not as funny as I had expected it to be, but I think that was necessary: in order to truly empathize with Truman, his life could not be made into too much of a joke. I do have a few questions, however. Was Kristof right? How did Truman adjust to life outside his bubble? Did he find Sylvia? Did Kristof, or the corporation, still "own" Truman, or because he is older than 18 he is no longer bound to his "parents"? Ultimately, is he better off now that he is his own person, and, if not, what does that say about free will? I understand that explaining some of these questions would likely another hour of screen time and the technicalities of it all might bore many of the moviegoers. I think all of these questions could be answered in a sequel, but I suspect that answering these questions would be a touch too dark or serious for a Jim Carrey movie.

Tell No One

Dr. Alexandre Beck is once again under investigation of his wife's murder. The gendarmerie finds two bodies at the scene of Margot's disappearance, whose times of death coincide with the incident. The serial killer who the murder was eventually attributed to never confessed, an oddity considering he confessed to six others, adding to the mystery. One day, Beck receives an email with a link to a surveillance camera at a train station, and he sees his wife on it. Hope is restored, for perhaps his wife has actually been alive these eight years. Unfortunately, he is not the only one that has caught wind of her possible status among the living, and the other party involved would like to change that. It becomes a race to find Margot, only Beck does not know that she is once again in danger. At the same time, the police are closing in on Beck, as he is once again the prime suspect, after images surface of Margot bruised and battered and evidence at the two new crime scenes links to him. A chase scene follows, involving bodily torture, excessive gunshots and a car pileup on the beltway. He even sees Margot in the park, but the meeting is compromised when Margot’s pursuers reveal themselves by stopping the wrong girl. The movie ends finally with a big confession, where Margot’s father, Jacques, reveals his role in hiding Margot away, the death of Beck’s father and finally the murder of Phillippe, who had beaten Margot and raped members of his father’s equestrian team. But the confession itself is not true, for Jacques tampers with the wire before telling Beck the final truth: that Margot killed Phillippe. There is a happy ending, with Margot and Beck reuniting at the tree in the forest with their initials carved into it, and it looks as though Margot has filled in the 8 missing years.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I liked it better than any of the hitchcock movies we have watched. The fast pace of the movie makes it more suspenseful than the long drawn out plot lines typical of Hitchcocks "thrillers". Canet thrilled me more with an intricate web of lies and a race to find the girl. With the skeleton in the basement and the final climb up the tower in Hitchcock's thrillers, I could expect how they would end. In Tell No One, I truly did not see the ending coming, nor was I sure that Canet wouldn't just kill off one of the main characters before Alex and Margot could reunite. I also liked the happy ending and resolution, something that was missing from the three hitchcock films we’ve watched.

The most prevalent Hitchcockian theme influencing this movie is the notion of the wrong man. Our British mastermind was obsessed with this idea, ever since he was thrown in jail for twenty minutes at the request of his father. In Tell No One, Beck is the wrongly accused man for many things many times. He was the original suspect eight years ago at the moment when Margot was kidnapped. Now, as new evidence resurfaces, he is once again labelled as her murderer, as well as abuser. He must escape conviction and be uncooperative with the police because Margot’s life is in danger, and he was instructed to Tell No One. He has no way to clear his name.

There are some striking cinematic similarities between certain scenes of Tell No One and Vertigo. When Beck has flashbacks to her death and her wedding, the juxtaposition of love and murder is very dark and off putting. The swirling effect of the camera and the uncertainty about what scene is what is reminiscent of Scotty's dream sequences in Vertigo.

The Birds Analysis

The birds is a very sexist piece of cinematic work.

•  Mitch is surprised when he finds out that Melanie has a job, but two of her three days of work are spent at her father's company, implying she could not get a job elsewhere.
•    Lydia cannot fathom the idea of living alone, and even when Melanie consoles her saying that she will always have Cathy, Lydia grows upset, because she needs a strong man in her life. Once she lashes out at Mitch saying, "if only your father were here," because Mitch is not taking control of the situation, and in her opinion, not serving as the proper protector of the family, but meanwhile, she offers no helpful solutions.
• When the largest bird attack occurs downtown, the women of Bodega Bay cower in fear inside the restaurant, unwilling to fight against the birds.
•  Towards the end, back in the Brenner house, Melanie hears a noise from upstairs. When she makes the decision to investigate, her bravery is punished. She is ambushed by thousands of birds and of course, Mitch must rescue her. I was embarrassed by how utterly helpless she seemed when she couldn't get the door open to escape. 

Stanley Kubrick for Apollo 11

This is quite possibly the slowest "movie" I've ever seen. And I've seen The Shining. But here's an analysis of Stanley Kubrick's confession to the moon hoax as revealed in the Shining.

The Shining 2.0

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Roll Film Scene: The Muppet Movie (1979)