The Truman Show:
Special Collector’s Edition
Picture: B
Sound: B- Extras: B+ Film: B+
Watching The Truman
Show now, versus when it first came out in 1998, is actually quite
frightening to see what has become of Television just in the past few
years. There is an eerie familiarity
with the film that was really ahead of its time as we certainly live in an age
now of reality-based TV, or at least so-called reality, but this film goes much
deeper into some more philosophical and psychological realms than most might
actually comprehend or even try to understand.
I always felt even when I first saw the film that it was ahead of the
time a bit with its ideas, but the past few years have proved just that. At the time of its release there were only a
handful of shows like The Real World,
but now its everywhere you look.
This is a film that bears repeating and perhaps
conversation in order to gather thoughts collectively to form an opinion. This is because it is layered with quite a
bit of conversional ideas and concepts and also is a mirror to our current
society, which essentially finds more enjoyment from watching other people
rather than living out their own lives.
Think about entertainment in general and the reason for things such as
film. Cinema in general has existed for
this long with the purpose of taking you to a world beyond your own, whether it
be Oz or Rick’s Café, or Mordor, there is no question that we are transplanted
to another time and place, but with reality TV we are simply watching other
people doing what they normally do and that is just live out their own
lives. We also watch shows that stage
their shows to seem real or put people into situations that might seem real,
but the simple fact that they are put into those situations make them
unrealistic to begin with.
Why are we so fascinated with other peoples business? Well, some of us are even fascinated with
our own belly buttons, but those people aside I think it narrows down to a
condition that is infected most of society and that is unhappiness. Americans are typically unhappy and we
continue to make ourselves unhappier with each day. We are overworked, yet we are lazy, we are stingy, yet we consume
a lot; we are in essence a hypocritical nation at large. We are more or less desperate for something
‘more’ in life, but most of us only want to find those things in the
materialistic things and if we don’t find them there, then we turn to other
means, such as other people. We find
more interest in the lives of others or in other realities and worlds, such as
the addictions that some people have with video games, or TV, or the
Internet. We are becoming as the Eagles
song says, “prisoners of our own device.”
Take for example the show Survivor, which is one of the longer running of the reality shows
and the fact that strangers are grouped together on an island to live together
and compete for money. Now I don’t know
about you, but this is far from the world that I live in and the realities of
life, but this is simply an exaggerated living situation and what happens is
these people assume roles that are not necessarily how they really are in
‘real’ life. They are simply playing a
role and assuming that role in order to play the game.
So The Truman Show
is part social commentary, but also a quite philosophical with its ideas of
mortality, technology, and the fusion of the two. We are all voyeuristic to some degree I suppose, sometimes
without even realizing it, but there is also some price to pay when it comes to
selling ourselves to film or TV. Think
about what it must have been like before technology allowed for civilization to
even see people beyond our own spectrum, take for instance long before
photographs and such, when you may only see a person through an artistic impression
or sculpture, now think about how we have come so far since then to the point
that we now have satellites that enable us to have global communication around
the world with the use of internet, TV, and radio. We are able to witness things happening anywhere in the world and
that type of power has pro’s and con’s.
For this film we take that level to the extreme where a
persons entire existence is being taped and people all over are watching. Now, if this person actually ‘knew’ that
this was happening they would act quite differently, so the edge that the show
has is that they are unaware, thus making it as realistic as possible. Or at least realistic for that person, but
everyone else around them is a lie.
They are simply acting out roles to bounce off Truman’s role, for which
he thinks he is living a life of an insurance adjuster, who lives in a nice
little house with his wife Meryl and has dreams of Fiji, but everything he
knows is a lie.
There are some really hardcore philosophies that are
almost brought to fruition here, but the film only goes so far with those,
probably a good thing since it keeps things more on the comedic side of things,
rather than taking the material too seriously.
That could have been a mistake, or rather that would have been something
that the Science Fiction genre may have been better at handling. Think about the Harrison Ford character of
Deckard in Blade Runner and the
ideas of what is and what isn’t and how that changes everything.
The real point of this review however, it to focus more
tightly on this new Special Edition DVD from Paramount of the film, which is
the replacement for their previous bare-bones edition. As I mentioned in my review for Witness (another re-issue from
Paramount also directed by Peter Weir) these new editions only seem to add
extras and are more than likely the same transfer and audio tracks. I noticed little difference in the new
issues.
The 1.85 X 1 anamorphic transfer is lacking in many
regards. Perhaps back when the first edition
was released (sometime around 1999) this may have been more acceptable, but
certainly not now. Consumers are going
to find that if they rifle back through older DVD issues that most of them are
problematic on some level in comparison to some of the new transfers. One of the most noticeable of these is black
levels, detail, and softness. I do not
recall the previous edition being anamorphically enhanced, so that certainly
makes a difference on bigger sets, but there are still some slight problems with
regards to the refinement in detail and softness.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is nothing spectacular by any
means either, which is disappointing considering the film has a good sound mix
and also a sweet score by Burkhard von Dallwitz and more especially certain
numbers by Philip Glass. Those reasons
alone make a good argument why this film needs DTS sound for this DVD. I was shocked when I compared the difference
between Paramount’s DVD of The Hours
in Dolby Digital to the Japanese import that includes DTS and how the Philip
Glass score in that case just swallowed the room up in sound and ambience. Too many studios are under the impression
that DTS sound is only needed for slam-bang action movies or lots of explosions,
but that is simply not the case at all.
There are little exceptions of where DTS could not be utilized because
every film will benefit on some degree with better fidelity for music,
dialogue, and the overall sound design, regardless of genre.
The big payoff to upgrading to this edition though is the
extras, which include a ‘making of’ feature called “How’s it Going to End?” and a really interesting featurette on the
special effects of the movie, which are really good and visually spot-on. There are 8 deleted/extended scenes that are
better left out of the film and trailers, TV spots, and a photo gallery to
round out this Special Edition. The
only bummer is that Peter Weir did not do a commentary track, which would have
been most welcome.
- Nate Goss
