After watching "Truman's World", you can probably understand the meaning of "black humor".
From the moment the protagonist of the movie, Truman, began a 24-hour uninterrupted live reality show, with 1.7 billion TV viewers in 220 countries around the world, more than 5,000 cameras, everyone knows that the world is fake, and only Truman himself enjoys it.
There's a lot more you don't know about this "big reality show."
Director Peter Weir revealed in an interview that the prototype of "Truman's World" is the king of pop music in the spotlight, Michael Jackson.
"He was the prototype of my idea of the character of Truman, and he was the closest to the character of Truman. The connection between Michael Jackson and Truman is simple, they both have hearts, but people only see them as entertaining items. ”
Michael Jackson has also said many times that he feels like he's living in a glass jar with everyone spying on him.
Apparently, Truman under Peter Will's lens is the luckier one, he broke free of all the shackles in the thirtieth year and can go to find the real world.
Kim Carey was a comedian before making the film.
After the family went bankrupt, the 15-year-old, with the help of his father, performed at a comedy club in Toronto. At that time, in order to help his father pay off his debts, Kim Carey took almost any role, and with his nonsensical acting style and unique comedic talent, the film was once paid as much as $20 million.
When receiving the script of "Truman's World", Kim Carey found that this was completely different from his previous image, and Truman was the role he had been waiting for.
Gary Oldman, who played the villain in "This Killer Is Not Too Cold," made it clear that he wanted to star in the film, and Kim Carey offered the director a willingness to reduce his salary to $12 million in order to get the role.
In terms of the crew, director Peter Will felt that Gary Oldman looked too smart, not like a person who had been deceived for so long, he took a fancy to Kim Carey's cute temperament, not only determined to let him play Truman, but also waited for him to start filming for a year when Kim Carey still had a film contract.
As one of the must-see masterpieces of the classic films that have long been ranked in the IMDB and Douban TOP250, Kim Carey won the 56th Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor for the film, and in the Oscars that year, the film was only nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Kim Carey has not only not been crowned an Oscar since then, but has never even been nominated.
Many people questioned the Oscar jury, saying that they were not optimistic about comedians. But Kim Carey's comedic talent is only part of his excellent talent, and he has performed superbly in many classic works such as "Mr. Good", "Impostor God", and "Warm And Warm With Light".
Placing the protagonist of the film in a big reality show seems to be a very special brain hole, but the screenwriter Andrew Nicole is not the first person to think like this.
As early as 1968, there was a 30-minute short film "Secret Cinema" in the United States, which told the life of a woman, her world existed in the shooting, and was seen by everyone in public form.
Asked about "plagiarism," Andrew Nicole said he had never seen the short before writing the script, and he was surprised that the inspiration was so similar.
This just proves that thinking about the real world seems to be the eternal proposition of mankind.
After the release of the movie, people were shocked by the ideas in the film, and many people began to think about whether their lives were like Truman, just a large-scale reality show.
In 2008, a psychologist from the United States said that all five of his patients had a common idea, that is, after watching "Truman's World", they all believed that they were living in such a TV show.
This symptom was later judged to be "Truman sequelae", and surprisingly, there may be thousands of people in the world who have similar symptoms.
Life is like a play, drama is like life, which explains why many works invariably choose this theme.
As the line in the movie says, "I may be being manipulated." Do you feel like you've been involuntary all your life? ”
Who hasn't lived under arrangement and prying eyes?
The Taoyuan Island where the protagonist Truman lives in the movie actually exists, it is located in a coastal town in Florida, WestSide.
In the early stage of planning, the director also wanted to build Truman's residence in the studio, but it was difficult to implement.
Finally, on the recommendation of vision consultant Wendy Stitz, We found Westside, a town built in 1980 as a well-equipped community with more than 300 homes in a uniform style and each street leading to the sea, making it an ideal location for filming.
The director also invited the local police officer of Westside to play in the film, and made a cameo appearance in the film as Ron and Don, the police officers of Taoyuan Island, and when you heard about this small story, are you also a little confused about drama and reality.
During the release of Truman's World in the United States, director Peter Will made an interesting attempt to install cameras in several theaters directly above the screens of the audience, and these cameras were connected to the theater projectors.
When the audience sees a node, he will deliberately switch the picture on the big screen so that the audience present can see themselves from the big screen.
Such a special idea really allows people in reality to experience the blurred boundary between the real world and the fictional world.
After the movie caught fire, the director and screenwriter also planned to shoot a prequel to the film, telling that before he was born, his parents were planning to sign a reality show with the TV station to produce a reality show, which was later the "Truman Show", but gave up due to investment problems.
The "fake documentaries" of the Truman show have been filmed and not used in the final version, but in some versions of the movies that aircraft, these clips are included for passengers to pass the time.
In 1998, when it was released, most of the films had a picture ratio of 1.85:1, but director Peter Weir chose to shoot in a 1.66:1 format in order to make the film look more like a TV show.
I don't know if you noticed, Truman's sailing ship was called "Santa Maria", the same name as a ship of Columbus's fleet, and they all discovered their own new continent.
Christopher, the director of the "Truman Show" in the movie, said: "He can go at any time, if he is a little ambitious and determined to find out the truth, no one can stop him, Truman is willing to sit in your so-called prison." ”
Truman leaves this fictional world at the end of the film, but no one tells us what happened to him.
With a stable life and a challenging real world, how will you choose?