The Truman Show

The Truman Show is a film that held up a mirror to our society. Based upon a reality show that centers around a man, Truman, who is the only person who isn’t in on it. The show adopted Truman as a child and has followed him since he was a baby. The world that he lives on is completely artificially. All of the poeple that Truman encounters on a daily basis are actors, and Truman is merely reacting to the reality that they attempt to create for him. A mastermind director known as Christoph has orchestrated his reality. The film itself is a reflection on our societies infatuation with voyeurism and reality. It also comments on the connection that our society has with the digital world, for example when transmission cuts the two woman wake up as if they perceived the disruption.


Christoph is the Genius behind the Truman Show, he is able to orchestrate drama to keep viewers interested while still maintaining a reality for Truman that keeps him confined to his own world. Christoph exploits Truman’s own real emotions through creating situations that will evoke real emotions. Suddenly, at the opening of the film, Truman’s reality is shattered – literally – when a light falls from the sky. This begins the eventual decay of the alternate reality they have created for Truman.


Christoph has a sort of paternal feeling for Truman, but not the person – his creation. Christoph has managed to created this iconic being –Truman – through the use of dramatic effect such as music and camera angels. The movie shows us the great detail which goes into the construction of a scene in The Truman Show, when Truman reaches one of his great moments – being reunited with his father. Christoph maintains total artistic control over that moment, he is literally directing a moment of a persons life. This is just another example of how Christoph is the God of Truman’s world. He, literally, is able to cue the sun.


The details in the film are amazing, for example when Truman goes into the Travel agent and is met with posters of horrible things like a lightning bolt hitting a plane. the entire world in which Truman lives reacts to every misstep. For example after Truman’s father breaks back into the set, the next day a newspaper remarks that they are attempting to clean up the homeless.


The film was shot in ratio more similar to television that film, which helps to immerse the audience more in this reality that is supposedly televised. It is a commentary on our society and how the lives of people have become fodder for our reality television. The whole idea of the melding of reality, television, and film are great forces at play in The Truman Show. The viewer constantly has to be aware of if what they are watching is the film, or one of the shots from the television show. The movie is able to make this more obvious to the viewer through the use of the distinct camera angles such as the fisheye, the "button cam", the camera on the dog, the carbage can, and countless other angles. Truman's entire world is rigged like one giant set, always orchestrated to get the best angle. This can be seen when the camera follows Truman from the rear view window of the car.


The last hurrah of the Truman Show is his escape. SInce a young age Truman had been engraned with a love of exploration. The powers that be a constantly trying to quell this adventurous spirit. The travel agency is one example, but even as a child his teacher explains that there is nothing left to explore. It soon became obvious that a more drastic way of keeping Truman on the island was needed, this was when Truman's father was killed off. His father was drowned at sea. This created a very integral emotional and psychological barrier to keep Truman contained on the island. They are constantly using fear to keep Truman on track, such as the use of the dog. Eventually thought, things must come to an end. Just as Truman's love interes has the pin which asks how this will all end, the viewer wonders. Eventually after a tumultious escape through sea, Truman finds his way to the edge of his reality. Christoph apears as a God-like figure speaking from the sky. Truman walks up a staircase which blends into the sky painted wall, which is an amazing metaphor of the melding of the real and fake. And as he takes his last bow he says -- "Good afternoon, Good Evening, and Good Night"

Conceiving Ada

This film is very unique. It allowed us to see the way that a director can utilize a digital set. I found this idea to be an interesting concept. It is a good way to save money, but personally I think that the lackluster performance of the actors could be contributed to this lack of a tactile setting to use for the performance. The way that these digital sets where created was that the director went around to several houses and photographed them, then she put her actors against a blue screen and put the two together in post production. Though this is said to make some sort of artistic statement in the film, it was also done because of the limited budget for the film.
What made this film important to our class, however, is its discussion of the digital world. Ada, refers to Ada Lovelace, for whom a whole digital language was named. Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron. It also refers to Charles Babbage, who created one of the first devices that could be referred to as a “computer”, which is the difference engine. This device was actually a large mechanical device which could compute numbers. This film centers around the idea that Ada could help Charles perfect his design.
Ada also eventually comes into contact with Emmy, through a completely surreal set of circumstances. Emmy creates a digital bird, which is similar to the one created at MIT. This bird is a digital version of the mechanical one given to Ada by Charles Babbage. Through some interesting channel of communication this bird is able to link up Ada and Emmy. The film describes it as using digitized DNA of something of that sort,b but really the film does a bad job of making this concept clear to the viewer. Emmy can see into Ada’s thoughts and communicate with her. This creates some sort of gap in time and space that the film tries to explain, but fails at.
The woman who created this movie is full of interesting concepts, and I have been able to gain a greater understanding of this film by learning more about her. She is very concerned with escaping herself and creating new individuals, which she considers “art.” In class we viewed some of her “art” which consisted of her making random, and as she insists “personal” confessions into a video camera. This woman also created another form of “art” which involved her going out as another person some days. This escapism that the “artist” is so concerned with is a major theme in the movie, in my opinion. It seams the artist is always looking to escape herself, just as the character in the film is so concerned with finding this new person. In the end this also becomes significant because Emmy declares that she will let Ada live on through herself to let her accomplishments be recognized.
This film was an interesting choice for the class. It served to show us that a filmmaker could choose to use a digital set, instead of a real one. This has become an interesting topic in filmmaking because of the increasing popularity of Blue Screen epics such as Star Wars. This film, however, shows us every negative of the blue screen being used in film. The actors, who were not amazing to begin with, are further debilitated by their lack of surroundings to react to. The sets are so fake looking that they take away from the story in some parts.

johnny Mnemonic

This film is one of the first ones to strongly introduce cyber-punk. This cyber-punk movement was created by William Gibson who wrote the original story as well as the screenplay for the film.

The story centers around Johnny Pneumonic who has the ability to store large amounts of memory is his brain. This memory is used to store sensitive information, for which Johnny acts as a human currier. In order to gain the amount of memory that he can use for this storage, Johnny had to give up his childhood memories. This makes one wonder about whether he had something tragic to give up, or whether he just really needed the job. In any case, the removal of his childhood memories has greatly affected the way that Johnny views the world. He is very selfish, as made obvious in the "Room Service" scene. He has become so selfish because he cannot remember a time when any truly cared about him, such as his childhood.

This film is interesting got view because it started out with such promise, in the form of the genius writer William Gibson, but fell short because of a bad director who was actually used to doing feature film’s William Gibson was a very talented writer who actually coined the term "Cyberspace”


Gibson was able to put the intricate digital world into his own form of poetry. Also his concept of having Johnny be able to act within the cyber world was very unique.

Where the film went wrong is the director, Robert Longo. He was known for his visual arts, not his films. Because of this a majority of the acting is horrible. It seams Longo was more concerned with the surroundings that the actors inhabited that their acting itself. Because of this a lot of the scene constructions are very very good, but the acting is quite the opposite. An example of the beautiful staging is the chase scene that looks like Kabuki Theater. All of the movements are very graceful.

Total Recall

Total recall brings another perception of the evolution of virtual reality. In the world of total recall virtual reality has advanced to the point where a completely realistic world can be created within someones mind. This virtual world leads the characters of this film to confront the idea of reality. Througout the movie the main characters, specifically Quad, are questioning whether or not what is being experienced is reality, or merely a manufactured memory within the mind. The director of the film adds several layers in order to constantly leave the viewer, themselves, questioning whether or not the characters in the film are in reality or a manufactured reality. The creator of the program which creates the manufactured reality actually enters the mind of Quad and tries to persuad him that what he experiences isnt happening in the physical world. Instead of accepting what he is hearing, and taking the opportunity to exit this experience Quad decides to remain, whether what he is experiencing is real or not. This is a commentary about the fact that people might actually prefer to live in an alternate reality that is interesting than a reality that isn't.



In the film Oxygen has become a reasorce on Mars, similar to oil today. This gins the central conflict of the plot. Not having the right amount of oxygen leads to a race of people with birth defects, but also psychic abilities. One of these people is leading an uprising which is a major source of conflic in the film.



Throughout the film Quad descovers several things about himself. He apparently has an alter ego which is a bad person who doenst care about those people who are stuggling on mars. Quade makes the decision to ignore this evil alter ego which may be who he was prior to the experience.
In the end of the film quade remarks that this may all be a dream, but that isnt whats really relivant. This is a commentary on the fact that it isnt a matter of what is real or not, its a matter of what you beleive in .

Blade Runner

Blade Runner focusses on a new aspect of technology -- the cyborg. The creaters of these cyborgs were so succesful that their craetions are in fact a danger to society. After an uprising of the cyborgs, or replicants, they must be restrained. The replicants are kept on a seperate planet. This idea of isolation is interesting because it is almost a new form of racism for cyborgs, this is a commentary on our society and how we are intimidated by anything that is different or that we perceive as a threat to our way of life. The cyborg combines aspects of technology with aspects of humanity. Modern society could be said to contain cyborgs, for example, peope with advanced prostetics. The cyborgs in this film are also very human -- when their skins are pierced they bleed. This brings a humanity to all machines, when you pierce their outer layer, they bear their insides just like humans. Another idea that is touched upon is the idea of reality versus perception.

TRON

Tron was an interesting movie, because it is beginning to illuminate the eventual evolution of the representation of technology and computers in film. This film, created in the 80s, was the first movie we have watched which has integrated digital and live action together. This brings elements to the story, which would not have been possible before. The way in which the film was shot was revolutionary. The actors where shot on black and white film on blue screen. From that film many different layers were created in order to give the scenes their unique looks and feels. A majority of the scenery in the digital world was constructed inside of a computer, which, though know readily accepted, was revolutionary and origianl at the time.



Tron also addresses ideas seen in previous films, such as those of artificial intelligence. The Master Control Program, of MCP, was originally created to play chess and ended up growing smarter and more powerful than those who created. The MCP ends up being shut down in order to free the oppressed programs within the system. The MCP also attempts to blackmail Dillenger, the head of the company. This is similar to when HAL deceives the passengers on the ship. The idea of computers being able to outsmart their users is a theme, which seams to come to the forefront in a lot of movies, which are focused on computers and technology.



In Tron many of the real life programs have computer programs, which are their alter egos. The computer program alter egos refer to their real counterparts as “users.” The users provide the purpose for their programs and define their actions. The only character that is outside this system in Flynn. Flynn is digitized and sent directly into the computer program. After being digitized he is sent through a sequence, which serves to transition from the live action into the digital world. This serves to orient the viewer into the new world. Once inside he is set on the course to overthrow the MCP.
Many of the sets in this film are constructed using computers and special effects, this adds to the digital world in which the computer programs exist. The movie also utilizes light and color to add to the narrative. Many evil characters are denoted by red lights coming from their uniforms, while good characters normally are blue.

THX-1138

THX- 1138 was a film that went more deeply into the themes of privacy, personal choice, and the way in which technology can influence the evolution of our society. In the world of THS not only life, but death have been trivialized. A computer camly announced deaths in the hundreds, while others are told to stay calm and finish their work. The populatrion is kept docile and relatively devoid of emotion though drugs. The characters in this film all look the same, signaling the way in which the technology of the future could lead to the downfall of individuality and creative thought. Also their heads are shaved, this could be a commentary on the decline of sexuality and devision between the sexes.

An interesting element of the film was the use of religion to control the population. This was made apparent when THX went to the little prayer booth. In this booth the representation of Jesus only gave him standard generic advice without actually showing any real insight. This illuminates the way in which the population is being commoditized and streamlined in their thought to the point where most of their problems can be answered with a series of planned responses. Later when the control center for the religion is infiltrated, THX is told that he isn’t supposed to be there. The center for religion is, in effect, a set. Also when his confession is over, the deity in the booth to which he has been confessing, tells him that one way to happiness is to consume and buy things. In effect religion is being used to control the population and manipulate them.


The way in which Lucas utilizes existing structures illuminates the fact that, in a way, our society is already living in the future. Overall I liked the movie for the creative way in which it tried to make its statement. The only thing I would change is that the scenes, which were recently added, took away from the plot because they looked so different than the rest of the film. It looked like they cut in clips from star wars in the middle of the film.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey was a great film to start off the semester. Its merging of the birth of technology and the evolution into the age of space travel added was able to illuminate the significance of technology in our lives. The way the shot of the bone being thrown up cuts to the space ship in the air was a very interesting message about how technology is an extension of man. Another interesting topic brought to light in 2001 is the concept of aritificial intelligence. This is done through HAL, the robot aboard the ship. HAL’s intelligence eventually leads him to murder some of the passengers aboard the ship.This choice by HAL at once shows the human characteristics taken on by the robot and the drastic differences. HAL is shows very logical, formulaic thought in his murdering of the passengers – seeing them as merely malfunctioning units of the crew, but he is also very human in his use of deception and his recounting his life as her is shut down. Overall I enjoyed the message of the movie, although I wonder why every movie that focuses on technology must display it in a negative light.