(3 of 4)
Why did a light fixture fall from the sky? Why was he caught in a rain shower only five feet wide? And his wedding photo: Meryl has her fingers crossed! Pod lady or Stepford wife, Meryl has a tang of arsenic in her syrupy voice. And perhaps never in film history has an actress allowed her chiseled dimples to be used so mercilessly against her; the creases in Linney's cheeks seem to be the first fissures in Meryl's crackup.
Truman's trek will take him on a rough sailing to the edge of his universe--so close he can literally touch it--and to the shattering answers to the questions consuming him. This makes The Truman Show a quest movie. Our hero's need to know himself and his place in the universe gives the viewer a passionate rooting interest. But like any supple parable, the film allows for several plausible interpretations. It is also about control--the control we try to exercise over ourselves and others, using stratagems of love, hope and fear. Most people think they have something to do with shaping their existence. But what if that's a fiction? Who's directing our lives? And how do we negotiate with God or fate or the great TV auteur in the sky? Finally, the film speaks to man's isolation from the world around him. The solipsist believes that he is the only reality; everything else is just...TV.
Niccol, a young New Zealander, wrote the script in 1993, and wrote and directed last year's swank science fable Gattaca, which has much the same story (in the near future, one human man is surrounded by handsome humanoids). Niccol says the only source material he needed for The Truman Show was his own paranoia. "I often felt people were lying to me," he declares. But as the '90s devolved into media spectacles of Bronco chases, freeway suicides and Jerry Springer grudge matches, the conceit of TV as worldwide psychodrama seemed prescient. "I used to think the idea was ludicrously farfetched," Niccol says, "but now I have to wonder."
Niccol sold his spec script to the world's savviest producer, Scott Rudin (In & Out, Clueless, The First Wives Club), who took it straight to Carrey. "Jim had the kind of madness the project needed to ultimately get made," he says. "And his warmth was a hedge against a movie that could have been on the cold side and needed someone with audience sympathy."
The original script was set in New York City. When Niccol teamed with Weir, they changed the scene to Seahaven (much of the film was shot in Seaside, a Florida resort community), where everyone loves Truman because, well, they're paid to. Says Niccol: "We decided to make him a prisoner in paradise." He toyed with various endings--Truman stumbles into a Truman Burbank memorabilia shop, Truman is reunited with his lost love, Truman decides he loves life on TV--and finally devised the current ending, nicely abrupt and ambiguous. "We felt the viewer could write a better ending of the next years in Truman's life," says Weir.
In a movie about acting, the actors had a great time building elaborate back stories for their characters under the guidance of Weir, known as the Chiropractor for his ability to help actors stretch their craft. Linney's and Emmerich's takes on Meryl and Marlon are so rich that one would like to see alternate versions of the film just to catch up on their ambitions and angst.