Erik

Unfortunately, I too am unable to add any "serious academic philosophical
commentary" on 'The Truman Show'. But I would like to add 'Wag the Dog' and
'Audition' to your list of films/tv that are indicative of what you call "a
larger trend of late 90s early 00s Hollywood films that treat some type of
illusionary real".

And I would also like to add, that I see these films as having their
foundations in the art, film and literature of 1970s American society.  A
post-Nixon culture swamped in an intense mistrust of authority and generally
a period when many were beginning to once again question the very 'realness'
of what they were told to believe about the world that surrounded them as in
Peter Hyams's questioning of the reality of the America's space program in
'Capricorn One' (1978) and much later John Carpenter's questioning of the
reality of society itself in 'They Live', a question that would once again
be asked in The Matrix years later, but with many, many more special
effects.  Indeed, in the 1970s not even seeing could still be equated with
believing as in Michael Crichton's WestWorld (1973), Richard T. Heffron's
Futureworld (1976, Philip Kaufman's remake of 'Invasion of the Body
Snatchers' (1978),  John Carpenter's 'The Thing' (1982)and much later,
returning to the original point, 'The Truman Show'.

So perhaps this isn't such a new phenomenon afterall.

Food for thought anyway perhaps

Simon




-----Original Message-----
From: Film-Philosophy Salon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Erik Marshall
Sent: 18 October 2001 04:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Truman Show- Help Please!


On a rather simplistic level, I have used the film when talking to classes
about Foucault's Panopticon, not in terms of Truman, but rather the other
inhabitants, the actors, in Truman's world. The comparison is hardly
seamless, but it is fun.

I see _The Truman Show_ as indicative of a larger trend of late 90s early
00s Hollywood films that treat some type of illusionary real, such as
Proyas's _Dark City_, Cronenberg's _eXistenZ_, _The Matrix_, of course,
_Stange Days_ , and, why not, _Memento_ and _Fight Club_, as well as some
others that I cannot recall now.

I'm not sure that I've come up with a convincing thesis about these...just
an observation that there have been many films of late that deal with the
nature of reality, as created, implanted, or otherwise constructed.

Of course, this is not "serious academic philosophical commentary," as you
requested, but merely additional things that may be worth thinking about.

Erik