The Truman Show (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Trailer-2
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	98:45
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (53:06)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Peter Weir
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Jim Carrey Laura Linney Noah Emmerich Natascha McElhone Holland Taylor Ed Harris
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Burkhard Dallwitz

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is an insurance salesman living in a seaside town called Seahaven (in reality Seaside, a planned community on the Gulf Coast near Tampa). His life epitomizes middle-class America - he has a pretty if somewhat vapid blonde wife called Meryl (Laura Linney), he lives in a nice big house with a white picket fence, he drives a Ford Taurus (the most popular sedan in the States), he has an amiable best friend that he's known since he was seven years old called Marlon (Noah Emmerich), ...

    You would think he is just an ordinary man living an ordinary life, but it's all fake, except for Truman himself. The town that he lives in - including the the sea, the sky, the sun, moon and even the stars - are in reality one gigantic TV studio ("the largest man-made structure on the planet, the only structure other that the Great Wall of China visible from outer space") and everyone around him - including his wife, his parents and even his best friend - are professional actors who play their roles in the most popular continuously running TV show in the world - "The Truman Show."

    Truman is the only one in the TV show who doesn't know that he is in a TV show, because he's been in it for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year ever since he was born - he was officially "adopted" (read - owned) by the TV studio. His whole life is captured on over 5000 hidden cameras scattered around the studio and the events in his life have been manipulated by the show's producer and director Christof (Ed Harris). The show is watched by millions all over the world who are fascinated by his natural and unscripted reactions to things that happen to him.

    The plot line revolves around Truman gradually piecing together clues that his life is not quite "normal" or "natural", together with his growing restlessness and desire to see more of the world. Also, he is still pining for his "lost love" Lauren Garland/Sylvia (Natascha McElhone) - a girl he was never even supposed to meet and yet they did against all odds.

    Truman does have a few neuroses - an abhorrence of water (because his "father" supposedly drowned after falling from a boat during a storm, and a fascination with Fiji (supposedly where "Lauren"/Sylvia has migrated to).

    Will Truman ever learn the truth? Will he be able to leave the studio and perhaps even reunite with Sylvia?

    I don't normally like actor Jim Carrey or the kind of films he stars in, but I was fascinated by The Truman Show. Australian-born director Peter Weir gives us a very tightly filmed movie that continually stretches the boundary between fantasy and reality. Unusual camera angles remind us that we are supposedly watching reality TV from hidden cameras, but this is never taken to such an extreme that the film becomes uncomfortable to watch.

    I like the subtle touches in the film - including the "fake" opening titles corresponding to the opening titles of the TV show, the obviously fake magazine titles and product names, the surreal product placement scenes, right down to the cameos of typical avid viewers of the TV show - though the depictions of the latter are somewhat unrealistic. I mean, who stays in the bath for what must be weeks on end? And surely those two old ladies can't be clutching that cute little Truman pillow 24 hours a day?

Video

    I was initially prepared to be disappointed by the quality of the transfer, as the opening scene (0:18-0:45), featuring an "interview" with Christof, seemed to be somewhat grainy and slightly soft, with mild shimmering around the bottom of the frames of his glasses.

    However, the quality of the transfer improves markedly as the film progresses, to the point where I will say this is one of the best transfers I have ever seen, period. The detail and colour saturation is pretty much perfect, and there are no MPEG artefacts to be seen, probably because the DVD authors have decided not to skimp on the transfer rate by spreading the relatively short film (under 100 minutes) over two layers instead of cramming everything onto one layer.

    The colours of the daytime scenes are very bright and natural-looking, with the sunset scenes looking suitably glorious. The black levels in the night-time scenes are quite good. Sharpness is excellent, showing lots of detail with no evidence of edge enhancement at all. An example of the superb detail present in this transfer is the close-up of the insurance application form around 6:04 - the small print is just readable on a good display. All in all, this is pretty much a demo quality video transfer.

    The film source is relatively clean, apart from slight grain during the opening scene (as mentioned earlier). There is a rather large mark on the left half of the frame around 51:23. Film-to-video artefacts are limited to minor shimmering here and there, and a rather bad case of moiré patterns on Truman's night-shirt from 67:21 to 68:32.

    There is one subtitle track on this disc - English - and it's pretty average as subtitle tracks go.

    As mentioned earlier, this is a single sided dual layer disc (RSDL) and the layer change occurs just before Chapter 15 at 53:06. This is a somewhat annoying change as the freeze on Marlon hugging Meryl is quite noticeable. As there is a scene change going into Chapter 15, I wonder if they could have timed it a split second later, say at a blank frame or something.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue is very easy to understand at all times, and there are no audio synchronization issues. The soundtrack sounds quite rich-bodied and natural-sounding, with a good balance between dialogue, background music and ambient effects.

    A bonus for me is the inclusion of music composed by the famous "minimalist" composer Philip Glass in some of the key scenes, notably excerpts from two of his musical scores for other films (Powaqqatsi and Mishima). Philip actually has a cameo role in the film, as he is captured playing the piano in the background in 66:55-67:05.

The only disappointment for me is the relative under-utilization of the rear surround channels and subwoofer. Whilst this is not an action film, and the surround speakers are utilized occasionally for ambience and music, I think in general the soundtrack is very front-focused, even during scenes where you would have expected a more enveloping soundfield, such as during the artificially generated storm intended to force Truman to turn back when he is on the sail boat.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers

• 1.66:1 letterboxed aspect ratio
• English and French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround tracks
• French subtitles

• 1.78:1 aspect ratio with 16x9 enhancement

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall