MikeH

26th Jan 2019

The Truman Show (1998)

Question: What ended up happening with Truman's "father"? It seems like him returning convinced him to stay, but then all of a sudden he decided to leave. So does that mean he was faking it when he hugged him, and he knew he wasn't actually his father?

MikeH

Answer: His reaction to his father's return was genuine. However, as time went on more clues helped him realise some of the truth. Enough, in fact, that he became determined to learn what was actually going on.

16th Mar 2015

The Truman Show (1998)

Question: How does Christof talk to the actors? They don't look like they have earpieces, and if they do, why didn't that make Truman suspicious earlier?

MikeH

Answer: They do have earpieces, just minuscule ones that can't be seen unless you are looking directly into a persons ear. As shown in the scene with Marlon on the beach, he is being fed his lines by such an earpiece. They are also present when Truman is in his car and he picks up the signal they are using to show where he is at the given time. Also, even though you can hear what someone is saying, you can't talk back to them which is why Meryl and Marlon had to talk to a camera when requesting help/confirming Truman wasn't there.

Yep, that's it. Also, the earpieces might not even be that small but Truman isn't looking for them and thus doesn't see them.

lionhead

Chosen answer: It appears that Christof and the control team in the moon did not, in fact, have contact with the actors very often. It is more likely he had contact with people on the ground who could make things happen per his instructions. But there were inconsistencies. For example, how could he create instantaneous traffic jams at a moment's notice, and set up a hazardous spill scene on the outskirts of town to prevent Truman from leaving Seahaven, but he couldn't get anyone to interrupt or vary the cycle of movements by extras that Truman watched in his rear view mirror when he was trying to convince his wife something in their town was amiss - even when he was talking aloud, anticipating the next extra's move before it happened? Christof could arrange for a road race to happen by and to have people almost instantaneously hustle Truman's father onto a bus when he showed up in town as a homeless man, but it took quite some time to get Sylvia's father onto the beach to whisk her away to Fiji, even though Christof knew exactly where they were headed. And when Truman and Meryl were having their major argument in their kitchen, Christof could engineer Marlon to show up with a six pack of beer, but he couldn't communicate with Meryl to provide her advice on how to handle the situation, and she ended up screaming for help into a camera. I think Christof did place some sort of communication/listening device on some actors at critical times. We saw that in a couple of instances (e.g. When Marlon went into Truman's basement looking for an already disappeared Truman, Christof was feeding him direct instructions). But I don't think it was routinely done. And when it was, Christof's surely would have had the technical know-how to create a supremely inconspicuous piece of equipment.

Michael Albert

2nd Feb 2015

The Truman Show (1998)

Question: How could people sneak into the show? It's in a large dome, and I assume there's lots of security.

MikeH

Chosen answer: A motivated individual can find a way. One could get hired as an extra, or as a crew member. And one could certainly simply elude security. The larger the operation, the easier it is to find holes in the system. We have certainly seen many instances of that in real life, in museums, theme parks, celebrity residences, national landmarks, etc. Why not in a fictional, dome-enclosed town?

Michael Albert

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