In the film “The Truman Show” the director, Peter Weir, is a film about a citizen from seahaven “Truman Burbank’s the main protagonist of the movie who’s freedom got held back from him. Throughout the film the executive producer Christof (Ed Harris) orchestrates “The Truman Show” a live broadcast of Truman’s every move captured with hidden cameras around seahaven.Throughout the film, Peter Weir uses variety of techniques to emphasize different scenes in the movie, by doing this he creates certain themes and ideas to the audience to show tension and to create a calm or dense atmosphere.
One scene in the movie “Thar She Blows” is a great example of the techniques Peter Weir has used, where Truman tries to conquer his fear of the water and escape from seahaven as he take off on a yacht on to the vast sea which he only comes to find out that his whole life had only taken place in a large dome as he hits the edge of his virtual world (The Dome). Peter Weir uses various amount of film techniques including soundtrack/music, this technique helps develop the scene as it lets the audience know about the situation and the pace it’s going at, for example from the beginning of the scene “thar she blows” the director chooses to play a calm and soothing music as Truman heads out into the sea with a high angle shot of him on the boat and heading out into the sea this resembles his freedom from seahaven. The viewer gets a better understanding of the theme/idea of the scene, because the music emphasizes the journey that Truman is about to go through as its starts out with a calm atmosphere and slowly increases in tempo as the conditions in the storm get worse, as Christof puts Truman through the resilient conditions when in the storm, as he escapes from seahaven which for him was a jail that held him back from the real world aspects. Using the technique soundtrack/music Peter Weir develops a certain feeling of the scene “thar she blows” as it adds pace to the scene and to give the scene extra effects the director switches through multiple scenes (Montage), as he switches through multiple scenes continuously it goes along with the music/soundtrack this gives us an idea of the scenes pace and what truman is going through in the in sea, in and out of the storm in a various amount of camera angles, because of the music, a thrilling and intense mood is present in the scene, we can also tell this by the reaction of the people watching ” The Truman Show” (in the movie) as the music/soundtrack continues playing, as it changes in pace whilst switching through multiple shots. During the scene “Thar She Blows” dialogue was one of the key techniques that helped me understand certain scenes, dialogue tells the audience how a certain character feels or their opinion towards a certain person or a group. In this case when Christof tries to kill Truman when he was in the sea trying to escape seahaven, one of Christof’s vise helpers told Cristof “We can’t let him die in front of a live audience” and in reply Christof in no emotion or sympathy quotes “He was born in front of live audience” this tells us that Christof does not care about Truman no matter the result, this shows us how determined he is about the story and how the show started and finishes, this also exhibits the inner truth about Christof as makes sure he gets his thoughts across to everyone in the moon studio, it also tells the audience that he has no mercy for Truman, we can see that Christof also doesn’t like to be taunted at when Truman yells out from the boat ” is that the best you got”, with truman saying this we can tell that he was well aware of what was happening to him and that everything in his life from birth was all controlled and nothing in the world he had lived in was part of the real world, his expression while saying “is that the best you got” clearly showed Truman had not had enough of Christof and what he’s got for him. This caused Christof to increase the wind speed and the size of the waves to make sure Truman gets his full wrath and what he is capable of doing, this also explains how he has treated Truman throughout the movie this goes to how when Christof manipulated Truman about his dad being dead.
We can clearly tell that Christof does not want Truman to know about the truth and that he does not live in a real world but within a virtual world, as Truman hoists himself up toward the sail, Christof commands the control manager in anger “give me some lightning” this is to put fear into Truman that he has no fear of hurting him and that he will try stopping him no matter what he has to do, this also stimulates the audience of the danger that Truman is out through, for example when the camera cuts to the man in the bathroom we can see his agitated facial expression as he clings onto the shower curtains yelling “you can do, hold onnn” this is the same expression that Peter Weir whats us audience to feel with a nervous aphosphere and to shock the audience with the dialogue from this scene. He is showing us that even we, the movie watchers sometimes forget how morally wrong the situation in the movie is.
