THE MT VOID
06/02/23 -- Vol. 41, No. 49, Whole Number 2278

Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Sending Address: evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
All material is the opinion of the author and is copyrighted by the
author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent or posted will be assumed authorized for
inclusion unless otherwise noted.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to eleeper@optonline.net
The latest issue is at <http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm>.
An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at
<http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm>.

Topics:
THE TRUMAN SHOW (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Film Triangles (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Oscar Micheaux and DANGEROUS VISIONS AND NEW WORLDS
(letter of comment by John Purcell)
Tree of Life Plant (letter of comment by Art Kaletsky)
This Week's Reading ("Rabbi Ben Ezra") (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)

==================================================================
TOPIC: THE TRUMAN SHOW (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

[In honor of THE TRUMAN SHOW's 25th anniversary on June 5, here is
Mark's original review of that film.]

Capsule: A man lives his life not realizing that he is on
television and an audience of millions watches his every move.
But the game is starting to slip and Truman is beginning to guess
that reality is not what he thinks it is. Jim Carrey stars in an
old science fiction idea that is new to films. After several years
Peter Weir returns to the weird. Rating: 9 (0 to 10), +3 (-4 to
+4) SPOILER WARNING: The premise of THE TRUMAN SHOW is told in
all of the trailers, but it is not fully revealed until well into
the film. This review does discuss that premise.

There was a time when Australian Peter Weir made strange and quirky
films like THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS, THE PLUMBER, and THE LAST
WAVE. But Weir lost that level of creativity at some point. His
films were more professional and perhaps more polished, but they
were closer to Hollywood fare. At most they had just a small
whiff of the strange his earlier films had. It has been a long
time since Weir made a film as enthralling philosophically as THE
TRUMAN SHOW. Weir looks at the media and what it is doing to both
the viewer and the person under media scrutiny. The film also
takes a playful look at the relationship between humanity and God.

Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey) is now thirty and through his
whole life he has been off-camera only in his most private
moments. In some unspecified number of years, in the future people
all over the world tune in to watch THE TRUMAN SHOW and track how
his life is progressing. As sort of a cross between AN AMERICAN
FAMILY and CANDID CAMERA, "The Truman Show" follows one character
through his every day and even his every move. Truman has no idea
that he is being watched. If he knew it would spoil the entire
project. And a phenomenal investment has been put into creating
the huge domed studio the size of a town with cameras everywhere
to relay to the world everything that happens to Truman.

The whole project is the brainchild of the godlike producer
Christof (Ed Harris). No effort has been spared to build the
unbelievable domed studio or to ingrain phobias into Truman so that
he is afraid to stray too far from his home. As part of the
latter effort we see a visit to a travel agent who has decorated
her office with marvelous anti-travel posters. Christof has
programmed nearly everything that has ever happened to Truman.
Christof has cast the important people in Truman's life including
his supposed parents and his wife Meryl (Laura Linney of TALES OF
THE CITY). Meryl's responsibilities include keeping Truman in line
and unsuspecting, delivering charming commercials for sponsors'
products placed into Truman's world, and above all to keep
smiling. But things are getting a little difficult for Meryl as
Christof's production staff gets a little sloppy: lights fall from
a clear sky and supposedly dead characters from Truman's past find
their way back onto the show set. Truman is starting to get
suspicious that there is something not right about his reality.

Does Jim Carrey do a good job of playing Truman Burbank? That is a
very difficult question to answer. At first brush it would seem
not. Carrey is his usual weird and does his trademarked brand of
clowning around. Is this the way someone raised on camera with
scripted experience would behave? Probably not, but it is unclear
how he would behave. He almost certainly would lean to some form
of weird. Whether this is one way he could be weird is hard to
tell. The constantly smiling Laura Linney is at first charming
and quickly becomes grating, but again these are unusual
circumstances. She would not behave like an actress because this
is like almost no acting job has ever been. She would have to be
constantly improvising and be onstage 16 to 24 hours a day, year
in and year out. Her role would have to be her primary life.
Perhaps her little Stepford wife is precisely what would result.
Rounding out the major characters is Ed Harris as the de facto god
of Truman's world. Harris takes his role in a quiet understated
manner and does a fine job.

I would have loved to have seen THE TRUMAN SHOW cold, having no
idea what the film was about. Unfortunately the ads give much too
much away. There is a slow build to where the viewer is told the
information in the trailer. Much of the mystery of Andrew Niccol's
script (as complex as his script for GATTACA) is lost. One of the
big holes, however, is that this is a much less believable story if
taken literally rather than as allegory. One must believe that
there are thousands of actors in Truman's world who are just
waiting months or years to be cued. There are probably parts of
Truman's town that he never visits, but the actors have to be
prepared if he does. Fantastic preparedness must be arranged for
contingencies that probably will never occur. In addition, the
number of cameras needed to produce THE TRUMAN SHOW must be
literally phenomenal. At one point Christof estimates that 5000
cameras are used to cover all the places that Truman might
possibly go. A little back of the envelope calculation will show
that figure has got to be orders of magnitude low without a fair
risk of losing Truman. The town as shown must be about nine
square miles and then Truman goes off into the woods in the course
of the film. The logistics of setting up and running this
pseudo-town seem more and more complex the more one thinks about
them. But again, this is more a religious allegory than a science
fiction story to be taken literally. Niccol has a lot of fun
playing with the various features of the artificial sky as a
recurrent theme in the film, but also giving the film a sort of
medieval cosmology.

Music is by Burkhart (von) Dallwitz and seems to consist mostly of
easy listening and classical music on a sort of celestial, New Age
theme. The idea for THE TRUMAN SHOW is one that has been done in
science fiction several times previously. Then there are ideas
borrowed from other sources like the 60s TV show THE PRISONER. I
would rate THE TRUMAN SHOW a 9 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +3 on the
-4 to +4 scale. This is Weir's best film since THE LAST WAVE by a
wide margin. [-mrl]

==================================================================
TOPIC: Film Triangles (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

A couple of days ago we watched a perfect triangle of films. A
perfect triangle of films is one in which film A and film B have
something in common, film B and film C have something in common,
AND film A and film C have something in common (with none of the
commonalities applying to all three films).

The three films were RAT FILM, AMERICAN BEAUTY, and HAIRSPRAY.

RAT FILM and AMERICAN BEAUTY both have real estate dealings as a
subplot.

AMERICAN BEAUTY and HAIRSPRAY both have Allison Janney in the cast.

RAT FILM and HAIRSPRAY both talk about rats in Baltimore.

This was purely accidental. And somehow it's easier to stumble
across these than to actually construct such a triangle. [-ecl]

==================================================================
TOPIC: Oscar Micheaux and DANGEROUS VISIONS AND NEW WORLDS: RADICAL
SCIENCE FICTION, 1950 TO 1985 (letter of comment by John Purcell)

In response to Mark and Evelyn's comments on Turner Classic Movie
documentaries in the 05/26/23 issue of the MT VOID, John Purcell
writes:

Some solid comment hooks in this morning's edition of the VOID, and
I am especially interested in all those documentaries coming up on
TCM channel. Lots of intriguing topics, and I am a lot like Mark in
enjoying a good documentary. The one that really stands out for me
is the one on June 14th, "Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black
Filmmaking" (2021). When I cover the Harlem Renaissance in my
Literature class Micheaux's name comes up in a short video I show
in class. Obviously, this is one I plan on not only watching but
recording as well.There are also a ton of fun sf and fantasy flicks
listed here, and I thank you for this. My wife and I tend to forget
about TCM's thematic broadcasting since we got our Dish service and
usually watch assorted series that we enjoy on Hulu, Netflix,
Amazon Prime, and others. What else can we do but check into these
other good shows and movies on our rather extensive broadcast
options. Decisions, decisions. This is obviously a happy situation
to have, in my humble opinion.