Thursday, November 30, 2017
Le théâtre mis à jour et à nu
Le Théâtre revu, corrigé et amplifié
Abstract:
Je suis monté sur un praticable devant un public en professionnel dès le début des années 70 pour l’association France-URSS et présenter une lecture de poèmes de Maïakovski dans l’exposition dédié à ce poète russe au Musée des Beaux Arts de Bordeaux. Je n’ai pas arrêté depuis et les scènes se sont succédées, les micros radios à partir de 1979, et tous les genres y sont passés. J’ai écrit pour le théâtre (Centre Dramatique National de Béthune et Théâtre Louis Richard de Roubaix) et j’ai bien sûr écrit et produit des heures et des heures de poésie, théâtre et autres formes littéraires pour la radio, pour des radios, Radio Quinquin, Radio Canal-Sambre, Radio Craponne, RCF et quelques autres encore, sans parler du travail de critique de spectacles vivants, de cinéma ou de littérature.
J’ai assisté à des centaines de pièces, d’opéras, de ballets, de festivals, de concerts et les ai couverts pour les radios mais aussi pour Liberté, quotidien de Lille, L’Éveil de la Haute-Loire du Puy en Velay, et de nombreuses publications universitaires ou volumes consacrés à Shakespeare et d’autres. Ma collaboration avec Maurice Abiteboul et sa revue Théâtres du Monde remonte à la fin du siècle dernier. Je dois dire que la liberté de style et de ton n’est pas toujours facile à conquérir.
La révolution informatique, la quatrième révolution industrielle comme certains veulent la nommer, ou encore la révolution de l’automation ou de la robotique ou de l’intelligence artificielle, selon les écoles des uns et des autres, rend aujourd’hui la pratique du théâtre en tant que spectateur, chercheur ou même reporter plus flexible puisqu’on a alors le « spectacle dans un fauteuil » si cher à Alfred de Musset.
On a ainsi le monde entier au bout de sa télécommande ou de son lecteur DVD du moins si les spectacles sont disponibles dans ce format. Et le dépaysement disparaît de nos cerveaux puisqu’on se fait de plus en plus à la diversité d’un monde qui est des plus infinis. On peut ainsi passer de Londres à New York, de Shanghai à Moscou, du Cap à Toronto, et bien d’autres endroits encore qui nous deviennent ainsi familiers.
Dans ce qui suit les trois premières parties portent sur le théâtre parisien, principalement des auteurs vivants ou du moins contemporains, puis une escapade dans la revue Théâtre du Monde d’Avignon et enfin une liste à peu près exhaustive de mes écrits qu’on dira de recherche, universitaire ou non, sur le théâtre. Beaucoup d’autres choses existent sous forme d’inédits que le monde d’aujourd’hui nous permet plus facilement de publier, distribuer et diffuser. Mes pièces de théâtre sont hélas dans des formats papiers aujourd’hui totalement hors de circulation et qu’il me faudrait scanner et re-publier.
Un projet comme un autre : 36 Sans épouvante et sans souliers, Verte Verte la Rainette, César et Constantin, Jean Meunier et tout le répertoire radio pour la plus grande partie inédit, sans parler de l’anglais (quatre pièces jouer au Festival de Bradford, 1994).
En ce moment je suis sur les 21 opéras, et œuvres vocales que je classe dans ce genre, de Benjamin Britten pour y étudier la figure de l’étranger. Un travail énorme dont les notes rédigées aujourd’hui comptent 77 624 mots. Je viens juste de terminer ce travail exploratoire. Il ne reste plus qu’à écrire un article de 10 000 mots. Une bagatelle en quelque sorte.
Je vous donne donc ici des écrits sur le théâtre relativement récents dont la plupart sont des critiques en général publiées sur Amazon.fr quand en français et tous les Amazon quand en anglais. Je dois dire que j’écris infiniment plus en anglais qu’en français.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
J’ai assisté à des centaines de pièces, d’opéras, de ballets, de festivals, de concerts et les ai couverts pour les radios mais aussi pour Liberté, quotidien de Lille, L’Éveil de la Haute-Loire du Puy en Velay, et de nombreuses publications universitaires ou volumes consacrés à Shakespeare et d’autres. Ma collaboration avec Maurice Abiteboul et sa revue Théâtres du Monde remonte à la fin du siècle dernier. Je dois dire que la liberté de style et de ton n’est pas toujours facile à conquérir.
La révolution informatique, la quatrième révolution industrielle comme certains veulent la nommer, ou encore la révolution de l’automation ou de la robotique ou de l’intelligence artificielle, selon les écoles des uns et des autres, rend aujourd’hui la pratique du théâtre en tant que spectateur, chercheur ou même reporter plus flexible puisqu’on a alors le « spectacle dans un fauteuil » si cher à Alfred de Musset.
On a ainsi le monde entier au bout de sa télécommande ou de son lecteur DVD du moins si les spectacles sont disponibles dans ce format. Et le dépaysement disparaît de nos cerveaux puisqu’on se fait de plus en plus à la diversité d’un monde qui est des plus infinis. On peut ainsi passer de Londres à New York, de Shanghai à Moscou, du Cap à Toronto, et bien d’autres endroits encore qui nous deviennent ainsi familiers.
Dans ce qui suit les trois premières parties portent sur le théâtre parisien, principalement des auteurs vivants ou du moins contemporains, puis une escapade dans la revue Théâtre du Monde d’Avignon et enfin une liste à peu près exhaustive de mes écrits qu’on dira de recherche, universitaire ou non, sur le théâtre. Beaucoup d’autres choses existent sous forme d’inédits que le monde d’aujourd’hui nous permet plus facilement de publier, distribuer et diffuser. Mes pièces de théâtre sont hélas dans des formats papiers aujourd’hui totalement hors de circulation et qu’il me faudrait scanner et re-publier.
Un projet comme un autre : 36 Sans épouvante et sans souliers, Verte Verte la Rainette, César et Constantin, Jean Meunier et tout le répertoire radio pour la plus grande partie inédit, sans parler de l’anglais (quatre pièces jouer au Festival de Bradford, 1994).
En ce moment je suis sur les 21 opéras, et œuvres vocales que je classe dans ce genre, de Benjamin Britten pour y étudier la figure de l’étranger. Un travail énorme dont les notes rédigées aujourd’hui comptent 77 624 mots. Je viens juste de terminer ce travail exploratoire. Il ne reste plus qu’à écrire un article de 10 000 mots. Une bagatelle en quelque sorte.
Je vous donne donc ici des écrits sur le théâtre relativement récents dont la plupart sont des critiques en général publiées sur Amazon.fr quand en français et tous les Amazon quand en anglais. Je dois dire que j’écris infiniment plus en anglais qu’en français.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Research Interests:
Comedy, Drama, Theater and film et Tragedy
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Babylone est notre avenir à tous
L’Apocalypse de Jésus Christ/Book of
Revelation, Jean de Patmos, Jacques Coulardeau, Michel Caubet et al at Academia.edu
& Slideshare.net (39)
Le creuset de l'imaginaire fantastique
Abstract:
On a souvent vilipendé l'Apocalypse de Saint Jean comme n'étant
qu'un texte religieux plus ou moins enfermé dans sa propre foi que certains
trouve superstitieuse.
Cet "on" ne rime pas avec "bon" car il a tout faux. Ce texte est une vraie révélation du génie humain et de son imaginaire qui ne sait pas se satisfaire de l'ordinaire et cherche le fantastique, le magique même parfois.
Que ce texte soit attaché à et revendiqué par une religion ne saurait cacher que le fantastique qu'il contient est universel. On le retrouve dans toutes les cultures, dans toutes les religions.
Les Contes des Mille et Une Nuits sont pleins de récits de ce type. Shahnameh, le livres des rois iraniens, contient des épisodes au moins aussi puissants. Et que dire des mythologies du monde entier. Que dire des religions des Incas, des Aztèques, des Mayas et des Indiens Américains ou Canadiens.
Que dire même du célèbre poème de Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, dont je ne connais pas une seule traduction qui sache rendre le sombre espoir d'une mort certaine que l'on espère pouvoir dompter et amadouer, bref à laquelle on souhaite échapper.
C'est ce qui fascine, mais il est de bon goût dans certains milieux de torser le nez et de se moquer car il est sûr que n'importe qui le veut peut tomber aussi bas que Charlie. Mais ils manquent l'essentiel car c'est cet essentiel, l'imaginaire humain, qui nous a permis d'émerger en Afrique et d'ensuite migrer dans le monde entier, tous sortis du même nid et rêvant d'une Jérusalem messianique aux couleurs aussi variables et changeantes qu'il y avait de migrations hors d'Afrique, puis dans les quatre coins du monde qui de toute évidence en compte bien plus de quatre.
Découvrez cette beauté et oubliez la ferblanterie des icones religieuses. Ne gardez que le combat héroïque entre l'homme et la Bête, entre la femme et le Dragon, entre le bien du rêve et le mal du cauchemar quand la réalité quotidienne tient plus du cauchemar que du rêve.
Ce texte est le creuset dans lequel un cri dont certains charlie-simple-d'esprit se sont moqué trouve toute sa profondeur. House'llelujah! monte en écho de l'Hallelujah de Handel comme un chant d'amour qui a trouvé son père.
Cet "on" ne rime pas avec "bon" car il a tout faux. Ce texte est une vraie révélation du génie humain et de son imaginaire qui ne sait pas se satisfaire de l'ordinaire et cherche le fantastique, le magique même parfois.
Que ce texte soit attaché à et revendiqué par une religion ne saurait cacher que le fantastique qu'il contient est universel. On le retrouve dans toutes les cultures, dans toutes les religions.
Les Contes des Mille et Une Nuits sont pleins de récits de ce type. Shahnameh, le livres des rois iraniens, contient des épisodes au moins aussi puissants. Et que dire des mythologies du monde entier. Que dire des religions des Incas, des Aztèques, des Mayas et des Indiens Américains ou Canadiens.
Que dire même du célèbre poème de Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, dont je ne connais pas une seule traduction qui sache rendre le sombre espoir d'une mort certaine que l'on espère pouvoir dompter et amadouer, bref à laquelle on souhaite échapper.
C'est ce qui fascine, mais il est de bon goût dans certains milieux de torser le nez et de se moquer car il est sûr que n'importe qui le veut peut tomber aussi bas que Charlie. Mais ils manquent l'essentiel car c'est cet essentiel, l'imaginaire humain, qui nous a permis d'émerger en Afrique et d'ensuite migrer dans le monde entier, tous sortis du même nid et rêvant d'une Jérusalem messianique aux couleurs aussi variables et changeantes qu'il y avait de migrations hors d'Afrique, puis dans les quatre coins du monde qui de toute évidence en compte bien plus de quatre.
Découvrez cette beauté et oubliez la ferblanterie des icones religieuses. Ne gardez que le combat héroïque entre l'homme et la Bête, entre la femme et le Dragon, entre le bien du rêve et le mal du cauchemar quand la réalité quotidienne tient plus du cauchemar que du rêve.
Ce texte est le creuset dans lequel un cri dont certains charlie-simple-d'esprit se sont moqué trouve toute sa profondeur. House'llelujah! monte en écho de l'Hallelujah de Handel comme un chant d'amour qui a trouvé son père.
Research
Interests:
Semitic languages, Middle East Studies, Renaissance Studies, Apocalypticism, Biblical Studies, Eschatology and Apocalypticism, Comparative Semitics, Bible, The Apocalypse of John, Biblical Exegesis, Jerusalem, Fantastic Literature, Beyond Good and Evil, Epiphany, Literatura Fantástica, Acts of the Apostles, Salvation, End of the world, and John the Apostle
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Oui à la liberté - régulée - de toutes les idéologies dans l'espace public.
La laïcité de l'interdiction est une forme de fascisme en croissance.
https://www.change.org/p/interdiction-des-pri%C3%A8res-de-rue-anti-avortement?recruiter=772094149&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook_messenger_web&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_more.combo_new_control_progress_110217winners
Une campagne se développe sur le thème "Interdiction de toutes prières de rue... laïcité de l’espace public". C'est une approche liberticide, anti-démocratique, et bien d'autres choses. Il suffit alors d'interdire toute expression d'une idéologie religieuse, ou pire encore de toute idéologie quelle qu'elle soit sur la voie publique pour que les manifestations deviennent interdites, ou au moins interdisables. La laïcité de l'interdiction est une forme de fascisme en croissance.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Music is the heart of the mind
MUSIC – MUSICA – MUSIQUE – MUSIK
Abstract:
Some have tried to introduce a lexicon of music and a syntax of
music and they all have failed because apart from the notes that have been
rather stable since the 18th century, and the rhythms that have changed from
one century to the next and yet are always the same, binary, ternary and
quaternary, two-fold, three-fold or four-fold with all possible combinations
with the units of length, once again rather stable across ages, all the
rest is the result of the art of the composer, his or her emotions, and the
meaning is, altogether on the side of the composer, on the second side of the
interpreters and on the third side of the audience, the result of the empathy
and feelings of each one person in these three fields.
When you add words onto this music, sung or spoken, then these words have their own meaning, their own syntax and these lexical and syntactic combinations are amplified in a way or another, positively or negatively, by the music itself.
I celebrate here many composers and many styles, many periods and many genres. Most of the various sections of this document refer to wider, at times a lot wider, documents that may count many dozen pages or even a few hundred pages.
Patience and persistence – equanimity in one word – have to be your two bread and butter, bread and water, butter and cheese (with bread if possible), cheese and fruit and I am sure many of you will see many different meanings in my way of looking at things.
Enjoy then this forest of many different trees, including Lao She’s reverie trees that only grow on Mars. Some pages are in French, which is good for dreaming.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
When you add words onto this music, sung or spoken, then these words have their own meaning, their own syntax and these lexical and syntactic combinations are amplified in a way or another, positively or negatively, by the music itself.
I celebrate here many composers and many styles, many periods and many genres. Most of the various sections of this document refer to wider, at times a lot wider, documents that may count many dozen pages or even a few hundred pages.
Patience and persistence – equanimity in one word – have to be your two bread and butter, bread and water, butter and cheese (with bread if possible), cheese and fruit and I am sure many of you will see many different meanings in my way of looking at things.
Enjoy then this forest of many different trees, including Lao She’s reverie trees that only grow on Mars. Some pages are in French, which is good for dreaming.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Research Interests:
Music, Benjamin Britten, Classical Music, Leonard Cohen, ópera, David Bowie and music and Belmondo Family
Friday, November 17, 2017
My very City Urban Reindeerboy from Sweden
Legion | City Cowboy
Legion by City Cowboy, Pop music from Kalmar, SE on ReverbNation
There is paranoid nightmarish fear if not fright in our aging City Cowboy. I got the men, the dogs, the cats, I missed the next one and I got the goats (not sure) and the rats; Careful my urbanite cowboy you are going to sink in a burning sea of schizophrenic sulfur. The Apocalypse is next door and beyond it is the destruction of Red Babylon, the whore of the world, both male and female, and even hermaphrodite, anbisextrous as well as ambidextrous, practicing its onanism with the left hand or the right hands, or both eventually: it is all a question of size. It all starts like that: fear, then fright, then paranoia, then schizophrenia or psychosis and finally the great jump into the burning furnace of the fundamental ethical totalitarianism of the primeval uterus.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Lust in the political garb of predators
Nothing never satisfies no hunger of theirs
Now a louder, more engaged citizen. Enjoy TrumPooning (lampooning Trump) in poems and songs. Hopefully, introspection, insight, humility & humor are evident!
Nov 15
Moore Rage
Two sleaze in the squad. (Image courtesy of Breitbart.com)
The thought of teenage
Victims, underage
His lust to assuage
Begets outrage
But serves to upstage
The sins of the POTUS
Victims, underage
His lust to assuage
Begets outrage
But serves to upstage
The sins of the POTUS
Harper THORPE
The Turkey, the Goose or the Chick must have lost their feathers
Wet and gluey French kiss à la Broadway
Predators & Co in Political Garb
No sin in this crime
Plain blind flesh
One little small tiny part
Of a mindless body
Fantasizing eternal youth
In his child oriented lust
The POTUS prefers them
Slightly more mature
Resisting or being shocked
More than plainly surprised
Intrigued mesmerized
Forgetting claws and teeth
Subservient in shame
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
The youngest for the trip
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Sorry but Dan Brown does not have his science right
Dan Brown, science is criminal
witchcraft
DAN
BROWN – ORIGIN – 2017
This book is essential, first and for all because of the
picture on the cover, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
That’s the most folkloric and anecdotic aspect of the book. It is all based on
some famous and important places and monuments in Spain and only Spain, with a
fair share in Catalonia, which is Spain. I will not enumerate all the places.
There are too many apart from this church in Barcelona, but let me give the
second most important place, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Let’s say here
that, if we only look at the touristic places covered by and described in the book, then we will fall in the touristic
trap this aspect constitutes and then the book is no better than a guide for
uncultivated people to whom a benevolent author is providing some cultural
enrichment. The book is so much more than that, even if it is that too.
[…]
But never forget the earth and the cosmos are living beings
and their lives are cyclical and we do not know the operating system and the
programs of this cosmos, of this earth. And we will never know it completely because
we can only build a model of the real world and that model is always limited,
especially when a machine that is programmed in a certain way tries to replace
our imaginary and inventive mental power.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
The screen is magical though enslaving too
MARSHALL McLUHAN, THE PROPHET OF ALL SCREEN MANIPULATIONS
THE SHADOW IS INSIDE THE LIGHT
CINEMA AND TELEVISION
Published Research (March 2013 to today) & Reviews (February 2 to December 18, 2016)
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
Published on Jan 1, 2017
To speak of TV series and TV or cinema films makes us veterans of some cultural war against the impossibility to live in real life the fantastic adventures we may, might, should live and experience in films and series.
Can we be what we are not?
Can we be one of the two Winchester brothers? Can we be both? Can we onanistically experience their brotherly love and empathize with it?
Can we be Dexter or his sister or his brother?
Films and series are not cathartic. They are mesmerizing, but in two different ways if we consider TV versus cinema.
With television, we have to get an all-sensorial experience common to all the people watching at the same time. You project yourself into the situation and eventually the characters to share the same emotions and sensations as everyone else. Television is making us unanimous in our diversity that is negated and pushed aside. Television is a supremacist medium: you like what you see or you zap it.
If we consider the cinema we are locked up in a dark room, maybe with many people but you do not see them, you don’t even hear them or smell them. You are alone in front of the film and you have to enter it in a way or another. You can step back for five minutes to ponder about the characters, the situations, the appeal or the repulsion you feel mounting in you, the fear or the empathy. You are alone with your culture and your mind in front of this world on the screen.
The two media are not equal as for our experience of what we see.
We could also wonder if series are the same as films. And series can be in fact one story in serial form or a series of successive independent stories. A film is always one even if it is in two parts or in three parts. Even the serials in the cinema in the old days, one episode every week. The next episode was always starting where the previous episode had stopped and it had stopped with a cliff-hanging situation, tied up on the rails and the train arriving and “CUT” just when the wheels are about two meters away from your neck. And next week, there we start all over again. And we feel relieved because the cliff-hanging situation appears to be as flat as a plain and as peaceful as a spring afternoon with nice sunshine and a cool soft breeze.
So just enjoy films, series, television, cinema and all screens you can imagine.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU, November 11, 2017
Cinema and television have become obsessions in me over the years and today with the large flat screen we have, with a universal, all zone and all standard DVD reader we can access all the films that are available in the whole world on a digital medium.
In the following pages, which are more a book than a paper, I have brought together all the full studies published at Amazon Kindle or on Academia.edu (these studies are extensive and I only give the presentation and the front page of them. Then I have collected all the reviews published on various sites, particularly various Amazon national branches over about the last eleven months.
Be sure I also have plenty of music, operas, books and other cultural artifacts in the field of research and reviews (I just finished a 13,000 word article on Benjamin Britten’s operas), plus creative writing (the latest poetry volume is An Untellable Story, A Dramatic Confession, The Nineteen stations of Saraphic Love, Amazon Kindle, ASIN B00UP4CX88) and at the same time I go on with my basic research on the phylogeny of language with Homo Sapiens over the last 250,000 years, plus the psychogenetics of language in our modern world from before birth to adult age.
For you to be able to find what is in this volume I have built a full table of contents with hyperlinks. Have a good navigation.
Olliergues, France, December 22, 2016
They tell us there is no escape from all the screens that are going to invade our life and environment and be sure if there is some money to make out of this new slavery they will impose it onto us. We are their guinea pigs and mules and we will cultivate their cotton fields while they crack their whips on well-tempered airs and on our backs if need be.
Imagine the world in ten years when screens are everywhere:
From the screen(s) in our bedroom when we are woken up by the clocking in alarm;
To the screens in our bathroom to tell us to wash properly behind our ears;
To the screens in our kitchen mixing our cereals with milk, sour or not for breakfast;
To the screens in our cars or our buses or our subway trains to go to work;
To the screens at our workplace, everywhere including the toilets to entertain us with live music canned inside a screen,
To the same as in the morning when going back home in our cars, in our buses, in our subway trains, in the streets too;
To the screens in our home for supper and for television in the evening and in the bathroom to make sure we brush our teeth on the proper rhythm;
To our bedroom till we go to sleep and yet still going on all night to make sure we learn our lesson properly.
Good morning at all hours in the day not to Big Brother but to Big Regressive and Repressive Womb with a screen all the time there like an umbilical cord that feeds us our submissive sauce, drug, morphine, etc.
What’s more all these screens can be eyes and they look at you, at your face, at your eyes and they know everything about you, even the type of porn you watch in secrecy and in privacy, and even the one you dream of in your mental closet, and they can satisfy on the screen in your glasses or on the screen on the microchips embedded in your brain anything you have wanted to see and had never dared ask Mum, Dad, your teachers, the local cops, your bosses, your priests, your friends and even your MPs.
That’s why it is high time we start becoming screen-literate and we learn how to analyze the messages, decipher the shackles they contain and liberate our brains and minds from the gladiator’s net they are throwing onto us to keep us prisoners in that dungeon of multimedia screened slavery.
I dedicate this long collection of views and reviews to those who maybe still want to dream of a world that the screens could not control, and particularly my friends Ivan, Serban, Michel, José, Maïté, Paula and a few others who may know what is coming. If we can’t avoid this inescapable, at least let us learn how to tame it, maybe control it. Catch the elephant by the Trump and look into its eyes and maybe we might be permitted to mesmerize it.
Dr. Jacques Coulardeau, Olliergues, February 14, 2017
Friday, November 10, 2017
In four Weeks in Paris
Evolutionary Invention of language
Abstract:
INVENTION OU ÉVOLUTION DU LANGAGE
Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle
Centre Censier
13 rue de Santeuil
75005 PARIS
Samedi 9 décembre 2017
10.00 Salle 441
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
INVENTION DU LANGAGE PAR HOMO SAPIENS
OU ÉVOLUTION DU LANGAGE CHEZ LES HOMININÉS
DANS LE CADRE DE L’ÉMERGENCE D’HOMO SPAIENS IL Y A 300 000 ANS
Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle
Centre Censier
13 rue de Santeuil
75005 PARIS
Samedi 9 décembre 2017
10.00 Salle 441
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
INVENTION DU LANGAGE PAR HOMO SAPIENS
OU ÉVOLUTION DU LANGAGE CHEZ LES HOMININÉS
DANS LE CADRE DE L’ÉMERGENCE D’HOMO SPAIENS IL Y A 300 000 ANS
Location: 13 rue de Santeuil 75005 PARIS
More Info: This session will be both in French and English on demand from the participants
Event Date: Dec 9, 2017
Organization: Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle Centre Censier
Research Interests:
Archaeology, Communication, Languages and Linguistics, Phylogeny/phylogenetics, Phylogeny, Anthropoplogy et Origins of Modern Homo SapiensChristof, the Inventor of the TV Concentation Camp
JIM CARREY – ED HARRIS – THE TRUMAN SHOW – 1998
This is an intriguing film. Truman is in his mid or late 20s when we get to him in the present. The idea is that he was one of several children born from mothers who gave away their children for adoption at birth. He was the first one to be born and as such became adopted by the corporation represented by Christof, the director or this show. Suspend your disbelief a lot because the fact that he lived in this artificial cinema setting all his life, which means went to school on a daily basis and to college to get his qualification for his job, is a pure illusionary impossibility. It is maybe easier to make a few hundred people live in this community with only one real inhabitant, Truman, and all the others actors who have to be unionized in a way or another and hence cannot work more than a certain certainly limited number of hours a day and a week and a month and a year. And what about the population of a school from grade 1 to grade 12, not to speak of the full population of a college.
I will not consider the legal side of things. This abduction and total retention of a minor and then an adult in an artificial environment is pure imprisonment, which means totally illegal, and when Christof says Truman could leave anytime he wanted, it is an absolute lie since when Truman finally tries he is nearly killed by Christof’s own decisions and acts. That amounts to the inhumane torturing of a grown up by another grownup with a whole bunch of accomplices pushing the buttons. This has to be said because everything in this show is REAL, really REAL. Not just Truman, but all the others. They are maybe a fake illusion for Truman but they are real actors and actresses, really acting on command, prompted by earplugs in constant relation with the studio. Instances of Christof’s dictating to an actor what he had to say is even provided. It is all an illusion and a delusion for Truman, but it is all true. And I repeat totally impossible because beyond any material credibility and what’s more beyond any human rights as for Truman, and in fact as for everyone in the film. Apart from Truman, they all behave either as criminals or accomplices of criminals.
But we have to accept to enter the film to find a deeper meaning in the story.
The first element is the delusional world in which Truman is forced to live. It has one motto written on a couple of arches: “Unus pro Omnibus, Omnes pro Uno.” This motto is old and was first used within some religious conflict in Bohemia in 1618. It is also a traditional motto in Switzerland, but not in Latin. In German “Einer für alle, Alle für einen.” In French “Un pour tous, tous pour un.” In Italian “Uno per tutti, tutti per uno.” And in Romansch “In per tuts, tuts per in.” The motto is generally translated into English as “One for all, all for one.” It is particularly famous because it is the motto of the famed and heroic though hilarious (three) Musketeers staged by Alexandre Dumas along with d’Artagnan. This motto is immediately visually amplified by the name of the store on the corner of the street in front of these arches, Omnicol, though I do not know what this store might be selling.
This motto is very ethical and is obviously in full contradiction with real life where it is always everyone for oneself. This community, Seahaven, the very well named place because it is a haven and even a heavenly haven to its residents. Imagine keeping up with this illusion that this is a harbor (Le Havre in France) on a sea with no possible traffic, ships, and even the ferry is only a prop on the set. The only boat ever really shown is the boat in which Truman’s father will die in a storm in front of Truman’s eyes. And then at the end, the second boat will be Truman’s escape boat in which he will nearly die by the decision of Christof himself who could not accept the escape with a cynical remark of his that sounds like a death sentence:
Network Executive: For God's sake, Chris! The whole world is watching. We can't let him die in front of a live audience!
Christof: He was born in front of a live audience.
At this moment Christof himself is showing the reverse motto: everyone is supposed to do what he wants, even Truman who may die if necessary to satisfy the selfish ambition of the power freak and the control freak Christof is. His name is the very antagonistic reference to Christ – he is an Antichrist – who is supposed to die for everyone and not the reverse. In fact, he is more like Ponce Pilate, thus turning Truman into the Christ of the story to be sacrificed for the interest of the show that is supposed not to die, since the show must go on, as Shakespeare said a long time ago. But this is a film and that’s what makes the show a pure fable. The director of the film systematically creates a distance between Truman’s experience and ours, the audience’s experience, of Truman’s fate. The public is shown as having a tremendous level of empathy for that young man who is going to be sacrificed on the altar of a reality TV show.
The director of the film systematically uses flashbacks, which is impossible in any reality show because they are not real since they only are recollections, fantasies or delusions. Christof himself uses in the show picture books with family pictures to make Truman and his band speak of the past in a realistic way. Here we feel the contradiction between the director of the film who uses flashbacks and the director of the show who uses recollections. But there is more along this line. A long time ago Christof got rid of the father by drowning him in a storm at sea in order to make the young boy so afraid of the sea that he will never want to leave the island of Seahaven, either by boat (see the ferry scene) or by road since the other way is a long bridge over the water and he can’t drive over the water. In other words, Truman is traumatized by the event, hence by Christof for the only sake and interest of this individual who pretends to be God almighty. So imagine bringing the same actor who was the father into the picture as a homeless to be seized and removed as fast and strongly as possible from the scene with the moral of the story from Truman’s mother and later in the press on the following day about cleaning up Seahaven of the homeless scum of society.
But the film catches the show at the moment when Christof is losing his grip on Truman who, late in his life since he should have wondered about his community a long time ago when he was sent to school, to college and when he traveled with his family to Mount Rushmore and on many other occasions, finally comes to grip with the absurdity of his artificially simple life. We can even wonder if he has a real sentimental or romantic life – meaning with normal physical intercourse – with his own wife who is an actress in a normal situation that does not imply any kind of real intercourse. Note the strange scene when Truman is taking care of his flowers in his garden on all fours. The camera that we may think is the wife Meryl’s vision, though we know now that all camera movements and choices are decided by Christof himself, this camera is heavily centered on the backside of Truman in his red shorts pointing up and you can even see and feel the underwear through the shorts. This is slightly obsessive or excessive and it may reveal in either the wife, which I doubt, or Christof, which I do not doubt at all, some kind of perverse fetishism that could reveal Christof is onanistically playing with his own psyche. And for eighteen years he had done it with a minor. Certainly not touching since he never sets foot on the set, but definitely seeing, watching, escrying, observing and many other visual verbs of all sorts, the boy for a long time, the young man then concupiscently if not lustfully.
This film is entirely based on voyeurism: voyeurism of all the actors on the set, voyeurism of the shooting team in the studio, voyeurism even of the audience of the TV show. And of course, we are the fourth level of voyeurism: the audience of the film. And that is a real problem. The only level that is critically and regularly deactivated as for the voyeurism concerning Truman is the audience of the film because many sentences in the film or in the show have double entendre and thus prompt us to think twice before sinking into believing. A few examples. Truman after the fake elevator scene says “Maybe I’m being set up or something.” Even better the discussion between Truman and Marlon after Truman started panicking and is led by Marlon into reminiscing the old days when they were both boys cheating with life.
Marlon: We were right together.
Truman: We were wrong together.
Marlon: [Emotional, almost to the point of tears] The point is, I would gladly step in front of traffic for you Truman. And the last thing I would ever do to you...
Christof: [Feeding Marlon his lines] ... is lie to you.
Marlon: ...is lie to you. . . You’re the closest thing I ever had to a brother. . . You were right about one thing though. You started all this.
At the end then the film shifts interests from Truman in Seahaven as the creature of Christof to Truman in Seahaven wanting his freedom and ready to fight and even die for it and to Sylvia in Hollywood wanting to support Truman in his quest for the Holy Grail of his Freedom. We are then centered on the defeat of Christof and his reluctance at being defeated and his final obligation to accept it because anyway the audience of the show has accepted this full liberation that ends the show and “Please pass me the TV guide” they are ready to move to another show if there is any other show of the same type, and there will always be one somewhere.
We can, of course, look at the film from a completely different point of view, and that is the manipulative nature of television. It is the medium that is the manipulator because of its technical and communicational power. The director Christof is only, in fact, the tool of this medium and he accepts to be the tool because it is his personal economic and professional interest to accept to be manipulated into being a tool. He thinks he is God almighty but he is nothing but a fool and he is constantly obeying the demands and requests from the medium. What makes that medium that powerful? The audience is the answer. The audience is manipulated by the medium into believing what they see is real, into all-sensorially responding to what they see with empathy and in a way personal projection into the main character, not to be him but to experience his state of mind, feelings, sentiments, passions, desires, frustrations and many other elements of the type. We could and we should push this idea a lot further but what is essential is that as soon as we shift to the cinema instead of television, then the manipulation does not work as much or even at all because the cinema requires a distance between the audience (seen as individuals in a crowd lost in darkness and thus exploded into human items if not artifacts) and the world, universe, situation presented in the film. Television is all-sensorial whereas the cinema is reflective. Television is based on a collective audience that shares in a way or another what they see and feel whereas the cinema requires an isolated and individualized experience of the film even if it is in a multiple audience hidden in the darkness of the room. In the first case, the distance of reflection is not possible. In the second case, the distance for reflection is indispensable.
