Inside the cage nothing. Nothing, an emptiness. An aching sense of something not being there; and the people who gazed in silence, they thought, at last, at last, something had escaped!
Until they realised.
The cage was waiting
The Truman Show was one of the big surprises of 1998. Not only was it a Jim Carrey film that was good, it also provided Prisoner fans with a reworking of a familiar tale. The much rumoured Mel Gibson remake of the cult sixties show, laughable as the prospect was in the first place, now seems very much redundant and in the wake of the Avengers flop, even more unlikely. Considering Seahavens similarities with the Village, it is without surprise that a great deal was made of the parallels between the two shows.
In both cases the viewer is shown a frequently erratic and angry loner, imprisoned, his every move and action picked over, every situation planned and prepared for. But The Truman Show does a great deal more than just revive the look and feel of The Prisoner. The way in which these realities are presented to us speaks volumes in terms of the way in which, despite the world changing over the last thirty years, the big stories havent. For all the detail that has changed - the enemies, the technology, the power - much has remained the same.
Importantly, each show has its own internal audience. In the Prisoner, set during the cold war as a paranoid fantasy, Number 6s audience is Number 2, and whoever he or she in turn answers to. True, we spend much of the time looking over Number 2s shoulder, but the events that transpire are not for our benefit, they are for a secret power. We are supposed to think of the Village, and the events that transpire therein, as a fiction.
Within Truman Burbanks world, we are led to believe that all is real. About 90% of the events that transpire take place within the confines of the show, or related documentary, and the majority of the remaining 10% is taken up with watching the programmes vast vast audience. Whereas Number 6s imprisonment was for a specific purpose, The Truman Show serves the various needs of an audience of millions, be it to provide a dream date, pseudo-companionship, or even master the fineries of American English. Its all about bums on seats, luvvy, or at least eyes on screens.
Each show has a hierarchy at work, and in each case it is the captives audience, ultimately, that has all the power. Within the Village we never see who Number 1 answers to. It is clearly implied that the hierarchy with which Number 6 is faced is not as clear cut as it seems, and that powers outside the numbers are in existence. A drugged warden admits to being higher than Number 2, but is not Number 1. When Number 1 is finally unmasked in the final episode, another mask is revealed, and if we ignore the prisoner of oneself revelation of the second masks removal, we are left with the idea that the position is everything, and the identity nothing.
The Truman Show, also, has as its controllers a complicated hierarchy. Those that threaten to pull the plug are the shows sponsors, but even then, they do not have supreme power or control. They sponsor the show to sell their wares and the reason they sponsor the show is because of its viewing figures. It is this that determines whether or not the show continues. Christof at one point comments that, during Trumans final flight, the testcard has received the best viewing figures in the shows history. The quality has become irrelevant next to popularity. So ultimately Trumans incarceration is propagated not by Christof, and not by the manufacturers of multi-use knives, but by the viewers themselves. In modern television, the viewer has become simultaneously the product and the powerful. The viewer is sold to manufacturers in thirty second bites of brain time, yet puts him or herself up willingly for such treatment. The message is that the audience within the film might as well be the cinema audience. The audience segment is supposed to be us, supposed to be The Real World, and the film to be watched on that level, with one eye on the screen and one eye on ourselves. Whereas Number 6 was a prisoner of his own secrets, Truman is patently a prisoner of his audience - something which is perhaps the most complex aspect of the film.
Of course, the Prisoner was a prisoner of the audience too. It is, however, never stated as explicitly. There is a narrative conflict driving The Prisoner. The show has two goals it must continue to fulfil in each episode. Firstly, Number Six must not divulge the reason for his resignation. Secondly, Number Six must not escape. If he spills the proverbials, he has lost. If he escapes, no more show. Yet beyond the eye-candy and swordplay style dialogue and plotting, the one reason why people continue to watch The Prisoner isnt to celebrate the triumph of the individual over the system, but because the viewer is just as curious as the authority that imprisons 6. This conflict is at the root of the audience experience, despite the destruction it would bring upon the central character. In effect, the viewer again is Number 1, in that the unheard voice, the one that insists on testing Number 6, but never beyond the point of breaking (because theres always another series of Danger Man he could do), ensures that the audiences objectives are fulfilled.
By the end of The Truman Show, everyone bar Christof is routing for Trumans escape, yet at any time they could have freed him simply by switching off. Even Trumans girlfriend watches the show, despite understanding the politics at work. However, the grand switch off is as likely as it is in Ben Eltons Popcorn, wherein viewers are called on to stop a televised murder simply by not watching it, an existential twist whereby instead of the unseen not happening, the unwatched is cancelled. Trumans audience continue watching for two key reasons.
Firstly, they are seduced by the security of Trumans world, the security that Christof hopes will keep Truman in his cage. Soap opera has become surrogate living, offering a close-knit community that rarely exists in the real world. And as much as Trumans viewers are aware that he is a prisoner, they envy his position a little, and wish to exchange their reality for his, for a relatively easy and simple life. The price of freedom is danger, and the price of comfort is entrapment. The audience has become the willing prisoner, and Truman is caught alongside them. In a similar vein, within The Prisoner Number 2 is as much a prisoner as Number 6 - as are all the numbers. Number 2s role is to break Number 6, and in failing to do so, remains chained to this ongoing struggle.
Secondly, as much as they want him to escape, they understand that he must choose to escape for himself. Admittedly, their wish for his release is only explicit at the end, but throughout the various segments, especially those featuring the coffee shop workers, there is evident a distrust of Christof and his colleagues. They got rid of her, but they cant get rid of the memory, says one character, aware of how oppressive the forces behind the show are, when they intervene and fire Trumans would-be girlfriend from the cast of extras in favour of Meryl. By the climax of the film the viewers want him to escape because if he can do it, so can they. They can escape television, escape convention, escape into the unknown territories of their own dreams and aspirations, their own hidden trunks. In order for this hope to live on, they cannot release Truman, Truman must release himself, he must become aware of the cage he is in, become aware that the door is open, and then choose to go through it.
And of the prisoners themselves? It is very much Number 6s singular need to escape, tied up as it is within the shows name. It is never brought into question whether or not hed much prefer just to reveal all and put his feet up. He hints that the secrets he keeps he keeps in order to protect other people, and so as much of an individual as he is, he remains so out of social responsibility. His lust for freedom is no doubt part of this responsibility. As soon as the cage door is opened, as it is in Many Happy Returns, he makes a run for it.
For Truman the decision seems more difficult. As he stands on that threshold he is aware that he knows nothing of the outside world, which could just as easily be populated by Tralfamadorians as humans. Much easier then to stay home, to not face unnecessary perils. Having been spoon-fed from birth, he knows he can safely spend his whole life in the high chair. But still he makes that leap, partly out of boredom, partly out of love.
How will it end? Enquires the pin worn in the film. Number Six finds his way, more or less insane (sanity is a social convention after all), into a larger prison. Trumans future is thankfully left blank, so that both the real (Carrey) and imagined Truman escape. However, his viewers are not so lucky. As the thrill of seeing their hero escape television dies, they reach for the remote, not to switch off, but to change the channel. One of the fears that Number Six had (and a possible cause for his resignation) was that the village represented, as McKerns Two suggested, a perfect blueprint for world order. Between the cameras and the TV screens, the real world of The Truman Show is not that different, nor is our own. Do you remember if Truman closed the door?
A man, a middle-aged man (Homo Sapiens), dressed as though for an insurance office, stepped forward from the crowd - Specimens, Jeff Noon
Article Text © 1998/2003 the respective author(s). All other text © Rob Morris / SAD Magazine. Design © Rob Morris 1999/2003. No reproduction of material in whole or in part may be undertaken without permission of the copyright holders.