1998 in Review: "The Truman Show"
On this, my umpteenth viewing of The Truman Show, I really locked in on the final exchange between Christof and Truman. Actually, one word in particular. That word was “goddammit.”
Truman stands at the door to the outside world. “Talk to me,” says Christof, urging Truman through a heavenly loudspeaker to stay in the world he has created for him. Truman remains mute, processing his new reality. “Say something,” he repeats with a little more urgency this time. He has just gotten done telling Truman how he has been watching him his whole life, and for the first time, we see love in Christof’s eyes and hear it in his warm, fatherly tone. Then it switches, and he snarls, “Well, say something goddammit, you’re on television!”
Did you ever make your father mad? Did you ever not really know he was mad until the word “goddammit” passed through his lips? It’s that thing where he was stifling his rage, and then he smiled through a “goddammit,” and all of a sudden you were a little bit scared. If he could curse at you, what else could he do? We never quite know when Truman decides for certain to walk through that door and embrace the uncertainty of the real world—the film chooses to value his privacy, something he has been long denied, in that most crucial moment—but I like to think it’s when Christof said “goddammit.” That’s when Christof lost him.
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