Check Book: Tru-Talk

Behind the scenes of The Truman Show

IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION:

THE BARDI PARTY REPORT

This week, I will be ceding the Bardi Party Report to one very important piece of almost-lost media that is essential companion viewing to The Truman Show. From what I’ve gathered, Nick-at-Nite (remember Nick-at-Nite??) put out a full, in-world episode of “Tru-Talk,” the Harry Shearer-hosted discussion show that we see clips of in the film.

It’s 22 minutes long, and potato-quality (I’m shocked it hasn’t been remastered and released as a Blu-ray extra), but it’s incredible:

Some important revelations:

• Meryl is paid for every sex act she engages in with Truman. She is also the second wealthiest woman in the world.

• The twins are actually the show’s second and second-second ADs.

• A presidential debate was postponed in order to accommodate the air date of Truman and Meryl’s wedding.

• There are rumors that Christof is a vampire.

• Louis Coltrane (the actor who plays Marlon) released a tell-all book entitled “I, Marlon”

Movie marketing used to be fun. You used to be able to air fake documentaries on basic cable as part of corporate synergy. Marketing The Truman Show now would probably involve Jim Carrey showing up in a TikTok made by someone from Love Island.

LET’S CRACK OPEN THE AUSSIER

The Idiot Box

Even after he finally signed on to direct The Truman Show following his customary period of denial and deliberation, Peter Weir knew that Andrew Niccol’s screenplay presented many challenges, some of which might prove insurmountable. “It was like trying to pick up a hedgehog,” Weir told the New York Times in 1998. “It was bristling with metaphors, and I was concerned about whether or not I could take the audience with me on this journey that would break some of the conventions of mainstream movie making.”¹ But “because this material was so pregnant with metaphors,” Weir said to Movieline, he decided “early on” that he “would to a large degree ignore them.” No matter his approach, he felt, the metaphors “were always going to be there.”² Shining a spotlight on the themes was unnecessary.

In doing so, Weir told The Independent, his film was not meant to be “a polemic.” He explained, “I don’t think there’s an attack, because there’s no war. I’m not part of the liberation movement.” Instead, “I just try to poke a stick in the eye of the beast. Just to laugh. It’s a dark laugh. But as long as you laugh, they ain’t got you.”³ The screen was meant for stories: Weir wanted to stick to the characters, knowing the richness of the meaning would carry best through them.

Off-screen, however, Weir was happy to make his true feelings about television more clearly known. Speaking with Movieline, Weir proudly stated, “We didn’t have [a TV]” in his household, aside from “one for the babysitter that we hid in the cupboard.” Television was such a foreign object in the Weir household that his son, upon finding the sitter’s set, reacted like Indiana Jones eying an obscure idol: “I remember my son struggling in with this portable set one morning, so excited with this found treasure, saying, ‘Look what I found in the back of the cupboard.’” Eventually, Weir clarified, the family “got a television.” However, “having lived in a world of books, music, and good movies,” his children had “developed their own taste by the time television was freely available to them.” And, now grown up and free to make their own viewing decisions, Weir revealed, “neither of them has a television.”⁴

I do wonder if he’d have felt differently had Bluey been around in his day.

The Person Who Goes into the Tank Is Not the Same Person Who Comes Out

In one of the most famous behind-the-scenes stories to emerge from the production of The Truman Show, star Jim Carrey nearly drowned to death while filming the movie’s final sequence, in which Truman overcomes his fear of water to escape his nationally broadcasted bubble. The traumatic incident was the result of poor communication, Carrey shared with Vanity Fair in 2018: “I’m actually giving the signal of like, ‘I’m in trouble,’ which was a clenched fist. [The divers] just saw it as acting. I went under, I had no breath left, and I was drowning.” Weir added, “Despite all our safety protocols, divers in the water, etc., we were filming a man drowning, and it had to look real. From memory, Jim had a way of signaling us if he was in distress . . . We only learned this after I called cut—sobering, to say the least.” Carrey was able to spin his way back to shore, but when the team reached him, he, understandably, said “I was very angry.” Though Carrey felt that he, like Weir, was mostly a gentle soul, “[t]here were a couple of times on the film where I got pretty angry. … Peter would say, ‘Boy, there’s a monster inside you that is very powerful, you have to be careful how you use it.’”⁵ I know the drowning was alluded to frequently on the podcast this week, but I just thought that last quote was a good one, so I wanted to share it! And also, maybe the monster was right to come out at least that one time lol. Dude was drowning!

WHAT IS THE TEAM INTO THIS WEEK?

David Sims, Host: “I shall recommend the Mandalorian and Grogu. Jk. Have I recommended Widow’s Bay yet?? Last episode might have been the best one yet even though it was light on my husband and the father of my children Matthew Rhys”

Marika Brownlee, Director of Ops: “My recommendation for this week is to not be a Ferrari F1 supporter. Save yourself from constant emotional whiplash. I will, unfortunately, continue to be because I have invested too much time and too much money on red baseball hats I’m scared to wear in public. But if I can make a difference in just one person’s life…do as I say not as I do!!!”

AJ McKeon, Editor: “I’ve been on a Blake Crouch kick recently”

JJ Bersch, Researcher: “HUGE rec for Girl With Hyacinths, an Ingmar Bergman favorite from Swedish director Hasse Ekman that’s currently streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of their Nordic Noir series. It’s got it all: a Citizen Kane/Laura-esque play on memory/subjectivity; a devastating lead performance from Eva Henning; a moody Scandinavian winter; a lead investigator who’s kind of a dumbass; and an absolute fucking knockout ending that I will not spoil but I so badly want to talk to about!!!”

Alan Smithee, Pseudonymous Editor: “You know what’s a good movie? Obsession. Refreshingly terrifying, smart AND fucked up. Sub-recommendation for Curry Barker’s previous movie, Milk and Serial which is good AND an hour long AND available for free on YouTube”

THIS WEEK ON THE PODCAST

JD Amato - often the Christof of Blank Check - joins us for a super-sized episode about Peter Weir's The Truman Show. We're getting into the history of reality entertainment, the implications of Christof's methods, the insanity of this movie's Oscar snubs, Jim Carrey's historic 1990s, and Matt Gaetz's childhood.

CRITICAL DARLINGS
This week we’re joined by our very own executive sheepherder Griffin Newman to discuss the new cozy mystery for families. Wake up sheeple, it’s The Sheep Detectives!

MEANWHILE ON PATREON…..

A sibling’s choice for a bonus ep… groundbreaking. We’re returning to Runway for an episode a million girls would kill for with The Devil Wears Prada 2. Joined by sibling of the show Romilly Newman, we discuss key jangling, ungirded loins, nostalgia only in the hype cycle, and more.

COMING SOON:

1. New York Times, May 21, 1998.

2. Movieline, June 1998, in Peter Weir: Interviews, ed. John C. Tibbets.

3. Independent, September 19, 1998.

4. Movieline, June 1998, in Peter Weir: Interviews, ed. John C. Tibbets.

5. Vanity Fair, June 5, 2018.