July 2023

Going to public school in the 90s meant that rewards often came in the form of a metal cart laden with a giant tube TV and whirring VCR. This is how I was introduced to THE LOVE BUG movies, LION KING in French, and Truffaut’s FAHRENHEIT 451. I was/am an impressionable child, so these classroom movies all made their mark, but 451 was revelatory; curated content enforced through violence and constant, complicit surveillance. Julie Christie replying breathlessly to the interrogative TV left an indelible mark on me because I, too, have been known to talk to the screen. But I’ve never, ever wanted the screen to talk back.

The screen serves as a physical reminder/manifestation of the fourth wall, the “invisible” line between player and audience, performer and viewer. When HD burst onto our LED screens in the mid-2000s I was unnerved. Why would I want to feel closer to those who’d remained safely contained within the TV dimension? Apart from televised sporting events, I still don’t understand the impulse to meld the action with the viewing experience. Does no one remember WILLY WONKA? Or VIDEODROME? 

The relationship between viewer and viewed is complicated. But even the films that really interrogate the dynamic of spectacle vs. spectator do so from within the confines of the screen (thank goodness). Look at Jordan Peele’s NOPE, which weaponizes ‘the gaze.’ Or, the enduring speech from Lumet’s NETWORK: Get up out of your chairs! Go to the windows and yell, I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore! These movies do not reject the role of spectator, but they ask the viewer to question complicit watching. We are currently in a smartphone-driven golden age for performative solipsism in that today’s ‘influencers’ demand engaged viewers to legitimize and deepen their siloed, manufactured worlds. So, back to FAHRENHEIT 451.

Not long after 451 was pushed into the classroom, though, I saw THE TRUMAN SHOW, which really blew my little 12-year-old mind. Surveillance as content? Enforced monotony? Manufactured identities?! If it were released today, we’d be looking at years’ worth of sequels and franchising—TRUMAN DOES DALLAS; MR. TRUMAN GOES TO WASHINGTON; TRUMAN IN SPACE—but part of the enduring brilliance of the movie is the subject’s refusal to remain an object. Truman pierces the fourth wall, rejects the voice-of-God, then walks off-screen forever. He quits. The prescience is overwhelming (OFFICE SPACE and THE MATRIX came out two years after), and TRUMAN stands the test of time 25 years later for those who prefer to keep the camera’s gaze at arm’s length. So, in case I don’t see you later: Good afternoon, good evening and goodnight.

Cease transmission.