Breaking The Scene (The Truman Show — Getting Into Surgery)

4 min readMar 29, 2021

When terms like “high-concept” pop up, it’s easy to think of films filled with explosions and space travel. In actuality, the term “high-concept” seems to relate more to the creativity inherent in a premise. Here, we get a hugely “high-concept” film which remains so memorable for how it’s based distinctly in our own reality.

Scene Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0wgVq8THDk

Written By: Andrew Niccol

Scene Context:

Truman is on a TV show, and he’s the only one in the world who doesn’t realize it. He has, however, begun to suspect that everyone is lying to him.

Scene Conflicts:

Truman wants to see his wife at work.
His wife (and the world) want to prevent Truman from seeing the truth.

Scene Outline:

Truman arrives to the hospital and rushes towards the operating rooms. He’s stopped by a nurse.
He tells the nurse he wants to see his wife. The nurse says such a thing won’t be possible.
Truman tells the nurse to tell his wife that he’s going to Fiji. The nurse confusedly agrees.
The nurse confusedly agrees. When the coast is clear, Truman rushes into the hospital doors.
Truman navigates the hallways. He’s continually delayed by different entities trying to stop him from getting further.
Truman makes it to the operating room. Watches as the “doctors” try to perform a lifelike surgery.
The “surgeon” gets a scalpel and prepares to cut into the “patient”.
The “patient” awakes and the doctors have to put her under “anesthesia”.
A security guard comes and takes a confused Truman away.

Why It Works:

Individual vs. The World: This is the tool that makes the entire film so engaging and fun despite it’s otherwise dark premise. We have only one character forced to do battle with an entire world of adversity. His singular goal- to leave town- is in perfect opposition with the wants of this world which is specifically designed to prevent him from any form of escape. In scenes like this, where Truman is more brash about going after his desires, we get a variety of creative obstacles which he must overcome.

The World vs. Determination: One of the things which makes this film lean close to the realm of comedy is how this world tries impossibly hard to thwart Truman, yet must play by certain rules. No one can outright say “You’re not allowed to do this because it’s a show”, meaning Truman must be stopped with a variety of other mechanisms. This means a man “accidentally” blocking his route with a cart, or a group of men in wheelchairs trying in vain to block a door for Truman. And though Truman may not notice all of these moments, the audience definitely does.

Dramatic Irony: Another aspect which not only allows this scene, but this film, to succeed is it’s basis on dramatic irony. From the very first scene, the audience is made well aware that Truman is unknowingly starring on his own TV show. This partial disconnect from the character allows us to further sympathize with him and, interestingly, puts us in the perspective of a viewer rather than the protagonist. This is actually done throughout the entirety of the film- though we occasionally cut away to Truman’s private perspective, we’re often seeing his life unfold as if we were just another of the millions of his viewing audience. This is normally discouraged, but here it’s introduced in a format that supplements the theme and, in scenes like this, create a sense of dread rather than confusion.

Promise of the Premise: When you hear about a movie in which everyone except the protagonist is actively playing a role, suddenly a lot of scenes might come to mind. Because this concept is so potent, the audience naturally enters with certain expectations, and this scene (like many others in the film) fulfills those expectations in a narratively reasoned form.

Summary:

Through narrowing the conflict between the protagonist and their world, this scene wonderfully manages to tell it’s high concept story in a manner which is both exciting yet still thematically resonant. Scenes such as this appear often and in similarly inventive fashion throughout the film,ultimately cementing this story as one of the best high-concept films there is.