Product Description

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Track Listing

1. Truman Show/Trutalk
2. Truman Show/It's a Life
3. Truman Show/Aquaphobia
4. Dreaming of Fiji
5. Truman Show/Flashback
6. Powaqqatsi/Anthem, Pt. 2
7. Anima Mundi/The Beginning
8. Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11/2. Romance - Larghetto [Second
9. Truman Show/Drive
10. Truman Show/Underground
11. Truman Show/Do Something!
12. Anima Mundi/Living Waters - Big 6
13. Truman Show/Reunion
14. Truman Sleeps - Artur Rubinstein,
15. Truman Show/Truman Sets Sail
16. Truman Show/Underground/Storm
17. Raising the Sail
18. Father Kolbe's Preaching
19. Mishima/Opening
20. Truman Show/A New Life [*]
21. Twentieth Century Boy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64774 in Music
• Released on: 1998-06-02
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com
Comparisons to Forrest Gump have saddled The Truman Show: the nebulously cheerful protagonist, the Tupperware set design, the Big Picture conceit. But those parallels dissolve when the soundtrack album commences. This is no brand-inducing pop-song nostalgia trip; it's an authentic document of The Truman Show's musical imperative, a mix of percolating minimalism and sweeping orchestrations that imbue the film with its atmosphere of apocrypha and fable. Composers Burkhard Dallwitz and Philip Glass share the responsibility. Dallwitz gets the opening theme; Glass, the anthems (borrowed from previous scores) and much of the finale. One highlight is "Truman Sleeps," Glass's solo-piano on-screen cameo. The eccentric closing track, a rockabilly remake of T. Rex's "Twentieth Century Boy," couldn't be more true to director Peter Weir's populist vision. --Marc Weidenbaum

Customer Reviews

Great Music That Carries A Great Movie
This is easily one of the best soundtracks I own. Like Star Wars and Edward Scissorhands, this is one of those rare movies in which the music plays an indispensable role in creating a uniquely distinctive feeling to scenes throughout the movie, witha powerful effect on the viewer, whether or not he is conscoius of it at the time. Every track here is spectacular. The only disappointment is the unfortunate omission of Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca which made its own important contribution to the feel of the film.

Highlights of this top notch disc include the Anthem--Part 2 which conveys in music Truman's awakening suspicion in a key turning point scene in the movie, as he symbolically goes through the revolving doors of his office building only to keep revolving until he is outside again, breaking the cycle of his life for once and signalling the beginning of his observant attention to the conspiracy around him. His hyjinks in the hospital trying to confront his wife while conspirators frustrate his attempts to see her are interpreted terrifically in "The Beginning." The hypnotic and ironic "Living Waters" powerfully communicates the scope and power of the conspiracy in which Truman lives at another key scene in which the viewer feels that irony most poignantly. "Drive" helps communicate in the film the comic daringness of Truman's attempted escape with Meryl at the wheel, "Underground" makes Truman's capture by the radiation suited actors, as seen from hidden cameras at bizarre angles, as diabolical and inhuman feeling a scene as the kidnapping of E.T. and Eliott in "E.T." In contrast to these pieces, Chopin's Larghetto is the perfect music for Truman and Sylvia's beautiful, few moments together on the beach.

"Trutalk" with its raising violins and world spanning feel juxtaposed against "Reunion" which precedes it with the mock intimacy of a TV show's music, makes for an eerie experience as the viewer discovers in a brilliant way the extent of the exploitation of Truman and his life by Christof and the world. Then after the intimate and passionately bitter phone confrontation between the two people who claim to love Truman most, Christof and Sylvia, we see them both caressing TV screens of Truman's face as he sleeps to the touching music of "Truman Sleeps." Immediately following the world spanning "Trutalk" in the film, the intimacy of the moment (and, poignantly and ironically, the alienation of it all---their being only able to touch him through TV screens) is amplified.

Then there is the ending, carried along by a series of perfect musical underscorings, the inspiring "Truman Sets Sail," followed by the threatening "Underground/Storm," then the serene triumph of "Raising The Sail," and then finally the amazing "Father Kolbe's Preaching" which follows the confident yet subdued yet optimistic piano and violins with slow steady pounding piano chords whichset the most powerful musical tone, as Truman similarly pounds against the azure boundary of his world, while soaring violins express the human spirit's passion to overcome the boundaries against which it pounds. All this provides for the sense of sublime existential anguish that leaves me with a lump in my throat almost every time. Such incredible music from Mr. Kilar here.

And then, as Truman tells Christof, "good afternoon, good evening and good night" for the last time, "Opening" conveys just that, a sense of anticipation of a great opening, yet also with the triumph of an ending. Perfect music, key to this perfect movie.

Nota bene: Particularly effective throughout this movie and its CD is the minimalist technique in Philip Glass and even, somewhat, in the pieces by Dallwitz and Kilar, which set up hypntotic patterns over against which the emergent melodies are made that much stronger. Whether or not one likes this kind of music normally, in the setting of story telling, in the Truman Show it works powerfully for making a subtly making a scene captivating.

Oh yeah, and Twentieth Century Boy is a fine bit of rockabilly which fits so nicely in the film and here on this disc. Only, it should be placed where it belongs in the story, between tracks 7 and 8 of course.

Overall, I'd say this is worth buying. And if you are a fan of the movie as I am, then there really is not much choice about it.

fantastic idea+passionate music+best release=a masterpiece
A very original idea for the film story. Came true by director who knows how to tell the story, realized by producers who made the best release. Followed by composers who can feel the story and have talent to express and integrate it in music. This is how a fantastic idea arise to a masterpiece! Soundtrack.... Dinamic, almost saturated with emotions, but relaxing and fulfilling, so everyone who like good avant-garde music in excellent performance must enjoy. I love this music. It's simply wonderfull. And I found myself in listening it almost every day for the last two months, besides hunderts of others in my rich collection. And I'm going to do it for the next ? months. Until somebody release some more. Wondering about the "great" reason not to incorporate (Mozart's)"Turkich march", but glad to read how people enjoy my favorite Philip Glass music.

A moving and satisfying musical portrait.
The soundtrack to THE TRUMAN SHOW is a patchwork quilt featuring music from Dallwitz, Glass, Kilar, even Chopin. Primarily composed by Dallwitz and Glass, somehow this all comes together into a satisfying whole. The clever, TV show within a movie, benefits from this dual use of composers. When you see it again, notice how the music of Dallwitz underscores the film. Its the music chosen by director Peter Weir to score his film. Then, notice how most of Glass' music is used to score the "TV show." This is music chosen by director Christof to score the "show." Quite a clever and not an as obvious as it might seem concept. The inclusions of the Chopin piece and the music by Kilar are to be appreciated. All in all, one of the better soundtracks of the year.