Both released in 1998, the films Dark City and The Truman Show offer very different science-fictional responses to the late twentieth century concern of constant surveillance, as CCTV began to proliferate across modern cities. The Truman Show predicts the rise of Big Brother (the TV show), with constant surveillance acting as a form of entertainment for the masses. Dark City is more overtly science-fictional, set in an environment mimicking film noir but run by aliens. It also depicts John Rawls’ “Veil of Ignorance” as an experiment run on an entire city, with the aliens rewriting the inhabitants’ pasts, social status and identities in order to understand how humanity works. This paper looks at how these two films depict the surveillance of the (sub)urban environment as a way of manipulating and shaping its inhabitants, and how these depictions parallel society at the end of the 20 Century. In 1998, two American films were released that question how identity is partially formed by one’s environment, The Truman Show (Weir 1998) and Dark City (Proyas 1998). The Truman Show is more familiar to non-specialist audiences, a satire about a then-nascent genre of reality television, which, rather than using the format of a house filled with cameras, depicts an entire town filmed for television, inhabited by actors except for the star of the show – Truman Burbank – who is unaware that his entire life has been broadcast. The Truman Show also relies on a comedic version of 1950s melodrama to give the audience an idea of the genre they are watching. Dark City also uses genre and associated temporal cues to give the audience a sense of familiarity, including the trappings of film noir (hard boiled detectives, femmes fatale, night time city locations) plus a stylized world borrowing from a variety of science-fictional cities from Metropolis to Gilliam’s dystopian city state in Brazil. Dark City shows a decaying, polluted American city, where inhabitants never see light and the protagonist John Murdoch is framed for a brutal murder. The environment of this world presented on screen – old fashioned cars, buses and movie theatres – suggests any period between 1930 and 1950 (Figure 1). However, while the scenario of The Truman Show has a certain plausibility (when compared to actual examples of reality television), Dark City is more overtly science-fictional, set on a planetoid constructed of buildings that can warp in size and shape, where inhabitants can be sent to sleep by the sinister humanoid aliens running the prison that contains them. th 11/11/2019 Dark City and The Truman Show: Surveillance and the Destabilization of Identity https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/13761232.0043.203?view=text;rgn=main 2/18 [/f/fc/images/13761232.0043.203-00000001.jpg] Figure 1. The femme fatale waits by the river in Dark City. In terms of milieu, the films could not be more different. However, as the plots progress, we discover the protagonists of each film live in locations manipulated by god-like figures who control both the landscape and the people within it. These environments have similarities to a science experiment, and the protagonists by accident (in the case of Dark City) or design (Truman) are tested to see how they will react to change. This paper will compare the experiences of the protagonists of each film and how their fictional lives allegorically comment on the experience of urban versus suburban living at end of the twentieth century.

中文翻译：

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黑暗之城和杜鲁门秀：监视和身份的不稳定

电影《黑暗之城》和《杜鲁门秀》均于 1998 年上映，对 20 世纪后期关注持续监控的问题提供了截然不同的科幻小说回应，因为中央电视台开始在现代城市中扩散。杜鲁门秀预测了老大哥（电视节目）的崛起，不断的监视是大众娱乐的一种形式。黑暗之城更明显是科幻小说，设定在一个模仿黑色电影但由外星人经营的环境中。它还将约翰罗尔斯的“无知之幕”描述为在整个城市进行的实验，外星人重写居民的过去、社会地位和身份，以了解人类的运作方式。本文着眼于这两部电影如何将（郊区）城市环境的监视描述为一种操纵和塑造其居民的方式，以及这些描述如何与 20 世纪末的社会平行。1998 年，发行了两部美国电影，质疑身份如何部分地由环境形成，杜鲁门秀（Weir 1998）和黑暗之城（Proyas 1998）。杜鲁门秀对于非专业观众来说更为熟悉，这是对当时新生的真人秀类型的讽刺，它不是使用装满摄像机的房子的形式，而是描绘了为电视拍摄的整个城镇，除了演员之外，还有其他人居住节目的明星杜鲁门·伯班克（Truman Burbank）不知道自己的一生都在播出。杜鲁门秀还依靠 1950 年代情节剧的喜剧版本让观众了解他们正在观看的类型。黑暗之城还使用流派和相关的时间线索给观众一种熟悉感，包括黑色电影的装饰（硬核侦探、蛇蝎美人、夜间城市场景）以及从大都会到吉列姆在巴西的反乌托邦城邦的各种科幻城市的风格化世界。黑暗之城展示了一座腐朽、污染严重的美国城市，那里的居民永远看不到光明，主角约翰默多克因残忍的谋杀而被陷害。屏幕上呈现的这个世界的环境——老式汽车、公共汽车和电影院——暗示了 1930 年至 1950 年之间的任何时期（图 1）。然而，虽然杜鲁门秀的场景有一定的可信度（与真人秀的实际例子相比），但黑暗之城更明显是科幻小说，设置在一个由大小和形状可以扭曲的建筑物构成的小行星上，在那里，管理着收容他们的监狱的险恶的类人外星人可以让居民入睡。th 11/11/2019 黑暗之城和杜鲁门秀：监视和身份的不稳定 https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/13761232.0043.203?view=text;rgn=main 2/18 [ /f/fc/images/13761232.0043.203-00000001.jpg] 图1.蛇蝎美人在黑暗之城的河边等待。就环境而言，这些电影完全不同。然而，随着情节的推进，我们发现每部电影的主角都生活在由神一样的人物操纵的地方，他们控制着风景和其中的人。这些环境与科学实验有相似之处，主角是偶然（在黑暗之城的情况下）或设计（杜鲁门）接受测试，看看他们将如何应对变化。