FILM CRITICISM 杂志投稿-刊鹿论文编译

Dark City and The Truman Show: Surveillance and the Destabilization of Identity

Abstract:

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.

Author Listing： Alex Fitch

Volume： 43

Pages： None

DOI： 10.3998/fc.13761232.0043.203

Language： English

Journal： Film Criticism

FILM CRITICISM

影响因子：0.0

是否综述期刊：否

是否OA：是

是否预警：不在预警名单内

发行时间：-

ISSN：0163-5069

发刊频率：-

收录数据库：Scopus收录/DOAJ开放期刊

出版国家/地区：United States

出版社：Michigan Publishing

期刊介绍

年发文量	11
国人发稿量	-
国人发文占比	0%
自引率	0.0%
平均录取率	-
平均审稿周期	20 Weeks
版面费	-
偏重研究方向	FILM, RADIO, TELEVISION-
期刊官网	http://www.filmcriticismjournal.org/
投稿链接	-

质量指标占比

研究类文章占比	OA被引用占比	撤稿占比	出版后修正文章占比
100.00%	85.71%	-	-

预警情况查看说明

时间	预警情况
2024年02月发布的2024版	不在预警名单中
2023年01月发布的2023版	不在预警名单中
2021年12月发布的2021版	不在预警名单中
2020年12月发布的2020版	不在预警名单中

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版本	按学科	分区
WOS期刊SCI分区 WOS期刊SCI分区是指SCI官方（Web of Science）为每个学科内的期刊按照IF数值排序，将期刊按照四等分的方法划分的Q1-Q4等级，Q1代表质量最高，即常说的1区期刊。（2021-2022年最新版）
	FILM, RADIO, TELEVISION	N/A

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分区表升级版（试行）的优势：一是论文层级的主题体系既能体现学科交叉特点，又可以精准揭示期刊载文的多学科性；二是采用“期刊超越指数”替代影响因子指标，解决了影响因子数学性质缺陷对评价结果的干扰。整体而言，分区表升级版（试行）突破了期刊评价中学科体系构建、评价指标选择等瓶颈问题，能够更为全面地揭示学术期刊的影响力，为科研评价“去四唯”提供解决思路。相关研究成果经过国际同行的认可，已经发表在科学计量学领域国际重要期刊。

《2019年中国科学院文献情报中心期刊分区表升级版（试行）》首次将社会科学引文数据库（SSCI）期刊纳入到分区评估中。升级版分区表（试行）设置了包括自然科学和社会科学在内的18个大类学科。基础版和升级版（试行）将过渡共存三年时间，推测在此期间各大高校和科研院所仍可能会以基础版为考核参考标准。提示：中科院分区官方微信公众号“fenqubiao”仅提供基础版数据查询，暂无升级版数据，请注意区分。

中科院分区查看说明

版本	大类学科	小类学科	Top期刊	综述期刊
2022年12月最新升级版	艺术学 4区	FILM, RADIO, TELEVISION FILM, RADIO, TELEVISION 4区	否	否