existential angst courtesy of Jim Carrey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HgGSG3waEE

This clip, taken from the end of The Truman Show, approaches existentialist themes in a very tangible, very physical way.

We see Truman at the exact moment of his existentialist crisis, as soon as he realizes his freedom is constrained-- quite literally, by a wall. All these years of life, seemingly free but in reality painstakingly calculated, suddenly implode. He's learned after the fact that he's never been quite free at all. And apparently the new knowledge that his potential is painfully finite, that his will is weaker than this wall, is a pretty tough burden to bear. To compare the Truman of the first ten seconds, eyes closed on a sailboat (the epitome of freedom!) with the Truman at the 1:00 mark is to see bliss dissolved by a dreadful realization. His expression at 1:06 might best capture that initial realization: the eyebrows twinge in submission to something way bigger than himself. He can't help but surrender to a sense of the absurd, looking at this endless expanse of wall, ironically painted like open seas. A sad (yet somehow comical) sequence of him pounding away...and then he gives up. Futility sinks in.

Score one for the World.
Man: 0 World: 1

A new brand of anguish, this one more similar to Sartre's brand of "angoisse," takes root when Truman confronts Christof, the show's creator (Truman's God, essentially). This is the anguish of choice, and it is a monumental, life-determining choice that Truman must make: to continue his role on the show, or to escape. To act (his part) or to actually act, for the first time.

His response? "In case I don't see you... good afternoon, good evening, and good night."
He seems to have settled the score.