**After watching the movie, you might need to refer to this chart ** https://a.fastcompany.net/upload/InceptionArch_Slusher.jpg
Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a mind-bending sci-fi thriller that follows Dom Cobb, a skilled thief who specializes in stealing secrets from people's subconscious. Tasked with the impossible—planting an idea in someone’s mind—Cobb leads a team through multiple layers of dreams, blurring the lines between reality and illusion.
Christopher Nolan as an Auteur
Christopher Nolan is known for his complex narratives, practical effects, and philosophical themes. His films frequently explore time, memory, and perception, using non-linear storytelling, deep world-building, and large-scale practical effects to craft immersive cinematic experiences. In Inception, his signature style is evident in the film’s intricate structure, use of practical stunts over CGI, and recurring themes of reality vs. illusion.
Discussion Questions
- Film Technique: How does Nolan use cross-cutting and practical effects in the dream sequences to enhance the film’s sense of tension and disorientation?
- Genre/Cultural Context: Inception blends elements of sci-fi, heist films, and psychological thrillers. How does the film challenge traditional sci-fi storytelling conventions?
- Auteur Signature: What recurring themes or filmmaking techniques in Inception make it distinctly a Christopher Nolan film?
- Personal Response: Did you like Inception? Why or why not?
1. Christopher Nolan uses mise en scene to portray the "outside" affects of what is going on around the dreamers as well as Mal's influence over Cobb's interactions in the dream world. One of the most striking examples of this are during the gravity shifting moments in the hotel, due to the falling van.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Arthur's totem is a loaded die that specifically is meant to land on the number 5. The bulk of the fighting takes place on the fifth floor of the hotel, and he is the 5th member in order of the dreamers. The constant shifting gravity is something Arthur is well accustomed to, at least in comparison to the projections he is fighting, signaling that this isn't an unfamiliar environment for him. The music of the scene is used in an interesting way (as is the rest of the movie), with the diegetic music being a signal for Arthur to hurry up. As for costume design, Ariadne has her hair tightly pulled back so that the shift to 0 gravity looks more natural.
As for the Mal side of things, motifs related to her are present throughout each dream layer. The most common motif used to hint at her presence is the number 2053. Its seen on taxis, lock combinations, its backwards on the train that reoccurs in multiple dream sequences, etc. This harkens back to the hotel room number Mal gave Cobb, reversing his perspective to begin with.
2. The different characters represent different film crew members, such as Eames being the actor and Cobb the director. The different characters have to work together, and starting out they treat one another as coworkers. The theme of storytelling is most present when these "coworkers" start to put on a show for the audience, Fischer. The intricacies of how the mystery and magic behind movies that make them function are told through the metaphor of the characters.
The most interesting interpretation of a film role is in Mal's character when thinking of her as the composer of the "film". She recontextualizes everything Cobb experiences in the same way music can recontextualize scenes in a movie. Christopher Nolan himself does not compose his own films, which is the one "missing piece" that he would need to be whole (as a filmmaker). Cobb manipulates Mal for the sake of waking up from their limbo, as Christopher Nolan left out of the film to allow for Hans Zimmer to create a more relatable score for the audience.
Mal being the composer of it all can have two double meanings. The first is that she is the orchestrator of all Cobb sees, feeding into the theory that the whole movie is a weird mobius strip where Cobb loops around in limbo trying to be with Mal again out of guilt. The second double meaning is to represent the different disagreements different people/groups may have on a film crew (Note: not that it specifically had to be the composer).
For more information regarding Mal's relationship with the sound aspect of the film, watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUuDurEOmzc)\
3.I liked the film. It isn't Nolan's best in my opinion, but it is a solid 8/10 that will keep the viewer invested throughout the film. I certainty found more enjoyment from the movie after revisiting it for this month, mostly due to my deeper understanding of filmmaking concepts and the deeper layers of the themes at hand. I think the biggest talking points of the movie are the iconic shots/sequences only made possible through this plot structure; and the countless theories towards what was and wasn't real, due to the ending. I personally think Cobb is still dreaming, mostly because of the ideas regarding Mal and the score. So much of what happens in the film doesn't quite add up on a global scale. It doesn't make sense that Cobb is safe in some places, like Paris, but not others. The sets in both the dreams and the "real world" seem a little too unorthodox. There are so many more details not worth listing to lose points on structure in my response, but overall everything seems a little too "movie-like" to be completely real, which was most likely the point Christopher Nolan was trying to make.
DeleteI know for sure other Nolan movies I have seen are Dark Knight and Memento, and I have both Interstellar and Oppenheimer on my list as well. If I had to rate the Nolan movies I have already seen in order of my favorites, I think it would have to be Inception, Dark Knight, and the Memento on top.
1. I noticed very little regarding the costume choices, but set design was very apparent. The landscapes constantly changing and affecting other landscapes within another layer of the dreams was really interesting and made for a very high-stakes journey. Additionally, the further the layer the more chaotic, ending in limbo as the place that you end up if you were to die while dreaming, where anything is possible and is therefore equally peaceful and chaotic. Many of these visual and audible cues help the audience to infer what may be happening on the outside of the layer the characters are in. Elements that may hinder the dreaming experience often manifest themselves in the shared dreams that they have, helping create tension and making multiple plans of action and scenes much more high-stakes. The conditions of the layer outside of the dream have a huge effect on the dream, which also made the progression of the film so much more naturally climactic as the further you go into the layers, the more potential there is for something to happen in those upper layers, and therefore the conditions of the dream would be more chaotic, not even including the fact that the subconscious becomes more and more significant the further down the layers you go. These cues help us as the audience and even the characters within the film where they are in real-time in relation to the outer layers and the plan in motion (or slow-motion).
ReplyDelete2. As there are many roles to be fulfilled in a proper extraction, there are also many in filmmaking. The role of the extractor is to help guide the progression of the process, acting as the guy that uses all other people’s works to apply them and guide them in the way they intended as accurately as possible. In a similar sense, directors take the initial concepts for the film (whether or not they made them themselves) and, with assistance from other roles such as the set designer(s), costume designer(s), etc., they can guide the plot in a way they need to or desire to. Additionally, other roles such as the “architect” can be seen in set design, the subconscious, as it produces people, has reigns over costume design, the researcher would be taken over by the director (I’d assume) due to him having priority over the direction of the film, and the chemist might be the person filming, as they are the primary reason that the film was possible in the first place; the chemist makes the concoctions to induce the dream as the cinematographer records the film to “induce” or cause the existence of the film. The parallels between the roles in the heist and the roles in filmmaking help to exemplify the creative process of filmmaking and the effort that goes into it.
3. I really liked this film. It’s incredibly difficult for me to pick a favorite between this and The Dark Knight, but I think that this movie was most definitely more conceptually explorative. It plays around with the idea of literally entering the minds of others for the purpose of gathering secretive information, and when the main character attempts an operation of “inception” in which there exists a dream within a dream within a dream, the stakes are not only incredibly heightened, but we also see a lot of character development, existentialism and philosophies such as solipsism, and very interesting strategies in perfectly (with rough edges of course as a margin of error) manipulating the “subject”, Fischer. I think that I might like this movie more than The Dark Knight, but I might have to rewatch and refresh myself on that film to make sure I give them a fair fight. I really liked Inception and believe that it was also quite a difficult movie to fully wrap my mind around, so I’ll most likely go in for another rewatch and watch some analyses to clear up any misinterpretations or misunderstandings.