Regarding several earlier comments, I really don’t think it’s fair to assume that this discussion (though there seems to be bit too much vitriol ricocheting about for my taste, I’m hoping for more tact from here on out) is taking place between a lobotomized mainstream audience and an art house gang writing in the half-lotus position atop a commune porch. As far as I can tell, the majority on either side are well-read and well-versed in cinema (both mainstream and otherwise), and each have valid reasons for liking or disliking the film.
In a way I understand those who wished Inception tiptoed more into the madcap surrealism of David Lynch, but, while I also think Lynch is a genius, his films gush flaws that are frighteningly similar to Nolan’s… Only strikingly worse. Nolan’s dialogue is is admittedly weak in this film but it’s Shakespearean compared to Lynch’s lines. Inception’s characters are certainly a bit wooden and hackneyed, but… Well, Shakespearean compared to Lynchian characters. If Lynch gets a free pass on his issues – as well he should, he is a visual savant and a mood virtuoso – then surely Nolan deserves some grace with this offering.
I mentioned the film’s shallow characterization and hyperactive exposition in my first post, so I’m in no way blind to Inception’s flaws, but I think Nolan’s obvious intelligence, laudable depth, exuberant imagination, and untethered ambition more than trump these blemishes.
having only seen the film the once, i’m fairly certain i’m unable to judge entirely just yet but the only viewing i’ve had I was left sweating. I mean, head to toe sweating, i’ve never had that experience with a film before.
Zach, you’ve pretty clearly stated some of the flaws of the film. I’d like to know what’s actually GOOD about the movie that shows “Nolan’s obvious intelligence, laudable depth, exuberant imagination, and untethered ambition”.
For me, this was just a generic action movie hidden behind a few made up ideas about dreams and reality. Problem with these ideas was that they had nothing to do with reality. Since everything about the film is completely made up, the notions and thoughts within the film only apply to the film world itself.
Plus, the psychological ideas of Nolan’s are pretty simplistic. Leo has one problem in his life which is clearly defined. Once he can get over this, he wins the game of life. Reality isn’t anything like this, of course. You might say we’re not sure if he actually solves his problems at the end of the film, as it might still be a dream. But then you’re back into notions and ideas that don’t apply to reality.
What I’m saying is, the whole thing is classic Hollywood escapism that is being mistaken as deep and intelligent.
I kept thinkin’ about 2 things, during the entire film: a) Tarkovsky (aka someone who knows how to shoot dreams…), and b) this was nothin’ but 10.000 lousy trailers stacked up together. Seriously unoriginal, dull, and predictable…loved a definition i read about a few threads back; Rush Hour 3 + a poor man’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Thank You Roger Hayn)
I agree with VIc Pardo "I was on the outside looking in the whole time. Not once could I suspend my disbelief. Every time anyone opened their mouth, my reaction was, “That’s nonsense.” It was leave-your-brain-at-the-door Hollywood crap, at continuing a serious discussion about a film that is so flat and weak.
Side note: whoever wrote this: “Christopher Nolan achieved, after 114 years of movie art, something that was considered impossible…he changed the way we perceive storytelling.” should be hanged, on a very public square.
Go see Tarkovsky, and then call Inception brilliant (not) again…
did you actually expect tarkovsky from a hollywood studio summer release?? that’s a specious comparison. the movie doesn’t aspire to be poetic or personal. it aspires to be a heist movie. it is a brilliant heist movie.
has no one seen world on a wire .the multiple levels of reality and the concomitant preprogramed behavior in that film has a deeply political purpose as well as a metaphysical one. nolans film appears to only have a surface level engagement with philosophical concerns,in brief those who laud this film are prey to every half intelligent mainstream product that comes out and the hype around it
i laud inception on its merits not on the surrounding hype but thank you for the pre judgmental dismissiveness.
Inception has the merits of the H-bomb. Weak as a Heist movie, too.
Anything that’s not Tarkovsky sucks.
Anything that is Nolan, sucks (except for Memento). Not my fault. It’s his. Stop rehashing, write something slightly original, shoot it with a 2-milllion dollars budget and surprise us…Hollywood is so dead, these days. Check Daddy Longlegs, to see what is good american cinema.
Because I watch films regardless of my taste for the Director. Went to check it. Did not like it. Period.
the main problen with this thread is the original contention by zach that inception surpassed kane and the inherent assumption therein that kane is the barometer by which all films are judged .this is a lazy assumption based on received ideas.the language of a teenager
Does “fanboy” have an antonym? As in, the kind of person who will compare a film to an H-bomb or accuse anyone who likes it of being a teenager?
And then the thread died.
@CHANANDRE: “this was nothin’ but 10.000 lousy trailers stacked up together.” HAHAH! love it
on the whole I found Inception very entertaining, very convoluted, and I always enjoy J G-L. It didn’t really impress me that much, and doesn’t merit much thought beyond these two sentences.
@Fraser-Orr:
I’ll write more later because I’m quite busy at the moment, but here is a tiny taste of a couple of things I thought were of quality in Inception:
Dreams are – in a loose sense – passive experiences. The dreamer experiences the world of his dream, unaware that he or she is creating it. Nolan has dramatized, in the words of Ariadne, pure creation. He turned the passive experience of dreaming into an active, intellectual, visceral, wildly creative procedure. As a writer, I am swooning in love with the creative process; the idea of inhabiting a dreamworld and creating its structures, altering its physical laws, etc., enthralls me. Nolan has allowed the viewer a small taste of this active, lucid dreaming. On a personal note, I also love architecture, so my “inner child” if you will stepped into Ariadne’s fascinated eyes quite completely.
When Cobb washes up on the shore of his subconscious and takes Ariadne through this world that he has strung together from memory and raw imagination, I burned with envy to be able to run through the streets of a world spun into existence by my own creative quintessence.
I found the actual process of Inception quite fascinating. This may be a poor analogy, but the actual procedure of forensic science has spun countless television series (many of them banal, admittedly) and fascinated many. Similarly, I found the subtleties of planting an idea in someone’s mind (embedding the idea in a simple way within the emotionally-charged context of a child’s relationship with his father, etc., etc., etc.) to be intriguing. This was also a wild reinvention of the heist genre – a genre perfectly suited to Nolan’s subject matter. Nolan has, in my estimation, created a vivid and mesmerizing process with similar thoroughness to Tolkien’s painstaking birthing of his own mythical world.
@Faser-Orr:
Also, real quick: Inception is fiction, and I don’t think fiction always needs to anchor itself in what many critics consider reality. Fantasy is, obviously, an entire genre devoted to blissfully dismissing reality, and I would call Inception a fantasy, a procedural fever dream. When many films of high regard in critical circles feel realistic or reference “reality” in a “meaningful” way, they are often simply saying, with eloquence: life is utterly pointless and profane. I can’t get behind that brand of realism, even if I love the film that presents it. Inception is certainly escapism, but, while I would not say this for most films, this is part of its strength. It is deliberate, intentional, creative escapism… Anchored in a throbbing humanity (as I said, the hollow characters strain to support this emotional center, but it is there nonetheless, and powerfully present).
Sorry to cut this short but, again, I’ll write more when I have time.
“Does “fanboy” have an antonym? As in, the kind of person who will compare a film to an H-bomb or accuse anyone who likes it of being a teenager?”
The word is “detractors.”
As in, “Nolan fanboys would state that his vivid re-imagining of dream architecture for the production of a heist movie was very creative and unique, but his detractors will insist that his budget does not support his opportunities and he mostly wastes any good ideas he has with shallow action sequences and underdeveloped characters.”
To attempt to sum up generally two sides on this thread who are both right.
—PolarisDiB
Nolan is a rarity in that he makes great big blockbuster films while using themesthat still appeal to a bit more obscure crowd. Not to say Inception’s theme is largely an obscure one, but it sure is more off kilter than any other summer movie, or better yet, any film with a wide release this year. And for that by default I give Nolan my fullest attention and admiration. What holds Inception back as far as mass positive acclaim (from regular people like ourselves, not paid critics) is the mere fact that it’s hard to recall coherently, but easy enough to understand while watching.
@Polarisdib: I’m not entirely sure what you mean but by “his budget does not support his opportunities.” Do you mean that his massive studio budget tempts him to water down his ideas (not that I would undeservedly agree with this assessment, I’m just wondering)? Just curious. Thanks.
I mean the arguments, which I share, and many people have restated, that with a $200 million for a dream movie, he makes a few James Bond set pieces. Sure, one of them is floating on water and another is without gravity, but they’re still James Bond set pieces.
I do not, in fact, believe that that ruins your arguments in appreciation of this movie, which are very well argued. I was initially very disappointed by Inception but after reading arguments like yours and Roger Ebert’s, have just come to understand that I wanted a movie different from the movie that Nolan actually made. I still think the movie could be better, I still think there were missed opportunities, and above all I wish he focused more on the emotional core and less on the didactics, but nevertheless, Inception is still an achievement beyond most of what is produced these days.
—PolarisDiB
@Polarisdib: First of all, I appreciate your tact, that’s refreshing. I actually somewhat agree with your restatement: “I mean the arguments, which I share, and many people have restated, that with a $200 million for a dream movie, he makes a few James Bond set pieces.” On the other hand, however, one of the reasons Inception is so peculiar and intriguing to me in that it actually made me enjoy some of these set pieces (I’m still somewhat baffled as to how this happened, since I rarely, if ever, enjoy action films)…
And here’s why, I believe, this is the case: Inception’s wildly vivid mind-invasion sequences and its quirky psychoanalytic procedural heist are so bizarre, so out there, so wild, so disorienting, that I believe the familiar genre (the heist genre) and the equally familiar set pieces serve to ground the audience and give them a comfortable frame of reference from which to experience radical content that many would otherwise ignore. Many people jump ship after the Mulholland Drive’s jetstream of raw dream imagery blindsides them (I love the film, but many people don’t, obviously…), and I think some would immerse themselves into the Lynchian world if they had a similar safety net or reference point. Simply put, I think genre is, in this case, a powerful stabilizing influence. (I’m not saying Lynch should use genre to stabilize his films, I’m just saying that, with Inception, a peculiar case, this technique seems to work even if it resulted in some irksome cliches).
Anyone who thinks Inception is a good film: Please, please read this.
“On a personal note, I also love architecture, so my “inner child” if you will stepped into Ariadne’s fascinated eyes quite completely.“
I was going to argue how this makes the film nothing more than escapism, but…
“Inception is fiction, and I don’t think fiction always needs to anchor itself in what many critics consider reality“
You already agree!
“I would call Inception a fantasy, a procedural fever dream“
I concur with this, it’s essentially science fiction. Nothing wrong with that, of course, Tarkovsky made amazing science fiction films. But I would say they were about coming to terms with and understanding real emotions and circumstances, rather than just philosophical notions that are exclusive to the film world.
I should also mention:
“When many films of high regard in critical circles feel realistic or reference “reality” in a “meaningful” way, they are often simply saying, with eloquence: life is utterly pointless and profane.“
I’m no fan of these films either (namely, Kubrick) but many great works of art show reality to be something that may be disgusting, banal and disappointing, but is also rich, beautiful, heartbreaking, etc. etc. Ultimately I want to watch films so I can be shown a smidgen of what the point of reality is, not to be told either a) it’s a pointless waste, or b) you shouldn’t even worry about it, just escape into a fantasy world. The second option is, I think, even more depressing.
Reality is, in fact, the richest source for any art because it’s the source of everything. I mean, dur, it’s all that exists! The ideas in our heads that we can play around with are far less interesting, complicated or worthy of our attention.
And guess what? This idea of reality being more valuable than fantasy is expressed in the film! Remember this bit?
Cobb: I can’t stay with her anymore because she doesn’t exist.
Mal: I’m the only thing you do believe in anymore.
Cobb: I wish. I wish more than anything. But I can’t imagine you with all your complexity, all your perfection, all your imperfection. Look at you. You are just a shade of my real wife. You’re the best I can do; but I’m sorry, you are just not good enough.
No shit, Leo!
So what we have here is a film that a) is escapist fantasy that takes us away from reality, b) warns us of the dangers of escapist fantasy and tells us we should get back to reality.
What the fuck?
@Fraser-Orr: No offense, but that is pure semantics. You’ve twisted my words. Innocently, I have no doubt, but they have been twisted nonetheless. I did not say “I don’t think fiction needs to anchor itself in reality,” I said, “I don’t think fiction always needs to anchor itself in what > many critics consider reality <” I am saying that rather than plop hopelessness onto a silver celluloid platter, Inception engages a more whimsical, less chronically depressed side of human nature. It is concerned with raw creativity.
I walked into the theater expecting to be stunned. My buddy who’s an editor told me how awestruck he was by the beauty of Inception. Thoughts such as, "Is this going to be another surrealistic nightmare of a film with bad acting and unbelievable dialogue? (Shutter Island), and “I sure hope this movie hypes up to it’s #3 position on the best films of all time at IMDB.”
The truth is Christopher Nolan had over TEN YEARS to re-write and revise his idea for a “dream invaders” movie. Which is a phenomenal concept for a movie, but I can think of a few better ones. He also had $200,000,000 to make it.
First lets look at the PROS of the film.
- Groundbreaking Special Effects
- Great Cinematography
- Excellent Editing
Now the CONS
- Sub-par acting, HORRIBLE acting by Marion Cotillard, Leo Dicaprio
- Some of the worst dialogue I’ve seen in a film this year
- A crammed together, shaky, unbelievable story
- Nolan tries to tell us the story with words instead of showing us
You will be swept away by how beautiful the film looks, and the amazing special effects it has in it.
I admit I had high expectations for the film. But let me tell you why I believe it failed.
Those of you who have read the book “Screenplay” by Syd Field, or “Story” by Bob McKee know that the most important part of a film IS the STORY. Nothing should be included in the movie except something that reveals information about the character or moves the story forward. Both of which “Inception” does barely ANY of the first one.
We are blindly asked to accept the world of Dom Cobb, but I never quite understand his motivation as a character. What is it Dom Cobb strives for? What is it that he loves and hates? What happened in his life? What does the Fischer guy have to do with ANYTHING? Besides the fact that we find ourselves looking at a Citizen Kane like object with the brilliant line of “I have to be my own man” during the end of the film. The whole film revolves around everyone becoming obsessed with an idea they all don’t understand. Why are they so obsessed with the Inception and what do they get out of it? What happens to the other characters at the end? If Nolan was paid to make a movie about nonsense, he succeeded.
Instead of ANY character development, the whole film he’s obsessed about the idea of making the Inception.
We enter a surreal-like world of a madman (much like “Shutter Island”), and DiCaprio once again plays the part like if it was the same movie. When people told me “It’s the greatest film ever made” multiple times, I was expecting a shocking Vertigo-like twist at the end. Instead Nolan creates a film that has no depth to it. A mindless puzzle-like movie with no moral concept about anything in the end. To be honest with you, I don’t even think Nolan knows how the movie ends. He made it to keep people guessing. A genius idea……..
Dom Cobb as a character is NOT Believable. I didn’t care about him succeeding, getting back together with his wife, or making the inception. The character of Ariadne is thrown into the picture without us understanding why any of this is going to happen. We’re just asked to believe it all. An unsure cameo by Michael Caine also threw the movie off.
The dream worlds were too simple and at times bored the hell out of me. Anyone catch the brilliant dialogue at the Ice dream level? Yeah, it made me laugh too. Nolan couldn’t think of anything more interesting to put in his dream levels? Christ, he put a building from Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” and a building from “Citizen Kane” in a level.
Ten minutes into the film I guessed the ending. I said, “Let me guess, it ends up in the end of the movie that Leo is really stuck in limbo and dreaming everything right?”
You can argue that I’m wrong, yet in all of the sequences when Leo has his wedding ring on he’s dreaming, and when he has it off he’s in reality. It ends with him with the ring on.
The point of the movie: To keep you guessing.
Talk about the over-use of a score. In nearly every scene the score was used to try to intensify the emotional impact of many scenes, including the ending. Instead of making the film look better, it made me laugh.
Can any of you relate to the ending? Even just one of you? I sure as hell can’t.
Maybe Edward Norton as Cobb, Charlie Kaufman taking care of the screenplay for ten years, and Darren Aronofsky directing would make the movie work?
No, I think the only way Inception could be a thought-provoking, emotional-driven movie that says a lot about life and what it is to be a human being in this day and age is if Gary Busey appeared in the end of the film, gave a monologue on life, then started dancing around and running/barking on fours like he did in “Quigley”.
Just kidding. The genius of Busey couldn’t even save this film.
Slightly below average film.
Worth seeing because of the special effects and cinematography.
2/5
No, definitely not. In my opinion, the biggest mistake was that Nolan didn’t really know what he would like to make-an action movie or an intelligent detctive story…
As i said in my most recent topic: Americans really need to make the difference between an auteur’s film and well-made entertainment.
This falls in the latter category.
Daniel Kasman
^ True, the film world is as consistently boring inside the dreams as outside. But because of this it lacks the mystery that someone like Lynch’s supposedly “overt” dreaminess inherently contains. Yes, a “dancing midget” is ostentatiously dreamlike if handled poorly, but Lynch’s unhinges it to just hang their, strange and uncomfortable, nearly pure mystery, no Freudian solutions there.