The King's Acceptance Speech

The Oscars are pointless, arbitrary, probably a waste of money, and do not reflect in any way the quality of the films released this year. Yet, why do we obsess over making predictions about it? Because it’s fun, damn it. And making predictions makes me feel like a pundit.

Best Picture: This is going to come down to The King’s Speech vs. The Social Network. Anything else is out of the question. Inception may have been the best film of the year, but its chances dwindled significantly when Christopher Nolan was snubbed for a Best Director nomination. Despite overwhelming critical support for The Social Network, The King’s Speech will edge it out. It’s the kind of movie the Academy likes, the kind of movie it wants to represent the industry: an uplifting, period piece with lots of big Acting. The Social Network is a much better film and will survive for many years as a document of our times, but it’s also more cynical, probably a bit too cynical for the Academy. The King’s Speech is a very good film that fits into the Academy’s comfort zone.

Best Director: Like 2005, 2002, 2000 and 1998, this will be one of the rare years when Best Director and Best Picture diverge. It will also be one of the rare years when the Director’s Guild and the Academy will differ. Not only did David Fincher do a better directorial job for The Social Network than Tom Hooper did for The King’s Speech, he also did a more noticeable job. In fact, the most noticeable aspects of Hooper’s directing (especially shot composition) are a little stranger and more unconventional than the Academy’s normal taste. The Academy rarely gives Oscars to directors without a lot of experience; notice the nominations, but no award for directors like Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction and Paul Greengrass for United 93 (and those directors actually have distinct directorial styles). Like Danny Boyle’s award for Slumdog Millionaire, this will be a relatively early career achievement award for a film-circle favorite who hasn’t yet received Academy recognition. But unlike Danny Boyle, David Fincher deserves this award.

Best Actor: There is no surer bet in the Oscars this year than Colin Firth winning for his performance in The King’s Speech. He played a royal figure with a disability who has to face the Nazis in the favorite for Best Picture. Plus, it was a terrific performance. Jeff Bridges and Javier Bardem won awards recently (and Bardem is in a film that not enough Academy members have seen). James Franco and Jesse Eisenberg are relatively early in their careers. The Academy will want to reward Firth for his performance and for several years of work that has not received a lot of Oscar recognition.

Best Actress: This one comes down to a tough race between Natalie Portman for Black Swan and Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right. Both have been highly acclaimed. Both gave great performances. But this category might end up working in the opposite manner of Best Actor: recognizing a young actress who gave an exciting, out-there performance rather than an old pro who gave an deeply emotional but not showy performance. When in doubt in the Oscars, it’s best to go with the Guild Awards. And Natalie Portman won the Screen Actors Guild Award. I would love to see Jennifer Lawrence win for Winter's Bone, but that's quite a long shot.

Best Original Screenplay: History tells us that this Oscar should go to a low-key Indie comedy that has no chance of winning Best Picture (Lost in Translation, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno), and this year that would be The Kids Are All Right. But this rule is negated when the Best Picture winner is an original screenplay (Crash, The Hurt Locker). And The King’s Speech is an original screenplay. There is a chance that this category could give a consolation award to Christopher Nolan for not receiving a Best Director nomination. Nolan did win the Writer’s Guild Award, but The King’s Speech was disqualified from that competition for some strange reason. It’s most likely that this category will get swept up with the tide for The King’s Speech.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network. Period. No question. It’s non-linear, tackles a possibly silly storyline, deals with complex themes and has great rapid-fire dialogue. This might even be a surer bet than Colin Firth.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale for The Fighter. It’s an exciting, out-there, physically demanding performance that’s almost certain to win. Geoffrey Rush is a close runner-up for The King’s Speech, but Bale has already gotten the tell-tale SAG Award.

Best Supporting Actress: Most likely Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit. The Academy usually likes to reward good performances by young actors, and Melissa Leo and Amy Adams are likely to split the vote for The Fighter.

Best Cinematography: This comes down to two cinematographers whose Oscars are long overdue: Roger Deakins (True Grit) and Wally Pfister (Inception). I would really like to see Pfister get his Oscar, but Deakins’ award is longer overdue (I mean, really, Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption, No Country for Old Men, and the list goes on and on). I am a little disturbed by Deakins’ defection to digital, but his work for True Grit is no less deserving. It’s wonderfully well done and features some of the kind of beautiful landscape cinematography that the Academy loves.

Best Editing: I’ve already written about this extensively, so I won’t really go into why 127 Hours should not have been nominated, why Inception should have been, and why The Social Network should win. All I will add is that The Social Network will win.

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3. Do you really have to ask when there’s a Pixar movie in the category?

Best Foreign Film: I really have no idea. Biutiful is the most widely seen, but got a lukewarm critical response. I’ve heard that Incendies is likely to win, so I’ll go with that.

Best Art Direction: It’s usually best to go with either the period piece or the outlandish fantasy in this category. Since there are two period pieces (The King’s Speech and True Grit) that don’t have really noticeable art direction, let’s go with the outlandish fantasy (Alice in Wonderland). The deserving winner is Inception (architecture did figure heavily in the plot), but it’s probably not noticeable enough.

Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland. See previous category for reasoning.

Best Makeup: The Wolfman. Guy turns into a wolf. ‘Nuf said, pretty much. And it’s Rick Baker.

Best Visual Effects: Alice in Wonderland clearly has the most visual effects, but Inception had the best. Academy voters will want to give Inception something, and they will certainly remember the image of Paris folding over itself.

Best Original Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross will win for The Social Network, having already won the Golden Globe. Hans Zimmer’s score for Inception was my favorite, but I won’t mind when The Social Network wins.

Best Original Song: Let’s go with Toy Story 3. There were no popular musicals this year or movie with a popular theme song (there haven’t been many of that last one in a while).

Best Sound Editing: Inception. Popular action movie seems to be a good bet.

Best Sound Mixing: I really have no idea what makes these two different, but there must be some reason why The Social Network was nominated for this one and not the other, so I’ll go with that.

Do I really have to pick the Best Short Films? I haven’t seen any of them or heard anything about them, so it really wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved for me to pick one.

Best Documentary: Restrepo was one of the best films of the year, but the Academy is likely to give the award to Exit Through the Gift Shop (if only to see if Banksy will actually show up).

So, let’s recap the predictions (not preferences):

Best Picture: The King’s Speech

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler, The King’s Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, True Grit

Best Editing: Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, The Social Network

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Film: Incendies

Best Art Direction: Robert Stromberg and Karen O’Hara, Alice in Wonderland

Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood, Alice in Wonderland

Best Makeup: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey, The Wolfman

Best Visual Effects: Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, Pete Bebb, Paul J. Franklin, Inception

Best Original Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network

Best Original Song: “We Belong Together,” Randy Newman, Toy Story 3

Best Sound Editing: Richard King, Inception

Best Sound Mixing: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Mark Weingarten, The Social Network

Best Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop

But the real question is: will I actually sit through the entire ceremony or will I just wait for the updates on IMDB?

The Need for Catharsis

Note: I probably should have mentioned this before the other posts, but this deals very explicitly with the ending of Inception. So, if you haven’t seen the movie, DON’T READ THIS!

No scene in any movie from 2010 has affected me as much the scene where Cobb walks through the airport at the end of Inception. After the team has completed the inception on Fischer and Saito has made his phone call, Cobb reaches the front of the immigration line at the airport. As he hands his passport to the customs officer, there is a brief moment of anxiety that Saito has not honored the arrangement and that Cobb will be arrested. This is irrational, of course (what kind of ending would that be?), but it is still there for that brief moment.

But it disappears as the officer hands the passport back, and an Ennio Morricone-style guitar begins on the soundtrack. This guitar will continue as a counterpoint through the rest of the scene, like the falling van during the climax of the film. Cobb picks up his bag from the baggage claim and starts walking to the exit as Hans Zimmer begins layering strings and horns onto the soundtrack like a pounding heartbeat, keeping the underlying guitar score. As Cobb walks through the airport (it’s a long walk), his eyes meet with the eyes of everyone in his team. They smile and nod as he passes by. Even Fischer has a slight look of recognition on his face when they briefly glance at each other. Cobb walks out of the baggage claim, past a man with sign reading “FISCHER”, and meets up with his father-in-law Miles who’ll take him to his children and a spinning top that Cobb will no longer care to look at.

I’m not entirely sure why, but my breath catches and my heart stops whenever I see this scene (6 or 7 times). It even gives me chills when I think about it. When I think about this rationally, it seems rather silly. Nothing really happens in this scene. It’s just a scene of a guy walking through an airport. And of course, none of these people or places are real. No, I’m not saying it was all a dream. Well, yes, actually, in the sense that it’s just a movie, just lights on a wall.

Why do we feel such strong emotional reactions to things that might not make sense, that might seem silly, and sometimes aren’t even real?

The plot of Inception is about ideas, about how they are created and how they are transferred, but the film itself is not about ideas. It’s about the emotions that define those ideas. Cobb tells the team that “the subconscious is motivated by emotion, not reason.” He goes on to say that the key to inception is emotional catharsis. The hardest part about the inception is creating an emotional catharsis about something that isn’t real. It has relation to reality so that the subject can connect to it, but ultimately, it’s a complete fantasy (in Fischer’s case, it might even be a lie).

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how dramatizing a whole story to create an emotional reaction from an audience parallels film. It’s even interesting to assign the characters roles in a film production (Cobb=Director; Saito=Producer; Arthur=Screenwriter; Eames=Actor; Ariadne=Set Designer; Yusuf=Composer maybe?). But the parallels don’t stop at film. The use of the word “levels” is an obvious reference to video games. The characters rely heavily on a musical countdown to get them out of dreams.

But the most interesting parallel is to religion and the belief in the afterlife. Just consider this repeated speech: “You’re waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can’t know for sure. Yet it doesn’t matter because you’ll be together.” Many of us hope for something to happen after death, but we can’t know what that will be. Believing in an afterlife is how a lot of people deal with the idea of mortality.

Why do we need all of these things? Why do we need religion, myth, art, music, video games, books and movies to create an emotional catharsis?

Inception makes the case that we need them to deal with our own subconscious. Christopher Nolan does a brilliant job of visualizing the subconscious: not just as a maze or a city of towering skyscrapers, but also as people capable of physical attack and even passionate dialogue. The characters spend a great deal of time engaged in literal warfare with Fischer’s subconscious. And Cobb spends a great deal of time debating his own subconscious. All of his conversations with Mal in his dreams are actually conversations with himself, with his own guilt and longing. When he tells Mal at the end that she’s “not good enough,” he’s not actually saying that to her. He’s saying that to his image of her, to his idea of her. He is able to do something that few men in the movies have ever been able to do: he realizes that his idea of a woman is not as good as the real thing (and people say this movie is misogynistic?). This is followed by the most violent image in the movie: Cobb’s subconscious literally attacking him. Even though Fischer’s subconscious has exchanged gunfire with the characters, this is the first time a subconscious tries to kill its owner. Cobb tries to throw away his guilt, but incurs a violent response. He is only able to let go of his guilt peacefully, by thinking back over his memories and forgiving himself.

Cobb’s catharsis (his inception?) happens almost at the same time as Fischer’s. This is a little more ethically troublesome. His reconciliation with his father never actually happens. But does that make the catharsis he experiences any less necessary? The movie doesn’t think so. The team is not convincing him that his father actually wants him to split up the company or that he has a secret will. Saito wants Fischer to dissolve the company, but he wants Fischer to think that idea was self-germinated. It’s common for people to have dreams where they have to accomplish some strange task that relates to something in their lives, but makes no sense when they wake up. Fischer is not going to think that the events in his dream actually happened.

But that does not make his catharsis any less real. He is able to have a subconscious reconciliation with his father that he could never have in real life. Of course, he has not actually reconciled with his father, but he has reconciled himself toward his father. Whether he actually dissolves his empire is not important to the film (it’s actually rather brilliant how Nolan takes this pretty mundane corporate idea with “various political motivations and antimonopolistic sentiments” as Eames says and makes it very emotional). What is important is that Fischer is at peace with his father’s memory just as Cobb is at peace with Mal’s memory.

All of these things are only in our heads, and yet they are so important to us. Our subconscious encapsulates all of our fear, doubt, happiness and love. It can be very hard to function in life with an unstable subconscious. Emotions define our ideas, and ideas “are the most resilient parasites.” A “fully formed,” deeply engrained idea can “grow to define” anyone. Sometimes, we need catharsis to help us with our subconscious. We need to experience strong emotions so that we can deal with them in reality. We need religion and myth. We need art. We need movies.

An emotional catharsis is like a long journey. Notice all of the transportation in the movie: the train used for Saito’s extraction, the plane used for Fischer’s, the train “that will take you far away.” Isn’t the aftermath of something profoundly emotional (a religious experience, a great piece of music, a terrific movie) a little like walking through an airport after you’ve landed when you’re heading home? You’re tired, exhausted, drained. But now you’re on solid ground.

The Shores of the Subconscious

Inception opens with a black screen and a horns section that’s been growing louder and louder (and louder) throughout the studio logos. The music keeps growing louder until it reaches a pounding climax, then it cuts to the opening shot. The loud chord accompanying a sudden cut mirrors the opening of Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but in Inception, the climactic note comes a moment before the cut, giving a sense that the sound is being sucked out of the film. But that’s actually the sound of water moving then suddenly crashing down, echoing the loud musical note heard a few seconds earlier.

The opening shot pans across a wave as it crashes down on a beach. Then, we see a second shot of waves before it cuts to a close-up of Cobb lying face down in the sand. This second shot is a curious choice, especially for the opening of the film. It seems a little choppy and redundant, and you might wonder why this shot is here. This is, in fact, one of the most important edits in the film, establishing an essential visual motif.

First, it creates a sense of disorientation. The first shot alone provides a little too much geography. We don’t know where we are yet, but we can still orient ourselves in the location. Then suddenly, we’re lost in the waves with the second shot. This is not what Cobb sees when he wakes up on the beach, but the rhythm of these two shots puts the audience in his state of mind. The first few shots in the film show him trying to grab information from what is around him, struggling to find focus. The early disorientation emphasizes the importance of him first noticing his deepest desire on the beach in front of him. Nolan draws this scene out so that we understand Cobb’s longing: his kids are so close to him and feel so real until they run away.

The second thing that these two shots do is to establish one of the film’s most important visual motifs. The first shot shows the water moving down and to the left. The second shot shows the water moving up and to the right. Nolan could have opened the film with the tide moving in and out on the beach. But that image is a little too standard, and it would have sacrificed the film’s disoriented state of mind. And since the second shot shows the water splashing up, the water motion becomes almost circular.

Circular motion is the most important kind of motion in Inception (the second most important is vertical, the subject of my previous post). There are small visual references to this in the movie, such as the pinwheel from Fischer’s childhood that forms the climax of his inception. The most famous use of circular motion in the film is Cobb’s spinning top, his totem to tell whether or not he is in a dream. All of this leads down to limbo and the land of infinite subconscious bordered by the sea.

After we first see the spinning top (without explanation), the first overt references to the circular visual motif come during Ariadne’s training. Cobb challenges her to create a maze in two minutes that takes more than one minute to solve. She fails when using straight lines, but succeeds when she creates a circular maze. When Cobb begins to describe the mechanics of the dream world to Ariadne later in the scene, he tells her that in a dream, “we create and perceive our world simultaneously.” He draws two arrows for creation and perception that together make up a circle. The mind creates and perceives continuously, in the same way (and the same shape, according to Cobb) that the top spins continuously in a dream.

These all form the borders of the subconscious. The most powerful image of this in the film is of the ocean at the edge of limbo, reminiscent of the end of Alex Proyas’ Dark City. I love the idea that, if we go deep enough into our minds, we will wash up on “the shores of our own subconscious.”

Arthur describes limbo as “raw, infinite subconscious.” It may be infinitely dense and have the possibility for anything to be created there, but if left unattended, the borders will begin to eat away at it, just like the ocean eats away at the buildings Cobb and Mal created. The borders are, of course, infinite. They are primarily there as a device, as a way to keep the characters inside the subconscious, the way the edges of Ariadne’s maze do and the way the totem tells Cobb whether or not he is still in a dream.

These devices trap the characters in the subconscious. This is certainly a possible outcome whenever we explore our minds (literally or figuratively). It’s always possible to lose sight of what is real. But this doesn’t have to happen. The borders of the subconscious don’t have to be an impassable ocean or the edges of a maze. These are powerful images of the subconscious, but they never say that there can be no escape. The idea of a maze does not mean complete entrapment. There’s always a way out; you just have to find it.

Inception is all about dealing with the subconscious as a separate entity, usually as an enemy (this will be the primary subject of my next post). Cobb is trying to deal with his subconscious, to escape from the maze, to pass over the ocean, for the entire film. His victory comes in the last shot of the film. Most of the discussion about this shot has completely missed the point. It’s not about whether the top falls or keeps spinning. If the movie had an answer to that question, then it was a mistake for Nolan to cut away before we see it fall (or not fall). But Nolan had a purpose when he left that unseen. The point is that Cobb doesn’t see it. He has walked away to greet his children (whether they are real or not). He is no longer trapped.

The Gravity of Dreams

With 40 minutes left in Inception, as Arthur evades the projections in the hotel hallway, as the rest of the team begins the attack on the snow fortress, Yusuf drives the van containing the sleeping characters off a bridge. The heist has already reached the third level and we’ve already seen some spectacular images (notably the runaway freight train and the rotating hallway fight scene). But Yusuf’s drive off the bridge begins the film’s most astonishing sequence.

Most, if not all of the characters in the movie spend a lot of time falling. Mal kills herself by dropping from a ledge. The kick gets the characters out of dreams with a feeling of falling. And the last hour or so of the movie is dominated by falling. The central idea in the film of breaking into the mind involves going down deep into the subconscious, scaling down levels of unreality. This is a constant visual motif throughout the film, beginning with Cobb climbing out of a window and repelling down to a lower window during the opening extraction of Saito’s dreams. There have been constant references to this in the movie.

But the falling van immediately brings this motif to the forefront: everyone in the movie is falling. This would seem simple enough (and perhaps rather meaningless) from the fact that the characters are literally falling because they are present in the falling van. But Christopher Nolan and editor Lee Smith don’t just leave it at that. The simple fact that the characters are physically falling in one level of unreality is just the starting point.

This entire sequence is a masterstroke, a virtuoso balancing act of four separate sequences: the falling van, Arthur in the hotel, the attack on the snow fortress, and Cobb and Ariadne in the Limbo City. Making the combination of these scenes seamless was key to unifying all of the characters into the visual motif of falling. This could have been oddly disjointed or just random, the falling van being the biggest problem. Quite simply, nothing happens in that part of the sequence. It’s just a van slowly falling into a river (very slowly). But it’s an essential visual counterpoint to the sequence, like an underlying theme in a piece of music. It’s important that we always know that it’s there: not just as a visual motif, but also as an instrument for suspense.

The falling van is almost the perfect illustration of Hitchcock’s Bomb Under the Table. “A bomb is under a table and it explodes; that is surprise. A bomb is under a table and it doesn’t explode; that is suspense.” A falling van hitting the water is even more of an inescapable certainty than a bomb exploding under a table. We feel sure that both eventualities will occur, but there is a chance that the bomb won’t explode. The van has to hit the water. It’s only a question of when. Nolan is able to keep this bomb under the table for more than 25 minutes.

The key to making this scene work is to keep reminding us that the van is falling, and to make these reminders feel natural. Nolan and Smith use characters, visuals and dialogue as the occasions for transitions between the van and the other sequences. A close-up of Arthur asleep in the van leads to a scene of Arthur in the hotel. When Cobb and Ariadne arrive at the Limbo City, a large piece of a building crumbles off. Nolan cuts from the falling debris (glimpsed in the corner of an aerial short) to another shot of the van falling, surrounded by small pieces of debris. My favorite transition comes when Mal tells Cobb he can stay in limbo, “in the world we built together.” From this moment of Cobb contemplating a choice that a part of him wants to make, we cut back to the falling van, removing us from Cobb’s introspection and reminding us of the other people in the story.

The falling motif is fairly simple in levels three and four. Both of those literally involve falling to awake the characters. In level three, the hospital explodes and the building collapses. In level four, Ariadne throws Fischer and herself off of a tall building (similar to Mal jumping from a building to “wake up”).

Level two is not as simple. After the hotel loses gravity, Arthur moves his sleeping team members through the corridor and into an elevator shaft. Of course, in zero gravity, an elevator shaft and a corridor are the same thing. The trick for Arthur (and Nolan) is to make the characters fall through a corridor. In doing this, Nolan is also demonstrating something about cinema (at least, 2D cinema). Since the movie is on a two-dimensional screen, moving through a corridor and falling down an elevator shaft become the same action. A quick, Scorsese-style dolly move in on an object is the same as that chilling POV falling shot in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges. And it becomes apparent at the climax of this sequence that the van falling into the water and the elevator propelling into the wall/floor are the same thing. And it’s the same as the train rushing toward Cobb and Mal as they lie on the tracks.

All of this leads to the question: what is falling?

Falling is the ultimate lack of control, a dive into the unknown, a leap of faith. This is what Mal does when she drops from the ledge, what Yusuf does when he drives off the bridge, what Saito and Cobb have to do to escape from limbo at the end (if they do it?). And isn’t that what we do when we go to the cinema? We enter something unknown, something over which we have no control. We have no control over what the characters will do, what will be in the frame or where the camera will go. And we have no control over how the experience will affect us.

First Things First...

Before I get into describing why I loved Inception so much, I thought it would be best to deal with some of the major criticisms of the film first. I think I’ll be able to write a better and more succinct appreciation of the film if I get this out of the way beforehand.

In my introduction to this week’s series, I linked to A.D. Jameson’s “Seventeen Ways of Criticizing Inception” from last week. This piece is mostly helpful because it groups most of the major criticisms of Inception into one place so that I don’t have to go searching all over the Internets to find them.

Jameson does make some good points, but his arguments are disguised behind a lot of condescension and a surprising amount of moral grandstanding. He starts off his piece with one of the hallmarks of condescension by saying that Christopher Nolan is “presumably a rather likable fellow.” There’s not even an attempt to hide the condescension here. That’s not even “Brutus is an honorable man.” And really, what does that have to do with the movie? I’m not so sure that Sam Peckinpah and Stanley Kubrick were “rather likable fellows.” They might have been. I don’t know. That doesn’t really matter.

And if he’s such a likable fellow, why all the attempts to demonize him into some dumb, action movie hack a la Michael Bay? Jameson constantly speculates on things happening behind the camera: Nolan’s intentions with the ending, whether he’s seen anything by Luis Bunuel, studio conferences while Nolan “plans another explosion.” What does any of this have to do with criticizing the movie? You praise or criticize what’s on the screen, not the filmmaker’s intentions, what films the director may (or may not) have seen, or anything else that you have no evidence to support.

And Jameson does seem really angry at the film, calling it “misogynistic” and “sickeningly violent” and insinuating that it’s racist in the treatment of Yusuf’s character (could there be more to Jameson’s D.W. Griffith reference than there seemed to be?). It’s not enough for him to criticize Inception in cinematic terms. He has to characterize it as morally reprehensible. And the unavoidable implication is that it is morally reprehensible to like something that is morally reprehensible. Jameson seems more interested in shutting down critical debate than encouraging it.

Which is a shame because Jameson clearly knows a lot about film, and he has a good list of films that are similar (he thinks superior) to Inception. His (brief) comparisons to The Asphalt Jungle and Rififi are worthy of much deeper examination (they are so brief, in fact, that they seem more like a writer flaunting his knowledge of film rather than an actual analysis of the connections between the works).

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I can focus on the actual criticisms in Jameson’s piece. Though he has 17 items in his list of criticisms, several of them could be part of the same criticism. They pretty much focus on shot economy, literal filmmaking, violence, treatment of women, thematic simplicity rather than complexity, and exposition.

Shot Economy:

Jameson writes that Nolan takes thirteen shots to do “what it takes most directors six to do.” I’m not really sure what he means by “most directors” considering that fast editing is really popular these days. He focuses on the opening scene of the movie when Cobb wakes up on a beach, sees an image of his kids, and is found by an armed guard. Jameson counts thirteen shots in this scene and proposes that it could be done in much fewer shots.

Since my next post will focus on the editing of the movie in general and this scene in particular, I won’t go into detail about this criticism, except to say that every cut that Jameson notices is necessary to this scene. I’m sure that Jameson disagrees with this, but if we accept (for the sake of argument) the premise that every cut in this scene is necessary, we can go into the point of Jameson’s argument, which is that fewer cuts is better than more cuts. This is an oversimplification, but let’s accept this, again, for the sake of argument.

Generally, I find a lot of modern hyperactive editing to be rather tiresome (see my post about 127 Hours), but this does not mean we should create some sort of arbitrary maximum number of edits that directors can make. Simply put, if an edit has a point, the edit should be made. Now, the criticism becomes entirely subjective. I think the editing has a point. Jameson doesn’t. I’m going to write later about the purpose that I think the editing serves, but that doesn’t mean Jameson has to agree with it.

Literal Filmmaking:

One of the biggest criticisms of Christopher Nolan is that he is a very literal filmmaker. Jameson points out Nolan’s fondness for insert shots (hence the Griffith reference). When Cobb talks to his kids on the phone, Nolan cuts to a shot of his kids playing in the yard. When his son mentions Cobb’s wife Mal, Nolan cuts to a shot of her.

These shots could suggest that the entire film takes place inside Cobb’s mind, but I don’t think that’s why they are there. The film is not all from Cobb’s perspective, but, like all of Nolan’s films, it takes on the character’s state of mind. This technique is not as integral to Inception as it is to Memento, Insomnia and The Dark Knight, but it’s usually apparent from the editing that Cobb’s state of mind is affecting the movie.

As Cobb talks to his kids, he immediately returns to the last image that he has of them. We don’t fully know the significance of this image yet, but it’s important for Nolan to establish it in the film before Cobb explains it. The same is true for the image we see of Mal. Both of these images, along with the projections we’ve already seen of Mal and the kids, establish how much Cobb’s memories have infected his subconscious. Of course, the entire film does not take place inside Cobb’s state of mind, but it often reflects his thinking. The only flashbacks we ever see are his memories. Matching up images of the characters with their names is not only a way to identify them to the audience, but also a way to show how the images dominate Cobb’s mind.

The other major criticism of Nolan as a literal filmmaker is that the dream worlds he creates (a downtown intersection, a hotel, a ski slope) are not very imaginative. The major here is with the ways to visualize dreams. Since we have no specific idea of what this should like, a director essentially has a blank slate to create anything. One way to do that is to use the David Lynch, Mulholland Drive approach which is to not only have a lot of weird stuff happening, but to do things with the story structure that would only make sense in a dream (and I’m not even sure that third act even works in a dream). That approach would not have worked with Inception because the dreamlike effect of Mulholland Drive comes with the accumulation of the entire story. At any point in the story before the box is opened, the film could still exist in some kind of reality. It would be a very strange reality, yes, but the realization (or assumption) that the film is a dream comes with the plot turn at the end. In Inception, we already know that we are dealing with dreams, so that simply would not fit with the story.

Another approach is to use CGI to create some kind of blue-screen, George Lucas world that has few connections to reality. Since Nolan has said that he doesn’t like using CGI, I don’t see that ever happening. Besides, if the dream world looked completely different from the real world, there would never be any ambiguity about which is which.

I don’t think people who make this complaint think it should have looked like Star Wars or even the strangely imaginative world of Dark City. I think that, after Cobb describes the “chance to build cathedrals, things that never existed, things that couldn’t exist in the real world,” and after Ariadne’s dream tutorial which features the film’s most famous special effect shot of Pairs folding over itself, many people were disappointed that most of the action later was not as spectacular.

However, I still think Nolan had a purpose with this. With Cobb’s speech and Ariadne’s experiments, Nolan is creating the expectation that we will see really spectacular sights. After this, most of the dreams seem to be taking place in a more realistic world. But of course, it is not the real world. Having already established the potential for the dreams, Nolan creates suspense as we wait for strange occurrences. Signs that the mission is having problems won’t always be massive. Things are just…out of place.

The rhythm of these scenes is very important. There is a different level of intensity (for lack of a better word and I’m going to keep using it until I can find a better word) to each thing that is out of place. Nolan starts the whole heist sequence with a bang (literally) as a freight train crashes through the downtown intersection of the first level. This is coupled with the sudden attack of Fischer’s projections, which is less surprising (this is an action movie), but still out of place because, even though the opening established the projections, this has not been mentioned in any of the plans for the inception.

The intensity decreases as they enter the second level. There are little things that are out of place with the modern world: changes in weather, shifts in gravity, the broken glass on the bar, Cobb’s kids in the hotel lobby. The team is able to reach the third level without much difficulty, bringing the intensity lower until it abruptly rises again (even higher than for the train, I think) for one of the high points of the film: Arthur’s fight with the projections in the rotating hallway.

The third level is a bit more curious. I will grant that it is probably the least interesting sequence in the picture (Mumbasa is a close second; it does serve a purpose of establishing Cobb’s situation, draws a parallel with the dream projections, makes good use of maze-like imagery, and gives a glimpse into the strange corporate culture of this world). I think it maybe Nolan’s tribute to video games. Usually when film critics compare a movie to a video game, it’s meant derisively, but Nolan deliberately draws a parallel with the use of the word “levels.” The structure of this sequence closely resembles a video game: characters begin the level outside a remote location defended by anonymous villains, and they have to find someway into the location to achieve some kind of objective. I think it was deliberately made to resemble a video game in keeping with the films themes about devices we use to deal with out subconscious.

Even though it makes sense thematically, there are a lot of questions with this scene. Why did they choose this location? Was their original plan always to enlist Fischer into helping them? If not, how were they going to fool him into thinking he wasn’t dreaming? And if they didn’t know Fischer’s subconscious would be armed (and even if they did know and now that they do), why would they provide the projections with a fortress?

But, you know what, I can forgive it those problems (it is understandable if you can’t). It does provide some pretty spectacular (even standard) action that is still more exciting than most of the action in both Iron Man films, both Transformers films, and the new Star Trek film. And it also lowers the intensity (in the way I’ve been using the word earlier) before we return to the Limbo City, the visual pinnacle of the movie and its most fascinating concept (more on that later in the week).

The rhythm of the film is rather brilliant in the way that it establishes the spectacular potential for the film, but saves the most spectacular for last, while using smaller events to keep the dreams exciting along the way. Of course, this doesn’t work if you think that the Limbo City is not as impressive as Paris folding over itself. But again, that’s purely subjective, and an argument about that will just end up at the Monty Python Argument Clinic.

Violence:

Actually, I think the word Jameson used was “sickening” violence. His criticism here is about the endless killings of the projections, manifestations of the subconscious that can kill, but are not actually real people. I found this criticism rather strange coming from Jameson, who elsewhere in his piece praises The Matrix without mentioning its gleefully stylized slaughter of police officers who are actually real people in pods just like Neo, Trinity and Morpheus were. One of them was just reading the newspaper when the guy with the cool sunglasses came in and machine-gunned him. Now, I’m not saying the violence in The Matrix is objectionable, I’m just wondering why Jameson thinks the violence in Inception is more objectionable than in The Matrix.

Jameson also mentions audience reactions to the explosion of a Humvee and hypothetical reactions to Ariadne shooting Mal. Audience reactions seem to be the basis for Jameson taking offense to these scenes. Since when did it become part of film criticism to review the audience? Who cares if people in the crowd just like seeing explosions? Nobody in the theater during the four times I saw film the cheered when Mal was shot. Why should the movie be held accountable for what some dumbasses thought about it?

Women:

Jameson’s main critique here is that Inception is misogynistic because Nolan does not deal with Mal as a human character and instead turns her into (his words) a “psycho bitch.” Nolan does have trouble with creating compelling female characters, and Jameson’s argument would be valid if we ever see Mal in the movie. We don’t. We only see Cobb’s image of her: his memory and his mental projection of her. His memories are the closest we ever get to seeing her, and most of these take place after Cobb has messed with her mind. And his mental project is not her, but his own subconscious. When Mal tries to stab him at the end, that’s really Cobb’s subconscious guilt trying to kill him (which is a pretty powerful image). It’s no more misogynistic than Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Social Network or any other film that deals with (and critiques) the male perception of women. Especially considering that Ariadne is probably the most sympathetic character in the film.

Themes:

This is where Jameson says that he doesn’t think Inception is as complex or meaningful as people think it is. I’m going to write more about the film’s themes later in the week (this post is long enough as it is), but this is another subjective argument. I think there is meaning in the film. Jameson doesn’t. If you don’t find meaning in it, then you don’t. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. That’s it. And there’s nothing wrong with it. I didn’t find a lot of meaning in Apocalypse Now. Perhaps I will sometime in the future, but I don’t know. And there’s nothing wrong with people finding meaning in it.

Exposition:

This is the criticism I’ve heard most about Inception, and it’s probably the best. It’s that most of the dialogue is about explaining the rules of the world and furthering the plot instead of developing the characters.

My first response to this is that it didn’t really bother me. All fantasies have to establish the rules of their worlds. Some of it does sound a little silly: “Five minutes in the real world gives you an hour in the dream.” But then again, if they were so experienced with this, wouldn’t they know the time difference?

Some of it is oddly placed. The introduction of limbo comes when the mission has already started. But it does serve several purposes. The fact that they are able to have that kind of discussion creates an immediate sense of being rooted in a place and that this heist is going to be a long haul. It also casts some doubt on Cobb since he didn’t tell the team they would be risking limbo, and he didn’t even tell Ariadne (our surrogate and the most sympathetic character) that limbo even exists.

The other example of oddly-placed exposition that Jameson mentions is when Ariadne asks Cobb if killing Fischer’s projections means killing parts of his mind during the assault on the snow fortress. This does seem random and, to be honest, that was my initial reaction. But the dialogue serves two purposes. First, it raises an interesting question (in fact, the projections could be the subject of an interesting discussion focusing on when a few of them are given a small amount of individuality). Second, it sets up Cobb’s confusion when he sees Mal in the dream moments later. There is a big contrast between his nonchalant explanation that “No, they’re just projections” and his hesitation at the sight of Mal. The tables are immediately turned between Ariadne and Cobb as she tells him that Mal isn’t real, and Cobb asks how she can know that.

Aside from that, I found a lot of the dialogue (even the expository dialogue) to be fascinating: Cobb’s descriptions about how the mind works in a dream, the discussions about architecture and gravity between Arthur and Ariadne, the way Cobb describes the buildings in limbo with touches of longing, regret and reminiscence. Jameson writes that the dialogue is poorly written, but he doesn’t really say why. His one explanation is mostly sarcastic speculation about Nolan’s writing process. I’m afraid a discussion of this might be another job for the Argument Clinic.

Well, I think I’ve done a pretty good job responding to the opposing view, at least well enough that I can refer people to this post if they have a criticism. And it’s always good to test your opinions against an opposition. Now, I can feel a little more confident about analyzing Inception.

There Must Be 50 Ways to Like Inception

It's Inception Appreciation Week here at Esoteric.

I realized that I had far too many things to write about Inception for just one post, so I'm devoting an entire series this week to my favorite film of the year. We'll go into editing, cinematography, writing, themes, and who knows what else (I have no idea right now. I'm sure I'll figure it out). Just a warning: if you're not up for really overanalyzing things, you are in the wrong place.

Note: I'm not sure there will actually be 50 ways, but the title sounded good (especially if it was sung by Paul Simon). I mainly chose it as a response to A.D. Jameson's piece "Seventeen Ways of Criticizing Inception" from last August. I'll probably have some thoughts on that this week.

The Best Films of 2010

While the practice of ranking movies is inherently silly, I must admit it's a lot of fun. I will add before we start that, as with all lists, "best" is synonymous with "my favorite", but that should go without saying. "Best" just sounds better.

1. Inception

The most talked-about movie of the year and, quite simply, the best. Director Christopher Nolan creates a visual architecture for the subconscious by using constantly shifting real-world environments in a heist movie about invading dreams to steal ideas and plant ideas. Nolan is a master filmmaker, using editing, music, cinematography and all the elements at his disposal to create genuine emotion for this complex material. Repeated viewings reveal not only the plot complications, but also the underlying themes about all human “dreams” that we might call by other names like religion, myth, art, movies, and video games, and how we use these to deal with our own subconscious.

2. Winter’s Bone

Debra Granik’s brilliant low-budget film about a young woman searching for her father in the Missouri Ozarks is gritty, bleak, frightening, and ultimately hopeful. Jennifer Lawrence gives an amazing breakout performance as 17-year-old Ree Dolly whose father has jumped bail and put the family’s house up as collateral. To protect her younger siblings and her mentally absent mother, Ree sets outs to find her father in a community that knows where he is, but doesn’t want to say. The story is a modern-day version of the epic quest with shades of Southern Gothic in a landscape that seems almost post-apocalyptic. Few films achieve the same distinct sense of time, place, and character as Winter’s Bone.

3. The Social Network

Not just the story of the founding of Facebook, but one of the defining films of the modern era. A film about the distances between people, how those distances have changed, and how they’re still the same. It’s also as rich and complex a study of the male psyche as Taxi Driver andRaging Bull. Director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin effortlessly leap back and forth through time and blur the line between fact and fiction as Jesse Eisenberg blurs the line between hero and villain in his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a funny, exciting, and brilliantly entertaining document of our time.

4. Mother

A frightening and powerfully disturbing film from Korean director Bong Joon-Ho about the extreme measures one mother will take to protect her son. When a young man is accused of murder, his mother sets out to prove his innocence. You think you know where it’s going, but this movie breaks the rules of conventional thrillers and creates a vision that could not be made in a Hollywood film.

5. Restrepo

A harrowing and thought-provoking documentary about the War in Afghanistan. It follows an American platoon for its yearlong deployment in the Korangal Valley, considered by CNN to be the most dangerous place in the world. The film has no political agenda and does not preach. It simply observes the events and listens to the soldiers describing their experiences. No film could possibly make viewers fully understand everything happening in Afghanistan, but directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger give us an unforgettable glimpse into the war.

6. The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski’s superbly constructed thriller about a writer hired to write the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister with some dark secrets in his past. The film evokes recent political events regarding the United States and Great Britain without letting overt political commentary get in the way of a terrific story. Polanksi masterfully orchestrates scenes of incredible suspense and ends the film with a shot that is brilliant in its choreography and chilling in its implications.

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One

The first half of the final chapter in the Harry Potter saga is magical and exhilarating, filled with dazzling images and surprising humanity. As Harry and his friends venture into exile to escape the grasp of the evil Lord Voldemort, they discover new things about the history of their world and new things within themselves. The young actors demonstrate that they are skilled enough to carry an entire film without help from the cast of impressive British character actors. Director David Yates creates an incredible sense of menacing dread, especially in a scene inside the new Ministry of Magic and during the heroes’ long trek through a desolate wilderness.

8. Black Swan

A psychological horror melodrama from director Darren Aronofsky that transcends the boundaries of reality and features a fearless performance by Natalie Portman as a ballet dancer in a production of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” This is a film of horror, beauty, grotesquerie, absurdity, and operatic emotions. On one level, it’s a film about the cutthroat world of show business, but on a much deeper level, it’s about the visceral and self-destructive nature of art itself.

9. The King’s Speech

British director Tom Hooper directs this wonderful film about the powers of human speech and its importance in the modern era. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush give terrific performances as England’s King George VI and the speech therapist helping the King to overcome a paralyzing stammer as he prepares to lead England into war against Nazi Germany. In a time when radio and film are making a leader’s words ever more important, conveying those words becomes a long-distance battle between King George and Adolf Hitler before the two nations exchange gunfire. Even though the outcome of the film is history, the climactic speech still generates incredible suspense.

10. Toy Story 3

Pixar continues its winning streak with the third outing for Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and all the other characters we have come to know and love so well. Like Pixar’s last two masterpieces WALL-E and Up, Toy Story 3 deals with important themes while delivering exhilarating entertainment. It touches on themes involving parents letting go of their children, the changes of life, death, perhaps even the possibilities of resurrection and immortality, and at the same time, it’s also a terrific adventure, one of the best prison escape films ever made. It is a credit to the geniuses at Pixar that we have grown to care about these characters so much that they have really become human.

Other Movies I Admired:

The Fighter, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hereafter, The Kids Are All Right, Salt, The Town, True Grit

So many movies, so little time. Here are the ones that I wanted to see, but didn't get a chance:

The American, Another Year, Blue Valentine, Carlos, The Chaser, Exit Through the Gift Shop, For Colored Girls, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Greenberg, I Am Love, The Illusionist, Let Me In, Monsters, Never Let Me Go, The Red Riding Trilogy,Somewhere, The Way Back