{"id":5453,"date":"2010-07-17T00:31:26","date_gmt":"2010-07-17T04:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=5453"},"modified":"2010-07-26T23:28:15","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T03:28:15","slug":"inception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=5453","title":{"rendered":"Inception"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Christopher Nolan\u2019s Inception<\/em> shares a lot of similarities with Tarsem Singh\u2019s The Cell*<\/em>. It\u2019s a highly ambitious story dealing with entering people\u2019s minds and has grand and stylized visuals, and a harrumphing, doom-impending score by Hans Zimmer that could easily be confused for Howard Shore\u2019s work (Along with The Cell, <\/em>Shore writes music for most of David Cronenberg<\/span>\u2019s<\/a> films). Inception<\/em> even has an endlessly convoluted structure, which requires the characters to stand around explaining the complexities of the plot every five minutes.<\/p>\n

Inception<\/em> also reaches the point where some very good actors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine) are stranded without anything to play and are simply required to provide exposition. A wealth of character actors are sunk by the overly expository nature of the script, which is what ruined the pacing and tone of Martin Scorsese\u2019s Shutter Island<\/span><\/a><\/em>. That film, like Inception<\/em>, starred Leonardo DiCaprio as an arrogant and in-over-his-head \u201cexpert\u201d who is haunted by his dead wife and must admit to and deal with his emotional deficiencies before he\u2019s allowed to move on.<\/p>\n

\"\"But, unlike Scorsese and Singh, Nolan is not in genre mode for his film. And Inception<\/em> manages something that none of the other equally clever but cold films that Nolan has directed have achieved: We care about what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

Unlike his Memento —<\/em> which is a very intricate and intelligent film that is purely mechanical; or his Batman films<\/span><\/a>,<\/em> which are overstuffed if interesting to look at — Inception<\/em> is directly involving on a personal level.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sure, Inception<\/em> features Nolan\u2019s need to create new worlds for us to be blown away by. But, like his very successful remake of Insomnia<\/em>, the disorientation isn\u2019t only ours.<\/p>\n

Yes, Inception<\/em>\u2019s plot is nothing more than a MacGuffin. The fate of the world\u2019s energy supply is supposedly resting on businessman Watanabe\u2019s ability to convince DiCaprio and his team to implant an idea in an unsuspecting party\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

\"\"And all that takes a backseat to shootouts, ski chases a la James Bond<\/span><\/a> and show-offy CGI.<\/p>\n

The difference between Inception<\/em> and Nolan\u2019s other films is that the complexities are clear and what you can ignore is saved by the fact that Watanabe\u2019s accent is so thick that he frequently can\u2019t be understood. Nolan plays fair with the rules — we get that DiCaprio and friends can manipulate people\u2019s minds from inside. But the small details — like the ever-angry projections (represented as nosy strangers on the street with a short fuse), or the various time differences as they enter different levels — are always well thought out and coherent.<\/p>\n

\"\"Like Tarsem Singh, Nolan is a master at establishing a new setting**. So, as he goes from a Japanese home — where everyone looks as though they\u2019ve been shot with spray-tan filter — to a snowbound military bunker designed to look like a Halo 2<\/em> level, there\u2019s none of the feeling that occurs with the globetrotting Bourne films of being that we\u2019re someplace new because there was no way out of a scene<\/span><\/a>. And they had the budget to go to Italy. So why not?<\/p>\n

Instead, Nolan literalizes the elements of the brain (your wife can<\/em> nag you in your subconscious). That means the locations are a necessity. And they\u2019re so visually different: a van falling off a bridge; Gordon-Levitt fighting off intruders in a golden-hued hotel hallway that is unpredictably rotating (the most astonishing fight scene in years); and the aforementioned snowed-in bunker\/bank vault. It makes the distinctions always clear as to where we are.<\/p>\n

\"\"By doing this, Nolan does something you wouldn\u2019t think possible for a film this complex***. He has us transfixed with the characters on each level of the mind. So he barely needs to crosscut (as opposed to requiring a \u201cmeanwhile\u2026\u201d). And the suspense is heightened threefold.<\/p>\n

That he manages to maintain this balance for about 30 minutes of screen time is an extraordinary achievement; enough to overcome the niggling problems (What exactly is Joseph Gordon-Levitt\u2019s role at the company? Is he like a film producer, in which the specifics defy description, but the overall leadership feeling is the important part?) Plus he overcomes the occasional low-tech Ouija Board**** feel of the operation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em>That Nolan can get away with such chances is a credit to his enormous achievement. More so than Dark City<\/span><\/a><\/em>, Blade Runner, The Matrix<\/em>, and The Cell<\/em> — four Warner\/New Line films that Warner Brothers’ Inception<\/em> will no doubt be compared to — Dark City<\/em> was amazing to look at, but the characters deliberately had no core or essence. The Matrix<\/em> was 100 minutes of clich\u00e9d gobbledygook which seemed to have been written by college freshman dropout, followed by 40 minutes of completely enthralling effects and cinematography.<\/p>\n

Inception<\/em> has its own gobbledygook. But the entire movie — from the slow-motion explosions of meaningless objects reminiscent of Zabriskie Point<\/span><\/a><\/em> to the cityscapes folding onto each other, creating a sideways world; to a tragic and believable husband and wife relationship; to a thematically satisfying ending, that depending on your point-of-view, is either hopeful or horrifying — Nolan has basically done the impossible. He\u2019s taken $200 million and, instead of coming up with a highly generic product, he\u2019s made a real movie.<\/p>\n

\"\"* The best director\u2019s commentary ever produced for a studio film, i.e. one that had plenty of marketing and money behind it, doesn\u2019t come from the most obvious source (Kevin Smith<\/span><\/a>? Terry Gilliam<\/span><\/a>?), but rather Tarsem Singh as he talks about The Cell<\/em>, <\/em>which was his first feature film (his second film was The Fall<\/em>). Singh, who made a name for himself directing R.E.M. videos, is completely honest about the movie and the studio process itself. He talks about New Line wanting to make a film with him, and he would do it, as long as he could bring his art directors, costume designers, and any other visual element possible with him.<\/p>\n

Since the genre du jour when The Cell <\/em>was made in 2000, especially for new filmmakers, was serial killers, Singh decided to \u201cbring his stuff with him\u201d to a serial killer thriller. Figuring that the suits would be more worried about the script and story issues, Singh was happy to concentrate on what he enjoyed most, the look of the movie. It helped that the script for The Cell<\/em>, which is about a psychotherapist (played by Jennifer Lopez) who can enter a person\u2019s mind, is coaxed by the police to help them find the location of a missing girl, known only to a comatose serial killer, is absolutely dreadful. On the commentary, Singh talks about being totally aware of the screenplay\u2019s many weaknesses, the contrivances, the awful dialogue, and there\u2019s a hint that he knows that Vince Vaughn (as the cop) gives a career-worst performance. But he didn\u2019t care, and the resulting movie has one visually stunning moment after another, as close to a series of violent, living paintings as a mainstream movie can get.<\/p>\n

\"\"The result is that the first time you see The Cell<\/em>, you\u2019re annoyed with how poorly the story elements hang together and the idiocy that escapes any time an actor opens their mouth. The second time, you learn to ignore the problems and bask in the movie\u2019s grotesque wonder and the wonderfully bombastic score by Howard Shore.<\/p>\n

** Mike Figgis\u2019 Timecode<\/em>, which was shot in one take, with intertwining stories broken up into four different panels, has a scene in which the music emotionally matches for each separate story at the same time.<\/p>\n

*** Singh’s The Fall<\/em> is almost entirely made up of striking establishing shots, and not much else.<\/p>\n

**** Dileep Rao has a very similar role here, as a legally questionable chemist, to the one he had in Drag Me to Hell<\/span><\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Nolan\u2019s Inception shares a lot of similarities with Tarsem Singh\u2019s The Cell*. It\u2019s a highly ambitious story dealing with entering people\u2019s minds and has grand and stylized visuals, and a harrumphing, doom-impending score by Hans Zimmer that could easily be confused for Howard Shore\u2019s work (Along with The Cell, Shore writes music for most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,14],"tags":[5188,722,600,5632,130,106,119,6735,153,2343,6732,6464,6726,2545,1293,6723,2628,905,6734,6820,6738,1079,789,1807,2908,6727,624,6730,6722,2383,5099,6739,6728,4818,4599,4600,1353,6724,140,6729,5189,246,276,1316,3275,6725,6736,3654,69,133,5742,721,3653,459,6733,546,6737,326,4042,3883],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}