A few days ago, I wrote a scene where my protagonist dreams she’s in a huge cake maze, like a maze made out of gigantic cakes. This was her dream birthday party, but there was no way for anyone to eat the cake, so she ran to the kitchen to get spoons, spoons for every mouth! Inside, she faced a second labyrinth: an ocean of tarp that bit at her, obstructing her from the silverware drawer.
A few years ago, I had a dream where I was under attack in this poet’s house. It’s a big house, red brick, gorgeous really. Out of nowhere, an older writer strolls in drinking a beer. Nothing else happened. The attack stopped. I was safe. Later, I told her about my dream. This was years ago. She told me she was a recovering alcoholic. I was so embarrassed, I don’t even remember how I reacted.
I can’t tell you how many short stories I’ve read that end with “and then he/she/it wakes up.” It’s the lamest kind of trick.
Which is why I found Inception potentially very interesting but in the end quite disappointing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3XzUYd6nrU&feature=related
Whereas I just wrote a dream sequence into my ms, in general, I find dreams to be too easy of a trick. In fiction, anything can happen, right? You go from the landscape of fiction, where anything can happen, into the dreamscape of dream, where anything can happen. So why do you need the dream? Dreams offer writers and readers an even more infinite possibility than fiction, where possibility is already infinite, and dreams in fiction, well, it makes my head hurt thinking it all through. So why use dreams in fiction if fiction can already do anything the dream can do? Seems redundant to me. Why add that layer of surreality?
Furthermore, dreams in fiction are often too telling, and if not telling then intentionally revealing, like the writer couldn’t manage to reveal something buried so deeply in the subconscious through a scene or monologue or whatever, so they had to employ a dream sequence.
Maybe I’m being harsh on dreams.
So back to Inception. This is a movie all about dreams. I like Christopher Nolan. I crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I like cool movies with cool special effects. I also like smart movies. But in the end, despite all the things the movie had going for it, it stopped short of profound. And for a movie like this, to stop short of profound is to fail. At least to me.
A.O. Scott agrees:
Admirers of Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” and Stanley Kubrick’s “2001” will find themselves in good company, though “Inception” does not come close to matching the impact of those durable cult objects. It trades in crafty puzzles rather than profound mysteries, and gestures in the direction of mighty philosophical questions that Mr. Nolan is finally too tactful, too timid or perhaps just too busy to engage… It is more like a diverting reverie than a primal nightmare, something to be mused over rather than analyzed, something you may forget as soon as it’s over.
Also, of the two people with whom I went to see the film, one fell asleep and the other declared it was one of the worst movies he’s ever seen. I’d say that’s extreme. It was a good enough film. Lots of visually stunning effects. Conceptually, it could’ve been tighter, sure, but it felt just like that story (all those stories) I’ve read in workshop that end “And then he woke up.” That’s not the ending of Inception, fyi, so I haven’t spoiled the movie or anything.
And: it’s almost like Hollywood has just caught on to metafiction and Post Modernism and Freud. Yes, I understand how different it is to describe something in words v. making a spectacle for the eyes in film.
What do you think about dreams or dreams in fiction or dreams in Inception or Inception as a whole or whatever?
I thought Bolaño’s “2666” used dreams to good effect, which is to say that it was never the old “And then s/he woke up” deal, but the dreams were there to give some kind of insight into either the characters or the plot. And then there were also some incredibly surreal scenes that were not dreams but felt like they could have been. Like a David Lynch film (a comparison made many times, not least of which because Lynch was referenced a few times in the book).
Possibilities are infinite in dreams (so we tell ourselves) but they can also often be frighteningly banal. I would like a reprieve from all my dust-mopping themed dreams, please and thank you.
But I don’t see anything wrong with using dreams in stories. Anxieties that don’t necessarily get played out in waking life, or at least not outwardly, get played out in dreams. People say and do things in dreams they would never do awake or maybe sometimes dreams are practice for when the right moment in waking life does come.
I meant to say I don’t see anything wrong with using dreams in stories as long as, with everything else, it is done right.
I found Inception to be a fun thriller with some eye-popping sequences — especially the long scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character dealing with weightlessness and having to work out how to deliver a “kick” to his sleeping colleagues. After a confusing first half-hour or so — Nolan drops you into the middle of something, and the movie takes awhile to settle down and begins explaining things. After that, I didn’t have a lot of trouble following it, though I do want to see it again to help me clarify some points.
It’s an insult to Kubrick to call it Kubrickian, which some of the goofier reviewers and fans have been doing. It lacks his sense of cool control. Inception isn’t deep, although it simulates depth. If I were 16, I’d think it is the greatest movie I’ve ever seen.
I can’t read this, or any of the comments, until Monday when I’ll finally see it. Cannot wait.
To be fair, I think I said it was the worst movie that I had seen since Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things in 2003.
M. Night Shyamalan > Neil LaBute.
What’s more, I found The Hills finale more philosophically provocative than Inception.
That’s a burn. I think. I’ve never seen even one episode of The Hills.
Brody Jenner is hyperreal.
yeah, i saw the finale of The Hills. Bret Easton Ellis must have been pretty psyched about the final moments of it (apparently, he loves the show and thinks it’s Jane Austen meets Lynch or something, and that it’s sweet because it’s neither scripted nor organic reality). it was a pretty cool way to end the show, i’d say.
not quite a mindfuck, but somewhat surprising, the ending
“In fiction, anything can happen, right? You go from the landscape of fiction, where anything can happen, into the dreamscape of dream, where anything can happen. So why do you need the dream? Dreams offer writers and readers an even more infinite possibility than fiction, where possibility is already infinite, and dreams in fiction, well, it makes my head hurt thinking it all through. So why use dreams in fiction if fiction can already do anything the dream can do? Seems redundant to me. Why add that layer of surreality?”
This is why I never liked Muppet Babies.
That cake maze sounds pretty delicious.
http://gawker.com/5589053/how-to-talk-about-a-movie-without-pissing-people-off
I just woke up.
someone said that movie is james bond meets the matrix. i’d say that’s fair. not really what i’m into but i thought the movie was fine for an afternoon.
I thought Bolaño’s “2666” used dreams to good effect, which is to say that it was never the old “And then s/he woke up” deal, but the dreams were there to give some kind of insight into either the characters or the plot. And then there were also some incredibly surreal scenes that were not dreams but felt like they could have been. Like a David Lynch film (a comparison made many times, not least of which because Lynch was referenced a few times in the book).
Possibilities are infinite in dreams (so we tell ourselves) but they can also often be frighteningly banal. I would like a reprieve from all my dust-mopping themed dreams, please and thank you.
But I don’t see anything wrong with using dreams in stories. Anxieties that don’t necessarily get played out in waking life, or at least not outwardly, get played out in dreams. People say and do things in dreams they would never do awake or maybe sometimes dreams are practice for when the right moment in waking life does come.
I meant to say I don’t see anything wrong with using dreams in stories as long as, with everything else, it is done right.
I found Inception to be a fun thriller with some eye-popping sequences — especially the long scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character dealing with weightlessness and having to work out how to deliver a “kick” to his sleeping colleagues. After a confusing first half-hour or so — Nolan drops you into the middle of something, and the movie takes awhile to settle down and begins explaining things. After that, I didn’t have a lot of trouble following it, though I do want to see it again to help me clarify some points.
It’s an insult to Kubrick to call it Kubrickian, which some of the goofier reviewers and fans have been doing. It lacks his sense of cool control. Inception isn’t deep, although it simulates depth. If I were 16, I’d think it is the greatest movie I’ve ever seen.
I can’t read this, or any of the comments, until Monday when I’ll finally see it. Cannot wait.
To be fair, I think I said it was the worst movie that I had seen since Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things in 2003.
M. Night Shyamalan > Neil LaBute.
What’s more, I found The Hills finale more philosophically provocative than Inception.
That’s a burn. I think. I’ve never seen even one episode of The Hills.
Brody Jenner is hyperreal.
yeah, i saw the finale of The Hills. Bret Easton Ellis must have been pretty psyched about the final moments of it (apparently, he loves the show and thinks it’s Jane Austen meets Lynch or something, and that it’s sweet because it’s neither scripted nor organic reality). it was a pretty cool way to end the show, i’d say.
not quite a mindfuck, but somewhat surprising, the ending
“In fiction, anything can happen, right? You go from the landscape of fiction, where anything can happen, into the dreamscape of dream, where anything can happen. So why do you need the dream? Dreams offer writers and readers an even more infinite possibility than fiction, where possibility is already infinite, and dreams in fiction, well, it makes my head hurt thinking it all through. So why use dreams in fiction if fiction can already do anything the dream can do? Seems redundant to me. Why add that layer of surreality?”
This is why I never liked Muppet Babies.
That cake maze sounds pretty delicious.
ever seen Paprika?
also yeah Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless mind.
Not a groundbreaking idea or anything
see Paprika: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJzEW_eE1G0&feature=related
http://gawker.com/5589053/how-to-talk-about-a-movie-without-pissing-people-off
I just woke up.
someone said that movie is james bond meets the matrix. i’d say that’s fair. not really what i’m into but i thought the movie was fine for an afternoon.
The thing is, Inception hints at its ideas. This is what Nolan does, and does well. He hints and doesn’t overhandedly say: This is Surreal, capital S. This is Clinical Depression, capital… you know. Like in Memento, he didn’t tell you, this is a Hero. This is a Villain. There are a bunch of heroes and villains in that film, and they even switch. Great stuff.
Inception, like The Prestige, sends you along this path of dealing with the matters of life. When dealing with dreams, of course, you deal with what is real. Remember those cult members in San lDiego who killed themselves by drinking Kool Aid — they were wearing Nikes right? They thought they had to kill themselves for when they board the mothership to take them back to their home planet. Everyone thought they were nuts. Well, this is what you don’t hear about — that same night there was a UFO sighting that began in San Diego (and surrounding areas, like LA County — I was one of the people who say this UFO) and moved across states toward Arizona. It was seen in various places on its way to Arizona. It was the same UFO that was seen in Phoenix Arizona, and is called the Phoenix Lights (look it up). The timeline is, this UFO was seen over a long period. Strange, no?
Lynch tends to allow the Surreality of his subject to be portrayed via the filming techniques. Editing, lighting, color, clothes, the whole deal. It is hinted at, but not really. Nolan on the other hand uses a technique I can appreciate — reaching toward a specific audience that intakes information differently. It is like when I am in Long Beach, California, talking to some cats from the Rolling 20s, and if I want to convey a pretty complex, expansive concept, if I speak like I am talking to a bunch of people at a cocktail party at some stuffy place like Harvard, most of them, I won’t say won’t get it, but are going to view me a certain way which may cause them to disregard the majority of what I am saying before it has a chance to be processed. So you have to approach people specifically. Like how some people enjoy Write Bloody’s poets over the poets published by FSG, and some dig the poets published by Birds LLC over Harper Collins.
See this film again and notice a couple of things. What is really going on? Who is who? Are all these people real? Are some real and some fake? Are people who we see as nuts, are they nuts? Or are we the ones stuck in some fabrication….
I am seeing it again. And I will buy it to go along with Memento and The Prestige. (And Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, but those’re kind of in a different section). They’ll be alongside The Way of the Gun, which is… damn it an excellent film.
Okay, I’m done.
This is an excellent fucking point. Though I am excited to see Inception.
Mostly agree, the dream thing is usually a copout, though I have to say…at the end of Newhart, best use of “it was all a dream” EVER.
Dreams aren’t used in Inception the way they are traditionally used in fiction, i.e. to reveal some deeply symbolic subconscious issue. In Inception dreams are used as a sci-fi plot device. The dreams are crafted, not revealed, by a team of sophisticated mind spies. Of course, there is the scene where Ellen Page’s character sneaks into Cobb’s dreamworld, and that is symbolic in a way, but it is also incredibly relevant to the plot. Dreams aren’t being used as reveals to the readers about a character, but as reveals to the characters about the other characters to further the story. This is, I think, an important difference.
ever seen Paprika?
also yeah Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless mind.
Not a groundbreaking idea or anything
see Paprika: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJzEW_eE1G0&feature=related
There’s an issue here.
Is it possible to use the dreams as a reveal to reveal information about a character without advancing the story? Doesn’t a character reveal inherently advance the story in some way, as the story is about the characters and not about the plot? We should also distinguish between story and plot — as a plot is the ideas used to guide the story. I would say, that Ellen Page’s character sneaking into Cobb’s dreamworld was more important to the character’s story, than the plot. You remove that scene and the film goes on — we did not need to know the WHY of Cobb’s mental state — you remove her being close to Cobb in every scene and she, technically, doesn’t have to be by his side. Her ability to construct world’s is important to the plot… I will give you that. There is more ‘scenes for story/character’ than there are simply ‘scenes for plot advancement’.
There are two levels of dream-revealing happening in Inception. One way the dreams are being used is as a “plot device” (I rather call it a plot structure), to allow us literal entrance into the minds of our characters so that we may traverse their maps. The dreams are crafted yes, but also revealed because we notice Cobb’s dreamworld, Cobb’s deep subconscious issue, creeping into this crafted world. The reason we have these constructions is to juxtapose the uncrafted running of the parts of our mind we cannot truly control, only give illusions of control. We must see that this film isn’t about ones own dreams, or the actual dream period, but more so how the mind produces and interacts with the ABILITY to dream, and the mechanics BEHIND the act of dreaming.
I think we’re dealing with Inception from the standpoint of fiction-writing approach, and this is fine, look at the forum we’re in. But it would also help to view fiction-writing approaches, and Inception, from a real-world perspective. Lucid dreaming, how we interact with our own dreams.
It’s worth noting that this movie did not utilize the “then I woke up” device whatsoever.
It’s also worth nothing that No Country For Old Men ends with a “then I woke up,” which was used to stunning effect in the film.
It’s only a device when it’s used as a means of escaping responsibility for the plot, as in Lost or Vanilla Sky.
I think we’re pretty much saying the same thing. The dreams work on many levels in Inception, but I think most important is that they are the main settings for real drama, not just symbols of a character’s internal problems/issues, as they tend to be in many fictions. That’s all I was trying to say.
I don’t think the movie is necessarily about the ability to dream, or interacting with dreams in a lucid way, but more so the affects dreams have on us, on memory. The ending, specifically, I think is about reconciliation within our own subjectivities, and is in fact about the exact opposite of lucid dreaming, the inability to reconcile what is real and how that makes no difference, as long as it feels real.
The thing is, Inception hints at its ideas. This is what Nolan does, and does well. He hints and doesn’t overhandedly say: This is Surreal, capital S. This is Clinical Depression, capital… you know. Like in Memento, he didn’t tell you, this is a Hero. This is a Villain. There are a bunch of heroes and villains in that film, and they even switch. Great stuff.
Inception, like The Prestige, sends you along this path of dealing with the matters of life. When dealing with dreams, of course, you deal with what is real. Remember those cult members in San lDiego who killed themselves by drinking Kool Aid — they were wearing Nikes right? They thought they had to kill themselves for when they board the mothership to take them back to their home planet. Everyone thought they were nuts. Well, this is what you don’t hear about — that same night there was a UFO sighting that began in San Diego (and surrounding areas, like LA County — I was one of the people who say this UFO) and moved across states toward Arizona. It was seen in various places on its way to Arizona. It was the same UFO that was seen in Phoenix Arizona, and is called the Phoenix Lights (look it up). The timeline is, this UFO was seen over a long period. Strange, no?
Lynch tends to allow the Surreality of his subject to be portrayed via the filming techniques. Editing, lighting, color, clothes, the whole deal. It is hinted at, but not really. Nolan on the other hand uses a technique I can appreciate — reaching toward a specific audience that intakes information differently. It is like when I am in Long Beach, California, talking to some cats from the Rolling 20s, and if I want to convey a pretty complex, expansive concept, if I speak like I am talking to a bunch of people at a cocktail party at some stuffy place like Harvard, most of them, I won’t say won’t get it, but are going to view me a certain way which may cause them to disregard the majority of what I am saying before it has a chance to be processed. So you have to approach people specifically. Like how some people enjoy Write Bloody’s poets over the poets published by FSG, and some dig the poets published by Birds LLC over Harper Collins.
See this film again and notice a couple of things. What is really going on? Who is who? Are all these people real? Are some real and some fake? Are people who we see as nuts, are they nuts? Or are we the ones stuck in some fabrication….
I am seeing it again. And I will buy it to go along with Memento and The Prestige. (And Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, but those’re kind of in a different section). They’ll be alongside The Way of the Gun, which is… damn it an excellent film.
Okay, I’m done.
This is an excellent fucking point. Though I am excited to see Inception.
Mostly agree, the dream thing is usually a copout, though I have to say…at the end of Newhart, best use of “it was all a dream” EVER.
Dreams aren’t used in Inception the way they are traditionally used in fiction, i.e. to reveal some deeply symbolic subconscious issue. In Inception dreams are used as a sci-fi plot device. The dreams are crafted, not revealed, by a team of sophisticated mind spies. Of course, there is the scene where Ellen Page’s character sneaks into Cobb’s dreamworld, and that is symbolic in a way, but it is also incredibly relevant to the plot. Dreams aren’t being used as reveals to the readers about a character, but as reveals to the characters about the other characters to further the story. This is, I think, an important difference.
There’s an issue here.
Is it possible to use the dreams as a reveal to reveal information about a character without advancing the story? Doesn’t a character reveal inherently advance the story in some way, as the story is about the characters and not about the plot? We should also distinguish between story and plot — as a plot is the ideas used to guide the story. I would say, that Ellen Page’s character sneaking into Cobb’s dreamworld was more important to the character’s story, than the plot. You remove that scene and the film goes on — we did not need to know the WHY of Cobb’s mental state — you remove her being close to Cobb in every scene and she, technically, doesn’t have to be by his side. Her ability to construct world’s is important to the plot… I will give you that. There is more ‘scenes for story/character’ than there are simply ‘scenes for plot advancement’.
There are two levels of dream-revealing happening in Inception. One way the dreams are being used is as a “plot device” (I rather call it a plot structure), to allow us literal entrance into the minds of our characters so that we may traverse their maps. The dreams are crafted yes, but also revealed because we notice Cobb’s dreamworld, Cobb’s deep subconscious issue, creeping into this crafted world. The reason we have these constructions is to juxtapose the uncrafted running of the parts of our mind we cannot truly control, only give illusions of control. We must see that this film isn’t about ones own dreams, or the actual dream period, but more so how the mind produces and interacts with the ABILITY to dream, and the mechanics BEHIND the act of dreaming.
I think we’re dealing with Inception from the standpoint of fiction-writing approach, and this is fine, look at the forum we’re in. But it would also help to view fiction-writing approaches, and Inception, from a real-world perspective. Lucid dreaming, how we interact with our own dreams.
Inception is a brutalist architect’s wet dream.
I was most impressed by how little character development there is, even the protagonist is paper thin. The film is almost entirely composed of two segments: exposition as to the mechanics of how the film will work, and then those mechanics in action, with 2 lovely little poetic bookends for colour.
It’s worth noting that this movie did not utilize the “then I woke up” device whatsoever.
It’s also worth nothing that No Country For Old Men ends with a “then I woke up,” which was used to stunning effect in the film.
It’s only a device when it’s used as a means of escaping responsibility for the plot, as in Lost or Vanilla Sky.
I think we’re pretty much saying the same thing. The dreams work on many levels in Inception, but I think most important is that they are the main settings for real drama, not just symbols of a character’s internal problems/issues, as they tend to be in many fictions. That’s all I was trying to say.
I don’t think the movie is necessarily about the ability to dream, or interacting with dreams in a lucid way, but more so the affects dreams have on us, on memory. The ending, specifically, I think is about reconciliation within our own subjectivities, and is in fact about the exact opposite of lucid dreaming, the inability to reconcile what is real and how that makes no difference, as long as it feels real.
Inception is a brutalist architect’s wet dream.
I was most impressed by how little character development there is, even the protagonist is paper thin. The film is almost entirely composed of two segments: exposition as to the mechanics of how the film will work, and then those mechanics in action, with 2 lovely little poetic bookends for colour.
Those scenarios sound really interesting, Lily.
Here’s some John Ashbery on this matter:
There is room for one bullet in the chamber:
Our looking through the wrong end
Of the telescope as you fall back at a speed
Faster than that of light to flatten ultimately
Among the features of the room, an invitation
Never mailed, the “it was all a dream”
Syndrome, though the “all” tells tersely
Enough how it wasn’t. Its existence
Was real, though troubled, and the ache
Of this waking dream can never drown out
The diagram still sketched on the wind,
Chosen, meant for me and materialized
In the disguising radiance of my room.
Sold on Ashberry, maybe I will be more sold on Inception when it goes on sale, two for one or buy one get three free.
Inception was a radical exploration of how narratives are made, a sort of Wayne C. Booth primer for the after-postmodern age. The dream levels explored things like narrative unreliability, plots and sub-plots, setting (i.e., “architecture”), character development (i.e., how do we get characters to do things that they seem to believe they want to do?), the blurred lines between fiction and non-fiction. The threshold between dream-state / waking state was really more a threshold between the plotting out of a story and the actual creation of the story/narrative. It was a process film. The creation of narrative was the process it explored. In this sense, Inception was really more like a documentary.
What in Lost was a dream?
Those scenarios sound really interesting, Lily.
Here’s some John Ashbery on this matter:
There is room for one bullet in the chamber:
Our looking through the wrong end
Of the telescope as you fall back at a speed
Faster than that of light to flatten ultimately
Among the features of the room, an invitation
Never mailed, the “it was all a dream”
Syndrome, though the “all” tells tersely
Enough how it wasn’t. Its existence
Was real, though troubled, and the ache
Of this waking dream can never drown out
The diagram still sketched on the wind,
Chosen, meant for me and materialized
In the disguising radiance of my room.
Sold on Ashberry, maybe I will be more sold on Inception when it goes on sale, two for one or buy one get three free.
Inception was a radical exploration of how narratives are made, a sort of Wayne C. Booth primer for the after-postmodern age. The dream levels explored things like narrative unreliability, plots and sub-plots, setting (i.e., “architecture”), character development (i.e., how do we get characters to do things that they seem to believe they want to do?), the blurred lines between fiction and non-fiction. The threshold between dream-state / waking state was really more a threshold between the plotting out of a story and the actual creation of the story/narrative. It was a process film. The creation of narrative was the process it explored. In this sense, Inception was really more like a documentary.
What in Lost was a dream?
This entire thread just made me curious about the Hills finale. Going to google or something.
This entire thread just made me curious about the Hills finale. Going to google or something.
The Way of the Gun is a fantastic fucking film. I cannot recommend it enough.
’44 Inch Chest’ – good sir – is something else you might like.
The Way of the Gun is a fantastic fucking film. I cannot recommend it enough.
’44 Inch Chest’ – good sir – is something else you might like.
[…] other day, Lily wrote about how she “found Inception potentially very interesting but in the end quite disappointing.” I didn’t get a chance to see it until yesterday, but I had a different reaction: I […]