Comments on: The Conversation: Inception http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/07/29/the-conversation-inception/ Serving the opinion leaders of Long Island Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:30:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Michael Patrick Nelson http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/07/29/the-conversation-inception/comment-page-1/#comment-62766 Michael Patrick Nelson Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:03:51 +0000 http://www.longislandpress.com/?p=101948#comment-62766 See, by that explanation, this movie could have laid bare its intentions completely if it had added one more scene: Just as the camera closes in on the spinning totem WHAM we hear an alarm clock going off. Cut to the inside of a suburban bedroom where someone else completely, someone we haven’t seen before — Liza Minnelli, let’s say — yawns, stretches, rises from the bed and says, “I just had the strangest dream!”

Right? DiCaprio is just a character in the dream, after all. There’s no indication he’s the one dreaming. Yes, it is a dream in which he is the main character — and MAYBE he is even the dreamer…but he doesn’t have to be. Perhaps it is ALL part of this complicated dream with no *actual* layers, just different scenes in one dream in which the dreamer is dreaming about dreaming.

Frankly this is the best explanation I’ve heard, but the movie really then feels like a bad joke, like the end of The Wizard of Oz without the payoff of ever knowing for sure that it really all was just a dream.

]]> By: Michael Patrick Nelson http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/07/29/the-conversation-inception/comment-page-1/#comment-62736 Michael Patrick Nelson Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:15:59 +0000 http://www.longislandpress.com/?p=101948#comment-62736 Josh, that’s an interesting way of looking at it, one that didn’t occur to me, that this could *all* be occurring in one person’s head, in which case, the “rules” have no meaning except that which one person’s unconscious assigns them. I’d accept that. But that then drops the stakes a lot lower than they already are (and they already are pretty low, in my mind: the corporate takeover plot felt empty to me; I had no investment in DiCaprio’s relationships with his wife and kids; and death itself was nothing more severe than waking up from a dream). So if this is *all* one person’s dream…it’s a plausible, sound theory, but it leaves me feeling (correctly, yes?) that I just watched a cinematic rendition of a very complicated dream, a dream which bore no relation to dreams as I know them. So…then what? What am I supposed to feel?

]]> By: josh http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/07/29/the-conversation-inception/comment-page-1/#comment-60586 josh Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:47:39 +0000 http://www.longislandpress.com/?p=101948#comment-60586 I’ve noticed that most people who were “disappointed” by Inception thought the movie was about dreams. As Mike said, “a film ostensibly about dreams.” The question is, where did they get this idea from? The movie is not about dreams, it is ostensibly about one particular, constructed set of dreams, or about the subconscious of its main character.

]]> By: Michael Patrick Nelson http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/07/29/the-conversation-inception/comment-page-1/#comment-60150 Michael Patrick Nelson Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:35:24 +0000 http://www.longislandpress.com/?p=101948#comment-60150 Maybe…but I still think Inception is a pretty flawed and nonsensical movie. Owen Gleiberman’s take mirrors my own (though he voices it much more eloquently and in greater detail): http://movie-critics.ew.com/2010/07/20/inception-why-i-didnt-get-it/

]]> By: Brad Pareso http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/07/29/the-conversation-inception/comment-page-1/#comment-60142 Brad Pareso Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:00:10 +0000 http://www.longislandpress.com/?p=101948#comment-60142 Great convo but Dylan and I totally won.

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