100 movies in 2020: # 14, Inception
Everybody makes a big fuss about Christopher Nolan. I’m the last person alive who hasn’t seen the Dark Knight films (see my earlier posts about superhero flicks in general) so I didn’t know anything about Nolan other than a serious cult attends him. I’m generally skeptical whenever a public figure has a worshipful cult following. When it comes to Christopher Nolan, I’m not skeptical anymore. Inception is a masterpiece of creativity.
- Release: 2010
- Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, and lots of other very good people.
- Directed by: Christopher Nolan
- Screenplay: Christopher Nolan
- Spoilers? Yes, but you saw it before me anyway.
Synopsis
Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an international thief specializing in the extraction of corporate secrets from sleeping executives. When an energy executive (Saito, played by Ken Watanabe) approaches him about implanting an idea in his professional rival’s subconscious, Cobb balks—until Saito tells him he can get the charges he faces back home in the US dropped. Desperate to see his children again, Dom builds a team of skilled dream architects and experts in extraction and sets off on an unprecedented assignment. But in order to get home and see his kids again, he’ll have to face his deepest regret of all.
Go big or go home
I can’t begin to explain how intricate this plot is. Based on the concept of lucid dreaming, the story weaves science fiction, action, mythology, suspense, and touches of horror and love into a fast-paced and imaginative narrative. The team penetrates into the target’s subconscious, creating a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream in order to deceive the target into thinking Saito’s idea truly originated with himself. The story logic justifies the plot’s complexity; it’s not complexity for complexity’s sake. If you haven’t seen the film, you’ll want to watch it twice: once for the basic plot, and once to watch the pieces come together.
Nolan does a wonderful job of giving the audience just enough detail to be able to both marvel at and and follow the plot without overloading on the detail that sci-fi tends toward but can bog down an action film. The subplots are rich and serve to challenge and complicate the main narrative line while rounding out the characters involved. The entire time I watched the movie, I kept thinking, “This screenplay must have taken him for-freaking-ever to piece together.” Everything feels essential; nothing feels wasted.
Fiction writing lesson from Inception:
Go big or go home
Do it. Just go for it. Take an intriguing phenomenon or a wild and novel idea and create art from it. Make your story big and complicated and clever and loud and intense and dig in and go for it. Give it everything. Justify your choices. Make it a masterpiece of creativity. Revel in your great and glorious work.
