So unless you’ve been on a walkabout in the Outback, you must know that Inception opened this weekend. It did whopping business ($60.4M) and is creating quite a bit of buzz, mostly good, some negative.
Elizabeth O. sent me a note on Friday which I thought I’d use as a frame for a discussion of the movie:
Scott,I have yet to see “Inception” but something has been bothering me about the reviews. Essentially, I’m reading that the dialogue is expository, the emotional center is cold (even though Marion Cotillard is hot), the plot is confusing and the characters one-dimensional (particular Page’s). But, it’s still being hailed a great achievement with great technical aspects.
Doesn’t this just make Nolan the Michael Bay of “cineastes”? How can one film be described as failing many of the basic tenets of storytelling and be praised as one of the best movies of the year? Can you remember any past “classic” films who seemingly failed on such basic levels but yet was wildly praised as “Inception”? Should I just forgo my pen and pray for a great cinematographer and editor?
What did you think?
Was the dialogue expository?
The emotional center cold?
The plot confusing?
The characters one-dimensional?
Bear in mind, these are not Elizabeth’s observations — as of the point she emailed me, she had not seen the movie — but her assessment of some of the film’s negative reviews.
Inception currently has an 84% rating on RottenTomatoes. Here are a few of the negative comments there:
If you recall the scene in Dahmer (2002) where Jeremy Renner as the deranged killer drills holes into his victims’ heads, you’ll know what watching this Freudian claptrap of a thriller is like.It’s hard to connect with a movie when it tries so hard to fool you; is this a dream, is it not, is it a dream within a dream? Who cares? Just commit to something and get on with it. A crushing bore.
Inception is a nightmare for audiences looking for coherent fiction.
On the other hand, a majority of comments there are like this:
This is a drama built around ideas and images; it is a cinematic maze that Nolan makes his audience traverse in order to follow, understand and appreciate his world.This is not only the best movie ever made about dreams, it is also one of the best films of 2010, and certainly one of the most entertaining pictures I’ve seen in a decade.
Nolan has basically done the impossible. He’s taken $200 million and, instead of coming up with a highly generic product, he’s made a real movie.
Me? I thought it was brilliant. But before I weigh in with more thoughts, I’d like to hear what the GITS community has to say? What do you think of Inception?
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen Inception, do not enter comments as plot details are being discussed there!
UPDATE: Original prediction for Inception weekend domestic box office was $60.4M. The actuals are in and the final tally is $62.8M. Great to see it and Despicable Me, two non-remakes / non-sequels atop the box office.
Inception was a good movie. I agree the characters don't have a lot of depth, I felt nothing for the love story between Leo and his wife.
What made this movie so great for me was the concept. The way he wove all the details of this world and idea into a story that played well visually.
His ideas of what the mind and subconsious and dreams are capable of is what is amazing. The characters just seem to be the vehicle to explain and show us it. The story is the character and the characters are the props.
And thn a half ass love angle thrown in.
I bought it hook, line, and sinker. They had me at 'hello"… or at least at the WB logo.
Best of all? It was a film that restored my faith in moving pictures and that they ARE worthwhile and necessary and can be used to tell pertinent stories and fill us with awe and wonder. That hasn't happened for me in a multiplex theater in some time.
No 3-D. No gimmicks. Just great moviemaking.
And "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" tanked!
Think Hollywood will get the message?
Probably not… too much to hope for.
By no means have I concluded trying to analyze this film, but here are some thoughts to consider regarding those criticisms:
INCEPTION did, indeed, have expository dialogue. That was because it had so much exposition to get across it had to do it on all levels, including straight from the dialogue. Exposition from a movie like this is a given. If you can't handle it, go back to your XBox. I think it might have had as much exposition in its 2 1/2 hours as many television series have in a season.
The emotional center was, indeed, cold. But that very well could be for the reason that some have identified that the entire movie was Cobb's (Di Caprio's) dream while struggling with his guilt over his wife. In that scenario, the cold emotional center was deliberate, a clue that you are always in the dream where motives are suspect, even illogical. And that also accounts for the characters appearing one-dimensional.
I would take issue, however. Character is action and response under pressure. It isn't back-story on them, or laundry-lists of traits. The characters acted, more often than re-acted, and they were always under pressure. This was an operation unfolding, not a bio-pic.
The plot was confusing because to add sufficient exposition to explain it all would have turned it into Andy Warhol's 8-hour documentary (SLEEP) of a man asleep! If you have a problem with tough narratives, again, go back to your XBox. This movie is for people with attention spans.
INCEPTION wasn't without problems for me. It's been pointed out that the dream worlds were, despite the special effects, too clear, too realistic, un-dream-like in many ways. They have a point. But it's a quibble. David Lynch would have been a good advisor to Nolan. That would have been some collaboration.
But in the end, INCEPTION makes most Hollywood product look like amateur night. As someone has said, here Nolan is simply on another level, a higher plane of filmmaking.
I put longer thoughts here but I will defend the exposition.
This was a movie that had a lot of rules to set up, and somehow they were interesting rules. Exposition was frequently active — for example, Cobb's explanation of the dream world to Ariadne was usually posed as a challenge and executed under threat.
The boilerplate team-assembled, explain-the-plan scene was done while rapidly shifting between realities — as fine a pope in the pool as i've ever seen.
I have to agree with pretty much everything she summed up the reviews as saying. I thought about 15 minutes of the movie was awesome, and had a goofy grin on my face during it (the spinning anti-gravity fight)… but the rest of the time? Umm. It was kind of, gasp, boring! And long. Really long.
I mean it wasn't bad, obviously, but it's not something I would seek to watch again and again.
Halfway through I asked myself the ultimate shit-test question, "What if everyone just turned around and went home. What would happen then?"
Ellen Page would go back to Michael Cane's class. Joe Levitt would go on with his normal dream investigations. Fisher's company would not break up and become an oil power (no real reason was given why this would be a terrible outcome. This easily could have been fixed with one simple sentence from Watanabe "Fisher's company is poised to destroy the environment/the world/the free markets… whatever. Just give it some stakes).
The only character to pass this shit test was Leo, who wouldn't be able to return home to see his kids unless he completed the mission. However, in order to buy this fate we must first buy that Watanabe can erase his murder conviction "with one phone call". Are you kidding me?? Even my 12 year old brother called bs on that one.
I appreciate Nolan's vision and his desire to make unique stories. The four layers of dreams and the rules he laid out for each was fascinating. But if the man worked ten years on this and STILL wasn't able to create a film that causes a visceral human emotion in it's audience (See Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight), I don't think he has it in him. Which in my opinion makes him good… not great as some critics would have you believe.
I enjoyed it. I thought it was very impressive, but not a masterpiece, and had its flaws.
As for the "too real" dreams criticism, I took it as we don't think dreams are strange while we are in them. So, for Nolan to get us in this dream and accept it as real, he had to make things real.
The "unemotional" stuff just perplexes me. It's like saying Mad Men has no emotion because most of the characters are stoic and hide their feelings. That's the point. There are intense undercurrents of pain and loss and longing through almost every frame of Inception, and there are plenty of moments that key you into them, so I don't know why so many people are intent on framing the film as merely a pretty-picture visual exercise.
The topic of the movie is the power of dreams and their ability to mimic, affect, or fuse with reality. The emotional stakes are directly tied into these topics, so if you're uninterested in dreams or prefer not to engage with what Nolan is presenting, then yes, I can see how the emotionality would fall flat. It's not "The Notebook" or "Mr. Holland's Opus"; you're not going to find scene after scene of tearful revelations punctuated by sad, sweeping music, because that's not Nolan's style. But to me, every one of his movies has been dripping with painful emotions that are directly tied into his intricate plots, and that's why they're so effective.
As an avid sleeper/dreamer… This movie catered to my tastes perfectly.
I didn't have a problem with the exposition, I felt it was paced out nicely. I think every rule that was mentioned had a direct connection with a specific instance in the movie, and you were rewarded by already having the knowledge.
Emotional core only surrounding Leo… well if it is only his dream then wouldn't all the emotion surround him?
But all in all I think it was great, possibly a new addition to the Top 10. Unanswered questions requiring interpretation and further examination, cool and original sequences, and memorable shots and cinematography. Even though there's some things I can critique, I felt this movie was a home-run and will be pimping it to friends for some time.
My next screenplay I'm currently brainstorming is on a related topic, so this may help the appeal if it even goes out!!
I didn't mind Ellen Page playing "Grasshopper" or Luke to DiCaprio's Obi-Wan when she was learning about the shared dream state – we all needed to hear the rules of the world and they were presented in a visually fascinating way – but I absolutely hated when she was used later in another expository capacity – to tell Leo repeatedly about how dangerous Cottilard was.
This was a running threat thru the back half of the film: "I'm not going in there with her!" "You can't take us in there with her!" "You have to tell the team about her!" "You have to tell the team what's in your head!"
Talk about a freakin' nag!
If Nolan wanted to create additional jeopardy for the team, he should have just had Cotillard pop up every now and again and SHOW us how bad she is. Let her wreak some havoc. Then, when we learn why she's behaving that way and she starts to cry because she learns why she's behaving that way (which is not actually how the subconscious works, BTW – you can't hide anything from it, so the Cotillard projection would have know about Leo's guilt and why he did what he did even better than Leo himself, but, it's a film and not a psych 101 term paper, so I let that go) our feeling for her would do a 180 and a cathartic wave would sweep through the audience.
As it is, Cotillard is introduced like a true antagonist in the scene where she shoots Joseph Gordon-Levitt. She functions that way again at the end when she shoots Cillian Murphy. So there's a set-up and a pay-off, but no build. Connecting the set-up and pay-off, we just have Page warn us repeatedly about how dangerous she is. That's a really fundamental mistake for Nolan to make. Though the film is visually stunning and the score is great, I can't say Nolan is brilliant. There are too many issues around the emotional core and stakes in this movie. I agree that the "shit-test" is only passed by one character – Leo's.
For me, this whole movie was created so Joseph Gordon-Levitt could fight in zero-gravity. Hot, hot, hot!
Hey guys, this is Elizabeth. I saw Inception. Good movie. The expository dialogue alone takes it out of the masterpiece sweepstakes.
The is a theory out there that Ariadne, Eames, Arthur, Saito, the chemist (his name escapes me) and Fischer are projections of Cobb's thus explaining their lack of development.
I don't know what to feel about the ending just yet. Perhaps it's Nolan wanting the audience to fill the room with their own projections to decide if the top stopped spinning? Yet another theory.
It's crazy because I can talk about this movie for a good period of time but I have no desire to see it again. The idea of dream traveling interests me but Nolan's execution leaves something to be desired.
"Exposition from a movie like this is a given. If you can't handle it, go back to your XBox."
Yes, Lee that's a great way to promote discussion. You then go back on your own theory by saying that it has as much exposition as a TV show does in a season. Is that a good thing?
Outside of the facinating story concepts and structure that fit so well with eachother I think the main success of Inception was its ability to cultivate tension in a way I havent felt in a while. I think this was done by revealing more and more of the concept's intricacy simultaneously with the plot development instead of giving it all to you at once and then continuing with a standard form. Im sure it has flaws in the concept but so do impressionist paintings if you look at them close enough- it up to the other parts of the film (character empathy, development, tone, etc) to get you to suspend disbelief. And I didnt think the special effects got in the way of the story or made it a caricature of itself as is a risk in sci-fi. Much better plot than things like Avatar, and much less reliant on "conceptual punch line" than Mr Shamalan's work. More Kubrickesque than anything IMO and if you didnt like Kubrick you wont like Nolan id say.
Tomorrow it'll be released in Egypt. I'll go see it the first showing.
Can't wait for this one. I worship Chris Nolan. He ranks with the great directors like Tarantino and Spielberg.
I liked the cinematography. I loved the score and the cast. The absence of CB (Cinema's Bane, AKA Christian Bale) made the overall experience tenfold more enjoyable.
However, there were several parts that did not sit well with me and immediately took me out of the story because I couldn't help but question the incongruity of the action taking place in relation to the logic of the world of the film.
First of all, the film is 2.5 hours long, yet feels like 5.2, and there are a few reasons for this. One of which is the fact that a preponderance of the first act is amateurish, conflict-free exposition, which does not bode well for entertaining repeat viewings.
Inception is very much like The Matrix, and suffers from the same problem that the superior 1999 film did – in setting up the world of the film and all the rules and necessary information that the audience needs to know, we get the big "learning" scene: Morpheus teaching Neo/Leo teaching Ellen Page. This is flat-out boring a second time around, and practically a chore any time after that.
The Matrix did it right by making the hero an outsider who needed to know what was being said. With Inception, both parties already know all this stuff that we don't, so it's nothing new to them. No conflict. Neither Leo nor Page is going through the learning experience, and by proxy, we don't feel the experience as the student. It's 100% intellectual, like a math test, only prettier. At least The Matrix had that cool fight in the dojo, and the jump from building to building where the hero actually fails. Inception is just two talking heads in that section of the story. It's visually interesting, but that's the extent of the experience for the viewer.
Another problem with this part of the story is that it tells us too much. Let me rephrase that…the rest of the film fails to exploit the concept by capitalizing on everything that we're told. What is the point of telling us that everyone needs their own totem and going into the details explaining why and even showing Page making hers…what's the point if this never comes into play later on? They could have got by with only explaining the purpose of the totem instead of wasting valuable minutes during the most boring section of the film going into details that we literally have no reason to know. There is never an instance in the film where a totem matters for any character except for Leo. What's the point of the Page and Levitt totem scene? We already know what they are and what they are used for, so cut that scene entirely. It's wasting time.
The same goes for the whole section of bending the landscape where Leo explains the negative aspects of altering the dream world. I was stoked when I saw this scene because I couldn't wait to see a point in Act II where a character was backed into a proverbial corner and forced to alter the landscape in order to survive, thus creating even more conflict, which leads to a greater interest and investment in the film. Low and behold, no such scene exists in Inception. The closest we got was Leo becoming Mr. Charlie to help persuade Cillian into believing that he was dreaming, yet the most that happens then is a bunch of extras turn and look at Leo. Big deal. That's not nearly enough. The idea was not exploited. You literally have to go out of your way to miss that opportunity. Hell, that Mr. Charles scene is shorter than the scene that explains why altering the dream world is bad!
More importantly, how does Page alter LEO'S dream world? There seems to be no rules to this at all. Is the creator of the dream the only one able to alter it? None of this is ever explained.
CONTINUED…
Going back to the pacing of the film, which I will refer to as 'plate tectonics' so you all have an accurate idea of the agonizing slowness of which I'm referring to, the biggest culprit in my mind (haha, get it?) is the concurrency of the storylines in Act II. I don't have a problem with what happens in each story any more than the fact that each one is happening at the same time as the others. I don't want to see a van falling off a bridge for 45 minutes. Nobody does.
A van falls for an endless amount of time. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a cool fight scene and then floats bodies down a hallway for half an hour, real-time. The guy from Bronson does his thing for a while with Watanabe, who obliterates Tim Roth's Reservoir Dogs record of longest time spent bleeding to death by orders of magnitude. There are not complex tasks or events, but rather straight-forward in nature. Dragging them out for a solid chunk of the film is what creates that glacial pace and makes a long film seem even longer.
And for a heist film, there was very little (ie. none) threat of being caught while pulling off the caper. The threat was focused more on guys fighting and shooting other guys instead. I don't know why, but if you want to call this a caper, you have to acknowledge the lack of a key requirement…the threat of being caught.
Inception has no real villain. You can make a case for the stunning Cotillard, but she is an internal enemy. She never takes a "physical" presence and never threatens anyone except Leo. Everyone else is dealing with faceless assassins. I really liked how Cotillard was constantly threatening Leo mentally and their "relationship" was interesting, but it feels distant from the rest of the action. It doesn't even have anything to do, emotionally, with Leo's goal of getting home to see his kids. None of this is tied together.
Christ, Leo didn't even know what the hell was going on with Cillian and never even knew of the outcome until after the fact. The hero is separated from the physical representation of his goal for a majority of the film, and that felt very wrong to me. I ended up not giving a shit. If it was all somehow tied together, the audience would be able to experience that great emotional catharsis that everyone was talking about…but that didn't happen. I watched Cillian and Berenger at the end like strangers on the other side of the world – zero emotional investment, since my emotion was already invested in what was going on with the hero, which was something entirely different.
In fact, Leo, the hero of the story, has almost no involvement with the actual physical goal of the film – to plant the idea in Cillian's head, which is what needs to be done in order for Leo to get home to see his kid's faces. He does a little bit at first, but then runs off to do his own thing that has nothing to do with Cillian at all while the rest of the crew does all the hard work. You can literally put Levitt in Leo's place for that little bit and not even need the hero in the main action of the story at all! Hell, you can even put Page there, since all she does after designing the dream worlds is hang out with the guys and tell Leo he's crazy. I really wish she had something else to do besides play the part of the fifth wheel.
CONTINUED…
Leo's lack of involvement in the main action of the story creates a 'so what?' moment when the problem is solved for him, and I can think of absolutely no reason why the hero should not be the one to conquer the main conflict. Brody kills the shark in Jaws. He doesn't send Hooper and Quint out to do his dirty work while he stays behind to deal with his fear of water. It's integrated. The hero is forced into dealing with the physical, and in turn, but learn to conquer his internal fears before he can conquer his external opponent. This is Screenwriting 101, Lesson 1, and Nolan got that dead wrong. That's why I tend to disbelieve the reports that he spent 10 years writing the script since it only took me 148 minutes to figure out exactly what was wrong with it.
Not to mention the conceit that to enter someone else's dream and control it means that you would have to control your own subconscious, which they state elsewhere is impossible.
Pretty much everything this film does wrong, The Matrix does right. They are very similar films in concept, and I believe it's worth comparing and contrasting the achievements of The Matrix to the pitfalls of Inception. I'm just thankful that this film is salvageable, and perhaps two rewrites away from being great…unlike another Nolan film which will remain unnamed.
PS: The 'taking a scene from the middle and putting it at the beginning' gag reached its peak effectiveness in 2002 and has absolutely no place in modern films. It's getting as bad as that tired old 'It's all a dream' scenario. Oh, wait…
Well, those are some of my thoughts. I have more, but that will do for now.
Nolan comes up with some creative ideas for stories. He just lacks any sort of logical focus, and his films turn into a giant mess because of it.
He's basically the new M. Night Shyamalan, except his films aren't terrible. Just not good. And he has nothing in his filmography on the level of The Sixth Sense.
Eve – My issue with exposition is that some stories, such as this one, are heavy with it. I argue that that is okay in such cases. I was not complaining about it by making the tv series comment, I was describing its size in relation to its available space. Ultimately, I don't subscribe to the notion that there's a limit to the amount of exposition in a story except that which suits any individual person. If a filmmaker wants to give us 10 hours of exposition, and somehow, in some genius way, makes it work for most or many many people, I say that is an acceptable level of exposition.
My XBox comment has to do with that portion of today's audience that has no experience or willingness to work to understand difficult films. Many of these folks prefer endless car crashes and explosions, but if they have to deeply think about what a story is saying or what it is implying, and if they have to PAY ATTENTION all the way through, they throw up their hands, scream and yell in blog comments, and refuse to try. Hollywood films today, in many cases, are far less complex than those from 20-30 years ago. But with the advent of computers, video games, instant answers and gratification, not to mention all the Attention Deficit Disorder and medications for same, many in the audience rebel at anything more complex than TRANSFORMERS or IRON MAN. One film comes out of Hollywood that challenges them, and they can't handle it. It is confusing, full of exposition, etc. I'm just saying, too bad. Play your video game and stay in your nice comfortable little world. Don't complain about the one that allows for a rare film like INCEPTION.
It's funny you say that ryan. The whole time I was watching the movie I kept thinking please don't make it that it could all be a dream at the end. So for the sake of Nolan I say the totem wobbled and dropped
@Ryan: Great analysis. Audiences are so starved for great big budget studio movies that when something comes along that is slightly superior, superlative words like "genius" and "masterpiece" are thrown around. Similar to how every well-dressed starlet nowadays is a fashion "icon".
By calling "Inception" a masterpiece, I'm saying that it is just as good as "Chinatown" and "Jaws". Just can't do it.
@Lee Mathias: I'm sorry but your argument is becoming more and more laughable. First, it was mostly the critics that complained about the plot being too confusing, not the civilians. Secondly, there is NOTHING genius or challenging about writing expository dialogue until the very end. It is the exact opposite as Nolan clearly didn't trust the audience to figure things out for themselves. Film is a visual medium. The writer is supposed to set up the rules in the first Act and then watch it pay off in Act 2 and 3. Nolan failed to do this, as we were getting new information up until the very end. That is weak storytelling.
I bet if you sat down you can explain the mechanics of dream traveling in a couple of sentences. Nolan failed to do this because I suspect that the studio allowed him free roam when it came to rewrites. Big mistake.
I'll leave everyone with this quote I found from another website: “Calling a movie a masterpiece is in some cases little more than an impatient desire to close off discussion of its ambiguities and uncertainties, to deny that it’s a living, and therefore evolving, work of art.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum
Late on the game for this one, but I'll give my two cents.
@Robert: Watanabe's character explicitly states that if the company is not dissolved, his company would pushed out of the business and a bad-for-everyone monopoly would form. Those were the stakes.
I think this is a movie you have to give yourself up to. Just sit down in the chair and open your mind. I didn't watch anything about the movie since I saw teasers at Comic-Con last year and was pleasantly surprised. If you enter the movie as a skeptic, you will never feel anything for anyone. I think this is where the negative reviews come in.
If you did not feel a thing when Cotillard's character falls to her death, then I feel sorry for you, because you obviously have emotional problems. That was the climax of emotion for the film as far as that relationship goes and it was sad as hell. I think this reveal should've been placed further into the movie: show us her on the ledge, but not jumping until we get toward the last portion of the film because it may have been stronger when paralleled with the tory climax. But that's just opinion.
"Many of these folks prefer endless car crashes and explosions, but if they have to deeply think about what a story is saying or what it is implying, and if they have to PAY ATTENTION all the way through, they throw up their hands, scream and yell in blog comments, and refuse to try."
The problem with Nolan's films is that in order to fully enjoy one, you have to turn your brain off and NOT think about it, because thinking about it only reveals the lack of logic in its design.
Boy has this turned into a fascinating little point/counterpoint.
As as I said above, this film shook me to the core so I'd be a less-than-reliable member of this debate team.
I will say that those who take such an issue with Mr. Nolan's approach usually seem to fall into two camps: those who are so bound by screenplay "rules" that they absolutely cannot let it go, even for the sake of a speculative piece of fantastical fiction and those who just flat out have a bone to pick with Nolan over what they see as his past "sins" – perhaps, um, over another Nolan film that will remain unnamed?
A lot of people also seem to be scoring this movie on it's re-watchability and holding it up to a Matrix mirror, which, to me, is strange. I guess I come from a dinosaur generation that weighs art solely upon its own merits. Put me out to pasture.
Anyway, if my unbridled adoration for this film makes me a rube who fell for Nolan's little puzzlebox parlor games, so be it. I can live with it. As I said, I drank Inception's Kool-Aid from the word go so I'm nowhere near any kind of objectivity in regard to debating whether I can watch it 50 times on BluRay next year or whether Neo is cooler than Cobb, y'know?
Can I just say that I find it highly ironic that folks commenting expend an astounding amount of exposition complaining about the exposition in INCEPTION … LOL!
I didn't even read the hugely massive three part comment, just lost me when the writer wrote the 2.5 hour movie felt like 5.2 – because it didn't, not to me.
You lost me at hello, bro …
Your loss.
I'm sure it must be … then again, I really enjoyed the film, so in that regard it's my gain.
But everyone's entitled to like / dislike what they please, of course … as a sidebar, I always find anti-exposition comments very amusing … some of the best films ever made are loaded with it (for example, Godfather 1 and 2) … to me, great writing is great writing, no matter how exposition-al it is or not.
Just my opinion, of course.
I agree that anyone is allowed to enjoy whatever they want. I love some terrible films, myself.
However, I also believe that it's detrimental to the screenwriting learning process to make excuses for faults in a film's construction and/or design instead of acknowledging them as problems that are holding back and preventing a good film from being a great one.
Yep, it is important to understand how a script works / doesn't work … this script works and fully fulfills its intent from the get-go.
Certainly the majority of critical feedback and massive popular reception echoes its success with regard to its intent.
I totally understand why some folks don't like it, why they may have issues with choices and / or confusion … I get that.
What I don't agree with is that it is poorly constructed … it's not.
Someone who starts off by saying it's too long and boring isn't objectively analyzing it, in my opinion … they just didn't get it, as a matter of taste. They're welcome to that.
You just a piece of writing by how fully and smoothly it reaches its intent …
I had this same argument over MEMENTO and won't go there again. Folks just hated it, and tried to write it off as a problem with how it was made … naw, it was made well, you just didn't like it.
I had the same fight with folks over DARK KNIGHT and again, they just didn't like it and tried to write that off as a craft issue … nah, it's taste.
For what it's worth, I dislike SAW, I really do … but it's a well constructed piece of work, for what it is (its intent) and it works, which is why it's so popular.
In my experience, there are some folks who are just determined to crap on whatever is popular, no matter what or why, if it's popular, some will hate it for that.
I get that. It's not my bag, but I get it. It's hardly objective, I think, but that's what I think.
"However, I also believe that it's detrimental to the screenwriting learning process to make excuses for faults in a film's construction and/or design instead of acknowledging them as problems that are holding back and preventing a good film from being a great one."
Slam a cow, Mullaney, you don't truly believe that, do you???
You have GOT to be a studio plant, trying desperately to keep the grand tradition of formulaic movies alive and running, threatened by any sort of creativity or artistic integrity.
Man, I don't know how that chip got into your cranium but reach into your left ear with your right hand and yank that sucker out, blood and gore be damned.
Structure is only ONE element of the craft, my friend. I mean, if this is all only about "construction/and or design," then I've been using the wrong tools all along and should invest in graph paper and a T-square???
Look, I actually did read your 3 tiered criticisms of the film and I did think you brought up quite a few valid points. I disagreed with them but they were nevertheless compelling.
But this? C'mon now… really?
Yeah, it is ridiculous … by that standard, THE GODFATHER is a failure because the inciting incident (Vito being shot) doesn't happen until 45 minutes into the movie …
I've heard this before, I just disagree with that particular world view.
"Slam a cow, Mullaney, you don't truly believe that, do you???"
Sorry, Jeff. I'm just a man holding a mirror.
Ok, first off, I loved it. So. There's that.
Secondly, I'm sort of confused about the exposition thing. I really like heist movies as a genre, and I watch far too many of them. I'd feel safe in saying that one of the main "genre conventions" that appears prominently in the vast majority of good heist films is exposition. Probably because most heist films deal with a very complex "plan": Ocean's 11, Inside Man, Reservoir Dogs, The Thomas Crown Affair…first ones that came to mind, and all of those rely heavily on information being told to the audience. I think all of those movies are fantastic, and I'm pretty sure a large percentage of people out there would agree with me. Moreso than other movies, they revolve around exposition–but really, is it so weird that a movie has a lot of exposition? All movies have exposition. If we're talking about dissecting scripts and thinking about what makes them work, it's barely productive to even talk about "exposition." When people talk about exposition in scripts, they're usually talking about "bad exposition."
(And that's where this becomes sort of moot, because it's all incredibly subjective, but…)
The way Nolan starts the film off is one of the best decisions he made: instead of starting out with a scene that even barely resembled an introductory character bit/getting-dressed-and-ready-for-work montage, he just drops you face-first into the meat of the movie. And in Inception's case, that's confusing. Watching it for the first time, you have no greater framework for what's going on, and after the initial moment of confusion, I think it just demands that you give up trying to understand EXACTLY what's going on in relation to the greater plot and just watch.
Nolan balances this perfectly, because you can't pull that and then keep your audience in the dark for too long. That kind of cold open is risky, because if you go two minutes longer than you should and keep the audience from understanding when they've clearly reached a point where they go "Ok, stop. I'm not committing until you explain what the hell I'm seeing," you're done. So Nolan lets you figure just enough out for yourself–that opening sequence with the attempted Seito extraction as it becomes gradually clear that ok, he's dreaming, and ok, he's dreaming in another dream. You figure that out, and then there's the neat "assembling the team" moment, and please. Was that so hard to watch? It didn't reinvent gravity, sure, but it was pretty airtight. And then that sequence leads into the meatiest exposition surrounding Ariadne.
Again, I think Nolan handles this amazingly well–you bring someone in to the world of the film that doesn't understand the rules either. You give yourself an excuse to have things explained in plain English, and because Nolan plays his cards right, this comes riiiight when you want to know the rules. And like any good exposition, Nolan doesn't just say "New character: I get to explain stuff now!!" He has the new character act on the exposition. I watched that whole learning sequence in relative awe. If you're going to bury exposition, what better way to do it than by explaining the rules to something as badass as dream-theft, while watching a city fold over on itself? Like Josh said, how's that for the pope in the pool?
That scene comes pretty deep into the movie, which probably doesn't work most of the time: exposition usually comes early and often, but it works here because he pushes us to the point where we've seen enough crazy shit that we really HAVE to know if the theories we have in our heads so far are right, and just what the rules are to this thing Nolan's created. Supply and demand: the audience NEEDS to know at a certain point, and he left it to the last second and then delivered in spectacular fashion.
Ryan: "Sorry, Jeff. I'm just a man holding a mirror."
Uh-huh … RIIIIIGHHHHT. A bit of deflection in that statement, is there not?
Methinks you need to turn that mirror around and take a deep look into it yourself, because it's not reflecting what you think it is.
Not at all … you're trying to architect up some legit complaints but they ain't holding up, not to many here.
Nate: Amen, bro.
Of course, people have been emailing me – by the plenty – to post my take on Inception. I'm working on something, but it's lengthy and I'm really caught up with my writing just now. I'll try to have something together by next week. But let me just tip my hand with this: Inception is Carl Jung's wet dream. More later.
My two cents…
I like how everyone (and not everyone, but you know what I mean) is trying to pigeonhole this film into conventional movie standards – there’s no antagonist like (insert movie title here), there’s no pay off to this and that like (insert movie title here), there’s no emotional core like (insert movie title here), the exposition wasn’t handled like (insert movie title here). ..blah blah and blah
But the fact of the matter is this – Christopher Nolan gave us an ORIGINAL film.
Not one based on a sequel. Not one based on a book or a TV show. His own creation. He didn’t subscribe to ‘these are the rules I HAVE to follow’. And (in my opinion) he succeeded.
But more important than anything else — it’s sparking debate and discussion.
Compared to most of the crap that Hollywood hands to us on 3000+ screens, that’s a pretty amazing feat.
I am surprised at a lot of the vitriol directed at what I saw as a straightforward, entertaining action movie with a cool concept and innovative visuals. Nothing more, nothing less.
But on a screenwriting-specific note, I want to chime in with Joshua:
Just because a scene in a film can be labeled "exposition" does not make it bad.
As he noted, much of GF is exposition — and those scenes are interesting to watch.
I found the exposition in Inception fascinating.
Really, you object to the first ten-minute lesson Cobb gives to Page's architect trainee? It was exposition, coupled with great visual story telling.
Other moments were, yes, just characters sitting and explaining — but they worked for me as they were brief, and for the most part dramatically justified: there was a reason the character gave the explanation at each particular moment.