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Speaker 2: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?

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Speaker 3: You're not interested in art?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 3: No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going

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Speaker 3: to have a conversation.

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Speaker 1: Hey.

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Speaker 2: Film spotters Adam and Josh. Here Christopher Nolan's Inception came

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Speaker 2: to theaters fifteen years ago. Josh, or did I just

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Speaker 2: dream it? It's hard to say.

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Speaker 3: I didn't have a battle. It happened.

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Speaker 2: I think I recall reviewing it back in July twenty ten.

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Speaker 2: That was with former co host Maddie Ballgame. But you

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Speaker 2: and me, we revisited it back in twenty twenty when

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Speaker 2: we were mired in COVID and looking for things to discuss,

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Speaker 2: and we came up with a pretty good idea. I'm

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Speaker 2: pretty sure we knew Tenant was coming out, and we

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Speaker 2: were looking into the future, looking for some hope on

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Speaker 2: the horizon, and we said, well, let's prepare, Let's revisit

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Speaker 2: all of Christopher Nolan's films. Let's do a Christopher Nolan

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Speaker 2: over review, as we called it, look at all of

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Speaker 2: Christopher Nolan's films in order, which we did. Inception was

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Speaker 2: part of that.

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Speaker 4: We're going to share that review today. Now, did someone

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Speaker 4: just place this in my brain, Adam or are you

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Speaker 4: not as big of a fan of Inception as I am?

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Speaker 4: Am I remembering that correctly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. I mean I'll have to I'll have

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Speaker 2: to listen to the conversation. I think I might just

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Speaker 2: be three stars on it. It's not There's at least

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Speaker 2: five other Nolan films I like better. At least that's

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Speaker 2: my recollection.

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Speaker 4: Okay, well, it sounds like we at least didn't fight

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Speaker 4: about it, though. Yes, we'll have to listen to find

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Speaker 4: out for sure. The Film Spotting Archive, which we're pulling

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Speaker 4: this review from, has other reviews as well as top

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Speaker 4: fives and more going back to two thousand and five.

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Speaker 4: Access to the archive is just one of the benefits

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Speaker 4: you get as a member of the Film Spotting Family.

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Speaker 4: You can learn more about joining the family over at

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Speaker 4: film spottingfamily dot com from July twenty twenty. Then here

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Speaker 4: is that Nolan ooverview review of Inception.

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Speaker 3: There's one thing you should know about me.

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Speaker 2: I specialize in a very specific type of security, subconscious security.

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Speaker 1: You're talking about dreams.

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Speaker 4: That's from the trailer for Christopher Nolan's Inception, which came

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Speaker 4: out almost exactly ten years ago July sixteenth, twenty ten.

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Speaker 4: That means it arrived two years after The Dark Night.

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Speaker 4: To give us some context here for our Nolan overview,

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Speaker 4: which we've mostly been going through chronologically. Now we did

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Speaker 4: make an exception in the case of the Batman trilogy

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Speaker 4: jumbled things up a bit, but we're back on track

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Speaker 4: here with Inception again, which came out in twenty ten.

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Speaker 4: It was Nolan's third highest grossing film still is behind

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Speaker 4: The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises made eight

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Speaker 4: hundred and thirty million dollars globally, and maybe after The

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Speaker 4: Dark Knight, it's Nolan's best loved film. One measurement here

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Speaker 4: is to look at letterboxed, where The Dark Knight and

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Speaker 4: Inception come in at one and two. Now, one of

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Speaker 4: the things that I mentioned was that I wanted to

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Speaker 4: trace at the beginning of our Christopher Nolan overview Adam

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Speaker 4: the evolution of his characters as human beings rather than

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Speaker 4: placeholders for ideas or chess pieces that he could move

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Speaker 4: around these elaborately constructed game boards. Following his first film,

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Speaker 4: I think we both agreed didn't exactly provide fully rounded characters.

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Speaker 4: There were other things we liked about it. While Memento

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Speaker 4: was a significant leap forward in that direction, especially considering

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Speaker 4: Guy Pierce's Leonard, still, Nolan's reputation with some as a

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Speaker 4: cold filmmaker would follow him through his subsequent movies, and

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Speaker 4: it had been so long since I had last seen

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Speaker 4: twenty ten's Inception that I couldn't remember how it struck me.

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Speaker 4: In this regard, I certainly remembered Ellen Page's dream architect

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Speaker 4: folding cities in on themselves not long after she joined

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Speaker 4: Leonardo DiCaprio's team of dream thieves, these corporate spies who

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Speaker 4: enter business people's dreams to steal their secrets. I also

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Speaker 4: remembered Joseph Gordon Levitt inside one of those dreams in

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Speaker 4: a fistfight in a Hotel Hallway where gravity had disappeared.

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Speaker 4: This is one of the handful of instances where Nolan

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Speaker 4: relied on a practical set and effects to twist our minds.

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Speaker 4: But what of the movie's emotional resonance and the human

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Speaker 4: element connected to it? I wasn't sure, And this is

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Speaker 4: what made me wonder back when we were running through

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Speaker 4: our tentative rankings of his films if Inception might fall

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Speaker 4: after this overview from my number two slot. Well, here's

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Speaker 4: what I forgot. How good and crucial Marion Cotillard is

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Speaker 4: as Ma, the late wife of DiCaprio's Cob, who appears

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Speaker 4: throughout the film in those dream sequences as a projection

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Speaker 4: of cobs subconscious. I'll make my case for her as

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Speaker 4: the emotional lynchpin of the film, but first I want

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Speaker 4: to hear what you made of this aspect of Inception, Adam.

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Speaker 4: Is this still one of your favorite Nolan's And if so,

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Speaker 4: is Courtyard part of the reason for that.

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Speaker 2: Well, throughout this series, every movie we have seen has

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Speaker 2: either risen in my estimation or stayed at the exact

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Speaker 2: same level.

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Speaker 3: And we now have a first.

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Speaker 2: No, a movie dipped and Inception dipped. I don't know

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Speaker 2: how it happened, but throughout this series, as you know, Josh,

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Speaker 2: and I think I've referenced it during a couple of

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Speaker 2: conversations I've been battling with our producer Sam. I call

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Speaker 2: him the Nolan nitpicker, and he would totally accept that.

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Speaker 3: Moniker.

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Speaker 2: We've been going back and forth on Memento and The Prestige,

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Speaker 2: which are movies in particular, that he just doesn't get

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Speaker 2: what all the fuss is about, even after listening to

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Speaker 2: us be so insightful for so many minutes. Yeah, hard

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Speaker 2: to imagine editing those shows. Somehow, he still doesn't see

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Speaker 2: what's so great about these movies. And he's constantly picking

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Speaker 2: at all the open questions and all the holes in

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Speaker 2: the plots, and the way that Nolan seems to establish

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Speaker 2: all these rules and they don't all fit together, maybe

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Speaker 2: as cohesively as they should in his mind. And I'm

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Speaker 2: always countering this. Somehow, without me being aware, he connected

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Speaker 2: me to some machine in spring Green, Wisconsin, and he

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Speaker 2: infiltrated my subconscious as I watched Inception. What is Cobb's

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Speaker 2: line early in this film? He says, once an idea

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Speaker 2: has taken hold of the brain, it's almost impossible to eradicate.

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Speaker 2: And that idea that that got planet in my mind,

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Speaker 2: that Sam didn't really put there was. This House of

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Speaker 2: Cards is kind of flimsy, and it's shaking under the

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Speaker 2: weight of the spectacle, and it almost crumbles because of

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Speaker 2: a weak foundation. This is how I'm going to get

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Speaker 2: to the answer to your question, in a little bit

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Speaker 2: of a roundabout way. If you take everything that makes

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Speaker 2: a Nolan film, certainly elements and attributes that we were

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Speaker 2: both aware of before we embarked on this series, but

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Speaker 2: have maybe even crystallized even clearer now. The genre elements.

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Speaker 2: This is a heist movie right at its core, the

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Speaker 2: philosophizing the preoccupation with memory and time, which is inextricable

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Speaker 2: from the form of his movies right and their metadness.

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Speaker 2: We see it in the nonlinear structures, but I think

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Speaker 2: the most applicable example here the same way in Memento,

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Speaker 2: we as viewers are linked to Leonard by not being

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Speaker 2: aware of how we got into each scene. Inception throws

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Speaker 2: us into this bizarre, convoluted scene immediately. And I am

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Speaker 2: not exaggerating here, Josh, I didn't remember how this movie opened,

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Speaker 2: and I checked the display on my Blu ray player

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Speaker 2: three times in the first seven minutes to confirm that

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Speaker 2: I hadn't accidentally started the movie on a different chapter

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Speaker 2: somewhere in the middle of the film. I really had

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Speaker 2: thought I had done something wrong. I forgot that it

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Speaker 2: opened just dropping him on that beach, and that he's

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Speaker 2: in conversations with Cyto and you have no idea kind

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Speaker 2: of what's going on.

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Speaker 4: So you've already stumbled into One of the brilliant things

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Speaker 4: about the movie, of course, is of course that's it, right, Bowls.

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Speaker 3: It's a dream. Yeah, No, it's a dream within a

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Speaker 3: dream at a dream within a dream, of course.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's no exposition, it's no introductions or set up,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of sequences do start that way. It's

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Speaker 2: not just the opening of the film. And yes, you

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Speaker 2: said it, but it makes sense that in a movie

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Speaker 2: where most characters are in a dream state most of

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Speaker 2: the time, that it would play like a dream for

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Speaker 2: the people watching it. And these films are all all

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Speaker 2: of Nolan's work are artistic creations that are commenting on

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Speaker 2: the act of creating art, and they're engaging in this

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Speaker 2: dialogue with a viewer at the same time making us

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Speaker 2: confront how our day to day experience of life is

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Speaker 2: like being in or watching a movie or vice versa.

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Speaker 2: And honestly, that's spiral image, which is such a key

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Speaker 2: image to this movie. That's a perfect metaphor for how

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Speaker 2: dizzy I get when I even try to articulate what

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Speaker 2: I just expressed, And all of that is what makes

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Speaker 2: Nolan's films really fun to consider, really fun to discuss.

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Speaker 2: But it is a hollow experience without the humanity, which

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Speaker 2: doesn't mean necessarily what you might think of emotion, a

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Speaker 2: certain sentimentality, or compassion, even the kind of things that

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Speaker 2: maybe get attributed to humanist filmmakers that we lump together

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Speaker 2: like Capra or o Zoo or Satugate Ray. It's maybe

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Speaker 2: a more cynical type of humanism, But for me, it's

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Speaker 2: seeing the humanity in his character in the form of

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Speaker 2: recognizing their flaws. It's their guilt and the struggle with

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Speaker 2: that guilt that we see in Will Dormer, in Bruce Wayne,

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Speaker 2: in Leonard Shelby in The Rival Prestige Magicians. It's their grief,

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Speaker 2: it's their obsessions and their choices, usually misguided and tragic,

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Speaker 2: but understandable no matter how stylized or heightened. The circumstances

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Speaker 2: are we're seeing ourselves and our conflicts and our crises

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Speaker 2: reflected back to us in those obsessions and those choices.

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Speaker 2: And I've connected to that humanity in every one of

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Speaker 2: these Nolan films so far until Inception. At no point,

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Speaker 2: at no point was I invested in what was at

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Speaker 2: stake for Dom getting back to his kids and reconciling

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Speaker 2: as it were, with his wife, forgiving himself and moving

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Speaker 2: on with his life. And minus that investment that's spinning

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Speaker 2: totem at the end, whether it falls or not, whether

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Speaker 2: it's all a dream, real it just it just doesn't matter.

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Speaker 2: It really doesn't matter. This is the first Nolan film

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Speaker 2: that didn't leave me with more questions, more exciting questions

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Speaker 2: to ponder at the end, and for what it's worth.

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Speaker 2: As I was preparing for this, I did go back

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Speaker 2: and look at my notes from twenty ten, and I

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Speaker 2: discovered that I felt this way originally too. I didn't

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Speaker 2: buy Mall or their relationship beyond her being one of

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Speaker 2: those chess pieces you mentioned, beyond being a convenient antagonist

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Speaker 2: and complication. But I was so wowed by the scope

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Speaker 2: of the movie and the audacity of those multi layered

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Speaker 2: dream sequences and the technical precision and imagination of yes,

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Speaker 2: that anti gravity hotel hallway scene in Paris folding in

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Speaker 2: on itself, that I was able to dismiss that nagging

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Speaker 2: idea ten years ago, this time it spread.

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Speaker 4: Wow, Adam, I love you, but you have no idea

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Speaker 4: what you're talking about. This is thanks shocking to me.

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Speaker 4: I mean, this is kind of like a work that

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Speaker 4: a filmmaker has been building towards. You can see all

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Speaker 4: of the pieces that he's been toying with and playing

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Speaker 4: with in his previous films and perfecting them technically in

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Speaker 4: terms of scale, in terms of production, imagination, ideas, and

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Speaker 4: I really think that the emotional element works here. What's

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Speaker 4: interesting to me when you talk about having, you know,

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Speaker 4: an idea placed in your head. I think the reason

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Speaker 4: that I didn't remember Inception as being this moving is

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Speaker 4: because it does have those critics who call it cold

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Speaker 4: and maybe, you know, for good reasons. I do want

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Speaker 4: to hear more about, you know, exactly why you think

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Speaker 4: it didn't connect with you this way beyond just that

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Speaker 4: it didn't. Maybe people have good reasons for that, but

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Speaker 4: I have heard that over the years and again didn't

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Speaker 4: revisit it, and so I thought, well, you know, maybe

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Speaker 4: that's a missing link that I too should have given

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Speaker 4: more credence to in twenty ten and maybe would have

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Speaker 4: judged the film more fairly. So after watching it again

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Speaker 4: and just being wowed on every level by this movie.

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Speaker 4: I'm not saying it's perfect, can return to the ski

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Speaker 4: chase scene in the final sequence, the final segment, but

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Speaker 4: just being so thrilled by the experience of this movie again,

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Speaker 4: including the emotional resonance and this marriage at the heart

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Speaker 4: of it. I went back and looked at my twenty

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Speaker 4: ten review and sure enough, there I say that the

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Speaker 4: supporting characters give the best performances beyond DiCaprio, and that

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Speaker 4: as I'd agree with that as a matter of fact,

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Speaker 4: that really the heart of this film is Marion Cotillard

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Speaker 4: as model. It was something that did resonate with me

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Speaker 4: at the time and just either faded from my memory

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Speaker 4: or kind of got beat out of me by other ideas.

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Speaker 4: And I guess we do have to acknowledge and maybe

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Speaker 4: this was part of the issue for you. This is

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Speaker 4: another dead wife, right, and you're starting to wonder if

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Speaker 4: it's like a crutch that Nolan is landing up on.

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Speaker 3: But I think when you.

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Speaker 4: Compare her to the other figures that we've seen, even

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Speaker 4: in Memento, this is a much more complicated figure. This

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Speaker 4: isn't just someone you can say, this wife is we

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Speaker 4: move on from that, right, like it's just a way

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Speaker 4: to move the story forward or to get the story

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Speaker 4: jump started. Mal is much more complicated in terms of performance.

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Speaker 4: Think about the challenge of this role. She's only really

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Speaker 4: ever mostly I should say, a projection of Cobs, right,

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Speaker 4: and so you know, unless you trust his flashbacks to

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Speaker 4: their time in Limbo and their other time together, Cotyard

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Speaker 4: has to play this projection element. That's one thing she

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Speaker 4: has to do is be not Mal but a projection

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Speaker 4: of Mal, who isn't a real person. But at the

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Speaker 4: same time, she's going to have to give us moments

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Speaker 4: where we do sympathize with her as Yes, this is

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Speaker 4: what's so fascinating. A victim of Cobs, of the decisions,

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Speaker 4: all those things you were talking about in his previous films,

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Speaker 4: the bad decisions due to the obsessions that his male

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Speaker 4: characters have, the victims of that. That's what she is too.

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Speaker 4: And I do think Coatyard gives her her own inner life.

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Speaker 4: That gives us a sense of that think of all

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Speaker 4: the things that my in this film. She's malevolent, as

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Speaker 4: you say, and I love that about her, like there's

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Speaker 4: allowed to be this side where she is someone to fear,

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Speaker 4: but she's also Lovelauren. She's a partner in their dream thievery.

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Speaker 4: I also love that she's not just like the wife's

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Speaker 4: stuck at home, but we establish it that she was

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Speaker 4: a partner in this business with Cobb. She was a

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Speaker 4: partner in their marriage, and I think Coachyard gives us

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Speaker 4: all of that. And ultimately, you know she's a victim

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Speaker 4: of Cobb's attempts to save her. This is the sort

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Speaker 4: of thing he has to forgive himself for. But she's

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Speaker 4: also a woman with her own agency and ideas. Again,

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Speaker 4: if you pull out those flashbacks where she's not a projection,

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Speaker 4: but we're ostensibly seeing her, and I think the performance

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Speaker 4: gives us this as her own woman. So for me,

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Speaker 4: the tragic relationship between Cobb and Malay, it's kind of

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Speaker 4: the center of the film. And one more thing I'll

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Speaker 4: just say about it again, I think tying back to

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Speaker 4: the mechanics that do blow us away that do wow us.

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Speaker 4: It's directly woven into those things. I think about the Totem,

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Speaker 4: this whole idea about Totem, that it comes from mil

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Speaker 4: and that the spinning top is Hers, so right there,

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Speaker 4: that's not just like, of course it works at the

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Speaker 4: end because it's hers. It carries so much emotional weight,

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Speaker 4: because we've learned how it's tied to her directly. It's

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Speaker 4: just not a chotchkey that Cob has pulled out just

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Speaker 4: so he can know if he's in a dream. And

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Speaker 4: then think about that opening sequence. I think this is

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Speaker 4: all set up from the beginning by Nolan when Cob

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Speaker 4: uses Mal's chair as an anchor in that dream while

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Speaker 4: repelling from the window, that captures everything about them, how

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Speaker 4: they're literally tied together in ways that are romantic, in

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Speaker 4: ways that are dangerous, and then the action implies, you know,

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Speaker 4: just the layers of their relationship that make us curious

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Speaker 4: about it. And really the rest of the movie, with

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Speaker 4: everything else going on, is peeling back that relationship, giving

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Speaker 4: us the implications what it means for Cob within this

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Speaker 4: mission that he's undergoing, and comes absolutely to fruition in

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Speaker 4: that final scene, which is not so much about whether

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Speaker 4: he pulled off the job for Cyto, but what it

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Speaker 4: means for his relationship with his late wife. So I

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Speaker 4: just I thought it was it was important to me

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Speaker 4: in twenty ten, and revisiting it, I found it to

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Speaker 4: be even more important now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what it means for that relationship to me at

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Speaker 2: the end was nothing. And I kind of alluded to this,

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Speaker 2: what is the movie really leave you contemplating when it's

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Speaker 2: over the other movies that we've seen the Twist, the

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Speaker 2: other movies that I've appreciated more so far, they make

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Speaker 2: us rethink something about the movie. Sure, about the characters

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Speaker 2: and about the world, but you think about Memento and

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Speaker 2: you think about prestige and inception.

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Speaker 3: Here.

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Speaker 2: These are films that offer some of the same kind

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Speaker 2: of philosophical dilemmas that we talked about back in our

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Speaker 2: bonus content on Patreon when we talked about the movie

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Speaker 2: Dev's the many worlds kind of theorizing different states of

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Speaker 2: consciousness and inceptions. Twist seems to me nothing more than

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Speaker 2: exactly what it is. It's it's a suggestion and it's playful,

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Speaker 2: but it doesn't invite any further reflection beyond is Nolan

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Speaker 2: messing with us. It doesn't hit me in another way

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Speaker 2: because it's.

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Speaker 4: Not existential or philosophical. It's emotional. It's exactly the thing

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Speaker 4: that you say.

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Speaker 3: That I wanted it to be, but I didn't feel it.

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Speaker 3: I never felt it.

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Speaker 4: And it's because it's not about these larger questions. It's

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Speaker 4: about one question. Because no, it's about one question. Can

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Speaker 4: Cob forgive himself for what he did with his wife?

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Speaker 4: And so it's not about cares about that.

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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, you spent half the film but I

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Speaker 3: don't know it. But why so much.

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Speaker 5: Screen time to their relationship, Because what he's really invested

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Speaker 5: in and what overwhelms those sequences and what makes them

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Speaker 5: feel like plot machinations, is that what he really cares

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Speaker 5: about is the fancy effects, even if it's practical, even

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Speaker 5: if I love even if I love Josh, how he

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Speaker 5: pulls them off. It's all the time and attention he

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Speaker 5: spends on that, rather than making me believe in any

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Speaker 5: way their relationship never at any point felt it.

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Speaker 4: But then, Adam, why is mal in one of the

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Speaker 4: very first scenes of the film, for for multiple reasons

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Speaker 4: as I described, And why is she figuratively with the

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Speaker 4: spinning top the very last image we see. I mean,

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Speaker 4: this is he's putting all the weight. I think part

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Speaker 4: of the problem is that, I agree, you're not left

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Speaker 4: thinking about, well, how many worlds are there? What if

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Speaker 4: we watch this movie backwards?

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Speaker 3: What a time I wanted?

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Speaker 4: But because what's what inception why it's a progression for

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Speaker 4: Nolan is because he's he's taken all those things to

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Speaker 4: get us through this and entertaining and thought provoking and

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Speaker 4: mind blowing ride. But at the end he's wrestling us

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Speaker 4: with a human emotional question and am I going to

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Speaker 4: be able to forgive myself? Is what Cob is asking for?

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Speaker 3: What?

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Speaker 4: For what I've done? And am I going to choose

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Speaker 4: to move forward? And then there are philosophical questions we

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Speaker 4: could get into. I mean, I don't think they're missed, Josh.

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Speaker 2: I get all of this intellectually. I understand that you're

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Speaker 2: explaining to me the structure of the film and what

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Speaker 2: Nolan wants us to feel. But there's a difference in

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Speaker 2: actually feeling it and I didn't.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you can't say it's not there. He spends

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Speaker 3: a lot of say time, it wasn't there for me.

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Speaker 2: I understand that he devotes a lot of time to it,

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Speaker 2: but it's it's minuscule in relation to the time he

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Speaker 2: devotes to the tedium of the action scenes and the

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Speaker 2: attention that he devotes to those. I feel ultimately like it.

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Speaker 2: It's an emotional crutch that feels more like he's trying

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Speaker 2: to give the movie a weight and a heft and

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Speaker 2: a certain romanticism. Even that just does not seem in

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Speaker 2: keeping with Nolan's strengths, at least not based on the

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Speaker 2: other films that we've seen so far. In the films

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Speaker 2: that I've appreciated more, which, like I said, it's not

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Speaker 2: because they're giving me a mind blowing twist about Wow,

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Speaker 2: how did he pull that off? They're giving me a

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Speaker 2: twist that makes me think about my world and how

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Speaker 2: I relate to people. And that's what's fascinating when I

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Speaker 2: have that personal connection to it. I'm just saying I

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Speaker 2: never believed it here. I never did. And part of

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Speaker 2: it is DiCaprio's performance too. And I love DiCaprio, and

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Speaker 2: I'm with you completely that every other supporting performer.

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Speaker 3: Does a better job.

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Speaker 2: And I think part of that is the explication in

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Speaker 2: the exposition I'm now going to be the one saying

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Speaker 2: the criticism that everyone else says about Interstellar, that I

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Speaker 2: didn't feel at all the time that I haven't felt

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Speaker 2: in the previous films, and I did hear for some reason.

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Speaker 2: I mean, Matt Singer wrote about it recently. I saw

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Speaker 2: his comments on Letterbox. He said, literally two full hours

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Speaker 2: into the movie, DiCaprio is still explaining the rules of

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Speaker 2: the dream world to Ellen Page, I do feel like

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Speaker 2: it's gratuitous, and even more than that, it feels arbitrary.

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Speaker 2: Once you start noticing those things, when you start asking

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Speaker 2: a lot of those questions, then then you're derailed from

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Speaker 2: that central story that I agree with you, is supposed

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Speaker 2: to be the central story that's supposed to be pun

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Speaker 2: intended here I guess or metaphor intended the train tracks

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Speaker 2: that holds this whole thing together. But once you start

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Speaker 2: diverting from that path, you start noticing the holes in it.

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Speaker 2: You start noticing the holes in how believable their relationship is.

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Speaker 2: And I think that exposition is a key is a

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Speaker 2: key distraction here. Let me say this, if there's any

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Speaker 2: actress that's up to the challenge and she almost pulls

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Speaker 2: it off, it's certainly Mary and Kotar and I love

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Speaker 2: how Nolan does use point of view and those sequences

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Speaker 2: so that we're aligned with Cobb when he's walking into

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Speaker 2: those rooms with her, and when we arrive in a

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Speaker 2: space where maybe he slash we shouldn't be and she's

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Speaker 2: waiting there for us, that turn of hers to the

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Speaker 2: camera we get a couple times that's a really frightening jolt,

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Speaker 2: like a legitimately catches you off guard and makes you

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Speaker 2: gasp a little bit, like we've been caught like Jimmy

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Speaker 2: Stewart in Rear Window. So I do really appreciate some

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Speaker 2: of those aspects of it without a doubt. But I

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Speaker 2: think the evolution for me Josh ultimately isn't in Nolan's

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Speaker 2: ability here to maybe tell a more emotional story. It's

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Speaker 2: in the meta layer. It's that this feels like the

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Speaker 2: culmination of his preoccupations in terms of using the language

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Speaker 2: of cinema and wrapping that around the actual the content

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Speaker 2: and the substance of these films. The way that people

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Speaker 2: even communicate with each other and the way we as

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Speaker 2: viewers experience their world is it's equivalent. It's like we're

433
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:19,680
Speaker 2: in that spiral, right of this dream, this dream experience,

434
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 2: we're unified with them in a way that I do

435
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 2: think is an evolution for him. And we can talk

436
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 2: about that a little bit more. That meta aspect of

437
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 2: this film is what fascinates me. It's not the relationship.

438
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, and to speak to the expository thing you're talking about,

439
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 4: because that was my main complain about Interstellar, and I'm

440
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:37,679
Speaker 4: looking forward to seeing what I make of it the

441
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,199
Speaker 4: second time. I think there's a distinction here in that

442
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 4: a lot of the information from what I remember of Interstellar,

443
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 4: it was a lot of like I don't know, was

444
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,280
Speaker 4: it a black hole or a supernova or something whatever.

445
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 4: It was like stuff we didn't really need to know

446
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 4: for that story to progress. But the information we're given

447
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 4: here is there's two things about it. For one thing,

448
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 4: it is necessary. Some of it it's TALKI I agree,

449
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 4: but some of it we do need to know just

450
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 4: to get the ground rules. The other thing is, and

451
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 4: this may be is an argument against it, but whenever

452
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 4: we're getting those ground rules, we're getting visual cues as well.

453
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 4: So the Ellen page training sequence, however you want to describe, that,

454
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,159
Speaker 4: is the perfect example. Right while we're getting talked to

455
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,399
Speaker 4: we're seeing this imagery of this city folding in on

456
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 4: itself and all these other insane things happening, And so

457
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 4: you could make the case maybe you didn't need both.

458
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:31,399
Speaker 4: But I think here where it's not based in necessarily

459
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 4: reality to kind of and it's this concept that we've

460
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 4: never even understood before. It's not like we have a

461
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 4: vague notion of outer space and just tell me we're

462
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 4: going out fire and outer space. I'm good. This is

463
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 4: a sci fi movie. That's all I need. Right, this

464
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,200
Speaker 4: is different. We need a little bit of the architecture

465
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 4: to use a word that applies to this film. So

466
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 4: I do forgive it a little bit more for that.

467
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:52,199
Speaker 4: And the other thing is there are a lot of

468
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 4: instances in this film where Nolan does not bother to

469
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:56,920
Speaker 4: do that at all. And again I'm going back to

470
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 4: the opening sequence where to make us understand and how

471
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 4: these worlds are connected. When Cob has to wake up,

472
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 4: he's they push him his chair right into the tub,

473
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 4: and then we cut to a shot of the dream

474
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 4: that Cob is in and the water just comes again.

475
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 4: Practical effect, right, the set just gets flooded with this

476
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 4: water and like that, without needing anyone to explain anything

477
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 4: to us. We realize how the real world and the

478
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 4: dream world are connected. So I guess for me, there

479
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 4: is a lot of exposition in inception, but it is

480
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 4: almost always backed up by visual information as well, which

481
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 4: makes it a little bit less tedious.

482
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 2: I get that, and when we get to Interstellar, maybe

483
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 2: we can compare notes and see if that truly is

484
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 2: the distinction. It may be, but I do have to

485
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,239
Speaker 2: point out that it's information we do need to know.

486
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 2: Is precisely what people like me said defending Interstellar at

487
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 2: the time and would still say now about it. And

488
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 2: I think that is reflective of whether or not you

489
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: are locked in to the relationships and to the way

490
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 2: the movie is is working on you on an emotional

491
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 2: level and also an intellectual level. If you're on that

492
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 2: journey as I was with Interstellar, then that exposition all

493
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 2: feels really necessary to me, just like it all feels

494
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 2: necessary to you here because you were bought in to

495
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 2: that mal dom relationship and wanting to see how that

496
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 2: played out. So I think you are in those circumstances

497
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 2: willing to willing to forgive things a little bit more.

498
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 2: And I certainly wouldn't point to those early sequences where

499
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 2: that stuff is getting explained as a problem. It's more

500
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 2: as we get the second, third, fourth time that someone says, yes,

501
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 2: but things work like this in the dream world, and

502
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 2: then someone says, but no, not this one. No, it's different,

503
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 2: It actually works like this. Like that just happens repeatedly

504
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 2: in this film, and it did feel a bit gratuitous

505
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 2: to me.

506
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 3: Let me ask a quick question.

507
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:45,719
Speaker 4: Did you feel you were ahead of those things that

508
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 4: you didn't need that information?

509
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 3: No, it's arbitrary.

510
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 2: It felt like the movie was making it up in

511
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 2: the moment, as opposed to it feeling like these established

512
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 2: rules of the world that I could really buy into.

513
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 2: It felt like it was convenient for the mechanics of

514
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 2: the plot that in that moment he could just make

515
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,439
Speaker 2: up and do whatever he wanted in that particular instance.

516
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess, I guess for me, Like, one of

517
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 4: the thrills of this movie is how again, going back

518
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 4: to the brazen opening where Inception, a normal filmmaker would

519
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 4: start Inception by putting us in a dream, like, oh,

520
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 4: we're in a dream, and these characters infiltrate dreams, and

521
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 4: now I'm gonna let you get your mind around that

522
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 4: then I will move This is what I love about

523
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 4: Nolan is he trusts pop audiences. Right, He's like, then

524
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 4: I'll move you into the dream within a dream. No,

525
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,159
Speaker 4: this movie starts, That's what I was saying, with a

526
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 4: dream within a dream, So already things are complicated. So

527
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 4: I feel like it's not arbitrary because the escalation in

528
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 4: this film is so thrilling. It is just like we're

529
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 4: what now, We're where now? And I Am not going

530
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 4: to begrudge because I'll just say it like I was

531
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 4: grateful for a little reorientation along the way because then

532
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:53,440
Speaker 4: I could appreciate where I was a little bit more.

533
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 4: I didn't need the map exactly laid out for me,

534
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 4: but I need a little bit of that sense of

535
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 4: why things different at this level where these characters had

536
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 4: never been before, or most of them to keep up

537
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 4: with them.

538
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 3: So I guess that's why it worked for me.

539
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to go back to the meta aspect

540
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 2: of the film because it is, as I said, what

541
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,880
Speaker 2: intrigues me the most the correlations and I've talked about

542
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 2: this before on the show, but the correlations between Cobb

543
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:22,679
Speaker 2: as a filmmaker slash artist in the role that he

544
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:26,479
Speaker 2: is serving as this kind of producer slash director of

545
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 2: these dream sequences, right, and his crew, and their correlation

546
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 2: to various movie crew roles that are pretty obvious, and

547
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 2: the talk of true inspiration that's happening as they are

548
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 2: creating some of these worlds together. And there's that great

549
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 2: moment during that first run through the dream world with

550
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 2: Ariadne where she says, why are they looking at me?

551
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 2: The projections start to turn on her, right, and he

552
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 2: explains it it's because you're changing things. My subconscious feels

553
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 2: that someone else is creating the world. The more you

554
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 2: change things, the quicker the projections convert John you And

555
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 2: he says that they feel the foreign nature of the

556
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 2: Dreamer and they attack it like an infection. And I

557
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 2: think that is such a perfect explanation of the idea

558
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,479
Speaker 2: and ultimately my experience with this film, Josh, But I'm

559
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 2: trying to kind of articulate, and it's any viewer's experience

560
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 2: when they are no longer able to suspend disbelief in

561
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 2: the way that they want to and should with with

562
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 2: any film, And that's once you become aware that you're

563
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 2: watching someone else's creation, that you start to see the creator,

564
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 2: which can be thrilling in its own ways too, don't

565
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 2: get me wrong, but you are inherently pulled out of

566
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 2: that world and sometimes that can make you really angry.

567
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 2: And I love that description, and I love Cobb and

568
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 2: seeing him as.

569
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 3: A stand in for Nolan.

570
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 2: I know that that's been documented elsewhere in terms of

571
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 2: even DiCaprio's appearance is similar to Nolan in some ways.

572
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 2: But he's this director who is a mastered this crew,

573
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 2: and they have all put their faith in him.

574
00:29:57,680 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 3: Right.

575
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 2: We have the sequence where he reveals some thing that

576
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 2: he hadn't told all of them before, and they realize

577
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 2: what's really at stake and that this is really dire,

578
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 2: and it's like it would be almost like my second

579
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 2: Herzog reference here on the show. It would be almost

580
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 2: like you go into the jungle with Herzog and you're

581
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 2: trusting him completely and then all of a sudden you're

582
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 2: under attack and everyone has malaria and you're going, how

583
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 2: did I get here?

584
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 3: Right?

585
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 2: So, in this case, though, you have a director in

586
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 2: Cobb where the very project he's embarking on is one

587
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 2: that requires him as an artist to mine his subconscious

588
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 2: which is what any director what any real artist ultimately

589
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 2: does have to do. But what can happen then is

590
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 2: those bad things can emerge, those malls, right, And that's

591
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 2: no surprise that they call her, that they can emerge,

592
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 2: and maybe you can make them disappear, maybe you can't,

593
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 2: and maybe they cause so much torment and havoc that

594
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 2: they destroy the whole process and the whole project. And

595
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 2: I thought that was so fascinating that that corollary here

596
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: where maybe you know, this crew and the cast and

597
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 2: the audience, even we've all made a d with the director.

598
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 2: We've all struck this bargain, and we hope that he's

599
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 2: going to hold up the filmmaker is going to hold

600
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 2: up his end of the bargain. But maybe you're so compromised,

601
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 2: and maybe you're so corrupted that you can't.

602
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 3: You know.

603
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 2: And when we get that line too where he explains

604
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 2: to her that you can never recreate places from your memory,

605
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 2: always imagine new places. I can hear Nolan on one hand,

606
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 2: reproaching personal filmmakers who don't create worlds on the scale

607
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 2: that he does, who don't use the same imagination that

608
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 2: he does, who basically just try to regurgitate their own

609
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 2: lives and experiences onto the screen. Or maybe it's more

610
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: simple than that, and it's just a warning. It's this

611
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 2: kind of personal warning where he's saying this, this is

612
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 2: what happens. This is what can happen. The perils of

613
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 2: telling personal stories, of mining your subconscious too deeply. If

614
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 2: you go too deep, it can all unravel on you.

615
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

616
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 4: See, this is the sort of met of stuff. This

617
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 4: is why I thought you were going to come around

618
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 4: on Life Aquatic with Steve's asu.

619
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 2: This is a I know, and it's all the stuff,

620
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 2: and it's why I still like Inception, Josh. That's why

621
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 2: I still like Inception as well as because of the

622
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:01,959
Speaker 2: that you've touched on in so many ways.

623
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 3: But it's it's not enough.

624
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 2: It's not enough to compensate for what I felt was

625
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 2: a as I said, weak foundation here for that relationship.

626
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 4: So the other thing that I really liked about it,

627
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,959
Speaker 4: I've been talking about this culmination. But the other film

628
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 4: that you know, again, I'm gonna give Interstellar a fair shot.

629
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 4: Some people say it's their favorite, so it could jump

630
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 4: up really high. But the other film in contention for

631
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 4: that top slot for me from Nolan is done Kirk,

632
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 4: and I love how the time games here in inception

633
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 4: point ahead to doun Kirk. Now you can also say

634
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 4: that they point back to Memento, right, which is probably

635
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 4: is that you're still your favorite?

636
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 3: Would you say at this point it's still my number one?

637
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 4: Yeah?

638
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:40,239
Speaker 3: Number one?

639
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 2: They point ahead just ahead to Interstellar too, in the

640
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 2: key sequence here where ten seconds for one person is

641
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 2: three minutes to another is sixty minutes another. That's that's

642
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 2: the key emotional sequence of Interstellar.

643
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's exactly where I was going. I mean

644
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 4: that that is another instance where and just trying to

645
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 4: think back to it, like I don't know how much

646
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 4: X we do get exposition, we get that exact line, right,

647
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 4: They lay out the timing for it so that we know.

648
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 4: But again I would argue it was necessary. And then

649
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 4: once we've got that information, how much more important is

650
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 4: it when we see that the van is falling in

651
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 4: slow motion for from that bridge for what like ten

652
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 4: minutes or whatever of screen time. I mean, it's it's

653
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 4: just brilliant how that is laid out, how it's envisioned,

654
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 4: how it's executed, and how so much of it I

655
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 4: know there, you know, is computer generated imagery in this

656
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 4: movie I don't want to overblow that, but how much

657
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 4: of it is done as practically as possible and made

658
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 4: us to feel like this is all happening in the

659
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 4: real world. So yeah, just another through line of the

660
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 4: plane of time, which again we mentioned in following it

661
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 4: was right there from the start, right It wasn't purely chronological,

662
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 4: it is somehow here becomes to this culmination of the

663
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 4: crucial element of the climactic sequence here.

664
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 3: So I absolutely yeah, love that. Yeah.

665
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 2: I loved it before too, back in twenty ten. I

666
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 2: remember that I was so mesmerized by the cutting between

667
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 2: the van and the hotel and that bond villain snow

668
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 2: layer and the skiing. There's really actually not that much

669
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:14,800
Speaker 2: skiing that happens in that scene even.

670
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 4: But here's the problem with that is, and I agree

671
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 4: with you, it's not that it's terrible. I mean, I

672
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 4: don't think I still don't think here action is Nolan's

673
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 4: strong suit. Like a lot of those fight scenes in

674
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 4: the snow sequence are not great. The problem is what's

675
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 4: happening in the van is so fascinating, and then what's

676
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 4: happening in the hotel sequence is even more mind blowing.

677
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 4: And then you get to a ski slope, right. It's

678
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 4: just like we're expecting him to ratchet up to a

679
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 4: new level of really a physics is what we're expecting,

680
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,399
Speaker 4: and instead we get back to James Bond. So there's

681
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 4: a sense of deflation there that I completely agree with,

682
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 4: and I think it also falls into an element of

683
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 4: this movie that you know, there's too much gunplay. This

684
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 4: movie does not way too much that's gun play, and

685
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 4: there's way too much of it.

686
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 3: There, really is it. I'll go back to the word tedious.

687
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 3: That's how it felt to me.

688
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 2: And that sequence you're talking about, we do spend, of course,

689
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 2: the most time in that particular portion of the levels,

690
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 2: in that snow layer. So if you aren't caught up

691
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 2: in that, then you really wish you were getting back

692
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 2: even more often to one of those other sequences, and

693
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 2: even worse, if your brain has been infiltrated by Sam

694
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 2: the Nolan nitpicker. Again, we had no conversation about this

695
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 2: ahead of time, but I apparently morphed into him watching

696
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 2: this film this time. Josh, I'm thinking about the mechanics

697
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 2: of it. I'm thinking about the timing that they set

698
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,800
Speaker 2: up and how the way it plays out doesn't match

699
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 2: the time they establish at all. And I'm thinking about

700
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 2: how they are all such badasses all of a sudden,

701
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 2: and did they get military training? Are they doing in

702
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 2: dreams what they can't do in real life? And like

703
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 2: I'm asking all of those questions. And again, when you're

704
00:35:56,320 --> 00:36:00,120
Speaker 2: asking all of those questions, then then you're distracted, turn

705
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 2: in and you're projecting on the filmmaker and you're getting angry,

706
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 2: I don't know, getting angry watching this film because of that.

707
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,719
Speaker 4: I think if you're asking those questions, I don't know

708
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 4: if you should be allowed to watch the movie.

709
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 3: Actually, those just other questions. That was my experience.

710
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 4: Let me say also with the one thing. The reason

711
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 4: why it's not a total loss, the snow sequence is because,

712
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 4: and this goes back to the emotional resonance, something key

713
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 4: happens there which I think is important. And this is

714
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 4: where Killy and Murphy, as the CEO's son, the air right,

715
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 4: the billionaire's air that this whole job is about, finds

716
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 4: he's being deluded, he's being duped, don't get me wrong.

717
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 4: But when he goes into that room, that like two

718
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,320
Speaker 4: thousand and one style of room with his the projection

719
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 4: of his dead father, his dying father, and opens the

720
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:50,319
Speaker 4: safe and sees in that safe the pinwheel, which is

721
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 4: the same pinwheel that's in the photograph of him as

722
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 4: a child with his son that he keeps trying to

723
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 4: put by his dying father's bedside, and the father doesn't notice. Like,

724
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,720
Speaker 4: these are all emotional elements that have been laid throughout

725
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,919
Speaker 4: the film. I don't care if this guy still gets

726
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 4: to be a billionaire. I don't care if he breaks

727
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:11,319
Speaker 4: up his companies. But in that moment, I cared if

728
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 4: he felt some sort of resolution with his father. And

729
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 4: that impressed me that I actually cared, because it really

730
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 4: had no bearing on the rest of the movie, but

731
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 4: it showed me that the emotional work had been done

732
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,240
Speaker 4: in the performances by Killian Murphy in the previous scenes

733
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 4: that Nolan had embedded to establish the relationship. And it's

734
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 4: almost like, I mean to go bring it back to

735
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 4: the meta thing you're talking about, Adam. How often does

736
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 4: Tom Hardy's emes talk about what we got to get

737
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 4: to is the relationship. It doesn't matter like to make

738
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 4: this heist work, this is the meta thing for me. Okay,

739
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 4: to make the heist work, we've got to connect on

740
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 4: a human emotional level with this billionaire son who cares

741
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 4: about secrets, mechanics, all this other stuff. That's the same

742
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 4: thing with Inception. If this movie is going to work,

743
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 4: and obviously it didn't for you, it's going to have

744
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 4: to also function on emotional human level. And I think

745
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 4: there is so much attention given to that. It's something

746
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:11,839
Speaker 4: Nolan knew. It's something he cast the right actors for,

747
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 4: it's something he wrote the right scenes for. And it

748
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 4: follows through for me all the way to the end.

749
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 4: And I think it comes back really to the spinning top.

750
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,760
Speaker 4: It does matter if the top falls or not, because

751
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 4: the goal of the movie, the goal of this team,

752
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 4: the goal of Cob, It's only achieved if he genuinely, authentically,

753
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 4: consciously forgives himself. And so for me, the top's got

754
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 4: to fall. It's got a fall to have that emotional resolution. Now,

755
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 4: Nolan may be playing games by not showing us that's

756
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 4: the trickster in him, right, But I don't know. I

757
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 4: think it's it just has that sort of oomph for

758
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 4: me at the end of this movie, and I'm curious,

759
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 4: I don't know where, like where you are on the

760
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 4: hole did the top fall or not? Things that you

761
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 4: probably say, as you probably say it doesn't matter, you

762
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 4: don't care.

763
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 2: Now I just I just legitimately don't care. Wow, that's

764
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 2: the problem, Like, I really don't don't like it, will

765
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 2: not occupy another moment in my brain after we stop

766
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 2: this review. So there's no doubt as we're closing this

767
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 2: up and had a very different experience with this film,

768
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 2: clearly that he knows it. That meta commentary is there.

769
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 2: That's Nolan again engaging with his audience the same way

770
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 2: the Magicians and the Prestige are openly talking about filmmaking

771
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 2: and the process of creating art while they're talking about

772
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 2: their lives and talking about the choices they make at

773
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 2: the end of that film. And so when he says

774
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 2: that you're right, he has Eames expressed that I think

775
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 2: he's being very knowing and winking in what the endeavor

776
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 2: of this film is. But as with every artistic endeavor,

777
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 2: the intellectual process that goes into it and what you

778
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 2: want to achieve and what you do or what you

779
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 2: execute and how the audience reacts to it, those are

780
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 2: often very different things. Now, one last meta touch that

781
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 2: I like speaking to all of this and openly using

782
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,240
Speaker 2: the language of cinema, putting those words in the voices

783
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 2: of these characters. At one point in the explanation to

784
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,800
Speaker 2: I think Ariadne again, he explains that when you dream,

785
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 2: your mind functions more quickly, so time seems to pass

786
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 2: more slowly. And all I could think about is Nolan

787
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 2: winking at us a little bit, because how do you

788
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:20,760
Speaker 2: shoot something in slow motion on film? You don't slow

789
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 2: the camera down right, you speed it up. It's achieved

790
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 2: because it's a faster frame rate. You project that faster

791
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 2: frame rate normally, and when you do that, it seems slower.

792
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 2: So that's him again, I would say, potentially subconsciously putting

793
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 2: those types of words and ideas into these characters mouths,

794
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 2: but maybe very consciously trying to have them speak in

795
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 2: the language of movies.

796
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 4: All right, So, and tied on a positive note for

797
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 4: both of us, Do you have a favorite sequence from it? Because,

798
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 4: as I mentioned, it's like it's a series of escalations.

799
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 4: I kept feeling like, Oh, can't get better than this,

800
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 4: It can't get better than this.

801
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 3: But I don't know if I can decide. I mean,

802
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 3: I kind of part of.

803
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 4: Me almost likes that opening sequence, even though on some

804
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 4: level it's the simplest, but again, have you not revisited

805
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 4: it since twenty ten, Just the thrill of understanding what

806
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 4: we're in for at that opening might make it my

807
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 4: favorite the whole you know, until basically they're woken up

808
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 4: in that apartment building.

809
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 3: I just love.

810
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:24,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I would probably go with that too,

811
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 2: because I do think that's ultimately the most effective part

812
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 2: of the film. Though I do still very much appreciate

813
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 2: that sequence we touched on with Ellen Page when he's

814
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 2: he's surprising her and the more than anything, the power

815
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 2: that she feels when she has the control.

816
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 3: Over her surroundings.

817
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 2: That's really thrilling to watch, genuinely, but also confounding and

818
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 2: troubling in a lot of ways. And you see, you

819
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 2: see what that power comes, all the damage that you

820
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 2: can potentially do. So that's another sequence that really stands.

821
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 3: Out for me. You Mustn't be Afraid to dreamin with

822
00:41:58,160 --> 00:41:58,720
Speaker 3: Viga Donna.

823
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,399
Speaker 2: That was our July twenty twenty conversation about Inception, part

824
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 2: of our Christopher Nolan Oover review. You can get complete

825
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 2: access to the film spotting archive going all the way

826
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 2: back to two thousand and five as a film Spotting

827
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 2: Family member, plus many other benefits. Learn more at Filmspotting

828
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 2: Family dot com.

829
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,400
Speaker 1: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.

830
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:38,280
Speaker 3: Good fine.

831
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 2: Film spottings listeners supported. Join the film Spotting Family at

832
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