Christopher Nolan’s 2010 action thriller Inception provides a discerning outlook into the specificities of human thought processes and dream meaning through exceptional cinematography, labeling it an exemplar of filmmaking. The film follows the ambitious corporate thief Dom Cobb as he attempts to infiltrate a man’s mind and place an idea through the act of inception. Employing “dream sharing”, Cobb controls both the appearance and feel of the subconscious world, but at the alarming cost of being trapped should he fail his mission. Nolan brilliantly combines mise-en-scéne elements of setting and sound design, with inimitable cinematography and editing styles to project the dream world on a film medium, narrating a story that reveals the blurred line between fantasy and reality. By doing so, the film builds upon traditional conventions of moviemaking while developing its own style and motifs that are remarkably distinctive.
The setting of Inception is idiosyncratic for it divides each section of its dream world into distinct sceneries to help the audience differentiate location and tone. Cinematographer Wally Pfister designed the film’s location with diverse color hues and modern decor. Each dream level portrays an exclusive appearance from cool blue mountain peaks to warmly lit hotel floors. This separates the worlds allowing the audience to appreciate each setting in its entirety. Likewise, these settings provide insight into the tone of the narrative structure. The film exhibits expansive, sleek dream environments to contrast with angular, warmly lit locations paralleling a contemporary psychological thriller with science-fiction. The pressure for Cobb to complete his mission progresses from the tonality of each setting in v...
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...ng substantiates the theme’s noteworthy ambiguity upon the audience.
Inception remains one of the most complex and deeply engaging narratives of this century. By defying traditional filmmaking, Nolan crafts a stunning cinema masterpiece that plays with the human subconscious. Equally, he provides audiences with the question of whether their reality is true, or perhaps the world they know is a dream. Paralleling the film’s ambiguous ending, the line between reality and the dream world is blurred due to the exceptional strategies Nolan and his team utilize. Mise-en-scéne elements of setting, brilliant cinematography, and profound editing techniques institute the film’s prevailing narrative form and motifs. Many film directors manipulate the concept of fantasy versus reality, but instead of providing a mundane exposition, fantasy becomes the new reality in Inception.
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window is truly a masterpiece, as it uses fascinating cinematic elements to carry the story and also convey the meaning of voyeurism. Throughout the film we are in one room, yet that does not limit the story. This causes the viewer to feel trapped, similar to the main character, while also adding suspense to the detective story. The opening scene itself, draws the viewer in. In just five minutes and 27 shots, the viewer is given an introduction to the main character, his lifestyle, his condition, and his neighborhood. The lighting, the costumes, and the set are all presented in a way to catch the viewers eye, compelling them to crave more. Combining vivid lighting, edgy cinematography, and unique set design, Rear Window, proves why Hitchcock is still remembered as one of the greatest and most influential directors of all time.
Perhaps an even stronger testament to the deepness of cinema is Darren Aronofsky’s stark, somber Requiem for a Dream. Centering on the drug-induced debasement of four individuals searching for the abstract concept known as happiness, Requiem for a Dream brims with verisimilitude and intensity. The picture’s harrowing depiction of the characters’ precipitous fall into the abyss has, in turn, fascinated and appalled, yet its frank, uncompromising approach leaves an indelible imprint in the minds of young and old alike.
As Jake finds his way from his ordinary world into a new world packed with adventure, the film captures his journey and throughout the film, there are links to the hero’s journey. Essentially, Jake’s new familiar world becomes Pandora as he reaches a point of acceptance from the Na’vi people. Cameron has created a film packed with action and adventure but there are also many emotions between the avatars. Overall, the shots, sound and lighting all played a major role to distinctively indicate the emotions and action within the film and capture ‘The Hero’s
Un Chien Andalou (1929)2 filmed by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel demonstrates one of the ideas for reading the subconscious: through dreams. Breton mentions the work of Sigmund Freud and the importance that he had realized to dreams. 1 Breton argues that dreams should be provided with the same confidence that reality is regarded with.1 The black and white film, with dim light and fading edges of view, give a romantic, dream-like essence, similarly to many of the paintings or other works from Surrealism, inspired by Freud’s studies.
Of special note is that the horror is created, in large part, by suggestion rather than a heavy sledgehammer approach, In the most famous sequence of the film, the man d...
The cool breeze stroked my skin as I flew through the cozy clouds. I was flying above rocky mountains, vast oceans, and colossal skyscrapers, but when I opened my eyes, I was in a classroom chained to a sturdy desk, hearing my second grade teacher give a lecture about American history. While humans tend to anticipate for the day their dreams will become their reality, most people will struggle to accept the way their lives are because their most treasured dreams will only be alive in their fantasies.
Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren is one of the most intriguing and significant experimental films of the 1940’s. Maya Deren is a surrealist experimental filmmaker who explores themes like yearning, obsession, loss and mortality in her films. In Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren is highly influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theory of expressing the realms of the subconscious mind through a dream. Meshes of the Afternoon, is a narration of her own experience with the subconscious mind that draws the viewers to experience the events being played out rather than just merely showing the film. I chose Maya Deren for my research because her intriguing sense gives viewers an enthralling experience by taking them to a different, semi-real world of the subconscious mind. Meshes of the Afternoon not only reveals Deren’s success in a male dominant arena, but also provides a sensational and escalating experience for the spectators.
"Fed Up (Soechtig, 2014)." narrated by Katie Couric, focuses on the growing link between sugar consumption and the obesity epidemic. The film aggressively attacks the food industry, advertising, and the government who, it claims, all contribute to the U.S. sugar-dependent, obesity problem. The film sets out to prove the government, and food industry is knowingly causing an increase in the amount of obese children. It reserves its most critical comments for government advisory panels who make and enforce food and health policy, and its failure to properly regulate the food industry. They claim lobbyists for the sugar board have been instrumental in the removal of negative statistics from research papers worldwide. Instead
In 1995 author Christopher Priest combined the themes of fantasy, history, science fiction and mystery to create his novel The Prestige. This World Fantasy Award winning novel explores jealousy and envy as it tells the story of “Two magicians, of wholly different characters, that have fallen into a feud, each trying to outdo the other on stage and in their personal lives” (Ottinger). With such a mysterious and intricate plot, a reader may be torn between watching the movie adaptation or leaving the original plot of the novel preserved in his mind. While the novel uses dated journal entries to unravel the tale and set the scene (Foley), the movie uses flashbacks to show glimpses of the magicians’ secretive lives. Director Christopher Nolan focused on period details and carefully crafted scenes of historical value to stick with the setting of the book, which was the 19th century, while Priest wrote descriptive narratives that allow a reader to immerse himself in the characters’ world. Nolan worked with dedicated cast and crewmembers to maintain the sophistication and the mysterious nature of Priest’s novel.
I chose to analyze Despicable Me, an animated film geared towards a younger audience, because I was interested in examining underlying theories and messages that this film would be relaying to its viewers. Often times, when watching animated films, children are not aware of these messages, as they are absorbed by the characters, special effects, and humor. But as we have learned throughout this semester, our brains are subconsciously primed by the various surroundings we are exposed to. Since we also studied the impacts of entertainment, such as television and video games, on children, I wanted to see how a popular children’s film might also affect them.
Best known for his unique and non-linear style and to many people as the best director of the past decade, Christopher Jonathan James Nolan or just simply Christopher Nolan, is one of the most talented and influential film directors and screenwriters of our time. He, like most directors have never studied film and is a self-taught filmmaker. In this essay I am going to write about his early life and how he got into filmmaking. His early career and his rise to fame with Batman movies, his personal life and the influences he have had on the film industry which makes him one of the best directors of all time and my personal favorite.
When you stop to think about it, our ability to understand what goes on in a typical Hollywood film is shocking. Images jump from one to the next with little to no linearity. Perspectives jump around as if a person is spinning and floating around, and music and sounds emanate from nowhere and everywhere at once. The lights dim. Your body shifts about to get comfortable. It’s not bed time however. It’s time for a movie! The strong correlation between our film watching setting, and our dream making setting is too closely tied to be considered mere coincidence. Colin McGinn, author of The Power of Movies, in chapter four titled “Dreams on Film”, says “A child has to learn to read before a literary narrative can be processed, but watching a film requires nothing much beyond the capacity to dream” (113). McGinn argues that the reasons we are able to understand film so easily and readily, is because of our ability to dream. In dreaming, we create visual fantasies that seem to reflect memories and images we experience in our own lives. We might wake up in a heavy sweat, a confused state of mind, or a smile on our face, and it is these same emotions that can be brought about by film. Our ability to create and consume film stems from our innate ability to imagine and understand dreams. Robert Rodriguez’s film adaptation “Sin City” is a perfect case study of how film and dreams are interrelated.
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.
Inception is a movie following a man named Dom Cobb who is a thief who steals
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is a Steven Spielberg science fiction drama film, which conveys the story of a younger generation robot, David, who yearns for his human mother’s love. David’s character stimulates the mind-body question. What is the connection between our “minds” and our bodies?