Film: Inception
Director: Christopher Nolan
Distributers: Warner Bros. Picture
Plot Summary
Inception is a science fiction film about a thief who possesses the power to enter into the dreams of others. Played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Dom Cobb projects himself deep into the subconscious of his targets, stealing information. He is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: ”inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.
Scene: The spinning hallway fight in shifting gravity
Besides the fact that this scene is my favourite scene in the whole film, it features a great amount of movement and camera tricks. To try and help understand this scene better I feel it’s best that I explain a few things. The scene does not feature the main character but another character known as Arthur played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who is Cobb’s right hand man. The most important concept to understand is that this scene is a dream within a dream. In the movie they refer to it as level one and level two.
Level one involves a vehicle chase, driven by another character named Yusuf with Arthur and his team asleep in the back of the vehicle. Level two involves a fight in a hotel hallway between gang men and Arthur. One must note that whatever happens in the first level of the dream also occurs in the second level of the dream. By clarifying this I can now proceed to explain how the scenes unfold. Being complicated enough I’ve decided to describe the vehicle chase and the hallway fight separately describing movement, time and stillness for each scene.
The shots of the vehicle are varied outside and inside the van. The chase involves motorcycles and a van which ends up going off road. Movement is brought out throughout this scene thanks to the way the camera shots follow the fast swerving vehicles.
Sounds such as cars breaking and crashing noises helps bring out that feeling of movement even more. Time comes into the picture through the progression of the scene as the van is travelling to a specific destination. Furthermore there are a couple of close-up shots where time slows down and everything is moving in slow motion, giving us the sensation of stillness.
Concurrently the second level of the dream in the hotel is taking place. Here Arthur has to fight off gang men while the hallway is in turmoil due to the rapid movements of the van in the first level. The way they brought out the rotation of the hallway is remarkable.
What happens is that the camera stays in the same spot while the whole hallway actually rotates. The shots are mostly mid-size shots with some close ups on the gun which the two actors trying to reach. When they go into the room the camera is hand held and sometimes turns with the room. This wraps the viewer further into the scene.
I particularly chose this scene because they showed movement very effectively. When the level two dream world building moved the shot went straight to the van and showed the van tipping and turning. This gave a perfect sense of movement because you could tell why the building was spinning. Time played a very important role in this scene too and unless one understood exactly what was happening from the beginning they would be totally lost and have difficulty keeping up with the fast moving action. In fact if I had to criticise this film, I would say that the writer seems to have wanted the audience not understand anything because it is an extremely confusing film.
References
BoxOfficeSmashers, 2010. Inception - Official Trailer [HD]. [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hP9D6kZseM [Accessed 19 October 2013].
Dempsey, M., 2010. Inception - The practice of entering dreams within dreams to plant an idea in someone’s mind. [Online] Available at: http://inception-explained.com/ [Accessed 19 October 2013].
Jakob, H., 2010. INCEPTION – Filming the Corridor & Zero Gravity Sequences. [Online] Available at: http://designyoutrust.com/video/inception-making-of/ [Accessed 19 October 2013].
MrInceptionFanatic, 2010. INCEPTION - Zero gravity fight scene.. [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvDba2nMv_U [Accessed 19 October 2013].
Vardanian, S., 2010. Inception - Behind the Scenes 1080 HD. [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un_E5iWGujM [Accessed 19 October 2013].
Dempsey, M., 2010. Inception - The practice of entering dreams within dreams to plant an idea in someone’s mind. [Online] Available at: http://inception-explained.com/ [Accessed 19 October 2013].
Jakob, H., 2010. INCEPTION – Filming the Corridor & Zero Gravity Sequences. [Online] Available at: http://designyoutrust.com/video/inception-making-of/ [Accessed 19 October 2013].
MrInceptionFanatic, 2010. INCEPTION - Zero gravity fight scene.. [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvDba2nMv_U [Accessed 19 October 2013].
Vardanian, S., 2010. Inception - Behind the Scenes 1080 HD. [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un_E5iWGujM [Accessed 19 October 2013].
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