Inception director Christopher Nolan has come out and baffled us even more with his explanation of the ending to the film.
In case you've somehow forgotten, the audience was left with a cliffhanger ending, as Leonardo DiCaprio's character Cobb spun the top to see if he was in a dream or reality, when he's reunited with his kids.
When speaking to the graduating class of Princeton University, Nolan argued that realities are subjective and from his quotes, I think - and I emphasise the word 'think' - his point is that what is reality, really?
In the great tradition of these speeches, generally someone says something along the lines of ‘Chase your dreams,’ but I don’t want to tell you that because I don’t believe that. I want you to chase your reality.I feel that over time, we started to view reality as the poor cousin to our dreams, in a sense…. I want to make the case to you that our dreams, our virtual realities, these abstractions that we enjoy and surround ourselves with – they are subsets of reality.
The way the end of that film worked, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Cobb — he was off with his kids, he was in his own subjective reality. He didn’t really care anymore, and that makes a statement: perhaps, all levels of reality are valid.
The film itself is ironically an excellent example of the blurring of lines between dreams, reality and virtual realities, given that we as an audience become so invested in the potential outcome of what are fictional characters. Nolan makes this point better than I can:
I skip out of the back of the theatre before people catch me, and theres a very, very strong reaction from the audience: usually a bit of a groan. The point is, objectively, it matters to the audience in absolute terms: even though when I’m watching, it’s fiction, a sort of virtual reality. But the question of whether that’s a dream or whether it’s real is the question I’ve been asked most about any of the films I’ve made. It matters to people because that’s the point about reality. Reality matters.
So what you're saying is, Bruce Willis was dead the whole time?
hat-tip: ViralThread
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