Discussing Inception

After seeing Inception for the 3rd time, I've become almost as interested in the way people discuss this film as I am in the film itself.

I first became interested in the discussion around psychological puzzle or "mindfuck" movies when I wrote a chapter of my thesis on the IMDB discussion of Mulholland Drive. I found that the arguments fell into two distinct categories:

Those who thought the film's creator was trying to create a coherent fictional universe in which cause-and-effect applied vs. those who thought the movie was like an abstract painting. The first group thought that the plot was like a puzzle and that if you understood which parts were "real" for the characters and which parts were dreams, fantasies, or hallucinations, and you understood how the "real" lives of the characters influenced those dreams/fantasies, then you could "understand" the film. The second group thought either that the artist is having a laugh at the audience by making them think that the art is somehow "important" b/c its so inscrutable or that it has real beauty which cannot be analyzed the way a cause-and-effect narrative is typically analyzed.

In a way, the same thing is happening with Inception (based on my observations of a very limited sample of audience reactions: my friends and people on reddit). But I think b/c Inception has all the markings of a traditional Hollywood film as opposed to the art-house pedigree of Mulholland Drive and b/c the film's characters spend so much time explaining how everything fits together, most people debate what the final reality (for the characters) of the film was and/or whether the creator of the film was successful in his attempt to create a coherent fictional reality. Those who loved the film seem to believe that it all fits together and those who didn't like it either felt that it didn't all fit together or that its construction - its attempt to weld together an action film, a psychological puzzle, and an emotional story of loss and acceptance - is clumsy and draws attention to itself as artifice. Here's what I'm interested in: why do people fall into those groups?

Here's my pet theory. People think that some characteristic of the plot's coherence is to blame/praise for why they liked/disliked the film. They argue as if that were the case. But really, its their abilities to emotionally connect with the characters and some pre-existing disposition towards the type of movie they see Inception as (a summer blockbuster, a Christopher Nolan film, a smart film, a trying-to-be-too-clever film) that determines how hard they look for those flaws. This categorization and emotional identification with the situations and characters in the film, in some sense, precede viewers' desire or attempts to piece together what exactly happened in the fictional reality of the film, even though we're not aware that they do. With Inception as with many sci-fi and/or mindfuck movies, there certainly are inconsistencies or blind-spots to find. Those who were pre-disposed to liking the film could acknowledge these, but they would probably say that they don't matter, that its all part of the willing suspension of disbelief, that all stories must leave out some information and that the rules of the genre demand that we overlook some un-reality of the film's world. Those who were pre-disposed to disliking the film would call these "plot holes" and treat them as a kind of empirical evidence that the film is poorly constructed.

So when people have debates over whether the film made sense or what happened in the reality of the film, they're really just reflecting whether or not they identified with the film and whether they typically like the type of film that, before they entered the theater, they had categorized the film as.

I have this hunch b/c I try to imagine if these relatively minor things in the movie that people talk about were altered (the spinning top falling over/not falling over, a bit more explanation here or there, things going a bit differently with the kicks, etc.) and what the people having these arguments might think of that altered movie. I am highly skeptical that their opinions would change. They talk as if these minor changes would alter their opinions of the movie, that their arguments for why this movie was good/bad rests on these features of the film, but this seems ludicrous to me.

Perhaps its easier and safer to talk about one's like or dislike of a movie in this way. To understand how or why one categorizes a film as a certain type is a really hard thing to be aware of. Also, when you talk about what characters or situations you identify with, you can be revealing something very personal about who you are. Any statement against the film could be construed as a statement against someone who identified with the characters, situations, or sentiments in the movie, which would cause a whole lotta friction.

It should be obvious which group I fall into by now. But the more I think about the multi-layered pleasure I get out of this film, the more I think, "why can't I experience this more often with more movies, TV shows, songs, etc.?" We talk about these things as if its the artists' responsibilities to bring us a pleasurable experience, but I think we as audience members have some control over this, more than we think. If I'm arguing this for Inception, I'm arguing this for all art. What if I had gone to see Eclipse instead? My knee-jerk reaction would have been to hate it and to argue why this was a bad film. But I wouldn't have to have done that. I could've acknowledged the fact that I categorized the film as "awful teen chick romance" and understood that, on the face of it, I probably wouldn't have identified with the characters, situations, or sentiments expressed in the movie. But that doesn't mean I couldn't have found something positive in the experience and that I shouldn't have to wait for an artist to cater to my desires or find a fan to convince me of the work's merit. Everyone could love everything, and if loving something is more fun than hating something (I know that hating films, TV shows, people can feel good, but as someone who really loves Inception, I can tell you that loving feels better than hating), why shouldn't we try? I think my arguments for the greatness of some works are arguments for enjoyment in general, arguments against not enjoying yourself at a movie.

The Politics of the Dark Knight

The Dark Knight is, in many ways, the ideal movie to blog about. Its complex, so complex that I'm sure I missed a few things. After seeing it a second time, I still wasn't sure whether The Joker, when he was informing Batman of the Harvey Dent/Rachael Dawes hostage situation, told Batman who was at which address. My friend and I had conflicting memories about this, and I heard a reporter from Slate say that Batman had intended to save Harvey when I'm 90% sure he said he was going to save Rachael (though who can tell w/ that ridiculously gruff voice!). You can pause and review a DVD, but not theater flick, so we're left with the collective memory of the blogosphere to get everything straight.

But more than facts, its the meaning of The Dark Knight that needs unpacking and debating, specifically the political meaning. I'm reminded of why outlandish fiction (particularly sci-fi and comic books movies which, in some ways, have taken over sci-fi's domain in the past 5 years) can work so much better as a way of talking through issues of the day than more literal historical fiction like that rash of Iraq war movies from the last year. Even a movie I adore, The Lives of Others, is ill-suited to really dig into the philosophical and moral issues around surveillance in an impartial way. We know who to side with - those fighting the Stasi. Similarly, we know to side against the US administration and with the hapless, brave soldiers in most movies about 'nam or Iraq.

It would be very easy to read The Dark Knight as an allegory for post 9/11 America, though we don't have to read it that way. In fact, I think its a great way to think about a hypothetical world with hypothetical heroes and villains that our world might come to resemble in the future, in which case we should think about how we would act in those situations.

Being a Role Model: Batman wanted to be a symbol of good actions, so that if he died, there would be others who would take his place to step up and do the right thing. Trouble is a lot of those people bastardize that good symbol and put their own spin on it. To them, its OK for Batman to carry a gun, and b/c they're not mega-millionaires with military R&D people working for them, they don't have much choice but to carry guns and wear hockey pads. Then there's the matter of inspiring madmen like the Joker/terrorists, but its tough to say that Batman's hubris and his clones created The Joker, just as it would be tough to say that any given culture or Cowboy president created terrorists, though its to their advantage to make you think that.

Surveillance: In real world "prisoner's dilemma" situations, the best course of action is to try as hard as you can to find a third option. Its Batman's use of illicit surveillance that resolves the prisoner's dilemma on the two ferries. Thanks to the cell phones as cameras, he's able to track down the Joker before he throws the switch and kills the people on the two ferries who, in a strictly Utilitarian sense, made the wrong decision not to kill each other. There are two significant things about that cell-phone scene in the Bat lab: Lucius Fox objects to the surveillance on moral grounds, and even though he capitulates, the fact that he objected makes it more thought provoking than if the scene were just passed off as cool gadgetry (Bond, anyone?). And before we jump to making the obligatory Orwellian metaphor, its worth noting that the civilians do not know they're being spied upon. When people know they're being spied on by their leaders, it can have a chilling effect on their behavior. But if they don't know, well then, is there any harm? This leads us to the next moral dilemma.

Lying to the Public: Bruce has trouble with this one at first, wanting to come out and tell the world he's been living a lie, coming clean and telling them that he's Batman. He wants crime to be fought by a public figure - Harvey Dent (Obama to Bruce's Bush? Just a thought). Alfred insists that there needs to be someone who does the dirty work, who makes decisions that he knows are unpopular and probably illegal. The solution? Do those deeds but invent a persona that is distanced from you that can take the public's disapproval. At first, its just Bruce's reputation that needs to be kept clean. In the end, of course, its Harvey's. But all of this assumes that the public simply can't handle the fact that a good person - Harvey Dent - did some really bad things. Knowing this would make them lose all faith in themselves. Is this true? What if we found evidence that MLK shot a bunch of people in an insane revenge seeking fit? Interesting question, but I really find it shocking that any movie would say that the answer is that the public can't handle the truth. What are we, children?

Killing people: I would argue that b/c Batman cannot kill anyone, even his arch nemesis, he has to commit other sins against the freedom of the people he protects. Sometimes, martyrs for non-violence don't get assassinated. Sometimes they live long enough to have to make some unpopular decisions, to see themselves become villains.

So what does the movie really say about any of these? I think it leaves a lot of questions open to debate. If the movie has a moral voice, it is not that of Bruce Wayne but that of Alfred. Bruce eventually comes around to Alfred's "things have to get worse before they get better" philosophy, which is oddly similar to Ra's Al Ghul's, the villain from Batman Begins. Something about the way in which Alfred and his message is presented makes it seem authoritative in a way that Bruce isn't. Bruce, like the audience, is trying to work through difficult real-world moral dilemmas, whereas Alfred seems to have it all figured out from his years of experience.

Still, I'm not convinced that if we are to call Alfred's version of reality a bit...right wing that we must dislike or dismiss the movie if we do not share those values. It reminds me of one of the most praised films of all time - The Searchers. From what I understand, critics love that movie b/c the morality it apparently presents in the end (lunatic racist hyper-macho psychopath hero decides to reform for no reason at the last minute) shows how ridiculous traditional Hollywood Western morality (and, by association, the morality of 1950's America) really is. You could read the end of The Dark Knight the same way. Its holding up a mirror to our political culture. We're scared of people we think just want to watch the world burn (maybe you think its terrorists, maybe you think its Cheney/Bush/corporations). We want a knight in shining armor, but sooner or later, that knight has to do some things that aren't going to look so good to others. In order to maintain power in this democratic culture that values popularity above all else, the knight has to hide his or her dirty work and maintain a nice face for children and the ignorant masses. At least that's my reading. What's yours?