14 DAY TRIAL // Writer and director Christopher Nolan was invited to speak at the commencement ceremony at Princeton on Monday, and he started by urging grads to chase not their dreams but their reality. He used his film “Inception” to explain why reality mattered, not dreams.
Nolan has tried before to explain the ending of the film, with more or less satisfying results. The last time he said anything on the topic, he promised he would refrain from trying to offer a definite answer from then on, to the question “did the top stop spinning and drop or not?”
“Reality matters”
In all fairness, he’s not breaking his promise because he’s not answering the question. He does, however, use “Inception” to illustrate why reality matters, THR reports. Nolan finds it sad when people say we should “chase our dreams,” as if reality is our dreams’ “poor cousin,” the kind of person no one wants to be caught mingling with.
Instead, he proposes a different approach in life: make your own reality, much like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Cobb made at the end of the film. To him, it didn’t matter if the top stopped spinning or not because he’d already found peace in being reunited with his 2 children. To him, shaping his own reality saved his life - and his soul.
“Perhaps, all levels of reality are valid,” Nolan argues. “I skip out of the back of the theater before people catch me, and there's 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.”
If you’re still struggling to find that definite meaning to “Inception,” the key is right in the final 2 sentences in the paragraph above: you can make your own reality with it, so you can choose the ending you want to have seen in theaters.
Nolan and the annoying “Inception” question
“Inception” came out in theaters in 2010 and was the biggest original box office hit of the year. It also inspired new trends in filmmaking and even trailer-making, while boosting Nolan’s profile to that of one of the most talented and in-demand directors of our time.
“Inception” was more than just solid directing, editing and acting, it was also a thought-provoking story (albeit a slightly flawed one) with an open ending. Said open ending proved too much for many audience members, the kind Nolan references above: those who want definite answers.
So he was asked a lot about the ending of the film, and his answers varied depending on his mood and the circumstances. At first, Nolan said that everyone was free to make of the ending what they wanted, but he later changed his story, saying he personally chose Cobb was back in reality. As a father himself, he couldn’t stand to think he might never be reunited with his children.
As noted above, in his latest interview, Nolan said he would never try to answer the question because he’d gotten in too much trouble already. So he reverted to his initial answer: either possibility is just as valid, and the ending depends on whatever the viewer chooses.
