During the warm summer month of July 2010, a science fiction movie is released for the world to see. This isn't your typical sci-fi movie with robots or aliens. This is different. This is ‘Inception’. To some it may not seem like a science fiction movie, which makes people question how well it fits into the genre.
‘Inception’ is directed by London-born Christopher Nolan, who has directed 7 other movies and is among one of the most successful filmmakers.
Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a skilled extractor, a person who enters into someones dream to steal ideas or information. He cannot return home to the United States, due to the fact that he has charges held against him for murdering his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), who in reality, committed suicide. After a failed extraction, Cobb crosses paths with Saito, a powerful business man. He proposes to give Cobb his life back if he performs a job in return. He asks him to perform inception. Instead of stealing ideas, you plant it into the persons mind. Saito wants him to plant an idea into the heir of his competitor, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) that will convince him to break up his fathers
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One plot convention of science fiction is the alternate world, seeing that ‘Inception’ is about dreams, it would qualify as the alternate world. Furthermore, the plot of the movie would also fit into the sub-genre, soft science fiction. Soft science fiction focuses on the story or the characters, while hard science fiction focuses on the science. According to kathrineroid.wordpress.com “Soft science” is a field that deals with humans. Psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science are examples of soft science. ‘Inception’ is all about Cobb and his thoughts, guilts an regrets. It is also about ideas and how, as Cobb said, “are impossible to eradicate”. This all has to do with psychology, thus fitting well into the sub-genre, soft science
Why do we fear the unknown? In the process of answering this question, science-fiction genre films successfully capture the history of American society at distinct points in time. The genre is so closely linked to social and historical contexts that its development relies solely on this connection. Sci-fi myths and conventions have remained static for decades, and the only measurable change in the genre lies in the films’ themes (Gehring 229-230). For example, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) argues that fear of the unknown is a flaw in human nature and criticizes the social paranoia of post-war, 1940s America. Conversely, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) views the human existence through more positive outlook, wherein society can overcome such fear; this optimism reflects the escapist beliefs of the 70s. When juxtaposed, the films’ themes demonstrate the evolution of the sci-fi genre by expressing different social attitudes towards conventions such as foreign beings, unfamiliar technology, and unusual scientists. The films also represent the genre during two major aesthetic periods in cinema—the post-classical and the late modernist eras, respectively—but nonetheless serve a greater purpose in measuring America’s social progress.
Genre of Science Fiction Illustrated in Beginning of film Independence Day Films normally have a certain type of genre. A genre is formed when certain elements from a type of film or book become essential to that type of film or book. There are different type of genre likes Horror, Romance and Comedy. The film, which I am studying, is called 'Independence Day'. The genre for this film is science fiction.
Even more difficult than defining art is coming to an agreement on what constitutes art. Along this extensive history of debate came the consideration of whether film is art. Films were not considered an art form and had not been seriously debated until film theorist Rudolf Arnheim challenged what art could be with his theory. Arnheim, who claims that the more a film differs from reality the more it should be considered art, would certainly argue that a film like Black Swan (Aronofsky, 2010) is art in that it significantly displaces the viewer from their lived reality. He rejects the “assertion that film is nothing but the feeble mechanical reproduction of real life” (“Film Theory and Criticism” 228), instead postulating that human perspective and choices should be involved in the process of making a film to meaningfully shape elements of our lived experience.
...tands the test of time, thanks only to its screenplay; the effects, score and sets can all be outdated, but a good script will never date until dealt with. Many of the influential screenplays, hence films, have risen from the sci-fi genre and they will undoubtedly continue to do so as long as the genre keeps re-inventing itself visually. This is something the Wachowski bros have done; they’ve started a new chapter in the history of cinema and sci-fi, one which has already spawned the likes of ‘Pitch Black’ ( Ian Thorburn and David N. Twohy , 2000), ‘Minority Report’ ( Steven Spielberg , 2002) and of course, the next two Matrix sequels.
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. It tells a story of a future in which reality to most humans is actually a computer program called "the Matrix”. In "the Matrix” humans are really sleep while their bodies are fed on my machines. The movie while directed to entertain audiences but also gave us many insights into philosophy. Many scenes in this movie reflect Descartes, and his many writings explaining them in a visual manner. In this paper I will show various examples of philosophy within the scenes and give commentary explaining each scene.
Finding the distinction between appearance and reality is, and has always been, one of the principal focal points of philosophy. From Plato to Descartes, all philosophers have grappled with this problem (at one point or another); what is reality? While the question isn't exactly novel, the science fiction genre sort of picks up where the great philosophers left off in an attempt to answer, if not better understand, this question and ourselves. Works including Dark City (1998) and The Matrix (1999) have both pushed their audiences to think what is reality? Who am I and what does it mean to be human? While none of these works nor myself are so bold as to claim to have all the answers, the discussion is still worth delving into. Through an analysis of each film's theme of reality maybe we can learn something about what is real or something about ourselves and our humanity.
Alfred Hitchcock developed his signature style from his earlier works The Lodger and Blackmail. These films were the framework for his signature films later on. His themes of “an innocent man who is accused of a crime” and “the guilty woman” were first seen in these two films and are repeated throughout Hitchcock’s cinematic history
Christopher Nolan, the british-american director of the critically acclaimed “Momento” and the most recent “Batman” movies has a fearless mentality for the complicated plots and epic themes which his films bestow. And one of his most epic new thrillers and astonishing new story is his 2010, “Inception.” Over ten years, Nolan had contemplated the idea of a movie around the dream world where action scenes could be manipulated and redoubled continuously. And that time of sitting on the idea led Nolan to dig much deeper into the idea that though before, diving into the realm of dreams within dreams and tiered action within each dream level as they go deeper into the subconscious. In Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” the main character Cobb remarks, “The mind creates and perceives our world. It does it so well, we don’t realize that we’re doing it.” To tell a story about a man washed up on the shore of his own subconscious, Nolan captivates audiences by propelling them along his non-traditional narratives full of complex themes and intricate story lines. He blurs the lines of reality and dream through parallel editing, set design and architecture. As a result the audience believes whole heartedly the repeated notion that “downward is the only way forward.”
In Hollywood today, most films can be categorized according to the genre system. There are action films, horror flicks, Westerns, comedies and the likes. On a broader scope, films are often separated into two categories: Hollywood films, and independent or foreign ‘art house’ films. Yet, this outlook, albeit superficial, was how many viewed films. Celebrity-packed blockbusters filled with action and drama, with the use of seamless top-of-the-line digital editing and special effects were considered ‘Hollywood films’. Films where unconventional themes like existentialism or paranoia, often with excessive violence or sex or a combination of both, with obvious attempts to displace its audiences from the film were often attributed with the generic label of ‘foreign’ or ‘art house’ cinema.
The Matrix is a film, while classified as sci-fi, mirrors the growing influence and mistrust of technology today. At the time of the film’s release, an audience may have
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.
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.
“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.