Inception (2010) (with Todd McGowan)

Are we dreaming, or are we awake? How do we choose which realities to believe in? What levels of fictionality count? Find out in Episode 65, which works its way through the dream logic and desires of Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), a film that probes deep into our unconscious to revel in how dreams allow us to participate in a shared fantasy. Joining Chris and Alex as they kick back through the layers of Inception’s rhizomatic, mazelike structure is Todd McGowan, Professor of Film Studies in the Film and Television Studies Department at the University of Vermont, and author of a number of books on psychoanalytic film theory, film comedy and popular media, including The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan (2007) and The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2012). Topics for discussion include Christopher Nolan’s pre-occupation with revelation as a narrative device; how Inception’s interweaving, puzzling plotlines demonstrate trends towards complex narration by showing how beginnings can be constituted by the end; Nolan’s relationship with practical effects traditions, and the interplay between visual effects and the diegetic coherency of a fantasy world; why Inception is a rich film for thinking about what we want from visual effects, and what we desire of spectacular computer-generated imagery; spectatorial investments in social reality (as fictionality) and its application of “timespaces”; and the status of Inception as a broader metaphor for cinema going.