The Mise en Scene of Inception

Christopher Nolan has shown himself to be one of the most meticulous directors working today. From making an audience feel like they are experiencing a beach-side battle with World War II soldiers in Dunkirk to creating beautiful new planets and sci-fi worlds in Interstellar, his films are some of the most original and well-crafted films out there today. However, there is possibly no film of his that masters mise en scene, or the arrangement of visual elements of a movie, more so than Inception. The sci-fi thriller about a team of agents who retrieve information from people’s dreams is incredibly assembled, from the choice of effects used to Nolan’s meticulous story direction to the incredibly intense editing. While it may be confusing upon the first watch, all of the pieces fall together by the conclusion of the story, after which viewers will be rabid to re-watch to catch all of the elements they didn’t the first time around. There’s something about Christopher Nolan’s filmmaking that completely sucks in the audience, even if they don’t understand what they’re watching for the first half-hour or so.

Part of what makes the movie so engaging is how Nolan chose to use special effects. Most of the action sequences and special effects are in-camera and, surprisingly, practical. This directorial choice allows the viewer to completely focus on those action sequences and doesn’t lead to distractions from potentially obvious CGI elements. There’s a fight scene in this film between Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Arthur and an antagonizing agent that occurs while the hotel hall and rooms around them spin around. There’s an explosion sequence where Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb talks to Ellen Page’s Ariadne about the fact that she’s in a dream and subconsciously blows up the city around them to prove it. There’s a sequence where Cobb talks to Cillian Murphy’s Robert Fischer about the fact that he’s in a dream and the gravity of the bar they’re in shifts. All of these sequences were achieved using practical effects, such as moving sets and air cannons. If the CGI was good enough, they could have created convincing enough sets and explosions for the characters to interact with, but the experience wouldn’t have been as investing for the audience because there probably would have been a lot more distractions from the unfolding story. If the audience notices that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is fighting another actor in a CGI or green screen set, it would lose quite a bit of its authenticity. Nolan’s choice to use mostly practical effects was a brilliant if challenging one.

Nolan also makes every single element of the story meticulous with his direction. He makes the choice not to show the faces of Cobb’s kids, James and Phillipa, until the final scene of the movie in order to make us feel as disconnected from his kids as he does. In the very final shot of the film, we see the keepsake top that Cobb uses to remember his deceased wife, Mal, that helps indicate whether he’s in his own dream, reality, or someone else’s dream. If the top stops spinning after a while, he’s in reality or his own dream. If it keeps spinning, he’s in someone else’s dream. Sharp-eyed viewers can catch that at the ending of the film, the top wobbles slightly as it spins, cutting before the top stops spinning. At first, this might make the audience think that the top is continuously spinning and won’t stop, but once you start to think about it, you realize that just because you didn’t see the top stop doesn’t mean it didn’t fall over after the film ended. This means that you can interpret the ending of the film as being either a dream or reality. Nolan’s pitch-perfect story direction allows that small ten-second shot to spark hours of discussion, along with every other meticulous story decision he makes.

However, the decision that potentially allows viewers to absorb themselves into the world of this movie the most is the way it’s edited. This movie chooses very early on to throw its viewers into the middle of a mission that the main characters are undergoing, leaving you confused and glued to the screen as you struggle to figure out what the characters are doing and talking about. Once Ariadne is introduced, she becomes the audience character, learning about the world that these men have experienced for probably decades. We learn more about the world as she does, and that decision forces you to pay attention early on and rewards you for doing so as the story progresses. The editing also allows you to completely believe the concept of dreams that this movie establishes. After the literally explosive dream that Cobbs shares with Ariadne, he and Arthur tell her about the distortion of time that dreams cause, saying that five minutes in real life could feel like about an hour in a dream. The climax of the movie demonstrates that idea with its tight editing, with each layer of dream getting more and more coverage as they keep moving forward. The top layer, which involves the characters fleeing from attacking soldiers in a van, gets only a few seconds of screen time per scene after a while. The second layer, which takes place in a hotel, gets around a minute and a half to two minutes of screen time per scene once all of the layers are introduced, and once the third layer (which takes place in a fortress surrounded by a snowy landscape) is introduced, it gets the majority of the climax’s screen time. This allows the distortion of time within each dream to feel tangible to the audience and makes the world that this movie creates even more realistic.

Christopher Nolan’s incredible direction emanates in every single scene of Inception through the choices he makes with the special effects, the story, and the editing. Everything about the way the film is helmed creates an exciting, seat-gripping exploration into the world of dreams and one of the most original mainstream films of the decade, perhaps even of all time. This is a clear passion project for Nolan, and the care and dedication he poured into this film are eminent in every single frame.