I love when I feel the itch to write. I love it even more when I actually pay attention and scratch it. Like now.
This weekend I joined the millions of people who donated to the Christopher Nolan fund. I saw Inception. And it is literally the stuff dreams are made of, both for him and moviegoers. Clearly, he doesn’t have to worry about funding for his next great idea. Inception in three weeks has grossed $227 million domestically and $250 million abroad. If he hasn’t already, Chris can now buy a house high in the Hollywood Hills. And we can continue to marvel at his ability to make us question our own reality.
With Inception, writer/director, Christopher Nolan, offered the world something new, which is something we often think and are told, is impossible. How many times have you heard that every story has already been written? What do you think? Truth or dare? I think Chris definitely took it as a dare, which is what every aspiring writer MUST do.
Yes, the framing of the story, espionage, is as old as sin, but overlay it with the philosophical conception of dreams and consciousness sprinkled with a touch of high technology and you have a movie capable of shaking even the strongest of foundations. Inception is for 2010 what the Matrix was for 1999, a douse of cold water and somebody saying, “Are you awake?” Followed by, “How do you know?”
Both Inception and the Matrix prove that epistemological arguments in film can succeed with the masses; they are not confined to the Indie film crowd. Chris, however, concedes that “whenever you deal in the world of esoteric or overly complex science fiction, or heist movies, or film noir, you’re working for a smaller audience. If you’re going to do a massive movie, though, you’ve got to be able to unlock that more universal experience…[to make it] relatable.” He said that once he came up with the idea to explain his dream concept through the relationship between Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mal (Marion Cotillard) he found the common, relatable story he needed.
I appreciate that piece of wisdom, since I have been working on a very psychological script involving the interaction between the conscious and subconscious realities of a young woman. When you are dealing with technical theory and personal philosophy on a metaphysical and psychologically abstract level, getting your story to mean something to anybody but you is daunting. Needless to say I’ve been fiddling with the exposition for “Fly, Yellow Bird” for what feels like far too long. Let it be known, however, that Chris fiddled with the script for Inception for a solid ten years before he ended up with this ingenious, blockbuster movie. I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel like I’m in pretty good company.
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Find out more about Inception and Christopher Nolan in the book Inception: The Shooting Script due out September 1, 2010.
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