Greene wrote:IMHO...
To me, the definition of Art, as opposed to Craft, is that it engages people on an intellectual level.
this is Silly. "art" does not need to engage people on an intellectual level any more than an emotional level or a psychological level or a sexual level or whatever level it chooses. art can be a lot of things.
One of the main reasons I think this movie is good is that after it was over, every group of people leaving my theater was talking about it, whether they enjoyed it or not, understood it or not.
i have yet to witness any post-movie discussion based around the nature of dreaming or reality or any potential theme (outside of the minor dream discussion in this thread). most people just seem to be discussing what happened within the rules of the movie. people are talking about whether or not they think he was dreaming at the end, which says nothing about what it would actually mean (in a double rainbow way) if he were, or what's important about the question itself. or people are just saying HE MUST HAVE BEEN SO HIGH
again, i REALLY like this movie, i just think people are always going to be overpraising the "intellect." chris nolan kind of just does that thing where he throws a billion ideas at the screen and doesn't really do much with them. which is probably why i like inception more as a story about prince leo's sadness, why memento is a better about guy pearce's emotional problems with revenge, etc. the "ideas" are secondary. i feel like already in this thread, people have pointed to several completely different ideas being the main theme of the movie, and a lot of fill-in-the-blank work. it asks a lot of questions and brings up a lot of ideas but i think that actually detracts from it as a whole; it gives it a reputation as being 'smart' and 'intellectual' but speaking strictly on that level, it's not far off from just being 2.5 hours of watching a flashcard that says LIKE, WHAT IF THIS IS ALL JUST A DREAM, MAN and other such pressing questions
Inception doesn't sacrifice story for style, and it still looks great. Whereas the whole movie could have been collapsing new buildings, the point was that such a thing would be bad. The writers recognize that you can do cool shit in a dream, but it doesn't serve the story to pour that on, so they give you a little early on, and then proceed with the story.
and i continually don't understand the "it doesn't serve the story to not be realistic" angle. if this is a story about the nature of the subconscious (this is one of the many things the movie is 'about') then it would serve the story to exploit the natural surrealism of dreams in order to confront the subconscious. i am not saying that they should do cool shit because it looks cool (though i have no problem with that), i'm saying they missed opportunities to create stunning and memorable images that reflect on the nature of the subconscious.
As for characters names, were any other than Ariadne's symbolic? Honestly, I think the names were not really important to the story at all. If you need some way to reference a character, just say The Forger, or The Anesthesiologist, or The Tourist or whatever.
who the fuck said anything about symbolism? names in fiction matter immensely beyond what they might symbolize. if the viewer/reader finishes a movie, or story, or book, etc without remembering the majority of names, it is simply a good sign that the author marginalized the importance of the characters themselves (unless they don't use any names, which is just an annoying cliche). that's a kind of writer's workshop thing to say, but it's true; in this case, it's a sign that the majority of the dialogue is about inception and dreams and architecture, rather than character interaction/exploring how these characters feel about each other or their stories. i can't possibly be the only one who felt like the JGL/tom hardy "rivalry" was shoehorned, forced, abandoned after a few scenes and, in the end, serving absolutely no purpose (same can be said about the JGL/ellen page romance that existed in two or three brief scenes). i am uncomfortable with "the forger" or "the tourist" because these ARE obviously meant to be characters that exist outside their functions (as evidenced by the fact that A) they have names at all and aren't referred to in-story by "the forger" etc which has been done in all sorts of movies and B) they have personalities/desires/interactions that exceed simple functions) though who they are outside of their functions is half-baked and abandoned (outside of cobb) to such an extent that you can't even remember their names. what i mean to say is that nolan should've committed one way or the other: either make the characters simple functions, or stop wasting a lot of time trying to give them emotional depth that he can't really deliver on.