Final Assignment: Critical Essay, Glossary & Revision Commentary

Subject and Section Professor’s name Date The Meaning Behind “Inception” the Movie: Exploring Perception, Memory, and Subjective Reality Introduction Christopher Nolan's 2010 film "Inception" poses issues related to perception, memory, the nature of knowledge, and truth to the audience. The film tells the story of Dom Cobb, a professional thief specializing in stealing or planting thoughts in other people's minds using dreams. Exploring the dream world, Cobb finally attempts to perform "Inception" – putting an idea into someone's mind instead of taking it out – and as is expected, the lines between dreams and reality become rather vague not just for Cobb but also for the viewers asking the question: "What is real?" Based on Rahardjo according to Freudian Analysis, dreams are the "royal road of the unconscious." In this film, Nolan introduces the idea that everyone varies and can shape an alternative reality's structure, motifs, and themes. Inception is a complex allegory referring to the subjectivist conception of reality, identity, and the moral issues of learning mind control. This work examines how Inception utilizes these to produce elements of doubt in terms of knowledge and the ability of the audience to manipulate their perceptions with the help of memories. Dream Layers and Temporal-Spatial Logic Nolan used "layering of dreams," where the deeper you get, the harder it is to perceive which is real and which is a dream, using this as a metaphor to reflect “complex realities” such that layered dreams are complex and complicated too. Specifically, every individual layer in the film has their temporal-spatial logic different from one another, and time runs slower in deeper layers. The main action unfolds across four layers: reality, the first dream sphere, a second dream sphere within this first one, and the limbo phase, in which time extends indefinitely. Additionally, every level offers both the spatial and cerebral increase in the character's experience, thus confusing the notion of time and space (Fisher). Layering simultaneously complicates the audience's existence in multiple realities, an aspect that Nolan has compounded in accurately utilizing the visual elements. Cinematographer Wally Pfister, who achieved his shooting fame with the practical approach, uses slow motion to extend time in the dream stage, further enhancing the specific violation of the temporal protasis. One example is when Arthur is stuck in a rotating corridor while fighting the villains. This challenges the fundamental laws of physics in the waking world. The audience follows its course through immediately successive layers, which visually condense the time (Variety Staff). Furthermore, Nolan's ambiguous manipulation of time corresponds to the known cognitive theories of time experience. Knowledge shows that people build time through episodes and senses, something seen in the movie through the dream world. That time in deeper layers of dream switches to slow motion teaches us how personal experience colors an individual's perception of time and makes viewers challenge their time perception (Fisher). Such a correlation between temporal-spatial distortion and the viewers is a good testimony of Nolan's theme where time and space are illusions. Editing is necessary to add more elements, as must the sound design. Hans Zimmer's music has a unique non-conventional timbre and tempo corresponding to dream layers' slowed-down time corresponding to dream layers' slowed-down time. This kind of auditory construction helps the listeners understand multiple levels of existence, which is connected with the density of the movie's structure to the music (Fisher 43). Together with Pfister’s work, they achieve the sensory idea that refuses the clear distinction between dreams and reality. Cognitive Engagement of the Audience In his critique, Daniels observes that complex narrative forms, like those in Inception, involve viewers in cognitive mapping processes. This narrative structure challenges audiences to actively piece together the story, engaging them in the same cognitive tasks depicted within the film. By requiring viewers to identify distinct dream layers and comprehend their interactions, Inception mirrors the mental effort of its characters, making the audience participants in its intellectual puzzle (Daniels). This demand of the audience corresponds to the tenets of the cognitivist perspective, specifically the schema theory of processing fragmented information that a person uses (Iran-Nejad). Each nest of dreams in Nolan's series demands the viewer to update his or her working schemas by integrating new information with previous schemas, often regarding discrepancies between the layers of dreams. For example, in the case of the change of location, as in Yusuf's dark, rain-filled city to Arthur in a zero gravity hallway, that changes the paradigm; one must adjust. This recursive operation reconstructs the actual cognitive patterns and plays up the movie's philosophical message about the openness of perception and malleability of memory. Also, the use of recursive structure in the film may be aimed at showing that the film represents a man's thoughts. As Cobb and his team approach dream-like levels, which are multi-leveled, the viewers approach multi-leveled, meaning constructing their worldviews. This interaction between narrative complexity and audience cognition reinforces Nolan's central theme: that reality is what people perceive and make it to be. For this purpose, the audacious structures of the picture are like a challenge for the viewers, and the contrast of the processes inside and outside the cinema turns watching into an active cognitive process. The integration of such details can also be associated with the current discourse on the problem of cognitive overload in media space. As the people watching Inception follow different layers and changes between them, modern computer interfaces require a person to process different data flows. Fisher, suggests that such cognitive difficulties result from a surging, more extensive vulgar culture of multitasking and divided attention. Memory as a Driving Force Behind Identity Memory is another force that defines identity and sensory perception in Inception; through his late wife, Mal, Cobb's urges become in Emanuel's "projections" of the dream world, veiled emotions that control him and endanger himself and his team. Mal is depicted often in low light, the sinking feeling, a reference to Cobb's guilt and inability to let go of his dead wife. Through the film, Mal shows this aspect of memory, producing a twisted history that becomes even a living menace to Cobb's reality (Fisher; Bradshaw). Some of Cobb's impressions of Mal show how People prefer to lie to themselves and see things that help them stay with illusions. Cognitive psychologists further insist that memory is reduced not as an accurate catalog of events but as an interpretive process prompted by emotion. The loss of Mal and the accompanying guilt turn Cobb's memory into a projection that completely overwhelms the man's subconsciousness. As Nolan paints it, Memento mori is not a depiction of the actual, but a rendition clouded by Cobb's feelings (Bradshaw). For example, the scenes where Mal appears as both a loving wife and a menacing figure highlight the duality of memory—it can both heal and hurt. Besides, the movie also critiques memory as the basis of identity. Since Cobb needs to differentiate between what Mal is to him and her real personality, identity is just as malleable as memory. This idea is anathema to the conventional wisdom that identifies identity as something assigned or inherent, a story written instead as we go along. When analyzed in this way, Inception deconstructs identity as a way to construct a self that overlays the perception of creating personal realities. As Fisher pointed out, through the mentality of floats, Hal cognition means that in Inception, the audience is invited to wonder whether memory can be taken as an index of knowledge, as an ontological ground that is objectively real, or as a chimera, as what Fisher notes, an invention of the human mind. The two concepts of memory and identity in the film are also Freudian as they are connected in film. Freud's theory on the uncanny deals with how particular memories that are repressed in one's mind emerge in a very disguised form, something mirroring Cobb's hallucinations of Mal. Through Cobb, the viewers witness the nature of distortions because guilt separates dreams from reality and memory as the ground for truth (Rahardjo). Through its various dream layers, cognitive content, and the work of personal reminiscence, the film illuminates how human experience is constructed and under construction. These strategies of visual narration and story reiteration put the audience in a world where reality is never given, so the viewers think more about how we perceive the real world. Ethical And Societal Implications on Dream Makers In Inception Ethical issues are subtly interrelated with social issues about the use of technological influence within society from the perspective of Christopher Nolan's Inception. What makes the movie so shocking is the notion that ideas may be surreptitiously planted in someone's head, making it almost impossible for the recipient to realize that the ideas are not their own. The manipulating journey of Dom Cobb and his team shows that if technology and psychological operations have no control, they can be dangerous. These concerns are even more valid in the post-truth age, where algorithms, media, and neurotechnology gradually morph into persuasion and coercion. This part of the essay branches away from the analysis of perception and memory and into the general outcome of dream manipulation in Inception. By incorporating cognitivist theories and media ethics in analysis, the paper explores the ethical issues encountered in the movie and places such into the present-day society perspective view. The narrative paradigm, the use of visuals, and the focus on topics viewed in Inception allow recognition of this movie as an important analysis of the consequence of cognitive control, indicating the film as a relevant analysis of power, technology, and agency. Ethical Concerns Surrounding Dream Manipulation The infiltration of one’s dream also signifies the moral effects of dreaming and dreaming, especially extraction and Inception. In the film, Cobb and his team force themselves into other people's minds and change how they think and behave. This intrusion poses an ethical question of whether one can and is suitable to direct someone else's will and determine that person's subjectivity and ontology. Thus, linking suc...