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INCEPTION
David Carter
studies in science fiction film and TV
Constellations provides a unique opportunity for writers to share their passion for science
fiction cinema and television in a book-length format. Authors place their chosen text in
a variety of contexts – generic, institutional, social, historical – enabling Constellations to
map the terrain of science fiction film and TV from the past to the present... and the future.

Christopher Nolan’s enormously successful Inception (2010) is a difficult film to categorise. It

partakes of various genres, blurring the distinctions between them. Yes, it is science fiction
but it features relatively few of the conventions associated with that genre. It can also be
identified as a kind of heist film, and there are shades of film noir as well. Or it might also
be described as a psychological thriller, telling the story of one man’s attempt to flee his past
and regain access to his family, and of his coming to terms with the death of his wife.

INCEPTION
David Carter’s Constellation on Inception explores this generic hybridity, and in addition
considers the film’s treatment of time, a theme across all of Nolan’s work, questioning the
certainty of consciously experienced real time, and revealing that the personal experience of
the passing of time is variable. He also analyses the film’s treatment of the dream state, and
how dreams are related to the conscious and unconscious mind with reference to the work
of Freud and Jung.

David Carter is retired Professor of Communicative English at Yonsei University, Seoul, and
the author of, amongst others, East Asian Cinema (2007) and The Western (2007), both by
Kamera Books, and Sigmund Freud (in the series ‘Brief Lives’) and On Cocaine (translations of
essays by Sigmund Freud), both by Hesperus Press.

INCEPTION
David Carter

Auteur Publishing
www.auteur.co.uk

Constellations Constelbooks

ISBN: 978-1-911325-05-5

Cover photograph: © Warner Bros. / Legendary Pictures / Syncopy

CONSTELLATIONS

Like the future itself, the imaginative possibilities of science fiction are limitless. And
the very development of cinema is inextricably linked to the genre, which, from the
earliest depictions of space travel and the robots of silent cinema to the immersive
3D wonders of contemporary blockbusters, has continually pushed at the boundaries.
Constellations provides a unique opportunity for writers to share their passion for
science fiction cinema in a book-length format, each title devoted to a significant
film from the genre. Writers place their chosen film in a variety of contexts – generic,
institutional, social, historical – enabling Constellations to map the terrain of science
fiction cinema from the past to the present… and the future.

‘This stunning, sharp series of books fills a real need for authoritative, compact
studies of key science fiction films. Written in a direct and accessible style by
some of the top critics in the field, brilliantly designed, lavishly illustrated and
set in a very modern typeface that really shows off the text to best advantage,
the volumes in the Constellations series promise to set the standard for SF film
studies in the 21st century.’
Wheeler Winston Dixon, Ryan Professor of Film Studies, University of
Nebraska

Constellations

@Constelbooks
Also available in this series

Blade Runner Sean Redmond

Close Encounters of the Third Kind Jon Towlson

The Damned Nick Riddle

RoboCop Omar Ahmed

Rollerball Andrew Nette

Forthcoming

12 Monkeys Susanne Kord

Children of Men Dan Dinello

Dune Christian McCrea

Jurassic Park Paul Bullock

Mad Max Martyn Conterio

CONSTELLATIONS

Inception

David Carter
David Carter is retired Professor of Communicative English at Yonsei University, Seoul, and is
now a freelance writer and translator. He formerly lectured on the history of German Cinema
at Southampton University, UK, and has published books on East Asian Cinema (2007) and The
Western (2008), and articles on German Expressionist Films and Film Remakes.

Acknowledgements
Special thanks are due to David Burton, a keen film enthusiast, who suggested several
interesting lines of interpretation.

Dedication
For David, Ginette, William and Rebecca Burton, a family of film lovers.

First published in 2019 by

Auteur, 24 Hartwell Crescent, Leighton Buzzard LU7 1NP
www.auteur.co.uk
Copyright © Auteur 2019

Series design: Nikki Hamlett at Cassels Design

Set by Cassels Design www.casselsdesign.co.uk
Printed and bound in Great Britain

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including
photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to
some other use of this publication) without the permission of the copyright owner.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN paperback: 978-1-911325-05-5

ISBN ebook: 978-1-911325-06-2
Contents
1. Introductory Remarks........................................................................................................7

2. Christopher Nolan: The Director and his Work...............................................................9

3. The Industrial Context: From Production to Premiere................................................. 31

4. The Question of Genre................................................................................................... 33

The Notion of Genre...................................................................................................34

The Heist Film Genre..................................................................................................37

The Sci-Fi Film Genre..................................................................................................40

A Note on Tech-Noir...................................................................................................48

5. Dreams and the Cinema................................................................................................ 51

Oneiric Film Theory.....................................................................................................51

Christopher Nolan on Dreaming and Filming............................................................52

How Inception uses Dream Theory............................................................................54

6. Cobb’s ‘Emotional Journey’: From Guilt to Redemption.............................................. 79

7. Inception and the Arts................................................................................................... 95

8. The Ending: Dreams, Reality and Ambiguity............................................................... 99

9. Critical Reception.......................................................................................................... 101

10. Further Lines of Inquiry............................................................................................. 105

Notes.................................................................................................................................. 109

General Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 115

 INCEPTION
1. Introductory Remarks
Inception is a difficult film to categorise. It partakes of various genres, blurring the
distinctions between them. Yes, it is science fiction but it does not contain many
of the ingredients associated with that genre. It can also be identified as a kind of
heist film, and the first part of the film, the extraction, certainly involves a complex
robbery; but then the second part of the film, while having many of the trappings
of a heist, involves putting something into a heavily guarded location rather than
stealing from it. There are shades of film noir as well, not only because of the heist
motifs but also due to its character types. It can also be described as a psychological
thriller, telling the story of one man’s attempt to flee his past and regain access to
his family, of his coming to terms with the death of his wife. In addition it plays with
time, questioning the certainty of consciously experienced real time, and revealing
that the personal experience of the passing of time is variable. The film also explores
the nature of the mind and how dreams are related to the conscious and unconscious
mind.

The first section of the book explores the director Christopher Nolan’s biography and
the themes of his other films, from early shorts to Dunkirk (2017). Then there is a
brief account of how Inception was developed from its existence as a treatment,
through production to its premiere. The problems of defining the film as belonging to
a specific genre are explored at some length, with comparisons to other films sharing
some characteristics with it.

As dreams feature so prominently in the film, several sections are devoted to related
aspects of the film. First, some reflections on the oneiric theory of dreams are
provided, and then Nolan’a own thoughts about the relationships between dreaming
and filming and the challenges of depicting dream states in films are explored. To aid
understanding of the structure and conventions in the film, examples of how the film
uses specific aspects of dream theory are examined.

This study then focuses on the psychological and moral development of the main
character, Cobb, and shows how he progresses from being defensive about his
obsession with unresolved guilt problems concerning the circumstances of his wife’s

7
CONSTELLATIONS
death to being able to confront these issues and overcome them, thus releasing him
to return to a close relationship with his family.

Certain aspects of the visual arts, as exemplified in the work of M. C. Escher and
Francis Bacon feature significantly in the film. Their general significance and roles in
the film are examined.

Finally the much discussed ambiguous ending of the film is considered, including
some reflection on how it might be interpreted.

For the purposes of further discussion some examples of the critical reception, both
positive and negative, are provided, and suggestions are made for further lines of
investigation of other aspects of the film which could not be explored in this short
study.

Synopsis
The first part of the film depicts an attempt by Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his
partners at extraction: a process which involves accessing the mind of the industrialist
Saito (Ken Watanabe) via his dreams, to obtain secret information on behalf of
another corporation. After the attempt fails, Saito is however sufficiently impressed
by Cobb’s techniques to ask him to perform inception on one of his business rivals:
this involves planting an idea in the mind of the company’s heir, Robert Fischer
(Cillian Murphy), which will induce him to break up the business empire after his
father’s death. Cobb agrees to do this when Saito promises that he will make it
possible for Cobb to return to his family in America. Cobb was forced to flee abroad
to avoid arrest for the presumed murder of his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). The figure
of Mal haunts Cobb’s subconscious and hinders him and his partners in the inception
process, which involves creating three dream levels, each within the other. Despite
the baleful influence of Mal and the subconscious defence mechanisms within the
mind of the subject, Fischer, inception is finally accomplished, and Saito ensures that
Cobb can rejoin his children.

8
 INCEPTION
2. Christopher Nolan: The Director and
His Work
The brief biography below provides only an outline of Christopher Nolan’s life so far.
No extensive biography of him has been published at the time of going to press. The
basic facts have been gleaned from various articles about him and his films, from
interviews with him, and from reliable websites. The films he has made are referred
to only briefly in the context of the development of his career. More details on them
are provided in the subsequent section on themes and ideas in his films. Sources
consulted have been listed in the general bibliography. Other significant references
are included in the endnotes.

Biography
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan was born on July 30, 1970, in London. His father,
Brendan Nolan, was British of Irish descent, and was an advertising copywriter. His
American mother, Christina (née Jensen), worked as a flight attendant. He was raised
in both London and Chicago and has dual British and American citizenship. He has
an older brother, Matthew, and a younger one, Jonathan, who has worked with him
on many of his films. Jonathan writes for American television and has co-written
screenplays with Christopher. It is known that Christopher Nolan had already become
interested in making films by the age of seven. His father owned a Super 8 camera
and allowed him to make short films with it, using toy action figures.

He was educated at the Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an independent

school at Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire, England. He later studied English literature
at University College, London (UCL). He has said that he chose UCL as a place to
study, because he had heard about its film-making facilities. At the time it possessed
16 mm cameras and a Steenbeck flatbed editing suite. This editing equipment
had become standard throughout the world because it could be used with both
16mm and 35mm optical and magnetic sound film. Nolan became president of the
University Union Film Society, and together with his then girlfriend, Emma Thomas
(later his wife and co-producer in the production company Syncopy, run by them),

9
CONSTELLATIONS
he planned the film society’s programme of major 35 mm films. He used the money
earned to produce his own 16 mm films during the vacations.

One of the early films he made while at UCL, together with a childhood friend
Roko Belic, was Tarantella (1989). For this film he used the Super 8 format. It was
broadcast on Image Union, a programme devoted to independent films and videos
on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in America. In 1995 he made Larceny,
filmed over one weekend in black and white, which was shown at the Cambridge
Film festival in 1996.

After he graduated Nolan directed some corporate videos and industrial films. And in
1997 he made the short film Doodlebug. He developed many ideas for film projects
during this period but was not able persuade anyone in the British film industry to
finance them. 1998 saw the release of his first full-length feature film, Following,
which he financed himself, with a budget of £3,000. It was made at weekends
over a period of one year. In order not to waste precious film stock, each scene was
rehearsed extensively, to ensure that no more than one or two takes of each shot
would be necessary. It was co-produced with Emma Thomas, and Nolan did all the
filming and editing himself. It won considerable critical acclaim.

As a result of the success of Following, Nolan was able to attract interest in another
project he had been working on since 1997. He developed the screenplay based
on an idea for a short story that his brother Jonathan was writing under the title
Memento Mori. An executive with Newmarket films, Aaron Ryder, was impressed
by the project and awarded him a budget of $4.5 million dollars. The film now titled
Memento, premiered in September, 2000, at the Venice International Film Festival. It
not only received great critical acclaim but was also a box-office success and received
several awards and award nominations.

The success of Memento led to Nolan being offered the chance by Steven Soderbergh
to direct the film Imsomnia, a remake of the Norwegian film of the same name of
1997. This film was also well-received by critics and was a box-office success. After
Imsomnia Nolan worked on several projects which were not produced. He had
written a screenplay about the filmmaker, business tycoon and inventor, Howard
Hughes, but gave up the project when he heard that Martin Scorsese was making

10
 INCEPTION
a film on the subject (The Aviator, 2004). He also worked on an adaptation of
Ruth Rendell’s novel The Keys to the Street, but eventually withdrew from this too
because it bore too many similarities to films he had made already. Then in 2003 he
approached Warner Bros. with the idea of making a new Batman film, which would
have greater dramatic and psychological depth than the comic-book versions already
made (Batman Begins, 2005). Following this he produced, directed and co-wrote
with his brother an adaptation of the novel The Prestige, by Christopher Priest,
released in 2006. In July of that year Nolan announced that he would be making a
sequel to Batman Begins, to be called The Dark Knight, which was released in 2008.
It was to be deeper and broader in scope than any previous ‘superhero’ films, and
was nominated for eight Oscars at the 81st Academy Awards, winning the award
for Best Sound Editing and a posthumous award for Heath Ledger as Best Supporting
Actor.

Nolan now went on to write, direct and co-produce the film Inception for Warner
Bros. which was released on July 16, 2010. It was nominated for eight Oscars,
including that for Best Picture. It won Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Sound
Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. It was also nominated for BAFTA,
Golden Globe, DGA and PGA awards.

Although he was at first hesitant about doing yet another Batman sequel he agreed
to make a third and final Batman film in 2012. He developed a screenplay together
with his brother Jonathan and David S. Goyer. The Dark Knight Rises was released
on July 20, 2012. It proved to be as successful as its two predecessors. It will always
be remembered, however, for a tragic event associated with it, which gave rise also
to several copy-cat events. On the evening of the film’s release, a mass shooting
occurred in the Century Movie Theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight
screening of the film. A man, dressed in combat gear, set off tear gas grenades and
shot into the audience with several firearms, killing 12 people and wounding 70
others. The perpetrator, James Eagan Holmes, was arrested shortly after. The event
had an immediate effect on the publicity for the film. Warner Bros. cancelled gala
premieres in Mexico, Paris and Japan, as well as some television commercials for the
film. The production company made a substantial donation to help the victims of the
shooting. Christopher Nolan also expressed condolences on behalf of both cast and

11
CONSTELLATIONS
crew. Measures were taken in many cities to avoid any copy-cat incidents. Several
hoaxes and scares occurred but none caused fatalities.

Nolan’s subsequent involvement in productions in the capacities only of producer

and related executive roles has not guaranteed the critical success of the films in
question. Such was the case with Man of Steel (2013), directed by Zack Snyder,
which was an updated version of the Superman story, and Transcendence (2014),
directed by the cinematographer Wally Pfister, who had worked on all of the films
directed by Nolan since Memento.

Nolan was director, writer and producer on Interstellar, released on November 7,

2014. It is a science-fiction story of a space journey, based on ideas developed by his
brother Jonathan, and utilising theories of the theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who
was scientific consultant for the film. His latest film at the time of writing is Dunkirk,
which was released in July, 2017. The script, also by Nolan, related the events of the
Allied retreat from Dunkirk in May, 1940.

Themes and Ideas in Nolan’s Films

From his earliest short films (Tarantella, and Larceny),it is clear that Nolan has been
interested in strange states of mind, illusions of various kinds, and the borderlines
between fantasy and reality. Even his first experiments with his father’s Super 8
camera were made using toy action figures. In Doodlebug (1997), we see a man on
his hands and knees, holding a shoe by the toe and trying to kill some sort of insect,
which constantly evades him. When he eventually manages to kill it he discovers, on
looking at it closely, that it is a miniature version of himself. Whatever interpretation
might be made of the film, one aspect of it is undeniable: it has a dreamlike quality.
Having accepted the reality of the situation (a man chasing an insect), the audience
is suddenly confronted with a bizarre and disturbing fact, and then the film ends, i.e.
the audience ‘wakes up’.

12
 INCEPTION
Following (1998)

Jeremy Theobald, Following

Nolan’s first full-length feature film, Following was inspired by his experiences
living in London and also by having his flat burgled. On the alumni page of the UCL
website Nolan is quoted as saying, with reference to this film: ‘There is an interesting
connection between a stranger going through your possessions and the concept of
following people at random through a crowd – both take you beyond the boundaries
of ordinary social relations.’1 The film tells of a young man who is unemployed but
fancies himself as a writer and decides to follow people chosen randomly as they
go about their lives, in the hope that this will provide him with some inspiration.
He admits at one point in the film that things started to go wrong when his choice
of person ceased being random. He becomes obsessed with one young man, to
whom he finally speaks. This man, who identifies himself as Cobb (the same name
that Nolan was to use later for the main character in Inception), reveals that he is
a burglar, but one who is not interested in material gain. He burgles for the sake of
the adrenalin it stimulates. He is interested in people and their relationships to their
possessions (‘You take it away, show them what they had’). Under Cobb’s guidance
the young man attempts burglaries himself. The plot then becomes very complex,
and its complexity is made more difficult to comprehend by Nolan’s adoption

13
CONSTELLATIONS
of a non-linear narrative structure. It is not necessary to unravel the plot in the
present context, but there are various twists which reveal Cobb to be an ingenious
manipulator. The non-linear narrative structure of the film is so complex that it is
difficult for the viewers to reconstruct in their minds the precise temporal sequence
of events. At a later stage in the film there are sequences which must clearly have
occurred prior to ones already seen, and it is easy to wrongly identify some locations.
Nolan has explained his decision to structure his film in this way in an interview:
‘In a compelling story of this genre we are continually being asked to rethink our
assessment of the relationship between the various characters, and I decided to
structure my story in such a way as to emphasise the audience’s understanding of
each new scene as it is first presented.’2 This pressure on the audience to understand
‘each new scene as it is first presented’ is maintained in his subsequent films. By
the time he made Inception he was forcing his audience to understand not only the
actual temporal sequence of juxtaposed events but also various events occurring
contemporaneously but at different speeds (at different dream levels) and, further, to
identify whether any given sequence was in the ‘real’ (diegetic) world as presented
in the film or in one of the dream worlds.

Memento (2000)
In Memento, Nolan explored the relationship between memory and identity, which is
a theme taken up again in Inception. The central character in Memento, Leonard,
suffers from what is medically termed ‘anterograde amnesia’: ‘a condition in which
events that occurred after the onset of the amnesia cannot be recalled and new
memories cannot be formed.’3 Leonard knows that his wife was killed and he tries to
track down the killer and take his revenge. Because of his mental condition, he can
only retain memories of recent events and people for a very short period of time,
after which they are obliterated. In order to cope with this condition he writes many
notes to himself to remind himself of important facts and he also has information
tattooed on his body. Leonard experiences his condition very much as if it were a
dream: he finds himself suddenly in the present, in a situation, but does not know
how he came to be there. This is because he has no short-term memory of what has

14
 INCEPTION

Guy Pearce, Memento

happened prior to that situation. Leonard describes it as follows: ‘It’s like waking. It’s
like you just woke up.’ As with dreams, one cannot recall how one got into a dream
but only how one came out of it. The man who is apparently trying to help him,
Teddy, reinforces this at one point: ‘You’re living in a dream, kid.’ His condition also
entails a loss of a sense of the passage of time. Lying in bed Leonard asks, ‘How am I
supposed to heal if I can’t feel time.’ This loss of short-term memory and the sense of
time does not, however, affect Leonard’s awareness of his own identity, because he
still possesses his long-term memory of events and information acquired before the
incident which caused the amnesia. It does make him sensitive to the fact, however,
that our sense of our own identity is closely tied up with our memories: ‘We all need
memories to remind ourselves who we are.’

As with Following Nolan plays with the time sequence again. He decided to use a
narrative structure for Memento which would enable the audience to identify with
Leonard’s state of mind. And, again, Nolan constructed the narrative so that the
audience would have to understand ‘each new scene as it is first presented’. Some
scenes are in colour and others are in black and white. The colour sequences tell
the story in reverse order, and the black and white ones reflect Leonard’s thoughts
in monologue. In the documentary material on the second DVD disk included in the

15
CONSTELLATIONS
box-set of the film, there is a sequence entitled ‘Anatomy of a Scene’, in which it is
explained that the director decided to help the audience cope with this complexity by
providing clues in the title sequence. He provides hints, as it were, that they should
expect to experience the passage of time in an unconventional way. Actions in the
title sequence are run backwards: a Polaroid photograph ‘undevelops’ and bullets roll
backwards and ‘leap’ upwards, etc. In telling his story in reverse Nolan is careful not
to reveal too much, which might destroy the suspense about what really happened,
but to help the audience piece it together there is duplication of the final sequence
of each colour scene at the beginning of the scene which would, in correct time
sequence, follow it. The audience thus finds itself suddenly in a scene which feels
familiar, without being sure how it is connected to what went before: very much like
Leonard himself. The colour thus also emphasises the vividness of experiencing the
present moment.

Insomnia (2002)
The next film which Nolan made was not so experimental in terms of its narrative
structure, but reveals a continuing preoccupation with themes explored in the earlier
films. Insomnia (2002), was a remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name
directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg. Nolan’s film is about two Los Angeles detectives sent to
a northern Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a local teenage girl. The town
is so far north that, as in the original Norwegian film, the leading detective finds it
difficult to cope with the ‘white nights’, the summer nights when the sun never sets
and there is constant daylight. It aggravates his insomniac condition. There is thus
also throughout the film a suspension of the sense of the normal passage of time, as
usually marked by the cycle of day and night. As a result of his condition, the
detective, Will Dormer (played by Al Pacino) has hallucinations occasionally of his
colleague, whose death he has on his conscience: he shot him while pursuing
another man in a landscape covered with thick fog. It is unclear whether the killing
was accidental or deliberate. For reasons which need not be explained in detail here,
Dormer has a strong motivation for wanting the colleague dead and knows that he
will not be believed if he reports the death as an accident caused by himself.

16
 INCEPTION

Al Pacino, Insomnia

The young local police officer, Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), investigates the shooting
and discovers a discrepancy between the type of bullet casing found at the scene
of the shooting and the type believed to have been found in the body. She starts to
suspect that Dormer is covering up the true circumstances for some reason. Dormer’s
prime suspect in the girl’s death, Walter Finch, a local writer (played by Robin
Williams), clearly has his own suspicions about Dormer and taunts him. The film
provides a compelling investigation of the nature of conscience, the effects of guilt,
and the complexities of human motivations and actions. The twists and turns of the
plot need not concern us in the present context, but relevant to a consideration of
Nolan’s interests and preoccupations is Dormer’s state of mind. With his sense of time
confused, and at times hallucinating, Dormer cannot on occasions tell what is real
and what is imagined. Nor can he tell sometimes whether he remembers something
correctly or whether he only imagines that he does. Finch taunts him on the phone:
‘Are you seeing things yet?’ There is one sequence in the film which is truly like a
nightmare: Dormer chases Finch over a river full of floating logs and falls between
them into the water. For some time he is trapped beneath them, struggling to get
back to the surface. Some parallels can be drawn between the use of the bullet
casing as a motif in the last scene of the film and the spinning top token in Inception,
which is used in the later film to distinguish between dream-world and reality. For

17
CONSTELLATIONS
Burr to throw the bullet casing away would allow Dormer to maintain his fiction
intact, but Dormer warns her ‘Don’t lose your way’, and she retains the bullet casing
as evidence of what really happened.

Some reflections on relevant aspects of the three films of the Batman trilogy made
by Nolan will be included subsequently in consideration of all three films together,
but it is worth paying particular attention first to a film he made between the first
and second of the Batman films: The Prestige.

The Prestige (2006)

Hugh Jackman and Andy Serkis, The Prestige

Nolan co-wrote, directed and produced this adaptation of the novel of the same
name by Christopher Priest, published in 1995. The film, as the novel, tells of the
rivalry of two magicians in London at the end of the 19th century. Each tries to
outdo the other in perfecting the most remarkable magic trick. One of them, Alfred
Borden (Christian Bale), is sentenced to death for the murder of the other, Robert
Angier (Hugh Jackman), by drowning him in a tank of water during Angier’s own
performance. The film relates in retrospect the complex series of events that led up

18
 INCEPTION
to Borden being imprisoned, and then at the end there are a number of unexpected
twists. To recount more details of the plot here would spoil enjoyment of the film for
those who have not seen it. In an interview with Variety Nolan has mentioned that
a special challenge in adapting the novel into a film was how to interpret the literary
devices of the novel in cinematic terms, specifically ‘the shifting points of view, the
idea of journals within journals and stories within stories’.4 This challenge is not far
removed from that of presenting dreams within dreams in Inception. A common
Nolan theme which features in the film is the frequent difficulty of distinguishing
between illusion and reality. When an illusion cannot be explained, then the effect
must be real. In an argument with Angier, his ingénieur, John Cutter (Michael Caine)
exclaims ‘It has no trick, it’s real!’ And the effects produced in the film by the scientist
Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie), a real historical figure, and which depend on
the use of electricity, are real and not based on cleverly devised illusions. In one of
the unexpected twists revealed at the end of the film, it turns out that Borden’s wife
has been living an illusion: her marriage has been not at all what she believed it to
be. And both in the case of the old Chinese magician in the film and in that of Borden
the success of a brilliant magic trick depends on living an illusion in real life, so that
no one can ever suspect the truth.

Three concepts are introduced in the film, which denote the different stages of a
magic trick. They can also be applied to the structure of the film as a whole, and,
incidentally, to the structure of Inception. The three concepts are the Pledge, the Turn
and the Prestige. The Pledge is that first stage of any trick when a magician presents
his equipment or describes the situation and makes it clear to the audience what he
will do (what he pledges to). This can be made explicit or just hinted at. The Turn
is the second stage, during which an action is performed or an event takes place,
and something is changed into something else, disappears or behaves in some way
unnaturally (e.g. a playing card becomes another playing card, an object vanishes,
or a person is sawn in half, etc.). The expression ‘Turn’ therefore denotes a change
of some kind, but it is also of course the common term for an individual theatrical
performance. The Prestige is the final stage of the trick, during which something
even more remarkable or surprising takes place, often involving a restoration of the
original state of affairs, and emphasising the magician’s skill and brilliance at creating

19
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