The Dark Night and Batman

Film History and Appreciation

Final Paper

AUTEUR

For my first thesis I think that Christopher Nolan's experience with blockbuster moves such as The Dark Night and Batman Begins influenced the making of the movie Inception because of the creation of the large and intricate sense and sets, like those in his previous movies.

In Inception, one of the first scenes that we see is a grand Japanese palace where the first dream takes place. The idea of these grand scenes comes out from Nolan's previous experiences. In both the Dark Night and Batman Begins, Nolan uses these large sets to give a sense of size and realism. Almost all of the large scenes have a very realistic feel to them. In Inception Nolan travels the world to give the movie a more realistic tone. We are taken to places like France and Mumbai, unlike some of his previous movies. In the Batman movies, we see an entirely new city, but one that still feels real. In Inception, we need to see places that we know are real, because the characters are always going into dreams themselves. The audience needs to see that there are real places that these characters are in, unlike when they are in the dreams. When the characters are in the dreams, the dreams look like real places. We need to see these real places to distinguish t=ourselves from the dream states.

When Nolan created Gotham City, he made it feel as real and as grand as he could. In Inception he does the same thing with the landscapes of the dreams that the characters go into. We do not see popular landmarks or places that we know exist in the dream sequences, because if we did then we, as an audience, would become confused as to whether or not we were in a dream. Nolan's previous work in creating something new and distinctive in his previous movies, translates directly into the dream sequences that are in Inception.

DRAMATIC

My second thesis is that Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Dom, wants nothing more than to control not only others but himself.

Dom shows a want to control how others react just by the fact that he goes into other's dream to try to steal from them. When he and his partner Arthur first go into Mr. Saito's dream, they try to control him and manipulate him into getting what they want. The even go so far as to tell Saito that they really are in a dream, but lie to him about wanting to help him. This can be seen as Dom an Arthur just trying to do their job, but Dom is still trying to control his own inner daemons. When his dead wife shows up in the dream Dom sees it as a problem, but he still tells Arthur that he will take care of it. Dom knows that this could potentially destroy the mission, but he continues on, and eventually Mal, Dom's wife, does destroy the mission and puts everyone in danger.

Dom continues to show his need for control when he gives Ariadne, their new architect, rules about what should happen in a dream sequence, and later on he breaks those rules himself. In the main dream sequence, Dom tells their target that he is in a dream, something that he told the others never to do. Dom also shows that he is manipulating others around him to get what he wants when the others learn that if they die on this mission, they will be stuck in limbo forever. Because