Questioning reality and ‘truth’ - what is reality? - film suggests that the reality of each person is

different based on their own perceptions - where does the dream begin and end? - according to the film, there is no definite truth to

explain the world (rejects ‘truth’ which is a key part of the post modern worldview)

“you don’t believe in one reality anymore.”- Mal to Cobb

Baudrillard

“is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real”.

At the start we are presented with a dream (where Cobb is trying to steal from Saito) we learn quickly that this is a dream so we think it is real when everyone wakes up in the apartment during a riot, yet this too is a dream

In the ‘Inception’ they tell Fisher that it is a dream so he will believe that they are there to help

By the end can we tell real from dream?

Baudrillard - Disney Land

“their dream has become their reality” Cobb’s wife commits suicide because she doesn’t know

what is real and what is a dream anymore For Cobb, the dreams he has of his wife are his reality. The ambiguity at the end when the audience doesn’t

see whether the totem keeps spinning or not- fails to conclude whether Cobb is in a dream or not.

You need a totem to tell you if you are in the real world or not – Hyper reality of all around us like a trap or prison (Baudrillard was big on this!)

Does Cobb care any more about reality (the ending)? Do we?

Baudrillard -Blurring of reality

The first stage is a faithful image/copy The second stage is perversion of

reality, Here, signs and images do not faithfully reveal reality to us. Reality has been slightly heighten or exaggerated.

The third stage masks the absence of a profound reality, where the simulacrum pretends to be a faithful copy, but it is a copy with no original.

The fourth stage is pure simulation, in which the simulacrum has no relationship to any reality whatsoever.

Baudrillard –Steps to Hyper Reality

1. The first level of the dream takes place on busy city streets. As the analog of the first stage of the sign, “it is a representation of reality.” It’s a copy but a faithful one.

Baudrillard –Steps to Hyper Reality

2. The next level takes place in a hotel. Cobb admits to Fischer that it is all a dream, but hides the fact that he is a fellow dreamer, pretending to be “Mr. Charles,” a subconscious projection of Fischer’s. In this way, Cobb “masks and perverts a basic reality” the way a second order sign does.

Baudrillard –Steps to Hyper Reality

3. This level takes place in a snowbound mountain fortress)the kind usually occupied by the main villain in a James Bond movie. Movie-like, the third level “masks the absence of a basic reality because it is based on fiction.” There is no real place like this

Baudrillard –Steps to Hyper Reality

4. Dying under the kind of sedation necessary to reach three dream-levels will send dreamers into Limbo. Limbo is not a level, but as an “unconstructed dream space.” Anything can happen there; it is a “pure simulacrum”, pure simulation/ hyperreality- Stage Four

Baudrillard –Steps to Hyper Reality

“Baudrillard saw our Post Modern world as lacking in meaning/substance because we have lost contact with the ‘real’

Jameson (yet another theorist) talked about the post modern world being ‘depthless’

Yet this film is full of meaning and tackles some very big philosophical ideas, the plot is complex as are the characters and notions of good and evil

Baudrillard –But…….

Overall, Inception is very postmodern because it complies with the theories of both Strinati and Baudrillard. Also, it has postmodern media concepts and presents a distortion of reality.

How postmodern is the text?