Artistic flourishes are fine. Perhaps it’s a product of my education in film and screenwriting, but I was taught over and over (ironically) to avoid the redundant. Natalie Portman’s character is troubled, both within and without. There are many ways to show this to an audience without repeating the same motifs over and over, ad nauseum. The talking pictures, the horrific visions, fine. But constant, repeated bombardment of the same symbols don’t make a film more “artsy.” They make it tired and overdone. It’s visceral the first few times we see it. It’s laughable beyond that.

Again, we’ll have to disagree on the “it was all a dream” idea. Characters need to change due to actions and events. A dream is neither an action, and it is, at best, a passive event. One could argue that Napoleon decided to invade Russia because of a dream, but far more likely are that a series of events and actions occurred in real life that precipitated his military strike. Perhaps in real life, people make decisions and perform actions because they had a dream the night before. In a film, characters act based on motivations grounded in reality. I don’t have an issue with the sex scene in Black Swan for that reason. Sure, Natalie Portman’s character may not have ever slept with Mila Kunis, but it’s not the fact that the encounter was a dream that’s the point of that scene: it’s the fact that her psychosis is preventing her from telling the truth from reality. By that point in the film, however, that idea has already been beaten into the audience’s head, so much so as to dilute the “twist” factor of its eventual revelation as a fabrication of a damaged mind.

I believe that Nolan made it crystal clear that the character was not dreaming. What I mentioned about screenwriting was that audiences are smart. Structure can be bent or broken just like anything else, but it needs a point: you need to carry your audience at least part of the way with you, or you risk leaving them onshore. The question of whether or not it was all a dream takes a back seat, however, to the question of whether or not Cobb changed. He did, and that fact is amplified due to him changing within reality, as opposed to a dream-space.

First, ‘Black Swan’. I don’t see the feathers or the mirrors to be some kind of cue that’s supposed to help the audience understand the plot, they’re artistic flourishes. Those, in my opinion, don’t have much to do with whether Aronofsky is respectful of his audience or not (In my opinion, he’s respectful in not forcing the viewer into any interpretation, he doesn’t tell you whether the pressures of Natalie’s art, her mother, or her boss are the cause, and he doesn’t cop out with an out-of-place exposition scene explaining exactly what happening at any point. But that’s another piece of writing entirely), since they’re not meant to indicate anything definite in the first place. In terms of the symbolism, Aronofsky uses it as a motif, almost as part of the set design. Again, I see nothing wrong with symbolism and motifs on a grand scale; I imagine there are many who feel cinema in general is built on those very constants. Does Herzog overuse an overbearing jungle as metaphor in “Aguirre” or “Fitzcarraldo”? Does Powell overuse his titular object in “The Red Shoes”? I think not, and while I don’t rank “Black Swan” with those timeless films, I think Aronofsky’s overbearing use of symbolism is similar. It’s a visceral attack; it’s about the texture of the film, not meant to be informative plot wise.

Then, ‘Inception’. I think our disagreement comes again on an issue of film theory. I see nothing wrong with ‘it was all a dream’ films anyway. The things we see on screen are not reality. The cinema is (in my opinion, of course) far closer to a hallucination than to honest reality. So why should the emotions, actions, and feelings of a film be diluted in the viewer’s mind if they’re eventually represented as dreams? Our reactions are still the same, the images are still the same. To again drag the classics into it , does “Blue Velvet” or “Eraserhead” become any less unsettling if you read it as a dream? I don’t think so, and I think both “Black Swan” and “Inception” are just as effective if you read them as a dream from the first frame to the last.

Perhaps those obsessed with the literal plots of films dissect the last frame to no end, but Nolan’s intention is his moods, his themes, his images. If he had wanted to make it clear whether the character is dreaming or in “reality”, he would have. To say the ending isn’t ambiguous, by the way, is to be misleading. No matter the interpretation, it’s undoubtedly meant to make you question the difference between the two states of being, ending on a moment of uncertainty between the two. To act is if there is one distinct answer to the ending is, in my opinion, nothing more than discrediting the wide range of thoughts Nolan was able to produce with that last shot. You mentioned a screenwriting class, and if you’re solely looking at things in terms of traditional character arcs and the way things should end by Hollywood formula, then yes, Cobb would certainly end up in reality with all the members of his family smiling and embracing. But personally, I’d like to think Nolan’s aiming for something more than a formula character arc in “Inception”, something more than your average happy ending, and that’s why I think the ending is far more complicated than “it fell” or “it didn’t”.

Thanks for your response. It was well-written and I want to address your points.

I used Black Swan as a contrast juxtaposition. Namely, to exhibit an example of a filmmaker who gives his audience credit versus one who does not give his audience enough. We will have to disagree upon how intelligently it purportedly treats its audience. I found Aronofsky’s latest opus to be heavy-handed, repetitive, and far too greedy at the symbolism spigot. Feathers and mirrors in every scene? You have a brain and you know what they mean after ten minutes. Why consistently bombard us with it over and over to the point of it becoming laughable?

The words I used were “one of the smartest and most cerebral.” I never called it (as you put it) “THE cerebral film of the year.” I am certainly in no place to issue that call, as I have not seen all films that were released last year, and doubtless there are those that could outdo Inception on that front.

It’s very easy for a film’s closing shot to make previous plot development and character arc irrelevant. Look at any film that ends with, “It was all just a dream.” If the protagonist never goes through conflict, never interacts with others, and never emerges from the conflict as a changed character, then that character never arcs. We watch films to see a character arc through action. If there is no action, only a dream, then how is there an arc?

In my mind, there is no ambiguity. Nolan (and doubtless Aronofsky as well) know that audiences are smart, and to end it on such a glaring question would short-change the viewer. It would be a colossal disappointment, and would beg the question, “What was the point? What did Cobb learn, if it all simply didn’t happen?” Having described the spinning top in the film’s final scene, I believe, is enough to discuss how the film ends

You don’t have to have seen an extended cut to know how Cobb’s character arcs, what he wants, and what he needs. Inception, while not perfect, is a complete and satisfying film. Nolan’s certainly not the smartest man in Hollywood, but he knows how to pack a theater by telling both adapted and original stories, so he’s pretty damn close.