Christopher Nolan finally explains the ending of 'Inception'

Christopher Nolan discusses the meaning behind the spinning top


Entertainment Desk June 04, 2015
Christopher Nolan discusses the meaning behind the spinning top PHOTO: EWALLPAPERHD

Ever understood the spinning top at the end of Inception? Yeah, neither did we. Director Christopher Nolan finally discussed the controversial and ambiguous ending to his film Inception at the graduation speech for Princeton's class of 2015.

He gave more than "it was all a dream", explanation of what the spinning top was intended to symbolise during his speech.


PHOTO: INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

He started off with an intro about the cliched philosophical approach to life, "In the great tradition of these speeches, generally someone says something along the lines of 'Chase your dreams,' but I don’t want to tell you that because I don’t believe that. I want you to chase your reality.”

"I feel that over time, we started to view reality as the poor cousin to our dreams, in a sense… I want to make the case to you that our dreams, our virtual realities, these abstractions that we enjoy and surround ourselves with - they are subsets of reality," he explained.


PHOTO: NATHANIELCLAIBORNE

According to Hollywood Reporter, Christopher linked this to the conclusion in Inception and said, “Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Cobb — was off with his kids, he was in his own subjective reality. He didn’t really care anymore, and that makes a statement: perhaps, all levels of reality are valid. The camera moves over the spinning top just before it appears to be wobbling, it was cut to black."

He added, "I skip out of the back of the theater before people catch me, and there’s a very, very strong reaction from the audience: usually a bit of a groan. The point is, objectively, it matters to the audience in absolute terms: even though when I’m watching, it’s fiction, a sort of virtual reality. But the question of whether that’s a dream or whether it’s real is the question I’ve been asked most about any of the films I’ve made. It matters to people because that’s the point about reality. Reality matters."


PHOTO: DOOBYBRAIN

In essence, Christopher seems to be saying that your subjective reality is what’s important, not endless obsessing over dreams. To that end, he encouraged the graduates to apply their newly acquired talents to improving the world. “It’s very important that people are really affected by what you do,” he said.

Here's the ending, better understood through Christopher's ideology:

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