Films are a direct result of the present culture, reflecting societies’ current worldview. Today’s culture exists in a bleak realm of postmodern musings. Current American society, as a whole, is dependent on their lack of absolutes. This current worldview holds to no solid form of truth in life, no potential for hope, and poses open-ended, unresolved questions. Modern films, particularly Christopher Nolan’s epic “Inception,” represent this worldview in its dream-like state and inquiries on reality.
Society’s mindset is sunken in a bed of moral ambiguity and theological haze. This culture has only posed questions, fearing any possible answers. Francis Schaeffer in his How Shall We Then Live? wrote that art is an extension of the culture and its philosophy. Films’ reflection of the culture can be seen from the ’60s films that began questioning the government in absurdist films of Vietnam War era America. Thus, if art—more specifically, film—is an annex of the current worldview, then the apathetic and relative outlook of postmodernism is expressed in today’s films; and if the present culture is steeped in postmodernism, it should be no surprise that recent films bear a vehement distrust toward all things previously established.
This past summer, amidst the fluff of popcorn-flicks and ’80s remakes emerged Chris Nolan’s “Inception.” It was hailed as a completely original, uniquely crafted splendor that was equally daring in its cinematography and in the questions the film posed. The concept of ““Inception” is that someone can plant an idea in someone else’s subconscious while a person is dreaming, ultimately changing the way that the subject thinks and acts. In the film, the characters fabricate a young entrepreneur’s father as a loving man who desires his son to achieve independence; in “reality” the father was an uncaring and unloving man. Subplots abound in this film, including one character that is dead but exists within the subconscious and the idea of a captivating, near-perfect dream-state limbo that gives the dreamers god-like powers.
Inside this complex plotline, the film successfully asks very poignant questions to the viewer, proposing ideas of truth as well as belief versus feelings. One character asks whether truth is what one believes or what one feels; however, this interesting question is left unanswered, dangling in intellectual limbo. The very film itself ends in a cliffhanger, allowing the possibility that the entire movie was a dream. The debate that ensues once the credits roll is a postmodern one: only one’s personal—and therefore, relative—opinion can hold weight, giving no possibility of entertaining or attaining absolute truth.
Within “Inception,” one never truly knows what is fantasy and what is reality. It is a completely nihilistic environment; as Schaeffer expounds, “[where] there is no personal God to speak, (the characters have) no final way to be sure of the difference between reality and fantasy or illusion.” This “difference” between fact and fiction is found with the film’s possession of ambiguous moral codes (breaking into someone’s mind), and a visually and mentally stunning relativity where dreams can be mapped out, buildings can fold into each other, and suicide results in simply waking up. For a film that asks what is true, the idea of reality is blurred into a nearly non-existent line. Schaeffer prophesied the detriment that results from a godless, uncertain society. When there is no truth, there is no way to know what is reality or fantasy.
Thus, it seems evident that film succeeds the climate of present culture. Films represent what and how we think; they posses the viewer in a gripping and powerful way, reaching into a deep part of one’s being, mirroring what people see around them in fresh and vivid ways. Richard MacCann wrote in his Film and Society that modern film “… will be the most effective way of showing posterity how we live today.” In this instance of art, “Inception” accurately shows how society lives or, more aptly, how society views life. Everything is malleable; nothing is absolute. Truth is mentioned but never attained. At the end of the film, one is left with an ambiguity that exceeds any type of understanding. There is no attainable truth; one’s mind and morals are left to guesswork.
Instead of being led in a direction, one is left to wonder what the true reality is. Roger Ebert, Pulitzer-prize winning film critic, claims that after Nolan built his immaculate dreamscape labyrinth, “he threw away the map” (“Inception”). The viewer—more applicably, the current culture—is lost in a puzzle of twists, turns, and unknowns. There is no help in finding the exit; there may not even be an exit. People are left to wander aimlessly and hopelessly. Yet the culture was submerged in this endless labyrinth long before the idea of “Inception” occurred in Nolan’s mind, and this culture clamored in the dark before he donned the director’s chair. This culture’s postmodern mindset has forced contentment upon the souls lost in a labyrinthine life: objective and absolute truth are nowhere in sight, nor is there a clear moral or any form of resolution. Instead of clarity and truth, the present culture is exploring an endless maze.
Thus, it seems that films satisfy our projections of the culture. There is nothing philosophically unique about this movie praised for its originality; rather, there are cultural specifics addressed in a refreshing and alluring way that feeds our postmodern stomachs: there is no way to know what is truth. One can only guess, crawling, unaided, through the dark, tragic labyrinth of life. (Zach McCoy is a junior at SBU, Bolivar.)