How we understand the ending of
Christopher Nolan's Inception
has everything to do with this spinning top.
We're told the top is Dom Cobb's totem,
it helps him differentiate dreams from reality.
If he's in a dream it spins endlessly.
But if he's in reality,
the laws of physics make it topple over.
As the film comes to an end,
we think Cobb has resurfaced,
back up through the many onion layers of
dreams we've witnessed, to reality.
But then...
[The camera moves over to the spinning top]
[and just before the spinning top]
[appears to be wobbling there's a cut to blackâ€¦]
Nolan deliberately cuts to black
before we can tell if the top's about to stop.
So let's look at all of the evidence and theories
out there to finally decide
whether Cobb is still dreaming or not,
and how much it really matters.
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To determine whether they're awake or in a dream,
Cobb's team uses small,
charm-like objects - totems.
[You need a small object, potentially heavy,]
[something you can have on you all the time]
[that no one else knows.]
Cobb's totem is different in some key ways
from other people's totems,
and this is one reason
unpacking the ending
based on the top gets so complicated.
Most totems -- like Arthur's loaded die
and Ariadne's bishop -- have an irregularity,
so they are unique in reality,
but turn ordinary in dreams.
The point of having an abnormal totem
is that if you're trapped in someone else's dream,
the object's normalcy will be a giveaway to you,
but the person in control of the dream
won't know it.
Cobb's spinning top is the opposite --
it's unique in dreams,
and ordinary in reality.
And this is problematic --
because if he's in someone's dream,
they'd assume a top spins normally too,
so that means he could be in a dream
controlled by someone else without ever knowing it.
Even if the top does fall over right over
after we cut to black, then,
it's still not conclusive proof
that Cobb's not in somebody else's dream.
And there's another key way in which Cobb's totem
is different from the others.
The features of the totem aren't supposed
to be shared with anyone.
[I can't let you touch it,]
[that would defeat the purpose --]
[see, only I know the balance]
[and the weight of this particular loaded die.]
[That way when you look at your totem,]
[you know beyond a doubt]
[that you're not in someone else's dream.]
So it should raise our suspicions
that both Ariadne and Cobb's late wife, Mal,
know how his totem works.
The top actually belonged to Mal first.
[This one was hers.]
[She'd spin it in a dream]
[and it would never topple.]
[Just spin and spin.]
So theoretically, Dom could be trapped
in Ariadne's or Mal's dreams.
But that would mean
either that Ariadne betrayed Dom,
or that Mal isn't really dead --
and the scene where she killed herself
actually took place in a dream state.
Some argue that if the top
originally belonged to Mal,
it can't be Cobb's totem
because a totem can only belong to one person.
But while we're left to wonder
what Cobb's totem was before Mal died,
we're never told that taking the totem
of someone who has died is a problem.
He's not sharing it with another living person.
According to one theory,
the top spins endlessly in dreams
because Cobb forces it to,
by concentrating on it.
So even if it is about to topple in the last scene,
it could be just that heâ€˜s looked away from it
and isn't concentrating on it anymore -
so again he could still be in a dream.
And then, there's a fan theory
that Cobb's real totem isn't the top at all,
but his wedding ring.
Cobb only wears his ring
in dreams and not in real life --
from what we see of other totems,
they seem to move with the owner
between waking and dreaming life,
although hypothetically there's nothing to say
a totem can't only appear in dreams.
Wearing his ring only in dreams is still important,
because it symbolizes
that he's close to Mal in dreams
and distant from her in reality.
In the final scene,
we don't get a clear shot
or close-up of Cobb's hand,
but we can see that he's not wearing the ring
when he goes through
airport security on his way home.
So even if the ring isn't his totem,
its absence does support the argument
that he's back in reality.
Overall, given all these evidence and diverse theorizing
it seems likely
that the top is Cobb's real totem --
the way Nolan talks about the movie
makes it seem like he's thinking of
the top as the totem as well.
[But at the end of the film,]
[there's a spinning top that's spinning,]
[if it falls, or doesn't fall,]
[is the key idea,]
[is it a dream or is it the reality.]
And in the final shot
it does look like the top is starting to slow down,
about to eventually fall over.
So all of this is all slightly
in favor of its being reality.
At least there's not enough evidence
to declare otherwise.
But Nolan intentionally cuts out
before we see if the top falls
because he does not want to give us that answer.
So for a better more full answer
we have to look around at all of the other evidence,
besides the totem.
One reason people believe
Cobb's in a dream is that there's some confusion
about how exactly people get out of limbo.
During the Fischer inception job,
Ariadne resurfaces from limbo to reality
dream layer by dream layer.
But in flashbacks Cobb and Mal
seem to go straight from limbo to reality.
So this could be an indication
that Cobb and Mal only go one layer up
from limbo and Cobb's
been in a dream this whole time.
But the difference may well be
that Ariadne is just riding a kick --
that is that she's triggering the falling feeling
which will wake her up in the next dream layer.
While Cobb and Mal actually kill themselves in limbo,
which whisks them straight back up to the real world.
Some viewers are also suspicious
of the Mombasa chase scene,
where the walls close in on Cobb
in a way that just couldn't happen in reality,
as well as how characters repeat certain lines:
[I'm an old man.]
[Filled with regret,]
[waiting to die alone.]
So it's hard to know if Nolan
is just toying with us or if all this craziness
is a sign that Cobb really is in a dream.
At the end of the film,
Cobb studies his home to make sure
that everything is as it should be,
and he doesn't notice any
physical signs that something's off.
We have a solid understanding
of how Cobb wound up back home,
while people in dreams are usually confused
about the lead up to an event.
[How did you get here?]
[We're dreaming?]
We know that each detail of a dream has to be perfect,
right down to the carpeting,
[Stained and frayed in such distinctive ways.]
[But very definitely made of wool.]
[Right now...
I'm lying on polyester.]
The dream world also isn't stable --
it has giveaways like spontaneous explosions,
warped terrain, and bizarre weather.
[Strange weather, isn't it?]
Anything that happens in the dreaming person's
physical reality will disrupt the dream.
So if a person is airborne on one dream level,
their dream self on another level defies gravity.
Overall, the lack of these signs
and the peace and normalcy of the film's final scene
point to it being reality.
And of course the biggest disrupter
of the dream world is a person's subconscious.
[Mind telling your subconscious to take it easy?]
[It's my subconscious --]
[remember, I can't control it.]
The projection of Cobb's subconscious guilt
is usually Mal.
She constantly appears in dreams
and sabotages his work.
[Your guilt defines her.]
[It's what powers her.]
But in this last scene,
she's nowhere to be found.
So this indicates again
that there's no reason to believe
he is in a dream.
Likewise, if he were asleep
and someone were trying to perform inception
or extraction on Cobb,
we'd probably see signs of his subconscious
trying to attack that person,
like in the Fischer inception job.
[Fischer's had an extractor teach his subconscious]
[to defend itself so his subconscious is militarized.]
[It should have shown in the research.]
But we see no evidence
that there's anything to attack.
There's also the fact that in dreams before this,
Cobb only sees his children
with their backs turned.
Here he sees their faces.
And while the children look a lot
like they did in the dreams,
for this scene Nolan actually
used slightly older child actors
and different clothing to show the passage of time.
So, given all of the miscellaneous evidence together,
we'd say it's more likely that Cobb is awake.
But because we can't arrive at an airtight answer
through the facts,
it's actually more revealing to look at
what Nolan is getting at thematically
in his ending.
More striking than the factual question
of whether he is dreaming or awake,
is the fact that Cobb doesn't seem to care
about the answer to this question.
He spins the top,
so he clearly has some doubts about
whether he's in reality.
But then he gets distracted by his kids
and stops looking at the top --
the camera cutting to black
is Cobb no longer looking to his totem
to tell him what's real.
The symbolism is that the legitimacy
of his reality isn't his main concern anymore.
Earlier in the film
Cobb is totally fixated on the distinction
between dreams and real life,
to the point where it's taken over everything.
If he thinks he's stuck in a dream,
he'll shoot himself in the head
to get out of it.
But after he confronts his guilt personified
in Mal and returns home at last,
Cobb feels that this world is real.
Nolan himself has said:
[The way the end of that film worked,]
[Leonardo DiCaprio's character,]
[Cobb, he was off with his kids,]
[he was in his own subjective reality,]
[and didn't really care anymore.]
[And that makes a statement that perhaps]
[all levels of reality are equally valid.]
So on one level Nolan's choice not to confirm
what's a dream and what's waking life
is preventing us from
writing off the importance of dreams.
The film reminds us again and again
that the emotions of a dream are unbearably real.
[If it's just a dream then why are you covering your--]
[Because it's never just a dream, is it?]
[A face full of glass hurts like hell --]
[when we're in it, it feels real.]
The only reality we know is what we perceive.
[They feel real while we're in them, right?]
[It's only when we wake up]
[that we realize something was actually strange.]
This is why Cobb's decision to perform
inception on Mal is a huge mistake.
He wants her to doubt the reality
of their extended shared dream in limbo,
but he ends up making her distrust all her experiences.
[She was possessed by an idea.]
[This one very simple idea that changed everything.]
[That our world wasn't real.]
[That she needed to wake up to come back to reality.]
As a result, Mal loses her bearings -
and her real life and loved ones
feel like a dream she can't wake up from.
Cobb's final mind state is a reversal of Mal's.
She couldn't trust in the reality of anything.
He decides to trust in what feels real to him,
without giving into any more worry and doubt.
But even if Cobb doesn't care
if he's dreaming or not, we clearly do.
Audiences care very much about
what's really happening here.
[The question of whether that's a dream]
[or whether it's real]
[is the one I've been asked most]
[about any of the films I've made.]
[It matters to people enormously,]
[and that's the point about reality.]
[Reality matters.
It won't be transcended.]
And throughout, the film does alert us
to the danger of mistaking dreams for reality
or choosing to believe that dreams are superior.
[Why do they do it?]
[Tell him, Mr. Cobb.]
[After a while it becomes the only way you can dream.]
Reality is rich because we're not in control.
Objective reality lets us be surprised
and amazed by other people.
[I can't imagine you with all your complexity,]
[all your perfection,]
[all your imperfection.]
And in reality, we're not suffocated
by our subconscious emotions and perceptions.
So yes, it does matter
if he's back in reality or not.
This is the reason the ending
of the film is still so hotly debated --
whether Cobb is awake or asleep
changes our understanding
of what the story means.
Even though Nolan admits
that objective reality matters,
in Inception he's also saying that
there is no such thing
as truly objective reality.
The problem is that,
even when we're awake,
our realities are subjective.
Our experiences are sensory data
perceived by our eyes and ears,
interpreted by our brains,
filtered through our subconscious feelings --
so the result is going to be
different for everybody.
The "leap of faith" line
that recurs in the film--
[Do you want to take a leap of faith?]
[I'm asking you to take a leap of faith.]
could be interpreted by some as a sign
that Cobb's in a dream...
but it's also Nolan's way of encouraging us
to live fully in our world
even though that world is inherently mysterious.
It's not that all realities,
dream or waking, are equal.
It's that no one can tell you for sure --
you have to figure it out for yourself.
It's significant that all of the characters
in this movie are paranoid
that their dreams might be infiltrated
or controlled by others --
this is a bigger metaphor for the fear
that we're living someone else's idea of reality,
someone else's dream,
and what could be sadder than that?
In our own lives,
we have to decide
what we believe is truly real,
and then commit to that.
So Inception leaves us
with two takeaways that might seem contradictory,
but are equally true.
Objective reality matters,
but at the same time reality
is what's true to you.
We have to be detectives
of our own truth and figure out
what we feel in our bones to be real.
In the end, Cobb is awake in the life
that feels realest to him --
he's living his best life.
[An idea that is fully formed -]
[fully understood - that sticks;]
[right in there somewhere.]
Hi guys, it's Susannah,
and Debra here,
thank you so much for watching.
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