Ah, that old chestnut. If you look hard enough, you could probably find evidence to argue every film is a dream. With Vanilla Sky, though, that argument holds truer than it does for most; for starters, the film all being a dream of David's is one of the five 'official' interpretations suggested by Crowe himself, and much of his film does seem to support it. The very title, for instance, is named for the overt dream sequences in the film, in which David finds himself under the uncanny colour and shape of Monets 'vanilla sky'. Numerous references are also made throughout to dreaming and waking up the line "open your eyes" opens and closes the film, while Dr McCabes probing of David about one particular nightmare prompts David to state "everythings a nightmare". That last line could be read literally - it could suggest Davids waking life is a figurative nightmare - but given the films predilection for elliptical phrasing, it would seem Crowe is intentionally trying to encourage the viewer to consider that the film is all one long dream David is having. And he does it throughout. There are other clues. Davids car, from the first scene to the last, displays a registration sticker with the date 30th February 2001 inscribed on it (there is no 30th day in February), while the number 9 - an obsession of John Lennon's, who wrote the song #9 Dream - appears repeatedly. In this scenario, the dream begins at the film's 00:00 mark, and finally ends with David opening his eyes before the credits.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
