5. Inception - The Magic Of Cinema
Inception features a cast of characters that take it upon themselves to commit corporate espionage by pulling a heist inside of a dream. Each character has their own specific task that they must complete for the process to go smoothly. In this way the group of highly skilled individuals that Leonardo DiCaprio's Dom Cobb assembles are symbolic of a crew working to produce a film. They even establish rules that can't be broken in the dream just as filmmakers set up rules for how the world they are filming has to operate. The way this works is every character in Inception has a role that corresponds to a role someone would have on the set of a movie and the dream heist is the making of the movie. Let's first look at the main character in the huge ensemble cast, Dom Cobb. He is the director. He orchestrates all of the other members of the group together and oversees them in order to make sure that the heist goes as planned. Sometimes he lets his personal feelings get in the way of this goal, which is a rule a director must never break. When making a film the story has to have no inhibitions even if they are presented by the person overseeing the whole ordeal. Next we have Ellen Page's Ariadne. She is the screenwriter. With Cob's help, she actually creates the world in which the dreamer occupies just as the screenwriter does for a movie. Tom Hardy's Eames is the actor of the group. He has the ability to change his face and can be seen practicing his lines in front of a mirror at one point. He also encourages others to "dream bigger" in an effort to make the performances of the others excel. Ken Watanabe's Saito is indicative of the studio executive or studio head. He pays for the necessary material for the dream heist to go as planned and expects to earn a profit when it is finished. Dileep Rao's Yusuf would be the special effects coordinator since he is the one driving the van and is not actually partaking in the inner dream worlds. This is evidenced when he crashes the van into the water causing the most interesting special effect in the entire movie. The zero gravity fight scene. He even makes a cheeky reference to the fact that he didn't get any credit for the stunt, just as special effects technicians are usually ignored, when he turns around to say "did you guys see that?" This brings us to the producer of the entire film, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur. He knows everything there is to know about dreams. He speaks mainly in expository dialogue to Ariadne just as a producer would when helping a screenwriter realize their vision in a cost effective manner. When Arthur escorts Ariadne around the dream world that whole sequence is mirroring what happens when location scouts survey an area before deciding to film there.