8 Directors Who Have The Worst Takes About Their Own Movie Endings
6. Christopher Nolan Thinks Cobb Is In His Own Subjective Reality - Inception
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Easily ranking as one of the most fiercely debated closing sequences in modern movie history, the final shot of Christopher Nolan's mind-bending Inception epic has fans still wondering whether Leonardo DiCaprio's Cobb is still in a dream as the film finally cuts to black.
The final scene, involving Cobb spinning his trusty totem and rushing off to see his children before his last reality test is fully completed, has been intensely analysed ever since its debut in 2010, with Nolan's take on the matter only muddying the waters even more.
In a speech the director gave at Princeton University in 2015, instead of outright revealing whether or not the final moment of the totem appearing to wobble after spinning for an age meant that the emotional climax was going down within a dream or in reality, Nolan offered up this explanation:
"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. He didn’t really care anymore, and that makes a statement: perhaps, all levels of reality are valid."
Contradicting this hint at Cobbs' final moments actually being nothing more the reality he is choosing to believe in, however, Michael Cane would also reveal at a screening for the flick in 2018 that he was told by Nolan, "Well when you're in the scene it's reality." And Cane is very much present during that closing sequence, of course.
Simply put, Nolan has done little to clear up this ending in any way, shape, or form.