The Awe-Inspiring Beauty of Tom Cruise’s Shattered, Troll-Like Face

Reading Summary

This reading discusses how several films attempt to illustrate the theme of reality. The author uses the movie, “Vanilla Sky” as an example of how viewers usually judge modern films based on other factors like the actors instead of the actual theme of reality. The reading adds reviews of the film from other critics to show that viewers were solely judging “Vanilla Sky” by the acting career of Tom Cruise. On top of all this, Klosterman argues that in the 1970s, the viewers had some control in the vision of the director whereas today, it’s the opposite. According to the reading, films have shifted to having no concept. Klosterman says the idea that films no longer have a concrete concept comes with the cultural shift in society. In the 1970s, movies were used to illustrate social and psychological evolution from the 60s. Films were a way to remember the change society went through. Today, there is no true explanation of reality so there is no way for directors to produce these non-existing realities. Therefore, movies like “Vanilla Sky” and “The Matrix” do a real good job at questioning reality. These movies along with others do a good job because they create an illusion for the viewer. In the films that Klosterman discusses, the main characters choose reality despite not being the most entertaining or pleasant choice. Yet, the author wonders if the characters made the best choice. This all leads back to question: what is reality?

Outside Example

The movie, “Inception” shares the theme of reality with the examples of “Vanilla Sky” and “The Matrix.” In the film, “Inception,” the main character, Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a thief with the rare ability to enter people’s dreams and steal their secrets via an architect. The architect is responsible for building the world of the dreamer, convincing them their surroundings are real. Since Cobb continuously uses his skill for corporate espionage, he becomes a fugitive. Seeing his abilities, Mr. Saito offers Cobb a challenging job of planting thoughts/information into a subject’s dreams without them knowing which is a process called, inception. In return for this job, Cobb would get to go back to reality peacefully without being searched for by the law. In the film, the most difficult thing to keep up with is: what is a dream? what is reality? who is inside who’s dream? These questions are usually answered by Cobb’s totem, a spinning top. If it was spinning, he was in a dream but if it fell, he was in reality. Yet, in the final scene, the spinner begins to lose its balance as Cobb went outside to play with his children. However, the film ends before the audience sees if it fell or no, leaving the audience wondering if Cobb ever returned to reality. As a positive viewer, one can assume that Cobb achieved his mission and got compensated with finally being able to go back to being with his children (reality). Yet, Cobb could’ve found his kids in the dreams and stayed there. One will never know.

Connection

As stated before, my example of the movie, “Inception” connects with the reading because of its theme of reality. The film shares the same components that the reading explains that other movies like “Vanilla Sky” has. For example, the fact that there are two worlds in both films: a reality and a false life (dream or illusion). Both characters must make decide if to stay in the false life or return to reality. Yet, Klosterman argues that the false world is the most pleasant place to stay at because it is built based on what the characters most desire. For instance, in “Vanilla Sky” when the character played by Tom Cruise lives in this lucid dream (false world), he experiences a life with his loved one but things get complicated similar to “Inception.” Because of these complications, the characters are interrupted by a greater power which brings them or asks them to go back to their real lives. Yet, in the film “Inception” one keeps wondering if the main character truly went back to reality while in “Vanilla Sky” one wonders how much of the film was reality. In other words, ending of “Inception” isn’t clear if it’s reality whereas “Vanilla Sky” doesn’t have a clear track of what is reality and not throughout the film but the ending is real. Overall, the movies have different plots but they share the same question of “What is reality?” and “Did the characters achieve the best choice by going to their perception of reality?” Like Klosterman states, these films do a good job at questioning reality instead of answering what reality is.