Inception, The recent release from director Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Ellen Page has resonated with both the casual moviegoer and devoted cinemaphile.
The story of Cobb (DiCaprio) revolves around his ability to enter another person’s dreams to discover their deepest secrets. Wanted for the murder of his wife, Cobb is fixated on wanting to return to the USA, but doing so will land him in jail. He takes on a job that promises to return him to his children but he has to take on a corporate espionage job where the mission is to plant an idea into another’s mind, also known as ‘inception’.
Inception is the first film in a long while that is generating repeat viewings, not for the top-notch computer generated imagery, but for the nuances of the narrative.
If you enjoyed Inception and wanted to delve deeper into the thriller genre, then you should go back to one of the masters: Alfred Hitchcock. Of course there is Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo, but an often overlooked classic Hitchcock that to this author is most like Inception is The 39 Steps.
Shot in 1935, The 39 Steps stars Robert Donat as Richard Hannay, a man wrongly accused of murder. During his adventures eluding both the police and the actual murderers, he becomes literally attached, via handcuffs, to Pamela, played by Madeline Carroll, who believes he is guilty of the crime. The 39 Steps employs many of what would become Hitchcock’s standards: a handsome, innocent man on the run, a gorgeous, feisty woman, and a MacGuffin, a classic plot device. The use of a MacGuffin is to propel the story forward but in and of itself, means nothing. Think the briefcase in Pulp Fiction or the ‘unobtanium’ in Avatar.
There’s a famous story that says that Hitchcock asked his viewers to watch his films three times. The first time for getting the basic storyline, a second time for picking up on other subtle story clues and a third time to tie it all together. Both Inception and The 39 Steps almost require three viewings to get the whole gist of what the two directors are putting in place. These two films have more in common than you might think. And that’s a testament to both. WH