Christopher Nolan Talks 'Inception'

Ending, Batman and "Chasing Reality"

in Princeton Grad Speech

Christopher Nolan

Princeton University, Office of Communications, Denise Applewhite

"The most important thing about Bruce Wayne yes, he

attended Princeton, but he didn't graduate," he said to
roaring applause. "So as of tomorrow, you are all already
better than Batman!"
Christopher Nolan shared some respectful, realistic graduation advice at Princeton's
commencement ceremony on Monday morning.

"In the great tradition of these

speeches, generally someone says
something along the lines of 'Chase
your dreams,' but I don't want to tell
you that because I don't believe that,"
he told the students at Class Day. "I
want you to chase your reality."
"I feel that over time, we started to
view reality as the poor cousin to our
dreams, in a sense. ... I want to make
the case to you that our dreams, our
virtual realities, these abstractions

that we enjoy and surround ourselves

with they are subsets of reality," he
later reflected, apologizing to anyone
who hadn't seen Inception. "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. The camera moves
over the spinning top just before it
appears to be wobbling, it was cut to

black."
"I skip out of the back of the theater
before people catch me, and there's a
very, very strong reaction from the
audience: usually a bit of a groan," he
joked. "The point is, objectively, it
matters to the audience in absolute
terms:
even
though when
I'm
watching, it's fiction, a sort of virtual
reality. But the question of whether
that's a dream or whether it's real is
the question I've been asked most
about any of the films I've made. It
matters to people because that's the
point about reality. Reality matters."
The director of Interstellar and The
Dark Knight trilogy first noted that he
met his wife on the first day of college
a remark met with palpable
audience sentiment and though
their graduation was bittersweet, they
were ready to get out there.
"We felt very much as if we had
accumulated this whole wheel of Brie
of knowledge!" he joked. "Of course,
what I realize is, it's actually Swiss
cheese those gaps in there are the
point. They're the important part,
because you're going to get out there
and fill those gaps you didn't even
know you had, and you're going to fill
them with experience. Some of it
marvelous, some of it terrible. And
you're going to learn that way.
"What you have achieved here will see
you through that. You haven't just
learned a body of knowledge; you've
learned how to learn, you've learned
the value of learning," he continued.
"Most importantly, some of those gaps
will be filled with the most precious
thing of all: new thought, new ideas,
things that are going to change the
world."
Nolan admitted that as a believer in
Inception, "the idea that you can plant
the seed of an idea that will grow into
something more substantial over time

I do feel some responsibility to try

and say something to you that will
carry forward and might help you in
some way." He thought back to the
world into which he graduated:
"Racism, income inequality, warfare
I could go on but you know this list,
and the reason you know it is because
it's exactly the same today. What have
we been doing for the last twenty
years? If I'm gonna give you any
advice, I have to take a hard look at
my generation and what we've done."
"The truth is, I think we failed to
address a lot of the fundamentals
possibly for a good reason. I think we
went out into the world believing that
if we could connect the world, if we
could allow the free exchange of ideas
across
geographical
boundaries,
economic boundaries, if we could all
talk, these problems would go away.
Unfortunately, I think by now, we have
to acknowledge that we were wrong,
that's not the case. Communication is
not everything. So much of the
resources intellectual, financial
of my generation have gone into
communications infrastructure and
achieved
wonderful
things,
but
perhaps not as wonderful as we claim
them to be."
"It's an insult to reality," said Nolan of
being stuck to screens, rather than
looking out the window of the crosscountry airplane he took to get there,
for example. "I have to acknowledge
the irony that I am someone who
made a film, half of which is set in the
cabin of an airplane where people are
dealing with realities within realities,
so I've certainly had my part to play in
this, perhaps. But when you're flying
in an airplane across this incredible
country, you're enjoying one of the
great modern marvels, you're getting
a perspective on America, on our
landscape and where we are that no
one's ever had before."

"Look at fundamentals how can we

change things, move the ball on this
and progress? I don't have to tell you
how to do it. I just have to tell you it's
your problem now," he challenged
them. "It's very important that people
are really affected by what you do. I
think you have limitless potential."

Nolan closed by clarifying the

longstanding debate of Batman's
standing at Princeton, thanks to a
scene from Batman begins. "The most
important thing about Bruce Wayne
yes, he attended Princeton, but he
didn't graduate," he said to roaring
applause. "So as of tomorrow, you are
all already better than Batman!"