by Robert Bauer
December 17, 2013
The top doesn’t topple. It wobbles, and then--black. The world is left up in the air. An established code, that an indefinitely spinning top indicates locality in the dream world, is left unfinished. Upon the rolling of the credits the audience mumbles and grumbles over the significance of that moment. Soon, sides are taken with some arguing for reality, while others argue for dreams. Regardless of the rapidly inflaming opinions, there is not enough (or just enough) evidence either way. The film is silent. It does not take sides. It leaves the image and steps away, leaving us in space, to create our own meaning. In a beginning film studies course at a public high school in the intermountain west of the United States, the students engaged in a lively debate over the significance of the last shot of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. The question that prompted this discussion was, “Is the film about finding one’s way out of dreams into reality or overcoming guilt to reconcile with family?” The ensuing discussion lasted a full hour and 15 minutes as students from ages 14-18 argued back and forth, citing evidence in support of their position. The final shot is ambiguous and leaves them to search through the previous two-and-a-half hours of the film to find evidence. But in the end it is just conjecture. The moment of black between the shot of the top and the rolling of the credits is empty space. The students used conjecture based on their evidence to draw a conclusion. The fact that there can be a lively discussion between teenagers regarding this cinematic artifact is indicative of something more than a pseudo-intellectual action flick. The thing that generated this discussion was a sense of something missing and yet intended. It is as if the director of the film moves into a space and then vacates it to allow the audience to create on their own. That empty silence invites creation, conjecture and imagination.
Jean-paul Sartre defined the greatness of a work as being found in silence, that space which the author leaves for breath, or life, to fill it. He says, “The quality of the marvellous [sic] in Le Grande Meaulnes, the grandioseness of Armance, the degree of realism and truth in Kafka’s mythology, these are never given. The reader must invent them all in a continual exceeding of the written thing.”
Therefore, these works have qualities which we describe as great, but in reality, they come from the mind of the reader. I will look at this concept of silence as it is used in a contemporary text: Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film Inception. Inception leads audiences to create meaning not just from what is manifest, but that which is not: the silence. I will show how Nolan takes that silence and exploits the dialectic that exists between the viewer of the film and himself. In doing so he allows the space of freedom necessary to equalize the relationship through mutual creation. I will show that he does so through his use of narrative and visual elements and, most especially, by his implanting in the film a mirroring of that dialectic in the subject/architect relationship. By applying Sartre’s theory of silence to the film, we can identify those places where Christopher Nolan allows the audience to become co-creators with him and thereby fulfill the need for freedom of creation.
The Reader/Writer Dialectic
Jean-paul Sartre has long been associated with existentialism and disenchantment. He believed that what we do in life is to distract us from the nothingness to come.
Since there is nothing to work toward that endures or matters, then we can only worry about what happens now. What people have in the moment is choice and responsibility therefore, anything that allows for more freedom to choose is good.
He applies that concept to writing in his works. In Sartre’s essay titled Why Write? in his What is Literature?, he describes an important dialectic related to this concept of freedom as the greatest good. As opposed to the Hegelian model which purports two oppositional ideas that fight until a synthesis is reached and society moves forward, this dialectic is where two oppositional but equal forces try and occupy the same space. This is a space of tension, and due to that tension interesting things happen in that space. The dialectic that he sets up is between the reader and the writer. The reader and the writer both work in the process of creation.
Since both are involved in that process it equalizes the relationship between the two. When the two are equal, freedom of choice ensues. Because the writer is the one creating the work first, s/he proffers imperatives.
These are the words set out on the page or, in a cinematic sense, the images or sounds on screen known as the manifest. The author engages with the text by foreknowledge. S/he knows the end from the beginning. So, in the process of writing, the author is creating. This creation is an imperative, and once created, the power over that passes to the reader.
Sartre states, “To write is to make an appeal to the reader that he lead into objective existence the revelation which [the author has] undertaken by means of language.”
The reader then has the opportunity to access the text, those imperatives set down by the writer. After the writer has made manifest his/her thoughts, they must relinquish control of the imperative. The reader now has the text in his/her hands and by means of conjecture, makes conclusions regarding what will happen or could happen, creating meaning out of that manifest imperative. This makes the reader a creator equal to that of the author.
The difficulty in writing is allowing the reader that freedom. There are imperatives. Some information must be given, else the reader has complete control and in that unequal relationship, oppresses the writer. But, the writer cannot say all. S/he cannot exact complete control on the reader. First, this is impossible, for the reader can always choose what s/he thinks, and second, the reader will likely resent being controlled. To maintain that equal relationship, the writer employs silence. Silence is the space in which the manifest is unclear, or left open. By resisting the urge to tell the reader everything, the writer leaves space for the reader to create his/her own meaning from the manifest. S/he can look at the imperatives, the evidence, and conjecture about what may come. Through this silence, “the writer appeals to the reader’s freedom to collaborate in the production of his work.”
From a structural perspective, leaving space in the plot for the audience to fill, to guess what comes next, or conversely, what happened, allows for that creation. Then, as the plot unfolds, the reader is either satisfied or disappointed in the new manifest. For example, in many a who-dun-it the viewer spends much of the film attempting to determine who the murderer is, and while it is somewhat rudimentary this allows a level of co-collaboration. This works with character as well. Not telling us everything about a character allows the reader to create those character points for his/herself. In Joel and Ethan Coen’s remarkable No Country for Old Men, little is said by or about the antagonist, Anton Chiguhr. We only see his actions and begin to piece together his motivations and perhaps even a portion of his history.
Additionally, one can apply this concept to theme. Avoiding didactic explanations of the purpose and message of the actions of the characters allows the audience the freedom to create those themes. In Elia Kazan’s Streetcar Named Desire we see Stanley abuse Stella and Blanche. We see Blanche lose her mind. We see all of the consequences of those actions, but never are we told what to think about them.
We are allowed to create a meaning out of those manifest images and actions.
Within something as simple yet pervasive as dialogue we can see this play out. The most interesting and powerful lines of dialogue are those that don’t actually say what the character thinks. Take for example, Raleigh St. Clair, in Wes Anderson’s Royal Tenenbaums. After seeing the report on his wife’s several infidelities, he remarks, “So, she smokes.”
By not having the character speak what he actually feels, the audience is able to create his feelings and reactions.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of these various uses of silence is found in Stanley Kubrick’s opus 2001:a Space Odyssey.
In terms of plot, there are large gaps in time and action. We jump from apes smashing bones to space travel, leaving the audience to create the events that took us from one time to the next. The characters are equally enigmatic. We are not told what HAL’s motivations are. Even when we see the video communication from headquarters explaining the destination and the purpose of the mission after HAL’s “death”, we are never told why HAL does what he does and are therefore allowed to fill the silence with our own conclusions. Theme is not explained either. There is no narration, no commentary to explain the mosaic conglomeration of images. Only upon stepping back and looking at the whole can one start to create what s/he can from what s/he can see. As for silence in dialogue; in a film where there is so little dialogue, and that dialogue consists so often in pleasantries and small talk, we are allowed to create meaning from such a translucent text.
Inception’s Narrative and Visual Uses of Sartre’s Dialectic
In 2010 Christopher Nolan’s film landed in theaters across the country. Its story and imagery struck the nation and loosed the imaginations of its audiences. The film tells the story of a corporate spy named Dominic Cobb who uses military technology to enter people’s dreams and steal their secrets. He is hired by a corporation to pull off what is believed impossible: Inception, the placing of an idea in the mind. He has a team of associates who help in his espionage. Arthur is a trusted friend and expert. Ariadne is a architect of dreams, who builds the dream environment to pull the mark into. She is also the new recruit whose importance I will discuss later. There is Saito, a businessman who hires Cobb to produce inception in a competitor. Other important characters are: Mal, Cobb’s deceased wife, Fischer, the heir to the rival corporation of Saito, Eames, a forger (one who pretends to be people from the dreamer’s life), Yusuf, the chemist who creates the chemicals necessary for entering the dream, and Miles, Cobb’s former mentor. While the film deals with espionage on the surface, it reveals that Cobb’s main goal is to get back to his family in the States, despite being wanted for the murder of his wife.
In this film, Christopher Nolan uses Sartre’s concept of silence in the reader/writer dialectic to allow the audience the freedom to create their own meaning from the manifest. By applying silence in myriad ways he allows for a mutually beneficial and more completely immersive experience for his audience, the readers of the film. I will show three Narrative modes of creating this silence: Character Plopping, Scene Interrupting, and Non-linear Plot Structure. In each of these I will give specific examples from the film. I will then show two Visual modes of creating silence: realistic cinematography to impede distinction of the real from the dream, and cutting the payoff of the scene through editing. After discussing these narrative and visual modes of creating silent space I will discuss the how Nolan mirrors the reader/writer dialectic in the use of the dreamer/architect dialectic. I will show how revealing the dialectic to the audience increases freedom of creation on the part of the audience and draws Nolan’s film even closer to the purpose of writing as delineated by Sartre.
Narrative uses
The first narrative use of silence that I will discuss is what I term “character plopping”. I will define this as the act of showing a character without introducing them through exposition. The first example of this is in the first scene during which we see Cobb and Saito, with Saito appearing as an ancient man. No explanation is given as to their origin, relationship, goals or desires. There is an imperative revealed by dialogue that these men know each other and have a spotty past. There is a threat to life but the reason why is not stated or explained. This allows us to make conjecture as to each character’s history and their motivations in the scene. Because there is no imperative scene in which we see Cobb as he explains his objectives and how he knows Saito, that is left to us. We are free to create.
Perhaps more intriguing is the silence on the introduction of Mal. We first see Mal in the film shortly after the young Saito and Cobb’s confrontation. Through the course of this sequence we see Cobb interact with Mal. We know that he knows her and that they have a history together via the dialogue and body language but we are not told what that history is. This is indicated by Arthur’s comment “What’s she doing here?”
The reaction of Cobb and Arthur to her presence indicates that their relationship was unpleasant. These manifest imperatives put us in the position to think that there is something to be known that is not yet known. We conjecture on the vicissitudes of their relationship. It is easy to assume that Mal has interfered with their theivery before. One might, for example, create a previous sexual relationship between Mal and Cobb and decide that that is the motivation behind her interpolation in their schemes. All of these creations either are vindicated or denied by future imperatives. While we may be dissatisfied by the actual results, we can be satisfied by the immersive experience of co-creation in the silent spaces.
An additional narrative element to character plopping is “scene interruption,” which I define as a scene beginning in the middle instead of beginning with a character’s entrance or arrival. The first example of this comes immediately after the prologue where Cobb meets with the aged version of Saito (though we don’t yet know who that is) and we see a conversation between Cobb and a young Saito. What we don’t see is how Cobb, Saito, or anyone else arrived there. It is apparent that the conversation has gone on for several moments prior to our interruption of their scene. As such we do not know how they got there or what was said before and are, therefore, free to create that connection. We populate the space with our own ideas, and the silence is filled with our own words.
Perhaps the best example of this occurs after being introduced to Ariadne and her test at maze construction, we are shown Cobb and Ariadne having coffee in an outdoor cafe. Once again we feel as if we have interrupted an ongoing conversation. We are not shown how they got to the café or what they were talking about previously, but we are able to fill that silence with our own creation. We can imagine them talking and getting in a taxi and stopping for coffee and having a nice chat before getting down to business. We make all of this up to fill that space. Interestingly, this scene is interrupted because it is a dream and Nolan gives a clue of this by using an establishing shot of Arthur going into a large warehouse, which is later revealed to be where the dream sharing is to take place. In this case there exists a reverse chronological silence. Instead of conjecturing on where it will go, we conjecture on how we got there.
Another means of creating silence and allowing that freedom to the audience is in Christopher Nolan’s use of non-linear plot structure. This non-linear structure makes the film a puzzle in which we use our freedom to determine how the pieces fit together, often having to conjecture forward and backward in time. The most obvious example of this is in the fact (imperative) that we see an event from very near the end of the film chronologically, first narratively. We are introduced to Cobb and Saito in Limbo where Saito has gone after dying in a sedative-induced dream state. This is a climactic scene but is placed at the beginning before taking us back in time to the first meeting of Cobb and Saito. So we then spend the remainder of the film playing in that silent space with the possible permutations of that path of arrival at that destination to which we have already been introduced until the imperative path is revealed. That freedom allows our creativity to immerse us in the film more fully and effectively than if it had been presented chronologically.
Another use of the nonlinear format are the flashbacks to Mal and her death and its consequences. We see peppered throughout the film shots of Mal on the ledge, in the kitchen with the knife, the head on the train tracks, the rustling curtains, the children playing in the yard and running away. These scenes seen in increasing stages of duration and clarity place the puzzle pieces in our hands to create a way to fit them all together. We place them together with the scenes that provide their meta-context (the primary narrative moment) and derive some meaning from their manifest. We are then immersed in the making of the film. We are free to make our own decisions until the manifest deems us right or mistaken.
It is through these and many other narrative imperatives that Christopher Nolan utilizes the free space of silence to allow us the freedom to create with him. This equalization of the relationship creates a more immersive experience that is thereby more pleasurable and more valuable.
Visual Uses
While Sartre focused on writing and verbal language, filmmakers such as Nolan have found ways to utilize those theories cinematically. One might assume that because a film shows the audience what is happening, that there is less freedom for them to create. I assert however that though the images are imperatives like unto words, and while we may no longer create images in that space of what the characters and locations look like, we can still create motivations and connections. This is where Inception really takes advantage. By utilizing a juxtaposition between what is shown and what is not shown they open up the silent space and allow the viewer (reader) to draw those conclusions and make those connections.
This subtle approach is used to great effect by Nolan’s implementing of modern realistic camera work. This is especially prevalent in the hand held “Shaky-cam” cinematography. This camera movement is used to give the audience the impression that they are present in the film with the characters. If one is present, then what they are witnessing is real. This camera work is used in the sequences that are in the “real” world and those that are in “dreams”. This results in no visual distinction made between the “real” and the “dream”. Also, there is no significant difference in the lighting or color saturation between the “real” and the “dream”. Whether we are in Limbo, or the dream of Saito’s love nest, or the memories of Mal’s suicide, it all has the same look and feel. While in other films using this technique may be a way to simply pull the wool over the audience’s eyes, in this case it is an opportunity for us to create our own meaning of the manifest. This subtle silence becomes enormously important in the final scene of the film.
Another visual use of silence is through the implementation of a specific editing choice. Nolan chooses to cut the pay-off of a scene. In these instances the shot cuts to the next without showing us the significant causal event that leads to the next scene. For example, when we return to the scene between the ancient Saito and Cobb, Saito asks, “Have you come here to kill me?”
We see the realization on Cobb’s face that this is indeed true. Saito spins the top which continues to spin and never topple and he recites the promise he made to Cobb. We realize based on previous imperatives from the film that one must kill one’s self to get out of Limbo. Saito reaches for the gun on the table and the film cuts to Cobb awake on the plane. We see no aiming of the gun. We hear no shot fired. But we create the moment that occurred to bring us here. We fill the space with the aiming and firing of the gun.
That brings us to the final shot of the film. After disembarking and meeting Miles, Cobb returns home and sees his children playing in the yard, just as he remembers. He doubts the reality of the situation and spins the top, waiting for it to fall. He hears his children’s voices and abandons the top. The camera pans to follow him to his children and the top disappears out of the frame. We lose ourselves in the emotion of the moment. We feel satisfied in the conclusion of the film. As Cobb embraces his children, the camera pans down to the top, still spinning. We wait with baited breath. We have conjectured to fill the space. This is reality. The top wobbles slightly and then--black. The silence that we have filled is torn open and we are forced by the new imperative to reconsider our creation. In the afore mentioned classroom, the students ultimately decided to fill that space with either “It’s a dream” or “It was real.” This then led them to reconsider, to rearrange the puzzle pieces, on what was real previous to that moment in the film and what wasn’t. By combining the consistently realistic visuals with the cutting of the payoff, Nolan has created an enormous chasm of silence, and that silence becomes an imperative of itself. It cannot be left empty. It must be filled. As we shall see, this ultimately makes us consider the nature of film itself.
The Dreamer/Architect and the Subject
It is apparent therefore, that Christopher Nolan is using silence within the dialectic of the reader and the writer. By utilizing Narrative modes such as the Character Plopping, Scene Interrupting, and Non-Linear Plot Structure he creates a space that is then to be filled by the viewer. Through his use of the Visual modes, namely realistic cinematography and cutting the pay-off he also creates a visual world that has that silent space where free creation is possible. Where Nolan takes things further than perhaps Sartre imagined is in his mirroring of the dialectic within the work. He references and draws attention to the dialectic and the creation space within the content of the film. I will look as Nolan’s means, one being: the teaching of the uninitiated character, Ariadne, the nature of dreams mirroring the dialectic. I will also demonstrate dialogical cues that refer back to the dream-film relationship. Then I will discuss how many of the previously analyzed Narrative and Visual Modes also mirror the nature of dreams as well as the additional mode of condensing time. This reveals the structure and makes the viewer even more capable, more free to make meaning of the manifest. It is almost as if he is teaching us how to negotiate Sartre’s dialectic.
By using the common trope of the newbie who must be trained, Christopher Nolan teaches us about the nature of his film and all films, and connects that to the dialectic defined by Sartre. As Cobb is training Ariadne on the nature of dream sharing and creation in dreams, he describes the relationship between the dreamer/architect and the subject. In the shared dreams, the architect is the builder of the dream, the creator of the environment. The subject then populates it with his/her subconscious. The people seen in the dream are who the dreamer wants them to be. Additionally, if the architect builds a safe place, like a safe or bank vault, that is where the subject will store their secrets. Within the context of the film, the characters then go to that vault and steal the secret.
This is reflexive of the relationship between the reader and the writer. The writer is the architect. They design the imperatives: houses, trees, streets, cars, in dreams; images and words in literature and film. The reader is the subject. They fill the space with people and secrets in dreams and connections, motivations, and conjectures in film and literature. The subject gives meaning to the environment by populating it, and the reader gives meaning to the manifest by conjecturing, motivating, and connecting. There is therefore a space left for the subject to make his/her own creation, and the relationship between the subject and architect is equalized. This film takes advantage of that dialectic and gives us a meta-lesson in the way films work.
There are various means by which the film draws our attention to how film works the same way as dreams, within the context of the film itself. By first setting up the dialectic of dreams and then drawing attention to that structure, the viewer is made aware of that reflexivity and is given more freedom. Since the viewer understands the nature of dreams within the context of the film, and then is shown the way in which the film is like a dream, they are then more freely able to create within that dialectic. The man behind the curtain is revealed, and then invites the viewer to join him.
To begin with, the film uses dialogue to draw attention to the similarities between what occurs in the film and the dialectic of dreams. The lines are contextual and meta-textual meaning that they make sense both within the scene and as a commentary on the writer/reader relationship. One such line is “Take a leap of faith.”
This is uttered by Mal, who seems to occupy a meta-textual role herself, and is offered to Cobb. She wants him to believe that what they are experiencing is not real, but a dream. The only way out is death. She is also telling us that what we are watching is a dream, a constructed space that we are populating as we experience it. And if, in fact, Dom were to jump and die, the film would be over, as would our dream.
In another scene, Miles chastises Cobb for wanting someone else to help him with his next job. He needs an architect who can help him in the creation of the dreams. He says, “[you want someone to] follow you into your fantasy? Come back to Reality, Dom.”
This is a reminder that this is all a fantasy and a creation. It is also a creation that cannot be made alone. As Cobb needs Ariadne to help him in the creation of the dreams, Nolan needs viewers to aid in the creation of the film. In this, Ariadne represents us watching the film and receiving a tutorial in how dream/film creation works. As she is instructed on what should be done, we are instructed also. One could argue that Nolan is preparing us as an audience for the act of creation that we will be doing in the end.
Perhaps the most telling example is in the line, “We all yearn for reconciliation, for catharsis.”
Catharsis is a term that has been in use in literature since the ancient Greeks. It refers to the emotional release that comes at the end of a piece. In the context of the film they are discussing how they cannot give Fischer his catharsis, his emotional release that will motivate the acceptance of the inception. The dreamer, in this case Fischer, must create that emotional release himself within the space that the architect has created. This is an indication to us of what Nolan will do to us. When the film ends and the film cuts to black before the top topples (or doesn’t) we are left to create our own catharsis, our own emotional release based on how we populate our dream, the space that exists between us and the writer. Ultimately, that chasm is a cathartic space in which we write the end and give ourselves that fulfillment.
Aside from the dialogue that indicates the relationship between the architect/subject and the reader/writer, the overall structure of the film is a lesson in that very thing. The film is structured like a dream and that hearkens us back to that dialectic we are taught to believe. Nolan borrows from the nature of dreams so that the whole film feels like a dream, which in turn is a space for mutual creation. As discussed earlier, the film plops characters, interrupts scenes, and has a non-linear plot structure. These three elements are reflexive of the nature of dreams. In dreams people often appear without any exposition or explanation as to how they arrived or why they are present. When Saito first speaks with Yusuf, there is no introduction. In fact, Saito has not been seen with the rest of the group and Yusuf at all previous to this point. He is just there. This is imitative of the dream, where a person appears without any explanation.
The interrupting of the scene, where the scene starts after the action already has begun is a theme also found in dreams. Cobb says as much when he is speaking with Ariadne in the coffee shop. She, representing us as dreamers/readers, is unable to think of how she arrived at the coffee shop. This occurs in dreams. We find ourselves in a place with no recollection how we got there or how long we have been. We accept it. This works the same in film. Often we are not told how we arrived in a place, but we accept it because of the nature of film, being like dreams, and we have filled the silence with the missing information. So also is Nolan drawing attention once again to that space that exists both in dreams and in films.
The non-linear structure is also indicative of dreams. When we dream we often have events occur out of order. Or we jump back and forth through time. This film starts in a place and time that it returns to at the end. We see Saito and Cobb at the end of their adventure together before we see them at the beginning. We see images of Mal on the balcony before leaping to her death. All of this is acceptable in both dreams and films. In realizing that this is a film we can better take advantage of the space that is left for creation. It is akin to those moments when one moves into lucid dreaming, the moment one recognizes the dream but chooses not to wake up in order to experience the freedom of creation within a dream. Our recognition of the film as a creative space, then frees us to create.
Another aspect of dreams that is also apparent in film is the condensing of time. An important point of the film is that time in the dream is 4 times as fast as the real world , and in each level it increases by that amount. Many can recognize that films condense time for the purpose of the narrative. Even when this film is taking place in the “real” its time is condensed. The months of preparation for the dream-sharing with Fischer take place over the course of a few minutes. Showing the same occurrence in dreams reflects that dream-film connection and again opens the door for creative engagement on the part of the viewer/subject.
That final scene, cutting before the payoff, again draws our attention to the dream-film. One of the most common occurrences in dreams is the waking before it is over. We rarely have any sort of closure in dreams (hence the need to create our own catharsis) and this film mimics that experience by ending the film suddenly without tying up all the loose ends. When the film ends and cuts to black, we wake up. The dream is over. And then we have the remarkable experience of making meaning of the dream, of imagining what could have happened had we only remained asleep for a few more moments. That is where the greatest silence lies, that space after the dream, where the catharsis, the meaning, is all our own.
This is the film’s greatest strength. By structuring the film as a dream, Christopher Nolan makes the audience aware of the dream, and we move from passive viewers to lucid dreamers, dreamers who can populate that dream with our own creation because we know that they are dreams. We see that structure of the dream-film as an invitation to create along with the filmmaker. The space is opened wider than a tense space of conjecture and fulfillment, and becomes a chasm of creativity, where the writer relinquishes total control. The film is left in our hands.
Dreams are a funny place. Film is too. Both utilize space to encourage creation. Christopher Nolan did so to great effect with his film Inception. By looking at the film in relation to Sartre’s concept of the reader/writer dialectic we can see ways that Nolan exploited that dialectic to encourage free play and creation. The film becomes a far richer experience than a simple action flick with a twist ending. It moves beyond the question of whether it is reality or a dream; further than whether the top going to fall or not. It becomes an immersive and participatory exploration of what film is. Or rather, what great film is. Great film does more than just hold our attention for an evening or even a few days. Great film draws us in and gives us the reigns for a minute to steer it where we want. And if it is truly great it will hand them over and jump out of the wagon. Sartre believed that all that humans have that matters is their freedom to choose and therefore a work that gives that to its readers is engendering the greatest good. This is what inspired forty teenagers to stand toe-to-toe with an international blockbuster director as equals, and create in his space.
Bibliography
2001: a Space Odyssey. DVD. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Los Angeles: Warner Home Video, 2001.
Inception. DVD. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Los Angeles: Warner Home Video, 2010.
Jean-paul Sartre, “What is Literature?,” in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2010) 1199-1213.
No Country for Old Men. DVD. Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. Los Angeles: Miramax Home Entertainment, 2008.
The Royal Tenebaums. DVD. Directed by Wes Anderson. Los Angeles: The Criterion Collection, 2002.
Streetcar Named Desire. DVD. Directed by Elia Kazan. Los Angeles:Warner Home Video, 2006.
Vincent B. Leitch “Jean-paul Sartre” in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2010) 1196-1199
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