Daily Dialogue — October 28, 2014

Mal: [Sitting on the ledge, to Cobb] I’m asking you to take a leap of faith.
Cobb: No I can’t. You know I can’t do that. Take a second, think about our children. Think about James. Think about Phillipa now.
Mal: If I go without you they’ll take them away anyways.
Cobb: What does that mean?
Mal: I filed a letter with our attourney explaining how I’m fearful for my safety. How you’ve threatened to kill me.
Cobb: Why did you do that?
Mal: I love you, Dom.
Cobb: Why did you… why-why would you do that?
Mal: I freed you from the guilt of choosing to leave them. We’re going home to our real children.
Cobb: No, no, no, no. Mal you listen to me, alright? Mal look at me, please.
Mal: [Closing her eyes] You’re waiting for a train…
Cobb: Mal, goddammit! Don’t do this!
Mal: A train that will take you far away…
Cobb: James and Phillipa are waiting!
Mal: You know where you hope this train will take you…
Cobb: They’re waiting for us!
Mal: But you can’t know for sure…
Cobb: Mal, look at me!
Mal: Yet it doesn’t matter…
Cobb: Mal, goddammit!
Mal: Because you’ll be together.
Cobb: Sweetheart! Look at me!

Mal jumps off of the ledge.

Cobb: Mal, no! Jesus Christ!

— Inception (2010), written by Christopher Nolan

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Madness. Today’s suggestion by James Schramm.

Trivia: Christopher Nolan first pitched the film to Warner Bros. after the completion of his third feature, Insomnia (2002), and was met with approval from the studio. However, it was not yet written at the time, and Nolan determined that rather than writing it as an assignment, it would be more suitable to his working style if he wrote it as a spec script and then presented it to the studio whenever it was completed. So he went off to write it, thinking it would take “a couple of months”, but it ultimately took nearly eight years.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by James: “Having been led to believe that her world was real while they were in Limbo she is driven mad when Cobb implants the idea that her world is not real. Causing her death literally haunts him throughout the dream stages. Or was she the only sane person and Cobb and the others are still in a dream world where unbelievable things seem to happen?”