Archive Episode - Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) (with Todd McGowan)

Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

To coincide with the recent big-screen release of The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026), the final Fantasy/Animation archive episode of the summer looks back the filmmaker’s science-fiction blockbuster Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) that featured as its special guest Todd McGowan, Professor of Film Studies in the Film and Television Studies Department at the University of Vermont. Todd is the author of a number of books on psychoanalytic film theory, film comedy and popular media, including The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan (2007) and The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2012), and joined Chris and Alex back in 2021 to discuss the fantasy of dreams, Inception’s rhizomatic, mazelike narrative structure, and Nolan’s commitment to puzzling plotlines, the reconstitution of beginnings, and practical effects imagery.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**

**As featured on MillionPodcast’s Best 10 UK Animation Podcasts and Best 60 Movie Podcasts in the UK**

Suggested Readings

  • Althusser, Louis. 1971. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.

  • Attebury, Brian. 1980. The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

  • Barthes, Roland. 1991. S/Z. Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc.

  • Baudry, Jean-Louis. 1974. “Ideological Effects of the Basic. Cinematographic Apparatus.” Film Quarterly 28, no. 2: 39–47.

  • Elsaesser, Thomas. 2009. “The Mind-Game Film.” In Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema, edited by Warren Buckland, 13-41. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

  • Elsaesser, Thomas and Malte Hagener. 2010. “Cinema as Brain – Mind and Body.” In Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses, edited by Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener, 149-169. New York: Routledge.

  • McGowan, Todd. 2007. The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan. Albany: State University of New York Press.

  • McGowan, Todd. 2012. The Fictional Christopher Nolan. Austin: University of Texas Press.

  • Perkins, V.F. 2005. “Where is the world? The horizon of events in movie fiction.” In Style and Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film, edited by John Gibbs and Douglas Pye, 16-41. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

  • Tyrer, Ben. 2018. “VFX as Fantasmatic Supplement in Game of Thrones (2011-).” In Fantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums and Genres, edited by Christopher Holliday and Alexander Sergeant, 91-106. London and New York: Routledge.

  • Wood, Aylish. 2015. “Inception’s Timespaces: An Ecology of Technology.” In Special Effects: New Histories, Theories, Contexts, edited by Dan North, Bob Rehak and Michael Duffy, 254-266. London: BFI/Palgrave.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantDESIRE, ANIMATION, SPECIAL EFFECTS, VISUAL EFFECTS, DREAMS, PSYCHOANALYSIS, HOLLYWOOD, FANTASYComment