How Props are Used to Create Meaning.

In Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film Inception, props are used heavily to immerse the audience in the story and to add meaning to our understanding of the main character.

The first use of props in the film is when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Cobb is taken by the enemies and the only two items on him are a gun and a spinning top. These two props are the binary opposition of each other, as one connotes childhood and innocence; whereas the other is associated with adulthood and violence. This symbolises how Cobb is always trapped between two worlds- the dream world and reality.

The gun is used in a very functional way, but the spinning top is contextual; it would be of no significance without the meaning that the narrative gives it. The spinning top shows us the instability of the character, and also is used to create suspense in those moments where we are waiting to see if it will topple or not.

Props are also used to help ground us in our setting, this becomes extremely important as a viewer as the film enters the more complex part of the narrative. As the settings are quite different, the props vary in each level of the dream state. For example, whenever we see the van, we know that we are on the first layer of the dream.

The van is also an important prop in the story, as it is used as the kick to pull them out of the dream.