Roger Ebert and Plain Style: A Review of the Review (Inception)

By Jonathon Brueggeman

        When reading through Roger Ebert’s personal, published review of the film Inception, it is immediately apparent why this particular reviewer has become synonymous with the term “film critic”—his language and analysis relates to a vast array of potential readers. However, this ocean of possible audience members seems paradoxical when you consider the fact that Ebert is essentially only telling his audience about his own experience with the film. He does not generalize the viewing to mass appeal, rather he crafts his review solely around his own experience and how he interpreted the film.

            Herein lies the beauty of plain style. In direct opposition of its big-headed brother “official style”, plain style exists as a medium where many different people can access certain information. Instead of being locked behind a barrier of jargon and deep contextual knowledge, plain style opens the gates of information and allows the masses to pour in. This concept is shown explicitly in Ebert’s review of Inception.

            In respect to the format of the review itself, I will not needlessly drone on about the benefits of plain style. The review will show exactly why plain style is so crucial in creating and engaging narrative and appealing to the most amount of people possible, though obviously not a limitless audience. Ebert uses plain and creative style strategies in order to create a captivating review that expresses his opinion of Inception to everyone concerned with (possibly) seeing the film.

            To begin, Ebert comes out swinging with a simple metaphor and immediately engages the audience with the use of first-person pronouns.

            [It] must have involved prodigious concentration, like playing blindfold chess while walking a tight-wire …Nolan tests us with his own dazzling maze.

            Right from the get-go, the audience of his article is captivated by his interesting, colorful use of language that also includes them in the conversation through his reference to “us”. The importance of this acknowledgement of community cannot be overstated. In official style, this sentence would likely read: “Because of the depth of the screenplay, the film is interesting to attempt to solve.” Blah, blah, blah. I bored myself just trying to think of the monotonous way an official style user would bastardize such a well-stated idea. By using figurative language, the reader immediately as an image of the task at hand and the complexity and sheer awe of the film in discussion.

            The story can either be told in a few sentences, or not told at all. Here is a movie immune to spoilers: If you knew how it ended, that would tell you nothing unless you knew how it got there. And telling you how it got there would produce bafflement

            Rather than jumping from his introduction directly into the summary of the plot, Ebert takes a second to let the astonishment of the movie settle in. He talks about Inception as if it is an experience rather than just a film. This connection would be impossible without the use of plain and creative styles. Ebert could have certainly begun his second paragraph with: “Dominic Cobb is a man who…” and proceeded to lay out a brief outline of the plot at hand. He doesn’t do that. The drama is allowed to marinate—the audience of his review can sense just how much this movie blew him away from three succinct sentences. It is also important to note that Ebert addresses Inception as a film “immune to spoilers”, but he goes out of his way to reveal as little of the plot as possible. Sure, this is the courteous thing to do, but I would argue that a piece written in official style may overlook this courtesy in favor of a deeper analysis of the film. Plain style allows Ebert to be vague in revealing the plot but oh so concrete in his description of his emotions and his experience watching the movie.

            The hero explains that you can never remember the beginning of a dream, and that dreams that seem to cover hours may only last a short time. Yes, but you don't know that when you're dreaming. And what if you're inside another man's dream? How does your dream time synch with his? What do you really know? 

            This excerpt is another perfect moment of plain style usage. Ebert brings up some monumental questions that the film challenged him to think about…but he doesn’t bother with answering them. Those are just details! He is not concerned with the questions themselves but rather the fact that the movie caused him to think them in the first place. By using official style, Ebert is allowed to branch off and ask himself big questions without feeling bogged down in the need to answer them. A piece written in a more official style would be obligated to explain something that was just brought up, but Ebert, because of his use of plain style, is allowed some space to just brainstorm ideas and show the audience what the film made him think.

            In the next paragraphs of the review, Ebert abandons the use of first person that I have so highly praised in favor of third person analysis. However, I would argue that this was the correct decision under the circumstances. This is because the paragraphs mostly summarize the events of the film in brief sentences that do not deal with his reactions or emotions during his own viewing. He is playing a dangerous game here because breaking the flow of his review with a complete shift in perspective into a more official style is risky, but it pays off incredibly well. Ebert uses these moments of official style to get the boring summary out of the way so he can get right back into the meat of his review—how Inception made him feel.

            So skilled is Nolan that he actually got me involved in one of his chases, when I thought I was relatively immune to scenes that have become so standard. That was because I cared about who was chasing and being chased. 

            In this quote is an important parallel between the review and the use of plain style: personal connection matters. In place of the monotonous droning provided in nearly every use of the official style that is plagued with prepositional phrases and useless filler, plain style, and Ebert himself, connect with the audience through the succinct descriptions of raw emotion. He does not care about the chase scene because of its technical prowess. I do not care about film analysis because it sounds technical—I care because of the way it makes me feel, just as Ebert feels connected with the characters and the film, I feel connected with the use of plain style.

            More I will not (in a way, cannot) say.

            Need I say more about this beautiful use of plain style? Only briefly. Ebert’s use of plain style and ambiguity is perfectly used here because he does not spoil any important plot elements within the story, and he also conveys the fact that he may not be physically able to say more about the plot because of the hurdles he has yet to overcome. To conclude his review, Ebert provides the audience with an essential use of plain style through his inclusion of first person pronouns:

            I think when Nolan left the labyrinth, he threw away the map.

            This final line accomplishes a few things. First, the fact that Nolan’s story is ambitious and unlike anything previously charted in the realm of film. Second, this analysis and review is strictly what Ebert thinks. It is nobody’s opinion except his own. Finally, the use of the metaphor  “labyrinth” helps prepare the audience for the complexities of the film that they have yet to see.

            All in all, this review exists as a perfect encapsulation of how plain style can be infinitely more accessible and well crafted than if the same piece was written in official style. Sure, there are some losses such as complexity and depth of analysis, but these losses are completely overshadowed by the benefits of: increased viewership and emotional attachment to the author and their opinion. Not every piece would work in plain style, but when one works as well as this one, sometimes its important to take a step back and appreciate the beauty in its simplicity and accessibility.