Dream Theory plays a huge part during the shooting of Vanilla Sky, but what can we take from this film starring Tom Cruise?
David Ames (Tom Cruise), a rich and handsome man, owned all the average guy could dream about – money, fame, publishing, an amazing girlfriend in Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz).
He then gets the heritage and the business of his father with all rights and benefits. That’s how he lived until, at one point, he met the charming Sofia.
His now ex-girlfriend Julie arranges a scene of jealousy. She invited him into the car to discuss their relations. However, Julie intended to commit suicide in a car accident.
She died, Daniel stayed alive but fell into a coma. After a while, he woke up with a disfigured face, covered with a mask. An attempt to get closer to former friends and Sofia fails. The scars and pain after the injury do not allow David to live his full life.
In desperation, he decides on an extremely risky operation, and it succeeds. He comes to his senses with a beautiful face. Life gets a trivial flow until his reality and visions begin to merge.
Sky’s The Limit
In 2001, Cameron Crowe released this unusual film into cinema. It was only amusing for people, who adored the experiments with the plot and as time went on it was gradually loved by millions up to the present day.
Vanilla Sky is that onscreen flick with the romantic name and promising cast (Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Penélope Cruz for a second).
To all behind with the value of the idea – it encloses the deep understanding of life and how blind we are, living it in line with social perceptions.
The Original
A few only know that Vanilla Sky was a remake of Spanish film, Abre Los Ojos, directed by Alejandro Amenábar.
But Vanilla Sky managed some particular perspectives that belong within this genre.
The structure of a dream means that the plot leaves the normal lines in the way of a character illusion.
However, the director intends to force us to lose all clear thoughts and believe the dream is reality.
Dream Structure
The dreaming structure camouflages itself as the plot. The idea to declare the story in the dream technique is simple.
Like a skeleton, it grounded the future direction of the plot by developing it. And the plot itself is a source of what a skeleton fulfils.
The technique of a dream or illusion allows managing the viewers’ awareness. The fact is that reality loses its edges, and we can’t affirm the moment to ourselves where the illusion begins.
The team of creators decided to pretend, showing how difficult it is to figure out where the dream begins and life ends.
Therefore, you need to look as carefully as possible not to miss these lines. We realise the intertwined storylines and two different finals as well.
In the first one, the live version, David dies after he couldn’t withstand the pressure. In the second version, his life is ongoing in happy hours with Sofia, being still handsome with a renewed appearance.
The perfectness has its dark side, and the nightmare of Julie and the past follows him until he passes away falling from the roof of a building.
As a result in both finals, he dies via suicide. But the process of substituting life encompasses the dream in what all we live until the accident or event happens to us or our closest people.
The Plot of Dreams
The last thing to mention when discussing Vanilla Sky is the plot of dreams, which often speaks on serious topics such as death, hopelessness and love, but without traumatising the viewers.
It is all determined by the genre and conception of the film. A tender David’s dream turned into a nightmare in a second as it was not perfect.
However, it reflects illusions we sometimes trust even more than internal feelings.
Dream big with this next read:
Support us!
All your donations will be used to pay the magazine’s journalists and to support the ongoing costs of maintaining the site.
Share this post
Interested in co-operating with us?
We are open to co-operation from writers and businesses alike. You can reach us on our email at [email protected]/[email protected] and we will get back to you as quick as we can.
