The Many Faces of… Cillian Murphy

Overview of the roles and movies of actor Cillian Murphy

So with the weekend about to start it is time to give you another installment of “The Many Faces of…”. This week’s choice is Cillian Murphy. He was born in Douglas in 1976. He went to a catholic school where he performed in a drama. It is something he really liked. He first tried to become a rock star as he played guitar. He later became interested in acting again and acted in a play at University College Cork. He started acting professionally in 1996 in a play called Disco Pigs. He started appearing in small movies in 1997 and also the BBC television miniseries The Way We Live Now. His first big movie was Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and this he appeared in Hollywood movies like Cold Mountain and GIrl with a Pearl Earring. With his role in the Batman movies as Dr. Jonathan Crane a wider audience noticed him (he originally was asked to audition for the role of Bruce Wayne). Continue reading

Inception (2010)

The essence of a movie can usually be described in one sentence, which gives you enough information to get a feeling what the movie is about. This sentence has been formed based on an idea. When that idea has been thought up the script writer start expanding on it. Together with set builders and many other people involved in preparation they are the architects who create the world in which the movie will be set. This can be a single room or many locations, anything is possible.

When preparation is done the director and actors step into the world and take care in filling in all the small details. They do this by improvising, making changes to scenes or shooting it a specific way. All this takes places within the confines of the concept for the movie.
When the movie finally has been edited, it’s up to the person that goes to the cinema to step into this temporary reality. If the movie is a good one you’ll disappear in it, the world around you no longer exists and you forget that you are sitting in a chair at the cinema. You are actually in the place that is shown on the screen. The ending of the movie is the shock that takes you back to reality. If the movie was powerful and had some messages that resonate with your own ideas they might even become part of your own values. If that’s the case, the whole team behind making the movie has made a masterpiece.

Inception uses this concept, but instead of movies they use this on dreams. Christopher Nolan ( Following, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight) shows his vision on what’s possible in your dreams, but has he managed to create a masterpiece? Continue reading