© DR - INCEPTION de Christopher Nolan -(2010) Fin par tellurikwaves blog (75 Paris)

Showing all 62 items

Jump to: Cameo (1) | Director Trademark (1) | Spoilers (4)

If you take the first letters of the main characters' names - Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur, Mal and Saito - they spell "Dreams". If you add Peter, Ariadne and Yusuf, the whole makes "Dreams Pay", which is what they do for a mind thief.

When Cobb gave Ariadne the puzzle test, Ariadne's final solution was a diagram of King Minos' Labyrinth. Ariadne is the name of King Minos' daughter in the same mythology.

In an interview with 'Entertainment Weekly', Christopher Nolan explained that he based roles of the Inception team similar to roles that are used in filmmaking - Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer, Ariadne is the production designer, Eames is the actor, Saito is the studio, and Fischer is the audience. "In trying to write a team-based creative process, I wrote the one I know," said Nolan.

The running time of 2 hours 28 min is a reference to the original length of Édith Piaf's song "Non, je ne regrette rien", which lasts (on its first recorded edition) 2 minutes 28 seconds.

The role of Saito was written exclusively for Ken Watanabe because Christopher Nolan felt that although he had appeared in Batman Begins (2005), he did not have much screen time, and should therefore be given a more prominent supporting role.

"Yusuf" is the Arabic form of "Joseph", the Biblical figure from Genesis 37-50, who had the gift of interpreting dreams. He was sold out by his brothers to slavery. Through his gift of dream interpretation he helped Pharaoh to prepare for the disaster of the "seven lean years" and was rewarded as a result. The same story is also told in the Koran.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt performed all but one of his own stunts during the fight scene in the spinning hallway.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt went to his audition after a brief character summary, wearing a full suit "just in case", unknowingly matching his character's wardrobe perfectly.

The fifth Christopher Nolan movie (out of the seven) to enter the IMDb Top 250, along with Memento (2000), Batman Begins (2005), Le prestige (2006), The Dark Knight: Le chevalier noir (2008).

Kate Winslet was approached for the role of Mal, but turned it down, citing that she couldn't see herself as the character.

The Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne regrette rien" is used as a plot device. Marion Cotillard played Piaf in La môme (2007). Christopher Nolan has stated that this is "pure coincidence". After Cotillard was cast Nolan intended to change the song to eliminate speculation on the subject, but composer Hans Zimmer persuaded him to keep it.

A direct translation of the lyrics for the song "Non, je ne regrette rien" as performed by Édith Piaf is: "I regret nothing/no, I have no regrets/I regret neither the good things that were done to me nor the bad things/They are all the same to me/...The past is payed, swept away, forgotten/I don't care of the past anymore/I set my memories on fire/My agonies, and my pleasures/I don't need them any more/Swept away in the agonies of love/Swept away forever, I'm restarting with nothing..." Christopher Nolan has made a point of saying that he chose the song specifically for the movie, which is heavily concerned with the effect of memories on the psyche, and specifically the disastrous effect that not letting go of memories of love-gone-wrong can have on the subconscious--exactly what the song discusses. Also of note: in the original French, "I regret neither the good things done to me nor the bad things" is "Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait ni le mal," and since Cobb's wife is named Mal, that gives the line a double meaning.

There is a series of numbers that keep appearing, on the front of the train the number is 3502, the taxi number is 2305 and the hotel room number is 5302.

The slow, gloomy, blaring trombones in the main theme of the film score are actually based on an extremely slowed down version of the fast, high pitched trumpets in the beginning of the Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne regrette rien," which is used as a plot device in the film. Furthermore, when music is heard by someone who is currently within a dream, the music is perceived as slowed down. Thus, the main theme of the film score is almost exactly what the beginning of "Non, je ne regrette rien" would sound like to a dreamer. This thematic device is brought to its logical conclusion when the song plays at the end of the credits, signaling that the audience is about to 'wake up' from the film.

Dom Cobb's main objective is to get Home. His name, Dom, literally means 'home' in most Slavic languages. The root word "*dom" comes from the Latin word "Domus". Words like 'Domesticated' and 'Domicile' all share the same "*dom" root.

Christopher Nolan first pitched the film to Warner Bros. after the completion of his third feature, Insomnia (2002), and was met with approval from the studio. However, it was not yet written at the time, and Nolan determined that rather than writing it as an assignment, it would be more suitable to his working style if he wrote it as a spec script and then presented it to the studio whenever it was completed. So he went off to write it, thinking it would take "a couple of months", but it ultimately took nearly eight years.

According to Cinematographer Wally Pfister, Warner Brothers executives approached Christopher Nolan about making the film in 3D, but he refused the idea, claiming "it will distract the storytelling experience of Inception".

Marion Cotillard's character is called 'Mal', short for name 'Malorie', a name derived from French word 'malheur', meaning misfortune or unhappiness. The shorter version 'mal' means wrong/bad or evil (when a noun) in French, as well as some other Latin-based languages.

In spite of the films extensive surreal effects sequences, the majority special effects throughout the film, such as the Penrose stairs, rotating hallway, mountain avalanche, and zero gravity sequences, were created through practical methods, not through the use of computer generated imagery. The film only has around 500 visual effect shots, as opposed to most other visual effects epics which can have upwards of 2000 VFX shots.

During production, details of the film's plot were kept secret. Christopher Nolan, who wrote the script, cryptically described it as a contemporary sci-fi action thriller "set within the architecture of the mind."

One of the reasons why Christopher Nolan cast Tom Hardy as Eames was because of his performance in the film Rock'n Rolla (2008). Hardy stated that he thought he was cast because of his role in Bronson (2008). He arrived on set only to learn that Nolan has never even seen Bronson.

Just like Christopher Nolan's previous movie The Dark Knight: Le chevalier noir (2008), no second unit team was hired for making the movie. All the shots were filmed by Nolan himself with his usual DP Wally Pfister.

The name of the character Cobb references Henry N. Cobb, an American architect notable for designing skyscrapers. The world Cobb and Mal made in Limbo consists mostly of skyscrapers.

The running time of the movie INCEPTION in DVD is exactly 8888 seconds.

Despite prominent billing, Michael Caine only gets three minutes of screentime.

When explaining why he thinks implanting an idea is not possible, Arthur says "don't think about elephants" to actually make Saito think of them and thus "insert" an idea into his mind. The line is a reference to the title of a famous cognitive semantics book, 'Don't Think of an Elephant' by George Lakoff. The book describes conceptual framing, the use of certain words to literally insert certain ideas about a subject into the listener's mind in a surreptitious way, e.g. implanting the idea that taxes are a bad thing by using the phrase "tax relief."

In the city scene on the first level of the dream with Fischer, the state motto on the license plates of the cars reads "The Alternate State".

Contrary to popular belief, Hans Zimmer did not compose the music that appears in the third trailer for this film. The track, titled "Mind Heist", was actually composed by Zack Hemsey.

Evan Rachel Wood was Christopher Nolan's first choice to play Ariadne, but she turned it down. Before Ellen Page was offered and accepted the role, Nolan considered casting Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jessy Schram, Taylor Swift and Carey Mulligan.

Just as Cillian Murphy's character was named Robert Fischer as a tribute to champion chess player Bobby Fischer, his father's (Pete Postlethwaite) character is named Maurice Fischer as an homage to artist M.C. Escher (full name Maurits Cornelis Escher), whose art was clearly an inspiration for many of the special effects in the film.

The exterior of Fischer's snow fortress is based on, and actually contains some elements of, the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego, designed by famed futurist architect William L. Pereira.

A series of numbers keeps appearing: the number that Fischer gives Cobb/Arthur is 528491, The two hotel rooms used are rooms 528 and 491, the number that Eames (as a woman) gives to Fischer is 528-491, the combination to the strongroom starts with 52, and the combination to the safe is 528-491. This is all to reinforce the importance of the number throughout the film.

The "Penrose stairs" (with a woman perpetually picking up papers) that Arthur shows Ariadne is a reference to a lithograph print by the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. The print is usually called "Ascending and Descending" or "The Infinite Staircase", and was first printed in March 1960; Escher is well-known for his drawings exploring optical illusions and real architectural, mathematical, and philosophical principles rendered in fantastical ways.

Ariadne, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and his queen, Pasiphaë. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur by giving him a ball of red fleece thread that she was spinning, so that he could find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth. The name is also a reference to Hugo von Hofmannsthal's setting of the myth for Richard Strauss's opera Live from the Metropolitan Opera: Ariadne auf Naxos (1988). The opera is a play within a play, just as the movie is a dream within a dream.

The Hollywood Reporter reported that Brad Pitt and Will Smith were separately offered to play the role of Cobb, but both actors passed on the role.

Christopher Nolan's first film since his feature debut, Following - Le suiveur (1998), that is a completely original work. All of his films between them are either remakes or based on comics, novels or short stories.

The IMAX 65mm format was earlier considered, as used in The Dark Knight: Le chevalier noir (2008), but it was eventually ruled out due to extensive hand-held camera usage throughout the shoot. Due to its weight, it cannot be operated hand-held.

The character of Eames is named after Charles Eames and Ray Eames, a married couple well known in the fields of furniture design, buildings architecture and avant-garde / documentary filmmaking.

CINEMA :Les blessures narcissiques d'une vie par procuration

© DR - INCEPTION de Christopher Nolan -(2010) Fin