Behind The Scenes Of Inception

Delving into Nolan’s mental mindscape

By Total FilmJan 31st 2012
3

Original Thinking

Yet for all its ingenuity, Memento was a $5m movie that played out in seedy California bars, motel rooms and parking lots.

Inception is an A-grade production, with a $160m budget and multiple locations including Tokyo, Tangier, London and Los Angeles. Not so much Memento’s big brother as its considerably wealthier cousin, it’s certainly the most ambitious effort Nolan has attempted in his already stellar career.

In a typical summer of sequels, videogame adaps and remakes, Inception’s USP was all about WTF originality. Made all the more tantalising by the veil of mystery that surrounds it, it’s probably the best-kept studio secret since Inception’s financiers Warner Bros launched The Matrix on us in 1999, a year before Memento hit screens.

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    • FBJJohnson

      Jan 31st 2012, 12:40

      I'm pretty sure Marion Cotillard's character name was Mal, not Lisa.

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    • MattMaytum

      Jan 31st 2012, 13:56

      ^ Well-spotted, that has been amended now.

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    • SiMan

      Jan 31st 2012, 14:57

      This is what i want from a summer blockbuster. Amazing visuals, engaging story but enough intelligence to make you feel like you're being spoken to as an adult rather than just having things explode for no reason. What are the chances that this will become the norm though? Have there been any other truly intelligent blockbusters since Inception?

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    • Ali1748

      Jan 31st 2012, 17:27

      I still can't believe Hans Zimmer didn't win an Oscar for his score work on Inception.

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    • nkutzler

      Jan 31st 2012, 18:21

      I can't say I know why this feature was just made, but I love it nonetheless. Especially because I was talking about Inception when I opened Totalfilm.

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    • aleks989

      Jan 31st 2012, 21:20

      I am in love with the architecture of the mind of Chris Nolan.

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    • drbond1978

      Feb 1st 2012, 9:59

      Would like to know the inspiration for the empty city/tower blocks and decaying cliffs - def have a Ballardian edge

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    • Hadouken76

      Feb 2nd 2012, 12:20

      Surely it should have been a 'best adapted screenplay' nom, seeing how Memento was adapted from his brothers' short story 'Memento Mori'. But how can you take the Oscars seriously, when they give one to Akiva 'Batman and Robin' Goldmans for a fabricated and bowdlerised version of John Nash' life and Diablo Cody for a screenplay where everyone talks in sound bites?

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