Latest / All The Right Movies / Inception (2010) | Ep. 4 - Part 1
Transcript
- 0:04All the right movies. What's the most resilient
- 0:08parasite? An idea.
- 0:15An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules, which
- 0:23is why. I have to steal it.
- 0:29Never recreate from your memory. Always imagine new places.
- 0:37He's hiding something and we need to find out what that is.
- 0:43We got to break out of here. Give.
- 0:45Him the kick this one. 'S.
- 0:50Not a part of the plane. Wake me out.
- 0:52Wake Me Out, Christopher Nolan's Inception
- 1:05was released in 2010 to a critical and commercial response
- 1:08rarely afforded summer blockbusters.
- 1:11A time twisting tale of my manipulation in Dream Theft.
- 1:14It was an instant classic, a box office smash, and cemented Nolan
- 1:17State as the biggest event movie maker this century.
- 1:20My name is John and I'm here with Matt.
- 1:22Forgive me for wanting a little specificity games specificity.
- 1:27And Westie. You mustn't be afraid to dream a
- 1:30little bigger, darling. We get reality.
- 1:33All the right movies are talking paradoxes, subconscious security
- 1:36and inception. It's perfectly possible.
- 1:39It's just bloody difficult. Hello and welcome to All the
- 2:02Right Movies. A podcast within a podcast
- 2:06within a podcast within a podcast.
- 2:08I'm lost already on classic and hit films.
- 2:12Today we're looking at Christopher Nolan's time
- 2:15bending, mind bending inception. And as ever, we'll have laughs
- 2:18and opinions that are a dream come true as we bring you the
- 2:21making of story behind a modern science fiction classic.
- 2:25Just before we start off, for anybody that doesn't know, all
- 2:27the Right movies are on Patreon. So if you like our podcast and
- 2:31would like access to bonus episodes and our full archive of
- 2:34all their episodes, you should check out patreon.com/all the
- 2:38Right Movies. Yes, it definitely should, yeah.
- 2:42Lots of good stuff on there. So back to reality.
- 2:46Its inception. Why are we talking about the
- 2:48film Westie? Is it Chris Nolan's best film?
- 2:52I think it is. Is it one of my favorite films?
- 2:54It definitely is. Is it still really engaging now,
- 2:5710 years later? Of course it is.
- 2:59It's about psychology, it's about architecture, it's about
- 3:01artwork, it's about Francis Baig and MCS.
- 3:03It's got red wine in it, it's got salad in it.
- 3:05It's got expensive watches in it.
- 3:07It's got gunfights in it. It's got suits in it.
- 3:09It's got fistfights in it. It's got an ambiguous end in it.
- 3:12It looks excellent, looks really expensive, and I'm very excited
- 3:14about this. That's it.
- 3:17That's the podcast, don't I think, isn't it?
- 3:18And if you'd like to tune in next week?
- 3:23Well, for me, I like pretty much everything Nolan's done, and
- 3:26Inception is no exception to that.
- 3:29It has just about everything I want in a blockbuster, to be
- 3:32honest. High concept, which seems crazy
- 3:34on the surface, but it's grounded in some sort of reality
- 3:36and logic. It has personal, unrelatable
- 3:39character drama to make you care about the spectacle when it
- 3:41arrives. And boy, does that spectacle
- 3:44arrive. We have not one, but two, count
- 3:47them, two revolving sets in Inception.
- 3:50Yeah, it's crazy. It's small, there's some
- 3:52impressive filmmaking going on. It's hugely ambitious.
- 3:55And because of all that, there is lots to get into.
- 3:57Oh. Yeah.
- 3:59And Matt, what about you? Yeah.
- 4:00So when this came out, it's fair to say that me and Wesley were
- 4:03very, very excited about it. Yeah, I remember that.
- 4:06Wesley still is. Obviously, yeah.
- 4:08Can you tell? And we have plans to go see it
- 4:12on opening day. But for whatever reason, we
- 4:14couldn't get our Diaries to sync up.
- 4:16I think I was working. So I said Wesley, you just go
- 4:18see it, but let me know as soon as you're out.
- 4:20We weren't that busy 10 years ago when you're.
- 4:23Well, something was going on. Couple of social butterflies.
- 4:28I didn't even have a diary. So he sends me the text after
- 4:32saying that all that text said was top 10.
- 4:35Yeah. Same shit now.
- 4:38He hasn't changed listener, so I want to see if it's still in his
- 4:42top ten. But on a personal level, I mean,
- 4:45this film has so much ambition and it has so much scale and
- 4:50it's event cinema. And this just saw a few films
- 4:53that when you come out of them, you would happily go straight
- 4:56back in and watch it all over again just to see how it all
- 4:59comes together. And it's got that little
- 5:01sprinkling of ambiguity in there as well.
- 5:04And I can't wait to get into it. It's absolutely massive.
- 5:06Sprinkling It's a punch in the face, but we'll get to that.
- 5:12Before we go down below the key deals on the movie, the
- 5:15Inception was produced by Legendary Pictures and Syncope,
- 5:17distributed by Warner Brothers and released on July 16th, 2010.
- 5:22Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, produced by
- 5:24Nolan and Emma Thomas, it was filmed in Tokyo, the UK, France,
- 5:28Morocco, Canada and the US and the main cast Leonardo DiCaprio,
- 5:32Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion
- 5:35Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Killian Murphy and Michael Caine.
- 5:39Obviously, obviously. Should we head into Nolan's
- 5:42dream world then? Yeah, let's go for it.
- 5:45OK. We're talking the start of
- 5:46Inception and that's coming up next.
- 5:49Good night, boys. Dramatic, the music and
- 6:01inception. Isn't it?
- 6:01Yeah, of course it is. That ramps the tension up
- 6:03exactly when it needs to, and then it's really a motive when
- 6:05it needs to be. It's just how big it is.
- 6:13Deciding that the concept of Inception wasn't confusing
- 6:15enough, Northern starts the movie where it ends and we see
- 6:18Leonardo Dicaprio's Dom Cobb trying to extract info from the
- 6:22dreams of Ken Watanabe's Saito in an action-packed opener.
- 6:25We're going to talk about Cobb recruiting his team after Saito
- 6:28hires him, but we're starting with that opening sequence.
- 6:31The beginning of Inception introduces us to subconscious
- 6:34security and dream theft, as well as two of our main
- 6:36characters in Cobb and Joseph Gordon Levitt's author.
- 6:40So, Westie, how was this for an opening sequence?
- 6:42Oh, it's supervenant. I mean, from the opening shot,
- 6:45just that close up of the water and the soundtrack.
- 6:48When I saw this in IMAX, I was just immediately saw the shot of
- 6:51the ocean and I was like, well, this is massive even from a
- 6:53close up and that lovely set. And you just think this has got
- 6:57such an elegance to it. It's got such a grandeur to it.
- 6:59It's such a huge scale. And when Moles, then she's
- 7:03looking at the painting, which was done by Francis Bacon, which
- 7:06I mentioned at the top, that was painted for his ex lover who
- 7:09died and he wanted to keep him in his reality, so he made that
- 7:12payment for him. So that's the significance of
- 7:14that. And one of the coolest things
- 7:15that I've seen, I've never seen in any film since or before is
- 7:18DiCaprio catching them shells so they don't make any noise into
- 7:22the further dream state, you know, and he's shooting the gun
- 7:24and he's just catching that. I was like, that's just fucking
- 7:26cool. As ice pops.
- 7:27It's a really brilliant, brilliant opening.
- 7:30I agree. I think it's really, really good
- 7:31as well. I think one of the purposes of
- 7:33an opening sequence is to almost encapsulate the film as a whole,
- 7:36to set our expectation for what's coming.
- 7:38An Inception does that great narratively, it moves like a
- 7:41rocket. You need to pay attention to
- 7:43every frame, every line, or you're lost.
- 7:45When the spectacle comes, it's big and it's inventive, and
- 7:48there's enough exposition in this 1st 15 minutes to power an
- 7:51entire film. And we get introduced to Carb
- 7:54Arthur, Sightwood Mall. So this opening sets audience
- 7:57expectation for what's to come perfectly, all the while being
- 8:00interesting and exciting. I'm in right from the off.
- 8:03Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's a great opening,
- 8:06isn't it? Because right from the start,
- 8:07Nolan is pretty much daring yet to keep up with him.
- 8:10You know, he's not going to give you the same piece of
- 8:13information twice. You know, I don't mind
- 8:15admitting. I think it was probably my third
- 8:17viewing of this that I finally realised what the significance
- 8:19is of that line about the rug. Yeah.
- 8:22Yeah. First couple, I was like, why?
- 8:23Why is he going on about a rug? Because, I mean, it's not The
- 8:25Big Lebowski, you know, do not, do not get the importance of
- 8:29that. It's not tying this room
- 8:30together. I'll tell you that one.
- 8:31Tying these dreams together. So I love all that.
- 8:36I love how he's just straight in there.
- 8:37Keep up with him if you can. And what I really, really get
- 8:41out of the sequence and it always just makes me happy
- 8:43seeing it is how lo fi everything seems for this
- 8:47massive concept, like to wake to cap you up, that slow, more shot
- 8:51of him tied to a chair falling backwards into a bath of water.
- 8:54It's so ingenious, but it's so simple.
- 8:57And I just love how the kit itself, it just comes in a
- 8:59suitcase. They're not in like cryogenic
- 9:02tubes or a chamber or something like that.
- 9:04All you need is in a suitcase and they can go off on their
- 9:07own. It all seems very kind of low.
- 9:08Fine, I love that. Yeah, the suitcase thing is so
- 9:10simple. That's surely called the dream
- 9:12machine, surely. Got to be it's not made by
- 9:16Tommy. It's a bit more serious than
- 9:22that. But this opening sequence is the
- 9:25point in the film that we meet a major character in Saito, played
- 9:28by Ken Watanabe. He sets a story in motion by
- 9:31asking Cobb to perform Inception on his business rival Robert
- 9:33Fischer, played by Killian Murphy, and offering Cobb a way
- 9:36back home to his children. If he succeeds, how do you think
- 9:39Ken Watanabe does? Is Saito in the film?
- 9:42I think he's great. I think he's totally believable.
- 9:45He's got such an elegance to the character that you just you kind
- 9:48of believe his position and he's just got that real kind of power
- 9:51and a real pro S to him. And I love like the all the
- 9:54makeup and everything and the way he's aged.
- 9:56And then when he acts that again, that's really believable.
- 9:59So he brings this real weight again to the character, which
- 10:02really works. To answer your question, yeah,
- 10:04won't now be fits in there absolutely perfectly.
- 10:07In terms of Watanabe, I think he adds a certain weight to the
- 10:09story and being Japanese adds to the feel of it being a James
- 10:12Bond style globe crotting adventure.
- 10:14I think I know that Nolan wrote the part of site it was
- 10:16specifically for Watanabe because he felt that even though
- 10:19Watanabe had been in Batman Begins, he didn't have as much
- 10:22screen time as Nolan would have liked.
- 10:23So yeah, I think he's a really good inclusion in the cast.
- 10:26He just classes up the joint, doesn't he?
- 10:28He really does. That man is so she a class and
- 10:31he's no different here. I like how he's introduced and
- 10:34you're not actually sure kind of what he is.
- 10:35He seems like you could be a gangster with all those kind of
- 10:38minions around him. The thing I find really
- 10:40effective is how it sets him up. I feel like it's set him up for
- 10:44you to believe that he's going to be the antagonist in this
- 10:46film. I think you're supposed to doubt
- 10:48whether he's going to follow through on this pledge to cop or
- 10:50not. But as the film goes on, I think
- 10:53he becomes really, really likeable, and he becomes such
- 10:55like a main part of that group that when he gets injured in the
- 10:58dream, I think you really want him to get out.
- 11:00Nothing really cared about side or on that level.
- 11:02Yeah, he's great. I really really like his
- 11:04performance in this. From that surreal opener, Cobb
- 11:11agrees to one last job and starts to recruit the rest of
- 11:14the team who will help him and Arthur perform Inception in the
- 11:17next few sequences. We head to Paris, then Kenya to
- 11:19meet Ellen Pages, Ariadne and Tom Hardy's Eames.
- 11:23What do we think of the scenes in Paris between Cobb and
- 11:26Ariadne, first of all? The first thing that I think is
- 11:29really impressive about this scene is how Nolan is playing
- 11:33with film grammar. Because when he goes from
- 11:36talking to Ariadne in the college and then to the dream,
- 11:39it just feels like a totally normal cut you get in any other
- 11:42film between scenes. Like if you think of Indiana
- 11:45Jones, The Last Crusade, when Indy and Marcus have met Elsa,
- 11:49and just tell them about the museum, which is in the show,
- 11:52looks like library, and then it cuts them in the library, still
- 11:54talking. You totally buy that.
- 11:56That's his film grammar. That's how editing works.
- 11:58But what Nolan does, he uses that, but then he turns it on
- 12:01his head by telling you, well, actually, that has just cut us
- 12:04to a dream. And just like Ariadne, you're
- 12:06completely in the dark and artist saying it's so clever the
- 12:09way he's done it. And I love how once she realizes
- 12:12she's in the dream, she gets really like, giddy and excited
- 12:15by the concept. And the camera becomes like a
- 12:17bit more handheld, a bit more looser, like emphasizes,
- 12:20actually, this is quite a dangerous thing she's being
- 12:22sucked into. And she's kind of way overhead
- 12:24despite all this talent she's got.
- 12:26So I think it's a really, really effective way of introducing her
- 12:29character and just explaining more about what she's going to
- 12:32bring to the team. I think it's great.
- 12:34Paris, or as Nolan calls it, Exposition City.
- 12:39I'm not sure I've ever seen a sequence as much exposition
- 12:41crammed into it as Carbon, Ariadne and Called The Dream,
- 12:44but to be honest, I do think Nolan does it brilliantly.
- 12:47If you're feeding a lot of exposition, I think you have to
- 12:48justify it by making the scene visually interesting, which is
- 12:51why we often see exposition in action scenes.
- 12:54And this isn't an action scene and it's literally non-stop
- 12:57expository dialogue for over 10 minutes.
- 12:59But when you're talking about visually interesting, this is
- 13:01just a master class. The moment our yard near turns
- 13:04the city on top of itself is ridiculous.
- 13:07One of the most recognizable images in the last 10 years.
- 13:10And also The thing is Cobbs telling our yard near and us
- 13:12about how it all works I just find fascinating.
- 13:15I think this is one of my favorite exposition scenes.
- 13:18Everyone's got a favorite exposition scene.
- 13:20Right, of course. Top 10.
- 13:24Yeah, it's superb. I love the way she does that
- 13:27Drasti effect with the mirror on the bridge.
- 13:29It still baffles me, mind. Like, where's the camera?
- 13:31Or it just doesn't exist. It's superbly done, like you
- 13:34say, when Paris comes in on itself, it reminds me of some of
- 13:38the heavier influences on Nolan, which is Dark City.
- 13:40I don't know if you've seen that and Cobb talk and Ariadne.
- 13:44It reminds me of Morpheus talking to Neo when he's
- 13:46explaining the Matrix. So all these different elements
- 13:48are coming into play for me. That Cafe sequence is just out
- 13:53of this world and the way they shot that, which is just so
- 14:02impressive. The visual effects supervisor on
- 14:05the film, Chris Cobald, who worked on The Dark Knight
- 14:08trilogy, and his team used air cannons to send the objects
- 14:11flying through the air. And then Wally Fister shot it
- 14:14with six high speed cameras at 1500 frames a second.
- 14:18Obviously, everything is normally shot 24 frames a
- 14:20second, so you can imagine how many frames are running through
- 14:22that camera. So then when you slow it down,
- 14:23you just get that really super slow motion.
- 14:26But then there was extra elements of CGI added just to
- 14:29make it a little bit more flamboyant.
- 14:30But I love that when she's just starting to freak out, you just
- 14:33think, Jesus Christ, this could go anywhere.
- 14:35I love it. Paris isn't just about dream
- 14:38based exposition though. We've got character exposition
- 14:41as well, so this is also the where we learn who Marl is.
- 14:45Cobb's wife who killed herself because she thought she was in a
- 14:47dream, played by Marion Courtyard.
- 14:49I suppose Marl is the closest thing we get to an antagonist in
- 14:52the film. I think she's fantastic.
- 14:54Is that femme fatale figure? When you first see her, she's
- 14:57almost like a Bond villain. She's always shot in everything.
- 15:00I've seen her and she's fantastic.
- 15:02I love her as an actress anyway. But what she brings to this
- 15:04again is a real class, a real sense of regret for Cobb.
- 15:09And I think you can see it straight away, and I think this
- 15:11is what it's about. It's Cobb's inception, it's
- 15:14about regret, it's about guilt. It's about forgiving yourself
- 15:18and choosing a reality that you're happy with.
- 15:20What you choose to be. Your reality is where you live.
- 15:23And I think that's what this film's about.
- 15:25Even though it's got this amazing subplot with Fisher, you
- 15:28learn now it's all about Cobb. It's all about him getting over
- 15:31this guilt, figuring out how to live his life.
- 15:34There's a real expectation on her because if she doesn't
- 15:36perform his story, his whole reason for going through all of
- 15:41this shit doesn't make sense. But she does.
- 15:43She lands every single emotional blow and I think she's fucking
- 15:47brilliant. Yeah, she's superb, considering
- 15:50you could argue she's not even a character, she's just a
- 15:52manifestation of someone else's guilt.
- 15:55And she still makes that wholly believable and fills it with so
- 15:59much of her own kind of presence.
- 16:02And as you say, she starts off is feeling like she's going to
- 16:06be the antagonist that's just going to be this kind of
- 16:08psychotic presence throughout the film.
- 16:09But she brings so much guilt into that and so much regret and
- 16:12so much tragedy that she becomes like a fully rounded character
- 16:16in all. And right, You know, she goes
- 16:17from being really alluring to really scare you.
- 16:20Times like that scene where she comes out of the crowd in that
- 16:23first stream and stabs Ariadne. Absolutely terrifying that.
- 16:27I think there's probably like a wider argument about how much of
- 16:30A cliche it is to have the dead wife is the motivation for the
- 16:33main character, especially when Nolan uses it a lot in his
- 16:36films. He just looks that cliche.
- 16:39If I was Amber Thomas Nolan's wife had to be a bit how much he
- 16:42loves dead wives. Yeah, he keeps going back there,
- 16:46but she takes what could be a real cliche and just gives it so
- 16:49much vitality. It's a great performance.
- 16:53Well, as good as she is, Marion Cordillard wasn't the first
- 16:55person Nolan asked to play a mile.
- 16:57Do you know who was? I would guess Anne Hathaway just
- 17:01because he likes chisel collection of actors, doesn't
- 17:03he? It was Kate Winslet.
- 17:06Oh nice. OK, right.
- 17:08She actually turned the rule down because she said she
- 17:09couldn't see herself as the character.
- 17:11What were you thought of that? I think there would have been
- 17:14too many comparisons to the reunited again after Titanic.
- 17:17And they are great together, but I think they couldn't play a
- 17:21couple because it would always hark back to that.
- 17:23And it would just create a different world in your head,
- 17:26really. If they survived the Titanic and
- 17:28they had, you know, an argument as good as they are as actors as
- 17:34well, I think that's just too powerful culturally to try and
- 17:37eliminate. So I think called the opposite
- 17:39perfect choice. You'd have too many people
- 17:41saying, oh, you know, Inception. It's like Jack's dying dream
- 17:43isn't. It definitely.
- 17:46Freezing to death. That's why the water comes in at
- 17:49the start like he's washed. Yeah, sure.
- 17:51It's like, exactly he made it. Yeah, normally made a stealth
- 17:55sequel to Titanic. Yeah.
- 17:57Yeah. No, you couldn't have had her in
- 17:58there, as great as she is. When Kate Winslet turned it
- 18:00down, though, I bet the studio were devastated.
- 18:02Leo and Kate together again at last, I mean.
- 18:08Yeah, So obviously, Nolan, he looks like this kind of small
- 18:11collection of actors that he can rely on.
- 18:12He keeps going back to them. So obviously you've got Michael
- 18:15Kane in here for a bit of an extended cameo as Miles cop's
- 18:18father-in-law. And the scene between Cobb and
- 18:20Miles where he tells him to come back to reality, that's not
- 18:23actually set those short on location.
- 18:26It's the architecture school at University College London, and
- 18:29that's where Nolan actually studied and met his wife Emma
- 18:32Thomas, who was also producer on this and many other Nolan's
- 18:36films. Lovely.
- 18:37Always in there for Nolan, isn't he?
- 18:38Michael Caine. Loves it.
- 18:40Good luck child. Forget the ending of Inception,
- 18:42the real question is, are we in a real Nolan film?
- 18:45Michael Caine is lying it. No, Dunkirk didn't exist.
- 18:53Following Paris, Cobb is off to Kenya to find his next team
- 18:55members. That's Eames and Yusuf, played
- 18:57by Dilly Brow. This sequence includes a foot
- 19:00chase through the streets where Cobb is attacked by Cobbl
- 19:02Engineering, who wants him after his failure in the opening.
- 19:05All the sounds of a frantic Hans Zima score.
- 19:08The setting is and the music is called Mombasa.
- 19:13I. Mean if you're being chased
- 19:20through the streets of Mombasa by Cobbl Engineering, this is
- 19:23the music you want Spearing you on, isn't it?
- 19:28Absolutely, definitely. Yeah.
- 19:29I'll just put headphones on if I was doing that, I had on a
- 19:33second. I continue.
- 19:36What do you think of this as an action scene?
- 19:38Like, it's a great action sequence.
- 19:39The Matrix has got a lot to answer for.
- 19:42There's the foot chase with the Agents chasing Neo kind of at
- 19:45the end of The Matrix, which I think it mirrors that really
- 19:48well. I think the overhead shots make
- 19:50it look like a maze. I think there's that theme going
- 19:52all the way through the film. I love the way that there's that
- 19:55narrow corridor, which again, I think Nolan just makes this into
- 19:58almost like a dream sequence in itself.
- 20:00To meet your question, is this reality or is this a dream?
- 20:03So it's just Nolan kind of fucking with you and just making
- 20:05this really interesting foot chase.
- 20:07I've never seen DiCaprio more desperate to get One Cup of
- 20:10coffee in all my life. What cafe?
- 20:14What cafe? These guys give him loads of
- 20:16shit. What for?
- 20:17He's just come in. He just wants a coffee.
- 20:18I know. Yeah, because.
- 20:19He. Yell at all his customers.
- 20:22He must do ridiculous. But what I do live in this
- 20:25sequence as well is the introduction of Hardy.
- 20:27I think Tom Hardy in this it's a superb performance.
- 20:30Even his dialogues just like normal speech.
- 20:33It's brilliant. And when he's like, there's a
- 20:35man here, Yousef, it's. Great.
- 20:37He's just great. He's like, what?
- 20:38Back here? Yeah.
- 20:40Yeah. OK, he's done great little
- 20:42lines. I love this whole sequence.
- 20:44He's got all them kind of real action elements to it.
- 20:47Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah, I don't think Nolan is shy
- 20:50about his influence as Gizzy. Definitely Raiders in there.
- 20:53I think before the action started.
- 20:54Feels very much like Casablanca. Yeah.
- 20:57Like there could be in Rick's Cafe, you know, and people got
- 20:59to sound a shot there. But yeah, I've always loved that
- 21:02wall that seems to be getting more and more narrow, even
- 21:05though it shouldn't. Yeah, I think it's Nolan just
- 21:08looking at common film grammar stuff that we used to and think,
- 21:11well, hang on, if I'm making a story about are we in a dream?
- 21:14Are we not in a dream so much? This stuff is going to feel much
- 21:17more ambiguous than it would do normally because, yeah, in an
- 21:20ordinary film, I'm not going to question site or just pulling up
- 21:23out of nowhere. That happens in films.
- 21:24Yeah, that's fine. But here, you never know.
- 21:27Maybe it's not. Maybe this is all just a bit too
- 21:29convenient. So it just works on 2 levels.
- 21:32It's on that first level of just an action scene.
- 21:34Yeah, great. But look at that again.
- 21:36There's more going on there than you think there is.
- 21:39The question I've got as well is, like, we know when you're
- 21:40introduced to Hardy and he's rubbing them chips together, and
- 21:43then DiCaprio picks the top chip up and says, I see your spelling
- 21:45hasn't improved. So he's spelled Mombasa with two
- 21:48s s. So obviously he's forged the
- 21:49chips. Yeah.
- 21:50Yeah. But people are saying that one
- 21:51of them, Chips, is actually he's taught him.
- 21:54Cool. That's pretty cool.
- 21:56Could be really. Cool.
- 21:58And he's misspelled it because only he knows how he's
- 22:00misspelled it. Yeah, that makes sense.
- 22:03Yeah, yeah, it doesn't make sense.
- 22:04The first act of the film is pretty exceptional, inceptional
- 22:08if you like. John finished.
- 22:18Nolan, DiCaprio, Zimmer, all of their best and a beautiful
- 22:22French friend. Fatal.
- 22:23I must be dreaming. Or not.
- 22:29The director. Raring to go from a young age,
- 22:35the inception of Inception came to Christopher Nolan when he was
- 22:37just 16 and was in his subconscious ever since.
- 22:41The writer and director of Inception, it was a bit of a
- 22:43passion project for Nolan and entirely his vision.
- 22:46What are our thoughts on Christopher Nolan more generally
- 22:49to start with, aside from Inception?
- 22:51So Nolan 11 films, only one of those are actively disliked.
- 22:57So that's a pretty good rate. And he's one of the few
- 23:00directors where I will go see film on his name alone.
- 23:04You could give me a blind screen and I wouldn't even need to see
- 23:07a trailer. I wouldn't need to know a
- 23:08synopsis. I wouldn't need to know he's in
- 23:10it. Even what the title is to send
- 23:12me to Chris Nolan film and I'll be in there.
- 23:15And there's not many directors I would say that about.
- 23:17And all of his films, they've all got massive, massive
- 23:21ambition. Like I say, I don't like Inter
- 23:24Cellar, but I would never say it's not ambitious.
- 23:26And sometimes that ambition does exceed his grasp.
- 23:29But when it doesn't, and when he can meet the heights of what he
- 23:31wants to achieve with the film, you're going to get something
- 23:35really special. And I think that's where you go
- 23:37with Inception. Yeah, pretty much the same.
- 23:39I mean, I'm the same as Matt. We don't go and see every film
- 23:42together. Do me but.
- 23:43No, yeah, we're we're better nip that in the bud.
- 23:49You can see the seller, and I was a bit disappointed by that
- 23:51because what I love about Nolan is he's ethic and I love how he
- 23:53keeps everything. Everything has a reality to it.
- 23:56Everything has an explanation, Everything has a scientific
- 23:59reasoning. So you kind of just walk out and
- 24:01go, Oh well, that was bullshit. So I think with this, it's that
- 24:04ground and he's got that real dedication to the process.
- 24:08He's got a real dedication to the medium and he really
- 24:11respects film. And I think you'd be the same,
- 24:13like if you go over Chris Nolan's house and he makes your
- 24:16tea, like it's just going to be so fucking meticulous, isn't it?
- 24:19It's not going to be like beans on toast or something.
- 24:22It's going to be something like what Arthur's eaten on the
- 24:24plain. It's good, like a perfect salad
- 24:26and a perfect bowl. And it's going to be the right
- 24:28sized bowl and it's going to be the right fork, and it's going
- 24:30to be the perfect amount of dress.
- 24:31And it's just going to be right, you know, because he just
- 24:33believes in it. And I think he believes in
- 24:35cinema and he believes in the medium.
- 24:37And he's as close, I'll say it, I'm going to put it out there
- 24:40and I'm honestly going to say he's as close as anyone has got
- 24:43to be in Kubrick since Kubrick. Well, Claire, yeah, I think in
- 24:46the style it's massively influenced by 2001, isn't it?
- 24:49Oh, hugely. Oh yeah.
- 24:51Norman actually first pitched the idea of Inception to Warner
- 24:53Brothers after his third movie Insomnia way back in 2002.
- 24:57They loved the idea and gave it the go ahead on the back of an
- 25:0080 page treatment. Northern had you wanted to write
- 25:02the full script first, thought to ensure you kept as much
- 25:04creative control as possible and told them you'd show them a
- 25:07finished spec script in a couple of months.
- 25:09Sensible choice by Nolan. What do you think to finish the
- 25:12script first? I think so, yeah, specifically
- 25:15because of the high concept he's working with.
- 25:17You can't go in with us like half assed, you know?
- 25:19So there's going to be questions and you couldn't go.
- 25:21But I haven't worked that bit out yet.
- 25:23But don't worry, I'll be fine. He's got to have the answers,
- 25:25hasn't he? Well, plan for writing that
- 25:27script was shelf when Nolan was offered Batman Begins, the movie
- 25:30which changed his career. He kept on going back to the
- 25:32Inception script in between projects like The Prestige and
- 25:35The Dark Knight and finally gave a finished script to Warner in
- 25:372009, which after the runaway success of The Dark Knight, they
- 25:42lapped up. So what do we think of Nolan's
- 25:45work on Inception as the director?
- 25:47I think the original script for this is going to be about 100
- 25:50times more complicated than the finished version of the film.
- 25:52Like, Can you imagine just his thoughts on a script?
- 25:55I think Chris Nolan probably woke up in the morning and be
- 25:57like Emma finished finished Inception.
- 25:59It's just like this massive Bible, and she's like going
- 26:03through it. She's like, fucking hell,
- 26:04Christmas, let's just break this down.
- 26:09And I think that Warners would have, just after The Dark
- 26:11Knight, you could have given them anything.
- 26:12He's like, I'm just going to do a Playmobil movie.
- 26:14Yeah, whatever. It could have been anything.
- 26:19So they would have read that as like, stereo instructions and
- 26:21just be like, well, if you can make that, fine.
- 26:23How much do you need? I think this is his most
- 26:25personal film. I think this is a film about his
- 26:27process, which we'll get into later.
- 26:29I do think this is about filmmaking.
- 26:31I do think it is about the impact of movies on the
- 26:33psychology of people, and I think only someone like Chris
- 26:36Nolan could do that with such a scholar's touch.
- 26:39I think he's got that. It always feels like when you
- 26:42finish watching these films and you understand them, like,
- 26:44someone's going to turn up and just give you a degree and just
- 26:46give you a scroll and just say, like, did you get that?
- 26:49Congratulations, you're in the club.
- 26:53Yeah, You're 70 times more intelligent than the average
- 26:55film wore Without being pretentious, though, without
- 26:59being a wanker about it. You just respect him for that
- 27:02because he just believes in what he believes in, and he delivers
- 27:04it, especially on this. I think this is his most
- 27:06accomplished film easily. Yeah, I think it's certainly
- 27:10among his best work. It looks great.
- 27:11Typical Nolan. Grandiose and huge, which is one
- 27:14of the things I love about him. He really commits to these crazy
- 27:17concepts and puts himself out there to be shot down if people
- 27:19don't like what he does. An Inception might be the best
- 27:22example of that. I like how because of the huge
- 27:24concept, he sticks to what he knows.
- 27:26Hans Zimmer, composer, Wally Fister, DP, Chris Cobol, effect
- 27:30supervisor, or back from The Dark Knight and I love every
- 27:33casting choice in the film. Nolan gets at least one of my
- 27:36favorite performances out of every member of the cast.
- 27:39I think this film is definitive Nolan for me.
- 27:42One of his defining films. Easily.
- 27:44Yeah, it's not quite me favorites Nolan film, but.
- 27:48Shut up man Mad. No, sorry.
- 27:50It's still going to be the prestige for me.
- 27:51That's. Becoming your catch phrase that
- 27:53Westie every. Single episode shut up.
- 28:00But I do think Inception has got everything that's great about
- 28:03Nolan as a director. His best qualities?
- 28:06Well, he treats his audience with as much intelligence as
- 28:10he's got. He has absolute faith that you
- 28:12can keep up with him and you'll understand.
- 28:14And if you do, you're going to get so rewarded at the end
- 28:17because he can pay film off like few other film makers can.
- 28:20And his ability to orchestrate these massive set pieces that
- 28:23work on a visual level, but have also got something to keep your
- 28:25brain ticking off as well to go back to the extraction of sight
- 28:28or how that just keeps building and building more peril, more
- 28:32levels to understand, more questions, more answers.
- 28:35And what he's done. He's constructed a from where
- 28:37you could balance the plot of this on the end of a pendulum in
- 28:41a wooden suede to the left, in a wooden suede to the right.
- 28:43It would just hang there perfectly poised.
- 28:46Simon is from what he's done as a director.
- 28:48As I told him, Matt, the pendulum.
- 28:50It is, yes. Not telling you how heavy you
- 28:52feel so. Bit chunky to carry around that
- 28:55isn't it? The Inception had a budget of
- 29:00$160 million, and a lot of that naturally went on the huge
- 29:03visual effects we see in the film.
- 29:05Something we've talked about on our podcast before was how we
- 29:08like to see a blend of visual effects rather than using CGI
- 29:11for everything, use the right tool for the job, and I do think
- 29:14that's something that Nolan does really well.
- 29:16So Inception, we have huge sets, miniatures, models, air cannons,
- 29:20lots of stunt work and CGI. How good a job do you think
- 29:24Nolan does in blending all of these various kinds of effects
- 29:27into Inception? As good a job as I've ever seen
- 29:30anyone do blending these together.
- 29:32Honestly, I do. I can't tell where the practical
- 29:35ends and where the CG begins. I can't tell what's green
- 29:38screen, what's an actual set that he built.
- 29:40Even the stuff that you know has to be CG, like the city folding
- 29:44in on itself. Even that, it still feels like I
- 29:47could touch that road. I can't get your head around it.
- 29:51I can't even begin to figure out how he puts them together.
- 29:55I think it's the biggest commitment.
- 29:56You compare, you just don't know where one bit of it ends, the
- 29:59practical stuff, and where the CG begins.
- 30:01It's seamless. Yeah.
- 30:02I know the Inception has 500 digital effect shots in total.
- 30:05To give some context, the typical blockbuster from the
- 30:07time would have over 2000 digital effect shots.
- 30:11I've got a quote from Nolan on that, where he said it was very
- 30:14important to me that we do as much as possible in camera and
- 30:16then use technology to enhance that.
- 30:18I think an audience pays much more attention and feels much
- 30:21more involved with that. Very much like Fincher in that
- 30:24respect, and that he uses it to enhance the story and that city
- 30:27falling in on itself. I mean, if you look at just the
- 30:29light and design on that CG is just perfect.
- 30:32The way the shadows fall against the bottom city and then the top
- 30:34one comes in. But the genius of that is that
- 30:37when it actually clicks and you cut to the next shot, that's
- 30:40obviously just an upside down camera shooting the street.
- 30:42So they're two physical, you know, practical effects put
- 30:45together. But what you've seen is this
- 30:47city come over and then you've seen a real city shot upside
- 30:49down. So your head just goes, well,
- 30:51that's just the same thing then. And the bit I love is the cars
- 30:54going down the fountain. Have you noticed that on the
- 30:56right hand side they're going down the water fountain.
- 30:58They're kind of like driving straight down.
- 30:59He's doing it for the right reasons and he's blended in
- 31:01perfectly and still stands up. Now you can't really give it any
- 31:04kind of criticism at all. It's brilliant.
- 31:07The Inception was nominated for Best pitcher at the Oscars.
- 31:09It lost out to OH. King's Speech wasn't.
- 31:13It King's Speech the right choice?
- 31:14No, fuck. No, the rule of thirds I call.
- 31:17That's a shower of shit. Oh yeah, exactly.
- 31:20Yeah. To finish on Christopher Nolan
- 31:24as a director of Inception, I've got a quote from the mind
- 31:26himself, he said. With Inception, my ambition was
- 31:30to create a story that embraced all different types of human
- 31:32experience. I like to think it's the kind of
- 31:35massively entertaining grand scale action film that I want to
- 31:38come on the screen when I sit in a movie theatre.
- 31:40Fantastic. And lead delivered.
- 31:49Every director depends on this cast, and the cast of Inception
- 31:52includes 5 Oscar nominees and three Oscar winners, so big
- 31:55talent all across the board. There's lots to go through, so
- 31:58we're going to go in depth on the main members of Cobs team.
- 32:02Joseph Gordon Levitt as point man, author Ellen Pages, the
- 32:04architect Ariadne and Tom Hardy is the forger.
- 32:07Eames. They're all coming.
- 32:09But where else to start then with the biggest star, me and
- 32:11Carrotini, Inception, the one and only Leonardo DiCaprio.
- 32:15Yeah. Yeah. 5 nominees and three
- 32:18winners of Oscars, and Leonardo DiCaprio was the biggest name.
- 32:21He plays Dom Cobb, a mine thief who was the best extractor in
- 32:24the business. He's hired by Saito to perform
- 32:26inception of Robert Fisher in exchange for being able to
- 32:29return home and be reunited with his children.
- 32:32What are our thoughts on LDC generally first of all?
- 32:35Generally, I think he's fantastic act then.
- 32:37I think he always has been. Everyone kind of goes back to
- 32:40Titanic. He's great and that he does what
- 32:41he needs to, but it's his later rules as he's matured and his
- 32:44choices that he's made that he's really made me pay attention.
- 32:48You know, he's gone from being just a generic poster boy to
- 32:50being like a seriously great, one of the greats.
- 32:53He's going to go down as one of the greats.
- 32:55I mean, he's got that real kind of relatable quality.
- 33:00It's as if you know him, if you watch him in The Departed, he
- 33:03owns that film and there's just so many people littered around
- 33:05that. And one of my favorite poems is
- 33:07Shutter Island. I think he's just fucking
- 33:09mesmerizing in that. So, so fragile, but amazing.
- 33:12Similar in this Amazing. Yeah, I agree.
- 33:15I mean, he's fantastic, isn't he?
- 33:17I think the great Hollywood names tend to fall into one of
- 33:19two comes for me. Either they're a great movie
- 33:21star or they're a great actor or actress.
- 33:24DiCaprio was one of the very few in history I think who was a
- 33:27great movie star and the great actor.
- 33:30I think what he does as well as anybody I've ever seen is draw
- 33:32you into the story. He's just so engaging on the
- 33:35screen and conveys emotions brilliantly.
- 33:38And as a lead, carrying a movie is the best there is for me.
- 33:41The Wolf of Wall Street I think is a good example.
- 33:43An epic 3 hour biopic directed by one of the greats and
- 33:46Scorsese all rest on Dicaprio's shoulders and he carries it
- 33:50effortlessly. And he chooses this project so
- 33:53well. His filmography is just
- 33:55sensational. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the man.
- 33:58I think throughout his career he's just shown real bravery.
- 34:01People always forget he's given one of the all time great child
- 34:04performances in What's Eden Gilded Great.
- 34:07I think because that was pre Titanic, people just forgotten
- 34:10about that completely and they really shouldn't.
- 34:11So if you haven't seen that, go back, check it out because he
- 34:14was so young when he made that and it's an incredible
- 34:17performance. Like Wesley said, I think he
- 34:19does an absolutely fine job in Titanic.
- 34:20I enjoy him in that a lot, but I can only imagine the amount of
- 34:24job offers he got after that. That would basically just Jack
- 34:27Dawson. Yeah.
- 34:27You know, Jack Dawson in space. That sounds great.
- 34:34I mean I would have taken it anything in.
- 34:36Space sounds great to you though, doesn't it?
- 34:37Pretty. Much.
- 34:40But he didn't do those roles. And after Titanic, he wanted to
- 34:44work with interesting directors. You know, he went and worked
- 34:46with Woody Allen, he worked with Spielberg, obviously, Scorsese
- 34:49in a Retu, and now Nolan. So he's got such a good nose for
- 34:53project and he's so clear about what he wants to do as an actor,
- 34:56but he's not lazy with it either.
- 34:58When you've got the amount of fame that he has got, you could
- 35:01just take those roles and be quite lazy in the book.
- 35:03The amount of detail he brings to every single character,
- 35:06that's why he's, you know, at the top of his game.
- 35:09LDC was the only person ever in serious consideration for the
- 35:12role of Cobb, but two other big names were discussed before
- 35:15DiCaprio was approached. Any idea who they were?
- 35:19No idea and no interest. I'm telling you anyway, I know.
- 35:25You are. So Brad Pitt and Will Smith were
- 35:29two names bandied about. Would you have like neither of
- 35:32those? No, I can't see Will Smith doing
- 35:35that role. He doesn't have the kind of
- 35:36intensity that DiCaprio has. He's he's more lightweight and
- 35:39he's he's good at what he does, but I can't see him being as
- 35:42convincing. Yeah.
- 35:44I mean, two very, very good actors in their own right.
- 35:46But I think the material here and I think the amount of depth
- 35:49that he brought to the character and the script as well, I think
- 35:51the amount he was invested in this, the other two actors that
- 35:54you mentioned would have just played it as it was on the page.
- 35:56I think they wouldn't have brought that level of
- 35:58personality to it that he does here.
- 36:00So DiCaprio was the first person casting the film and Nolan saw
- 36:03casting him as so important that every other cast member was
- 36:06hired based on how Nolan felt they would work with DiCaprio,
- 36:10right? So how do we think DiCaprio does
- 36:12in Inception as Dom Cobb? He does really well.
- 36:16He completely convinces here that this is a guy with secrets
- 36:20and and a guy with history. And he always looks to me, he
- 36:22looks like really pinched throughout the film, like it's
- 36:25almost literally crushing him. The stuff that he kind of just
- 36:28has to work through and get off his chest.
- 36:30So completely convinced as a leader, someone who other people
- 36:34will follow. And you know, pretty much
- 36:36everyone does follow him without question because I think he's
- 36:38got that natural authority to him.
- 36:41I guess I'll go back to what I said about him in general.
- 36:43It's just not my favorite kind of performance from DiCaprio.
- 36:46So I think he's really good in it, but it would probably be
- 36:50relatively low down my list of favorite DiCaprio performances.
- 36:53Yeah, besides Dicaprio's performance, which I do think is
- 36:56fantastic, what's impressive is how much of A role he played in
- 36:59actually improving the film from a writing point of view.
- 37:03So Northern said. Leo made some extraordinary
- 37:05contributions to the script and really challenged us to make the
- 37:08script clear and also to follow its logic.
- 37:11The work he did in his character made the movie less of a puzzle
- 37:14and more of the story of a character audiences could relate
- 37:16to. Right.
- 37:18So we have the personal drama stakes at Surround Car, but
- 37:20around his children and wanting to get back home, which is
- 37:23definitely for the best in the film I think.
- 37:25Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah.
- 37:26Yeah. Needs that, Yeah.
- 37:27It's the fire that drives the character, and he does it
- 37:30without sounding hamming, without sounding cheesy.
- 37:32He does some really subtle performances in this.
- 37:35I mean, when he actually wakes up on the play and these, these
- 37:37expressions just it's priceless. It's absolutely priceless.
- 37:40It's fantastic. But yeah, he's brilliant.
- 37:42Owns the character I think. Yeah, I think he brings a real
- 37:45personal weight in the film that just wouldn't be there without
- 37:47him. What's your favorite DiCaprio
- 37:50moment in the film? My favorite moment is probably
- 37:54the most emotional of the film, as usual.
- 37:57It's just when he's, you know, miserable.
- 37:59Is it? It's uplifting, John, It's
- 38:02uplifting. You know me find happiness and
- 38:05misery. Yeah, it's when he's talking
- 38:07about the end and it's just in face and his guilt and it's the
- 38:10most important dialogue scene in the film and for me, probably
- 38:13one of the most important scenes in the film.
- 38:15It's not a massive set piece. It's 2 characters sitting across
- 38:17each other from a table and he's just admitting that he's wrong
- 38:20and you can just see that he's just slowly realising that he's
- 38:24getting over it and you just believe it.
- 38:26This is the way. The cameras just pushing
- 38:28Slowly's expressions, everything so, so great.
- 38:31So great. Yeah, like I said earlier, I
- 38:33think Dicaprio's fantastic at conveying emotions in a clear
- 38:37but not heavy-handed way. There's a few examples in the
- 38:39Inception, but I think he's especially great in the scene
- 38:42where Cobb watches Mile jump from the hotel window.
- 38:45That scene, I mean, it's one of the worst things a person can
- 38:48possibly witness and it's drama almost to the point of non
- 38:51believability. But with Dicaprio's performance,
- 38:54I believe at 100% the way he's like Jesus Christ.
- 38:58I mean better not obviously, but.
- 39:02Slightly. Just slightly.
- 39:04Don't let yourself down too much.
- 39:05Though, But I totally buy that scene because of his performance
- 39:08in it. I think he's absolutely
- 39:09fantastic. Yeah.
- 39:11Yeah, the bit I want to talk about to the whole Mr. Charles
- 39:14gambit saying because there's so much, like, emotional stuff
- 39:17going on, you could be forgiven for forgetting that Corb is the
- 39:21top man at his job. And what I love about the scene
- 39:23is it's all about the job now. All the stuff with Mal that's in
- 39:27the background. It's about him stepping up to
- 39:29the plate when it's needed. And I just love how he just
- 39:31strolls into that bar, goes up to Fisher.
- 39:34He does tell him he's in a dream, but he does it with so
- 39:36much confidence and so much charm that he just doesn't break
- 39:40the mission for a minute. And I just like how we remind
- 39:43you that, you know, he's an absolute expert at this kind of
- 39:46stuff. Kelly Murphy ends up hanging on
- 39:48his every word that he says, and Dicaprio's got him in the palm
- 39:51of his hand and he just carries him out of there.
- 39:53It's brilliant. I mean, mostly everybody gets
- 39:55their chance to play James Bond in this film at some point, you
- 39:58know? And I think this is Dicaprio's
- 39:59version of that character, you know, that suave and that
- 40:02sophistication. And then when Gordon Levitt's
- 40:04just watching him in the foyer, he's like, there he goes.
- 40:06You're like, yeah, there he goes, right?
- 40:10For his work on Inception, DiCaprio got nothing.
- 40:15Overlooked by everybody, basically, you know, BAFTA,
- 40:17Golden Globes, Oscar recognition.
- 40:19So to finish on Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception, Leo himself
- 40:22says about the film. Inception is testament to Chris
- 40:26Nolan's imagination. I'm still excited to have done
- 40:29this movie and I'm sleeping great.
- 40:33Brilliant. Brilliant.
- 40:34Glad to hear it. Took one of the suitcases on,
- 40:36that's why. The dream Machine.
- 40:42I'm not calling her that, Don. I don't get many times there.
- 40:45You bring it up. I'm not calling.
- 40:46About four seconds worth of thought went into that job.
- 40:51Don't be so proud. Of it, to carry out their plan,
- 41:01every extractor needs a point man and that position here is
- 41:04filled by Cobb's right hand man Arthur, played by Joseph Gordon
- 41:07Levis at Cobb side from Inception to Inception.
- 41:11Arthur was the details man, the dreamer for level 2 of Cobb's
- 41:14plan and is involved in the most iconic action scene in the film.
- 41:18He's a stick in the world with no imagination, but he's the
- 41:20best of what he does. What do we think of Arthur and
- 41:23Joseph Gordon ever? I really like him and I think
- 41:27Gordon Levitt does a really good job considering like 80% of the
- 41:31time he's just telling Ariadne about Cobb's back story.
- 41:35So it takes a good actor to carry off that much character
- 41:38exposition and still make him believable and watchable.
- 41:41He's just such the right person. When you want the best friend in
- 41:45the film, he completely convinces he as the right hand
- 41:48man. So dependable.
- 41:50He's never going to let you down.
- 41:51It's quite a quiet performance in some ways, but I think that
- 41:53contrasts well with what Dicaprio's doing, and I think
- 41:57God never does that really, really well.
- 41:58I really like him in this. Yeah, I like the bond that Cuban
- 42:01Arthur have. What's great that Nolan does
- 42:03actually is how he creates all these different dynamics between
- 42:06the main characters. So authors may be the best
- 42:09example where he has a totally different relationship with Cobb
- 42:12to what he does with Ariadne and to what he does with Eams as
- 42:14well. I like Joseph Gordon Lever
- 42:17generally, and I really like him in Inception.
- 42:19He plays it all very reserved and understated, which works
- 42:22perfectly for the character. And he nails his action scenes
- 42:25too. I think he's great, Really,
- 42:27really good. Yeah, I like him generally, but
- 42:31this is for me, his performance, without shadow of a doubt.
- 42:33Like if I imagine him in anything, I imagine him as
- 42:35Arthur in this. And I think because Cobb's just
- 42:38so busy with these subconscious, I think that Arthur comes along
- 42:42as he's conscious. I love the way that the Cobb
- 42:44goes a little bit over the top of site or at the start and
- 42:46starts talking about intestinal ulcers or whatever he's going
- 42:49about. And then, like, Arthur's got to
- 42:50step in and he's like, well, what he's trying to say, you
- 42:53know, And he's always just the guy to kind of straighten things
- 42:55out. And as Matt touched on, he is,
- 42:58you know, Mr. Exposition pretty much all the way through the
- 43:00film. But he does it in such a way
- 43:02that it doesn't seem boring. He makes you feel like, yes,
- 43:04this is a really heavy concept. But when he's experienced
- 43:07something, he does it in such a way that it's not patronising.
- 43:10But it's quite simple. You know, when he's trying to
- 43:12explain the totem and then patient erupts him and then he
- 43:15goes back and just explains it again really calmly.
- 43:17He is. He's fantastic and he looks
- 43:19great. I mean, I haven't seen him look
- 43:20better. He's wardrobes fucking
- 43:21outrageous. He just looks fucking great.
- 43:24Like in the LA sequence. Why aren't them leather jackets?
- 43:27You know who fucked that up? David Brent.
- 43:31So I've got about three of them anymore that I can't.
- 43:33Wear anymore. He never once says, oh, well,
- 43:37no, forget that AIM says that. But you've always got Arthur,
- 43:40you've always got that performance from Levitt.
- 43:42That's always that real grounding to the whole film.
- 43:45And the character. Yeah, he's wonderful.
- 43:48Before GGL was cast, Nolan was in talks with James Franco to
- 43:51play Arthur, but that fell through when they were
- 43:54scheduling conflicts with 127 Hours, which Franco starred in.
- 43:57Would you change it if you could?
- 43:59No. No.
- 44:00I like Franco, but he's too much of A loose cannon.
- 44:03I think for the kind of straight man that Arthur is, I think he
- 44:07wouldn't be the right fit. I think everyone is so good in
- 44:09this that you wouldn't change anyone, would you really?
- 44:12I mean, I think they bring a lot of personality to it that I
- 44:14wouldn't change anybody in it. Inception was a big step up for
- 44:17JGL. You're doing lots of features
- 44:19before Inception, most notably Treasure Planet Break, 500 Days
- 44:22of Summer and GI Joe, The Rise of Cobra.
- 44:26Nothing with the status of Inception.
- 44:29When he went for the audition, he didn't know anything about
- 44:30the part because Nolan wouldn't let anybody read the script.
- 44:33But he went dressed in a full suit just in case, he said, and
- 44:37unknowingly matched Arthur's wardrobe perfectly.
- 44:39Oh. Nice.
- 44:40I mean, he does look great in those three piece suits, doesn't
- 44:43he? Stylish my.
- 44:44Superb, the opposite of me in a three piece suit.
- 44:52What's your favorite Arthur moment in the film?
- 44:54It's a really small one, but it's when Ariadne asks him what
- 44:58Mal was like, and he just goes, oh, she was lovely.
- 45:02Yeah. Because I think it's a sign of a
- 45:04great actor that he can take just three words, and he invests
- 45:07so much in there. There's admiration, there's
- 45:10regret, there's grief, there's happiness reflecting on someone
- 45:14who was obviously a good friend of him.
- 45:16And, and it just turns your interpretation of mouth really
- 45:19nicely because I think certainly this point, you think whenever
- 45:21she turns up, she's going to be trouble.
- 45:23This turns it on its head. And he sells that line really
- 45:26beautifully. So it's really simple, but
- 45:29that's just a real standout for me.
- 45:31Lovely that welling up here, Matt.
- 45:32Yeah, but you're right. I mean, he is, again, like I
- 45:37said, Cobb's conscience like that is what Mild was really
- 45:39like. 3 words from Arthur and you know that.
- 45:42Oh, well, if you just choose reality and just remember as she
- 45:45was, then it'll work. And he does that in three words.
- 45:47Yeah, absolutely right. Fucking superb.
- 45:49That comes just after the Penrose step scene, doesn't it,
- 45:53where Arthur teaches Aryad nearby paradoxes.
- 45:55Those steps are based on a print done by a Dutch artist called MC
- 45:58Escher in the 60s. Obviously it's impossible to
- 46:01build an infinite staircase in the real world.
- 46:03They had to conceive and construct something from scratch
- 46:06that, when shot from a specific angle, created that illusion.
- 46:09An old Wally Fest of the DP played a big part in that.
- 46:12And he said about building those steps.
- 46:14It had to be mathematically perfect, a particular lens at a
- 46:17particular height and distance, and the camera had to drop in a
- 46:19particular way to hide the trickery.
- 46:22I mean, all of that for like a 5 second shot in the film, yeah.
- 46:26Yeah, yeah, but it's a great call back later, isn't it?
- 46:28One the end of his action sequences, he's like Paradox.
- 46:30Yeah, that's fantastic. It's worth it just for that it.
- 46:34Is, yeah. Yeah, my favorite man.
- 46:38There's a few favorite bits, but I love it when he's carried out
- 46:41with so a little dialogue has to figure out a problem as he's
- 46:44gone. It's there's no gravity.
- 46:46How do I drop you without gravity?
- 46:47You know, and he's trying to figure it all out and it's just
- 46:49very slow paced, but he does it so well and you can see his
- 46:51whole thought process, you know, figuring it out and the way he
- 46:54stacks everybody up, ties them all around, puts them in the
- 46:57other, let you believe all of it.
- 46:58And then just that little bit when he's like.
- 47:00That's too soon. Oh, I love that.
- 47:02Yeah. It's just the essence of the
- 47:03character with such little dialogue.
- 47:06I mean, if I put that in a script where you stack all of
- 47:08the cast members up and then tie them up with telephone wire, you
- 47:11go, well, this is going to look fucking stupid, but it doesn't.
- 47:14Like it doesn't such a way that you just.
- 47:16It's got that expression where you totally believe he's like, I
- 47:19think this is going to work. And if you just edge your seat,
- 47:21yeah, for me, that's his moment. And that's why I like it,
- 47:24because it's focused on that character in his dream.
- 47:26That's great. Inception was a bit of a
- 47:28launchpad for GGL, and since then he's been into that big
- 47:30films Looper, The Dark Knight Rises, and he's appeared in
- 47:33Lincoln, Sin City and The Walk as well.
- 47:36And about working on the film, GGL himself says Inception is as
- 47:41big as Hollywood movies get, but Chris prioritizes the acting
- 47:44above all else. It was as much fun as I've ever
- 47:46had on a set. I felt like a little kid playing
- 47:49pretend. Lovely.
- 47:51No. Eight people recognized by the
- 47:59Academy in the cast, and one of them was Ellen Page.
- 48:02She plays Ariadne, the architect who designs the dreams for
- 48:05Cobb's plan. After being recruited by Cobb
- 48:08from the Paris School of Architecture, Ariadne designed
- 48:10all three dream levels and saves the day by going into limbo with
- 48:13Cobb and bringing Fisher back to reality.
- 48:17She's a bit of a badass is Ariadne.
- 48:18What do we think of her and Ellen Page playing her?
- 48:22I think much like Joseph got Levitt, she does a really good
- 48:26job considering that like 80% of her role is asking questions and
- 48:31getting stuff explained right and pointing out the cop that
- 48:33he's a bit of a Dick sometimes. That's pretty much all she's got
- 48:38to do. But Peter does really, really
- 48:39well. It is a performance where on the
- 48:42paper you think what actress is going to want to do with that.
- 48:45You know, this barely, Anthony, but she brings so much out of
- 48:48it. I like how they made the
- 48:49character is young as she is, so she's got that level of naivety
- 48:53to her. You know, she does kind of rush
- 48:55into this without really thinking through what the
- 48:58possible consequences for her could be.
- 49:00So you can tell she's just so excited by this concept and that
- 49:03it links into what she's good at, which is architecture,
- 49:06building mazes. Yeah, she's really good.
- 49:09Yeah, I mean, she's the audience, isn't she?
- 49:11She comes into the film with no knowledge of extraction, like
- 49:14us, the audience, and is told everything we need to know by
- 49:16Cobb. And author Ellen Page is only 22
- 49:19at the time, but doesn't feel remotely out of a depth in this
- 49:22huge Nolan blockbuster. What I do like that Nolan does
- 49:24with the character is that because she's there to learn,
- 49:26for a lot of the film, you make sure it's Ariadne who comes up
- 49:29with a new plan. In Dream Level 3.
- 49:31When they think that failed, the copper names have basically
- 49:33given up and it's Ariadne who says and so pull it off.
- 49:36If they're going to limbo, I think that's really important.
- 49:38Otherwise Ariadne is literally just there to ask questions.
- 49:41Yeah, it's just the absolute heart of the film, I think,
- 49:44because she cares about what's going on deeper.
- 49:46It's not about what's the depth of the dream levels, it's the
- 49:49depth of the emotion. What's the real driving force
- 49:52behind Cobb? What's the real problem here?
- 49:54What's the real inception? And the real inception is to get
- 49:57through to him. And you need somebody who's
- 49:59fresh, who doesn't really know anything, and who is, you know,
- 50:02adverse to all the bullshit. Before Paige was hired, Norman
- 50:05had quite a few other big names in mind for our yard.
- 50:07Now, have you heard any of those names?
- 50:10No, I haven't. So Evan, Rachel Wood, Emily
- 50:14Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Carey Mulligan and Taylor Swift were
- 50:19all considered. Taylor Swift.
- 50:21Taylor Swift. No, it's all right.
- 50:24He did cast Harvey Styles, didn't he?
- 50:25And Duncook so. He did.
- 50:27She's got farm. Taylor Swift was in Cats, wasn't
- 50:29she? So let's just move on.
- 50:32Let's shake that off. Before Inception, Ellen Page was
- 50:36a rising star. She'd been in quite a few films.
- 50:38The most notable were Hard Candy, which won her lots of
- 50:40praise, and as the lead in Juno, where she was nominated for an
- 50:43Oscar, BAFTA and the Golden Globe.
- 50:46She won the part of Ariadne when she met Chris Nolan for a coffee
- 50:49that had nothing to do with Inception.
- 50:51Nolan said that she had the perfect combination of freshness
- 50:54and savvy immaturity beyond her years that he wanted for
- 50:57Ariadne. So a week later asked to come
- 50:59into his office to read the script and he offered her the
- 51:02gig kind of straight away. She said that she had to read
- 51:04the script in a room alone with all the doors closed.
- 51:08Imagine how many questions she had to ask by herself.
- 51:12I've got no one to ask you, I thought.
- 51:14You were going to say she had to read the script in a room within
- 51:16a room for a second there. Yeah, she had solve amazed to
- 51:20get the last page. I always like how she gets angry
- 51:25at Cobb. Yeah.
- 51:26Well, for the maze. And that just rips the part out
- 51:28of his hand, right you Dick, get out of this one.
- 51:32Literally thinking outside the box when she turns a bit of
- 51:34paper over. Yeah, it's great.
- 51:37It's a bit of a strange name, Ariadne, isn't it?
- 51:39Do you know why the character is called that?
- 51:40I think. It's something to do with Greek
- 51:43mythology, but I don't know exactly.
- 51:45Yeah, it is Ariadne. Famously, in Greek mythology,
- 51:48she was the Princess and the daughter of King Minos, and she
- 51:51is the person who helped Theseus escape from the labyrinth and
- 51:54fight the Minotaur. So obviously there's a lot of
- 51:56references to Ariadne building mazes in Inception.
- 51:59So Nolan thought, well, just seems the most logical thing to
- 52:03do to name Ariadne for that reason.
- 52:06So that's where that came from. Yeah, well, on top of that, the
- 52:08maze that Ariadne draws for Cobb, that third one weighs like
- 52:11that's more like it. That maze she draws is actually
- 52:14based on the labyrinth from Greek mythology.
- 52:16So another little. Not really.
- 52:18Oh wow, it's not based on the one from David.
- 52:21Bowie film. I just read The Labyrinth and I
- 52:25assumed the Greek mythology one, but maybe?
- 52:29Nice to see where your head goes man.
- 52:33About working on Inception and playing Ariadne, Ellen Page now
- 52:36says. I absolutely adored playing
- 52:39Ariadne and was so excited that Chris had written a role for a
- 52:41young woman who was just full of such intellectual curiosity.
- 52:45Ariadne is so smart and so brave and way, way cooler than me.
- 52:48Nice, lovely words. Forgers are hard to come by and
- 52:59Cobbs Forger is one of the best. That's Eames, played by Tom
- 53:02Hardy, a suave, eccentric ladies man.
- 53:05He's the dreamer of Level 3 in the hospital and responsible for
- 53:08carrying out Inception when he impersonates Fisher's godfather
- 53:11and plants the idea in Fisher's mind.
- 53:14Outrageous wardrobe for Eames. Wonderful.
- 53:20How does Tom Hardy do with him, do you think?
- 53:22He's fantastic. He's brilliant in every role
- 53:24that he plays. Tom Hardy, I've got, you know, a
- 53:26real admiration for the guy. And I think he plays this
- 53:29character so well that he's the one who understands human
- 53:32psyche, human psychology, human emotion.
- 53:34He comes up with all of the plan, you know, he comes up with
- 53:37the emotive way to actually implant this idea.
- 53:41I love it when we're in his dream and they're just about to
- 53:44give up. And he's like, I thought I had
- 53:45that there. Yeah.
- 53:46Yeah. It's a he's not acting, but he's
- 53:50acting. I kind of put my finger on it.
- 53:51It's just so loose. But at the same time, it's
- 53:53really precise. He skirts the line between the
- 53:56two things so well. And then my quote from the
- 53:58start, mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, doll.
- 54:00And he just turns up with a massive grenade launcher.
- 54:02I think that's just fucking brilliant.
- 54:04Yeah. He's superb.
- 54:05Like everybody. He totally shines in this.
- 54:07Yeah, I love he's. He's great.
- 54:10What I think about Tom Hardy is that I think he's an actor where
- 54:12you can really see the choices that he's made.
- 54:14His delivery of lions and portrayal of characters is often
- 54:17not what it reads on the page, and he usually injects something
- 54:20a bit when expected into a role, whether it's intensity or
- 54:24oddness or stoicism. You can do quite a lot here.
- 54:28He plays into this quirky, Shakespeare lovey type.
- 54:32It's ridiculous, but it works so well.
- 54:34I think it's pretty off the wall what he does with the character,
- 54:36but he fits in with the rest of the team just seamlessly.
- 54:39And I like Hardy in a lot of things.
- 54:40I think he's really good in Dunkirk, I think he's great in
- 54:43The Revenant and I think he's great here as well as Eames.
- 54:46Eames is my favorite character in the film really easily.
- 54:50I love every minute he's on screen.
- 54:52But Chris Murray's got, but it's quite low key in a way.
- 54:55He's not showing off. It's not like an egotistical
- 54:58performance. It just comes really, not really
- 55:00to him. He seems on the face for like,
- 55:02really cool and really in control, but he's the one who
- 55:04starts to lose a little bit when plants sort of go around.
- 55:07He's one who's like, Nope, gonna stay here.
- 55:08Yeah, no, any further. So I like that about it.
- 55:11He's not quite as cool as he makes himself out to be, and
- 55:15although I don't particularly want a sequel to Inception, I
- 55:17would definitely watch a spin off with Eames and Arthur
- 55:21together. Because.
- 55:23The two of them together are brilliant.
- 55:25Sounds like a buddy, Alan, Philip, Eames and Arthur.
- 55:28Well, that's it. Make it a sitcom.
- 55:29I would happily watch a sitcom with those.
- 55:31Two I would sounds fucking shocking.
- 55:35With us to know, it'd be great, yeah.
- 55:38I don't know what you're saying up but on the page do you think
- 55:41Eames has written to be a bit older?
- 55:43Hardy is. There's something about him that
- 55:45I always think he was probably meant to be, maybe like Tom
- 55:47Berenges age, but then Nolan obviously got Hardy in mind and
- 55:51didn't change the character. Possibly, yeah.
- 55:53But I do know that when Nolan cast DiCaprio, he intentionally
- 55:56cast younger cast members because he didn't want DiCaprio
- 55:59to look too young. So maybe that's where the change
- 56:02came from. Right.
- 56:03Another story as well is that Tom Hardy thought he was cast
- 56:06because of his performance in Bronson, but he was actually
- 56:09cast because of his performance in Rock and Roller.
- 56:11Yeah. So first day on set, you had to
- 56:13crystal. And then he's like, what do you
- 56:14think of Bronson? He's I haven't seen it.
- 56:19So I thought I was cast off the back of that.
- 56:20He's like, no, and I saw you in Rock and Roller, which is weird
- 56:22because it's not a memorable performance for me.
- 56:24No. Well before Inception.
- 56:26I actually first came across Tom Hardy in Star Trek Nemesis.
- 56:30Of course you do. Course you do.
- 56:31Where he plays the bad guy shins on.
- 56:34Shins on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 56:35He's basically a cloner. Patrick Stewart.
- 56:37And he wears a bald cap. Yeah, and a bit like our yard
- 56:40named Nolan. Took the name of Eames from
- 56:42somewhere else. Yeah, he was named after Charles
- 56:44and Ray Eames. I believe they were married
- 56:46couple and they were known as furniture designers, architects
- 56:50and for Megan, avant-garde documentaries.
- 56:53Avant-garde. I think that fits pretty
- 56:54perfectly with how hard he portrays him, doesn't it?
- 56:57Yeah, definitely, 100%. He's got an arty side with him,
- 57:00hasn't he? Yeah.
- 57:01What's your favorite Eames moment in the film?
- 57:04I think Eames does give the most hilarious moment in the film,
- 57:07and it's when they're talking about the kick for the first
- 57:09time and Ariadne obviously wants to know what that is.
- 57:13And Eameses goes this Ariadne would be a kick because he's
- 57:16seen Arthur swinging on his chair and he nearly sends him
- 57:19frying. It's hilarious.
- 57:21It's the fact that Eames isn't even looking at him while he's
- 57:24doing it. He's just like staring off the
- 57:26other side room. So he does it really slyly, the
- 57:28little busted, and Arthur is furious.
- 57:31He is. It's a small moan and it's some
- 57:34sort of that kind of bickering relationship that Eames and
- 57:36Arthur have. I love it.
- 57:38Yeah, I love the indro scene to Eames in the bar Mombasa where
- 57:41he's sitting with Cobb. Hardy's delivery of pretty much
- 57:44every line is great. I like her when Cobb mentions
- 57:47Arthur and Eames is like Arthur. That'll stick in the mud.
- 57:53It's. An example of what I mean where
- 57:55Hardy often surprised me with his choices, but almost always
- 57:58in a good way. The bit that really resonated
- 58:01with me is when he's watching Fisher at the end and he's just
- 58:05waiting for him. He's waiting for it to click and
- 58:07he's watching him and he's just like, come on.
- 58:08It's just that expression on his face where he knows that's all
- 58:12of his work, that's everything he's worked towards, and he's
- 58:15just watching it silently from the doorway.
- 58:16And I think when you're on Hardy's face there, you can
- 58:18totally see it and he nails it without pretty much any dialogue
- 58:21whatsoever. It's a fantastic, fantastic bit
- 58:24of acting. Of all the actors in the film,
- 58:27Tom Hardy's probably the one whose career Inception impacting
- 58:29most positively. After that, he's appeared into
- 58:32that big films, the most notable Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- 58:35Warrior Legend, where he plays both great wins, The Revenant,
- 58:38where he was nominated for an Oscar, and as the lead in Mad
- 58:41Max, Fury Road and Venom. And he worked with Northern
- 58:44twice more in Dunkirk and has been in The Dark Knight Rises.
- 58:49He's doing all right for himself, Hardy, hasn't he?
- 58:51Yeah, and right. He's so, to be fair, like he's
- 58:53fucking massive in anything. Yeah, he'll always be shins
- 58:56under me. Christ almighty, what does he
- 59:04have to do to shake that shit? About the Inception, Tom Hardy
- 59:10said about his time on the set. Dicaprio's there, Nolan's there,
- 59:15prolific people. I'd came from obscurity and was
- 59:17concerned with not letting the team down.
- 59:19Really, that's what fed the work.
- 59:21I'm only a very small cog in the wheel.
- 59:24Selling himself a bit shortly, I think.
- 59:26Hardy, isn't he? Yeah, a little bit.
- 59:28Yeah, but I think it says a lot about him.
- 59:29He doesn't have that ego, does he?
- 59:31Good guy. Well, DiCaprio was the lead, of
- 59:33course, but I think it's testament to the cast as a whole
- 59:35that the film has an ensemble feel to it as well.
- 59:38Everyone plays their part and I don't think there's anybody in
- 59:41the cast who feels replaceable. No, definitely.
- 59:44Not definitely. Not.
- 59:52At this point we've been through all the set up, the director,
- 59:55the cast and mountains of exposition and the middle of
- 59:58inceptions where things really start and we dive into the dream
- 1:00:01world. Dream level 2 when the hotel is
- 1:00:03coming. But first makes sense to start
- 1:00:06with dream level one I think. So after Saito buys out an
- 1:00:10entire airline, the team get on the same flight as Fisher, drug
- 1:00:13him to sleep, and then get started on the plan.
- 1:00:16Level one is Yousef Stream in rain drenched chalet and it
- 1:00:19brings those subconscious security, a runaway train in the
- 1:00:21middle of a street and Tom Behringer as Browning fish as a
- 1:00:26godfather. What do we think of Dream Level
- 1:00:28One? These dream levels for me are
- 1:00:32again a massive reference to the whole film Megan subplot that
- 1:00:36runs all the way through it. I truly believe that these three
- 1:00:39dream levels are based on three of Chris Nolan's favorite films,
- 1:00:42right? And can you guess what this one
- 1:00:44would be? It's always reminded me of heat.
- 1:00:47Heat. I was going to say yeah there.
- 1:00:48You go. So I think this one is very
- 1:00:50reminiscent of that whole Heat genre.
- 1:00:53That whole shootout just comes from nowhere.
- 1:00:55The train comes from nowhere. You're automatically in.
- 1:00:57And when I was watching it again yesterday, I was thinking if I
- 1:01:00was trying to figure out who's going in What Car.
- 1:01:02Like if you go in the taxi and then you go in the back and then
- 1:01:04I'll pick you up at the corner and then we'll go and get
- 1:01:06Fisher. That would take me 6 months just
- 1:01:08to figure out who's doing What Car.
- 1:01:10It's just. And then there's all the other
- 1:01:12little bits that you put into it.
- 1:01:13I mean, all the number theories that go through the film.
- 1:01:16This is quite prominent in this scene because you've got site or
- 1:01:20safe starts at #53 and Mal, safe is number 20.
- 1:01:23That's the numbers that are shown on there.
- 1:01:24Yeah. And on the taxi is the number
- 1:01:262053, which is relating to them two safes.
- 1:01:29But the number on the train IS35O2.
- 1:01:32So that's Mal trying to reverse everything.
- 1:01:35And that all comes from the hotel room that Mal jumps from.
- 1:01:37The number is 3502. Wow.
- 1:01:40Yeah, exactly. So it's all, you know, it's just
- 1:01:43a torture cub and just, you know, the for a fact, his
- 1:01:46subconscious trying to bring him back to where he was.
- 1:01:48But I love the fact that yousef's had too much champagne
- 1:01:51and he needs a person like, I love that.
- 1:01:54That's just excellent. Another thing I love about this
- 1:01:57as well is Hardy's transformation into Behringer's
- 1:02:00character. He's obviously sitting in front
- 1:02:02of an actor's vanity mirror. It cuts away.
- 1:02:04It's all Hardy in the mirror. Cuts back.
- 1:02:06Behringer's in one mirror, cuts back at DiCaprio, then he's in
- 1:02:09two. Cuts back, then he's in three,
- 1:02:10and then he turns and shouts and then Hardy's reflected in the
- 1:02:13mirror as he shouts. It's just genius.
- 1:02:16It's so fucking impressive that you watch it in just that level
- 1:02:18of detail and it's not confusing.
- 1:02:21You just think, Oh, well, that's fairly simple in its execution,
- 1:02:24Yeah. But the thought process behind
- 1:02:25all these little bits and you just keep thinking, right, well,
- 1:02:28where is this going? You know, it's superb.
- 1:02:30Just the imagery of that train smashing through the cars in the
- 1:02:32middle of the street is fantastic.
- 1:02:35In order to do that, they put a train engine under the chassis
- 1:02:37of a tractor trailer. It's a great shot on that.
- 1:02:40And the state motto on all the car license plate says the
- 1:02:43alternate state, which is a nice touch.
- 1:02:45Oh amazing. Wow, just the detail that
- 1:02:48Westies went through there and that in this one sequence is
- 1:02:51just mind blowing. Yeah, it's just got that
- 1:02:54physicality that Nolan works so well with, doesn't it?
- 1:02:58The way that train comes through.
- 1:02:59And what's great about that is that it reminds you how surreal
- 1:03:03dreams can be. This is the bizarreness that can
- 1:03:06happen in a dream. So it's not going to happen like
- 1:03:08a straightforward action sequence, nor there will be a
- 1:03:10train just smashing through the middle of the road for no
- 1:03:12reason. And it's also great that this is
- 1:03:14where the peril really starts to ramp up, because now you get the
- 1:03:18introduction of the concept of limbo and what that's going to
- 1:03:21mean for everyone. Because up until now, everything
- 1:03:24has just been about success or failure.
- 1:03:26Now there's a natural life or death aspect to it.
- 1:03:29Yeah. And they're all in it much
- 1:03:30deeper than the thought, which doesn't reflect well on Cobb at
- 1:03:32this point. So I like how we get that little
- 1:03:34twist on his character. Like he should have told them.
- 1:03:36Yeah. It just shows his desperation as
- 1:03:38well, and that he's willing to sacrifice everybody.
- 1:03:40I think that's really important because he doesn't want to do it
- 1:03:43either. And it's the Caprio's
- 1:03:44performance. You can see he is tortured by
- 1:03:46it. And then you have that lovely
- 1:03:47samba moment where he explains about Mal and he's talking
- 1:03:50Ariadne about it. And I love the things he
- 1:03:52introduces. Like there's a train from Norway
- 1:03:54and you just think, all right, yeah, explain that later.
- 1:03:57I bet you can't. And then there's this guys in a
- 1:03:59massive shootout. You just think, well, where the
- 1:04:00fuck's that coming from? And you just kind of get cocky
- 1:04:02and you go right the fuck this film up.
- 1:04:04They can't explain that. And then they go in and say, oh,
- 1:04:06you know, Fisher's been trained. And you go, oh, shit, that's
- 1:04:10believable. Yeah, they just explain
- 1:04:12everything. They just go, oh, yeah, shit,
- 1:04:14right, OK. And then you're straight back
- 1:04:15with them again. What do you think of the big
- 1:04:18chase through the streets where Yusuf's driving the van?
- 1:04:21That sequence, that car chase, it took months to film.
- 1:04:24And I've got a quote from DLEP Rao, who plays Yusuf, and he
- 1:04:26says we shoot it one day, then go off and shoot something else.
- 1:04:30It was so complex and there was so many locations and so many
- 1:04:33different moves I have to do. We filmed it on and off for
- 1:04:35months. Well.
- 1:04:37Doesn't feel like it's something that will take months to film
- 1:04:40like does it? I would assume that coming back
- 1:04:42to a month later would make it easier to tie everything in with
- 1:04:45what's happening later in the film in the their dream levels
- 1:04:47because it's all going to match up.
- 1:04:48Maybe that was why, I'm not sure.
- 1:04:50Yeah, yeah, maybe. Yeah, from there, the team
- 1:04:58heading to Arthur's Dream, a hotel where Fisher's
- 1:05:00subconscious projection of Browning starts feeding the idea
- 1:05:03back to him. As planned, Dream Level 2 brings
- 1:05:06us Eames impersonating a lovely lady he's used before and the
- 1:05:12greatest fight in a hotel corridor with no Gravity film on
- 1:05:14a 100 foot long revolving set ever.
- 1:05:18It's my favorite one, yeah. It's in the top two.
- 1:05:22What do we think about Dream Level 2?
- 1:05:23Is it all about that corridor? No, I don't think it is, to be
- 1:05:26fair. I think there's enough going on
- 1:05:29in there besides that that's worth talking about it.
- 1:05:31I think it's at this point that the film has a definite Ocean's
- 1:05:3411 vibe. You know, everyone's swanning
- 1:05:36around a hotel in suits, pulling cons, stealing wallets.
- 1:05:40It's definitely got that lovely highest element to it.
- 1:05:43I love that saying. It's the other bit in the film
- 1:05:45that makes me laugh. When Eames goes into the left
- 1:05:47recital and he's the woman and like Sido really freaks out.
- 1:05:51Then he sees it's Eames reflection.
- 1:05:54I love why that comes back as well as.
- 1:05:55And he sees Behringer and he's like, oh, you've changed.
- 1:05:57He's like, oh, man, yeah. Oh, it's really good.
- 1:06:00That's really funny. Yeah, that's great.
- 1:06:02But yeah, I mean that corridor fighter, man, come on.
- 1:06:05When I first saw that, I actually just wanted to laugh
- 1:06:08just because how audacious it was.
- 1:06:10And I think it works so well because of where in the film
- 1:06:13Nolan's placed it so much. The film so far has been about
- 1:06:18the levels of dream and what Inception is, what Extraction
- 1:06:21is. So now I think it's Nolan knows
- 1:06:24that he's got like an ace up a sleeve and he's like, right,
- 1:06:27I've been talking to these people long enough, I'm just
- 1:06:29going to show them something that works on a visual level and
- 1:06:31I'm going to blow everyone away. But it's not to say for the
- 1:06:35sacred either. It reminds you that on this
- 1:06:37level it's been affected by what's happening on level one,
- 1:06:41just in case you'd forgotten about that.
- 1:06:43Yeah, because they're in freefall now.
- 1:06:45They're in freefall down here. So it's still amazing.
- 1:06:49It really is. I think it's one of the most
- 1:06:50incredible things I've seen in a film.
- 1:06:53It took three weeks and 500 people to shoot this.
- 1:06:56I love how there's practically no digital effects used.
- 1:06:58Almost everything we say is in camera.
- 1:07:00It looks so real because most of it was, but not just that.
- 1:07:04I mean, the editing is fantastic.
- 1:07:06I love how the fight gets more and more frantic and tense and
- 1:07:09the score crescendos and then the whole thing just comes
- 1:07:12through a really sudden end with the band when Arthur fires the
- 1:07:14gun. Absolutely brilliant, Just
- 1:07:17mesmerizing every time I watch it.
- 1:07:19I mean this is 2 films for me. This is his like not the
- 1:07:22Kubrick. So I think this is the Shine and
- 1:07:24and it's 2001 just mixed together.
- 1:07:27But I love as well just in level one, when you get that really
- 1:07:31great Mcguffin, which is the number, it's like 528491, which
- 1:07:34then runs into this one because she leaves it on the napkin and
- 1:07:37then it becomes the hotel room, which I think is really clever.
- 1:07:40And it's just a wonderful way to implant that in someone's mind.
- 1:07:44So every level is a level of inception.
- 1:07:46They're implanting something in his mind every single step of
- 1:07:48the way. And I would say The Shining, not
- 1:07:50just because of the really obvious.
- 1:07:52Yeah, it's in a hotel. So I Westie, you're just going
- 1:07:55to mention The Shining because he loves The Shining.
- 1:07:58Yeah. I think it's great.
- 1:08:00There's another parallel as well.
- 1:08:02Well, there's two. If you notice when Cobbs is
- 1:08:04talking to Fisher, when he takes him out the bar, where does he
- 1:08:06go? The bathroom?
- 1:08:08Yeah. So it's similar when Jack's
- 1:08:09talking to Greedy, right? Yeah, yeah.
- 1:08:11Very similar in shot. There's mirrors on the side.
- 1:08:14It's got a very similar look. And the other thing I love about
- 1:08:16this as well, that I don't know if I'm going like really nerd
- 1:08:19level 1000, but you know how Gordon Levitz taught him as a
- 1:08:23dice? Yeah.
- 1:08:24And he halted up the camera and it's loaded.
- 1:08:26So it always lands on A5, right? So he's tumbling down the
- 1:08:29corridor. And if you look at the end of
- 1:08:30the corridor, there's a #5 which goes around level 5.
- 1:08:33Is there really right? Wow.
- 1:08:35Yeah, it's fucking amazing, isn't?
- 1:08:38It. I see you're going to make a
- 1:08:39documentary about all the hidden meanings of Inception.
- 1:08:42Yeah. Room 5 to 8.
- 1:08:45Yeah, Room 5 to 8, we're already 10% of it will be feasible.
- 1:08:51It is brilliantly bonkers, the revolving corridor.
- 1:08:53So do we know how they did it? Yeah, but you can explain it
- 1:08:56because I need to simplify it well.
- 1:09:00Firstly, it was all filmed in two enormous airship sheds in
- 1:09:02Bedfordshire. Originally the revolving set was
- 1:09:05only going to be 40 feet long, but as the scene became more and
- 1:09:07more elaborate they decided to make it 100 feet long.
- 1:09:11The mechanics of the set was mapped out by Wally Fister, the
- 1:09:13DP, Chris Cobol, EFFECT supervisor, and Guy Hendrix, DS,
- 1:09:17who was the production designer. The set they built and rotated a
- 1:09:20full 360° and they could control the direction it rotated and how
- 1:09:24fast it rotated. Nolan didn't want any digital
- 1:09:27effects if possible, so even the lights were real.
- 1:09:30They had it rigged up with real electricity I found.
- 1:09:33Impressive, Yes. Well, I'm not done yet.
- 1:09:37So the corridor on that set was horizontal, of course, but they
- 1:09:39created the second set that was identical to the first in every
- 1:09:42way except the corridor was vertical.
- 1:09:44So in this set, Joseph Gordon Levitt in the stuntman he was
- 1:09:47fighting, suspended from pulleys about 40 feet in the air to
- 1:09:50create the look of weightlessness.
- 1:09:52So the moment where they're fighting and moving up the walls
- 1:09:54and round the ceiling is all shot on set one, the one that
- 1:09:57revolved. And the times where they're
- 1:09:59weightless or appear to be weightless is on set to the
- 1:10:01vertical set. And the fight sequence cuts
- 1:10:04between shots from both sets, which is why the points of
- 1:10:06gravity seem to change from one second to the next, and why it's
- 1:10:08completely impossible to make any sense of it.
- 1:10:11I mean, this is just phenomenal in my eyes.
- 1:10:14I think we have to say as well, Joseph Gordon Levitt is an
- 1:10:17actor, not a stuntman, and he's brilliant in this whole
- 1:10:20sequence. Oh, he's amazing.
- 1:10:21The great thing about Levitt in this is that he trained for like
- 1:10:2312 weeks and he had a stuntman. But you know how many shots a
- 1:10:27stuntman was used for? How many?
- 1:10:29No. Really, everything else is
- 1:10:33Gordon Levitt. Yeah.
- 1:10:33I mean, you can totally tell if you had a stuntman and they'd be
- 1:10:36really hard to cut around it. You need him to play it because
- 1:10:38it needs that believability. And I think for him to do that,
- 1:10:40train for 12 weeks and then nail it as well as he does here,
- 1:10:43you're still there. You know, It's superb.
- 1:10:45I know the JGL said it was the most pain I've ever been in on a
- 1:10:48movie set. And also to allow him to keep a
- 1:10:51tune with the rhythm of the set as it was revolving around him.
- 1:10:54He would sing Bach to himself in his head to keep focus of.
- 1:10:58Course you would. Cool shed man GGL isn't it?
- 1:11:10Right into the character here, isn't it?
- 1:11:13Well, I mean, it's no surprise that he had to find some way to
- 1:11:17keep his focus here because what Nolan was putting him through,
- 1:11:19just on the physical level, I mean, even just thinking about
- 1:11:22it makes me feel a bit sick, Nolan said.
- 1:11:25It was like some incredible torture device.
- 1:11:28We thrashed Joseph for weeks, but in the end, we looked at the
- 1:11:30footage and it looks unlike anything any of us has ever seen
- 1:11:33before. The rhythm of it is unique.
- 1:11:35And when you watch it, even if you know how it was done, it
- 1:11:38confuses your perceptions. It's unsettling in a wonderful
- 1:11:41way. Really nice.
- 1:11:43Yeah, I know the end of that inception was called Lee Smith.
- 1:11:45He had loads of experience going back to the 70s and when he was
- 1:11:48sent the footage for this corridor scene he called Nolan
- 1:11:51and said this is the most incredible footage I've ever
- 1:11:53been sent blown away by. The whole 0 gravity thing is
- 1:11:58another call back to what was saying about, you know, the
- 1:12:01visual effects that were used. The practical effect is that
- 1:12:04Alan Page's hair was tied up into a bun because they didn't
- 1:12:06know how her hair was going to react in that zero gravity
- 1:12:08atmosphere. And the other thing that I
- 1:12:10really, really love about this is when he's moving sight or
- 1:12:12you've got them tiny blood droplets, yes, coming out of his
- 1:12:15mouth. Oh yeah.
- 1:12:17You're going to use visual effects at CGI.
- 1:12:18That's what you use them for. Just to show that he's
- 1:12:21deteriorating. Wonderful.
- 1:12:23The zero gravity fight sequence Inception is covered in A5 line
- 1:12:26paragraph in the screenplay and there's only 30 seconds of
- 1:12:29screen time and it doesn't feature the main star of the
- 1:12:31film, but wow, yeah, wow. All this level, wow.
- 1:12:35The whole film, wow. Massive productions need a
- 1:12:49talented crew to deliver and the crew that worked on Inception
- 1:12:52was pretty great, so we're going to go into a bit more detail on
- 1:12:54some of them now. 2 long time Nolan collaborators DP Wally
- 1:12:58Fister and composer Hans Zimmer are coming up, but for now
- 1:13:01they're waiting for a train as we're starting back with Nolan
- 1:13:05as the writer of Inception. Yep, let's do it.
- 1:13:08As I mentioned earlier, Northern first had the idea for Inception
- 1:13:10as a teenager and at first thought about making it into a
- 1:13:13horror, but in the end decided on a science fiction heist
- 1:13:16movie. It's high concept and famously
- 1:13:19difficult to keep track of what's happening at times.
- 1:13:21Inception. So what do you think of the
- 1:13:24writing in the film? I think it's a completely
- 1:13:26original film. I mean, you can see it's
- 1:13:28influences, but I mean, I don't really think you can say, Oh,
- 1:13:31well, that's just exactly the same as this or anything like
- 1:13:34that. I think this completely stands
- 1:13:36on its own. I think it's a glimpse inside
- 1:13:38Chris Nolan's ambition. But it's a very personal story
- 1:13:41from Nolan. It's a very, you know, unique
- 1:13:43idea. I think he executes it
- 1:13:45perfectly. I think it's a really solid,
- 1:13:47really ambitious bit of writing that is complicated but at the
- 1:13:50same time very accessible. So yeah, it's a wonderful
- 1:13:53script. Yeah, I mean, the concept is
- 1:13:55brilliant. Heist team that goes into
- 1:13:57people's dreams to extract secrets.
- 1:13:59Fantastic. But what Nolan does here that
- 1:14:01makes him the best of this sort of thing is that he doesn't just
- 1:14:03think, well, that's a great concept, My work is done.
- 1:14:07He develops it. So it's not just dreams.
- 1:14:09Within dreams. There's loads of great ideas
- 1:14:11like subconscious security. And I love Yousef Seller, where
- 1:14:14people go there every day because I'd rather be in the
- 1:14:16dream than reality. That's a great idea.
- 1:14:18On top of that, I love the emotional core of the film,
- 1:14:21which revolves around Cobb losing his wife and wanting to
- 1:14:23get back to his children. That brings so much weight that
- 1:14:26the narrative just needs maybe a negative in the right thing.
- 1:14:30I would say is some of the plotting can be a little
- 1:14:32contrived. Rules crop up just because
- 1:14:35Northern needs them to sometimes we're told so many rules.
- 1:14:37I'm half expecting Cop to say don't cross the streams.
- 1:14:40Everything else is in there. But generally, yeah, I think
- 1:14:43he's in a fantastic job of getting his head around this
- 1:14:46crazy concept and managing to make it into something that
- 1:14:48works as a story. It is a little bit of a mixed
- 1:14:51bag for me, The good stuff. Let's get to the good stuff
- 1:14:54first. So the depth to which he's
- 1:14:56thought this concept through, not just going into dreams,
- 1:14:59dreams within dreams. And then to think, right, so
- 1:15:02something happens in level one that's going to affect level 2,
- 1:15:04then that's going to affect Level 3.
- 1:15:06To think all that through, that's just incredibly detailed
- 1:15:09plot work. And when you get to the end and
- 1:15:12the way he just threads the needle through all those
- 1:15:15different layers and just pulls it all together, it's just a
- 1:15:18beautiful bit of plot writing. The negative aspects for me kind
- 1:15:22of twofold. I think the character work does
- 1:15:25feel a little lacking for me. I kind of touched not a bit when
- 1:15:29I talked about Ariadne and Arthur, how like 80% of them is
- 1:15:32just explaining other stuff. And I think that's to their
- 1:15:35detriment that I don't really feel I know them that much as
- 1:15:38characters. And the second thing, I just
- 1:15:41don't find this dialogue very memorable.
- 1:15:42Trying to find a quote to start this episode was the hardest
- 1:15:45one. I was reading through the
- 1:15:47script. I was like, that's just a line
- 1:15:49of exposition. That's just another line of
- 1:15:51exposition. And then I see a change it as
- 1:15:52well. Yeah, exactly.
- 1:15:54You asked me to change it. I knew someone else would go for
- 1:15:56the AIM sign, which is obviously the best line in the film is,
- 1:15:59you know, front and centre in the trailer.
- 1:16:01And I think that's a far inception.
- 1:16:03It's not a film I think you're ever going to find yourself
- 1:16:05quoting. Yeah, I mean, that's valid
- 1:16:07points on both. I think his dialogue isn't bad,
- 1:16:10but it's not memorable. No, it's not bad, no.
- 1:16:13There's no like iconic lines, hardly ever in his films or
- 1:16:15anything like that. I agree with that, but I do care
- 1:16:18about the characters. To be honest.
- 1:16:19I do care about cop getting home and I do like all the
- 1:16:21characters. I would love to see all these
- 1:16:23characters again. We would never go into and I'm
- 1:16:25not sure why because you're right.
- 1:16:26I mean Arthur will know nothing about him, but I really like him
- 1:16:29or we hadn't even know nothing about her, but I really like
- 1:16:31her. Same with themes.
- 1:16:32So I'm not sure where that comes from.
- 1:16:34Maybe it is just in the performances.
- 1:16:35I. Think it is, yeah.
- 1:16:37Things, what they bring to it. I think he's just a very visual
- 1:16:40director. He's a very visual filmmaker.
- 1:16:42So a lot of this is individuals, a lot of the emotion, a lot of
- 1:16:44the impact is right there on the screen for you to find.
- 1:16:47Yeah, you're right. He's not a dialogue writer, he's
- 1:16:49not Tarantino. But I think if you start delving
- 1:16:51in the back stories here, you're going to lose focus on what the
- 1:16:53actual films about, which is about Cobb and you know
- 1:16:55everything about him and everything about Mal.
- 1:16:57That's what the film's about. That's the nuclear kind of
- 1:17:00centres in. Not every film can have that
- 1:17:02level of character development in depth because it's not going
- 1:17:05to be focused on them. It'll be a distraction for me.
- 1:17:07I think that would be too much. And yeah, his dialogue is quite
- 1:17:11forgettable, but his visuals aren't.
- 1:17:13Well, as well as the plot exposition and character
- 1:17:16backstories and arcs, Norman still finds time to throw a
- 1:17:19theme or two in there as well. Regret is a big one.
- 1:17:22But maybe the most interesting theme that people talk about is
- 1:17:25that Inception as a film is an allegory for filmmaking itself,
- 1:17:29and that Norman reflects that throughout the movie.
- 1:17:31Wesley I think you see filmmaking is a theme and
- 1:17:33Inception. Oh, absolutely, yeah, 100%.
- 1:17:36And I think every character's got a role.
- 1:17:38And it's no secret that Cobb looks pretty similar to Nolan,
- 1:17:41right? Pretty much exactly the same.
- 1:17:44Well, he's a bit more handsome I think than a.
- 1:17:47Little bit, yeah. But you know, credit where it's
- 1:17:49due, the hairstyles there, you know, his outfits are the same.
- 1:17:53And it's even been said that on the teaser poster where it's the
- 1:17:56back shot of Cobb looking down the whole cityscape, that that
- 1:17:59was actually Nolan. Really.
- 1:18:01Yeah, apparently. Yeah, I mean, that thing about
- 1:18:04the filmmaking, once you know about it and you can start to
- 1:18:06identify the different roles, it does start to make sense.
- 1:18:09So obviously Cop, he's a director, he's the man with the
- 1:18:12vision. He's got the grand plan.
- 1:18:14Arthur is the producer. So it's the point man.
- 1:18:16He does all the planning, he does the research.
- 1:18:18It's his responsibility to pull everything together so Cop, the
- 1:18:22director, can achieve his vision.
- 1:18:24Ari Abney, she's the production designer.
- 1:18:26She creates the maze, she creates the world in which
- 1:18:29everything takes place. Eames, obviously, we know he's a
- 1:18:31fortress, so he's the actor because he is impersonating
- 1:18:34people. Saito, he's the money man, so
- 1:18:36he's the studio. Everything that gets financed
- 1:18:38comes through him. And Fisher, he's the audience.
- 1:18:41This is what everything is being pulled together for, for his
- 1:18:45benefit, for his enjoyment. I also think of Youssef as like
- 1:18:49the technician as well. He's like ADP, he's got the
- 1:18:51technical element to it. And then you've got Arthur as
- 1:18:54well going back to the corridor fight.
- 1:18:56It's just like the producer scrambling through this maze,
- 1:18:59just trying to pull everyone together and tie the whole crew
- 1:19:01together. So it has.
- 1:19:02It's got all of these great elements.
- 1:19:05I reckon dual Silva's probably had a few fights in hotels
- 1:19:07before. Not like that.
- 1:19:12Though no, not like that. There's also some pretty trippy
- 1:19:16stuff going on with the character names.
- 1:19:18We mentioned how we had named names, but have you heard where
- 1:19:21the other character names come from?
- 1:19:23I have no idea where their names come from.
- 1:19:24No. So Cobb's first name is Dom and
- 1:19:28his main objective is to get home.
- 1:19:29In most Slavic languages, Polish, Russian, Serbian,
- 1:19:32Croatian, Dom means home. Right.
- 1:19:35Oh yeah, like domicile. Domestic, yeah.
- 1:19:38Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- 1:19:39So Youssef is the Arabic name for Joseph in the Bible.
- 1:19:42Joseph is the person who interprets people's dreams, as
- 1:19:45in Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
- 1:19:47Oh, nice one. Yeah, don't think.
- 1:19:50There'd be reference to that, to be fair.
- 1:19:52Should have cast Jason Donovan or Philip Schofield.
- 1:19:57Oh, imagine. And Mal comes from a French word
- 1:20:01maler, which means unhappiness. Another lovely reference is if
- 1:20:05you take the first letters of the main characters names, so
- 1:20:07you've got Dom, Robert, Ames, Arthur, Mal and Seitel, that
- 1:20:12spells out dreams. And then if you add Peter,
- 1:20:15Ariadne and Yusuf, the whole thing makes dreams pay, which is
- 1:20:19what they do. Is mind thieves really.
- 1:20:22So yeah. And I don't know how much I buy
- 1:20:23that. Can it be coincidental?
- 1:20:25Surely that's got to be in there for a reason.
- 1:20:29I mean, how much is crammed into this script?
- 1:20:31It's insane. Yeah, it really is.
- 1:20:33First thing at the seems. Yeah, there's a really good
- 1:20:36reference as well. There's a book by George Lanoff,
- 1:20:39which is called Don't Think of an Elephant, which is a book
- 1:20:41about cognitive semantics. So when he says if I say it to
- 1:20:44you, don't think about what you think of.
- 1:20:46It's a reference to that book, which I think I might get.
- 1:20:48That sounds really interesting. Lovely, you got plans to start
- 1:20:51manipulating people's minds? I've.
- 1:20:54Been doing it for years. You still need to know what am I
- 1:20:58even doing here. It's all a dream.
- 1:21:01It is. Noel himself says about writing
- 1:21:05the film. Inception burned inside me for a
- 1:21:08long time. The final piece of the puzzle
- 1:21:10was when I realized when you're dealing with the world of dreams
- 1:21:12in the psyche, there has to be emotional stakes.
- 1:21:15Hopefully I made that work. Definitely did.
- 1:21:24Nine years before production on Inception started, Nolan and
- 1:21:27Wally Fister were together for the first time on Mendo.
- 1:21:30Inception was their 6th partnership.
- 1:21:32So how does Wally Fister do as DP on Inception do you think?
- 1:21:35I think he's fantastic. I do.
- 1:21:37I honestly do. I think that since Wally Fister
- 1:21:40hasn't been working with Nolan, these films haven't got that
- 1:21:44real sense of clarity. They feel a little bit loose, a
- 1:21:48little bit more loose in the way that the shot.
- 1:21:50And I don't know whether that's his dedication more to IMAX
- 1:21:53white van. How Tom has come on is is DP now
- 1:21:56who's worked on everything since Interstellar.
- 1:21:58And you look at this point here and you just say, well, this is
- 1:22:00somebody at the top of the game. He's working.
- 1:22:02This is it just looks as good as any film has ever looked,
- 1:22:06really. It's it's superbly done.
- 1:22:08Yeah, I think it's classic Nolan Fister, isn't it?
- 1:22:10What I really like about Inception is the use of colour.
- 1:22:13Once we get into the three dream levels, it could be easy for
- 1:22:15audiences to become lost. So the three levels are coloured
- 1:22:18and lit to look different from each other.
- 1:22:20Yeah, level one in the van looks quite neutral and muted, Level 2
- 1:22:23in the hotel feels different with really warm hues and soft
- 1:22:26lighting, and Level 3 in hospital is much cooler and
- 1:22:29almost sterile. Obviously everything is white.
- 1:22:32I think the film as a whole looks fantastic and is up there
- 1:22:35with anything they've done together.
- 1:22:37I mean, it's working. It's obviously excellent, isn't
- 1:22:39it? He's got that ability that
- 1:22:41Norman really, really wants in a cinematographer to be very
- 1:22:46comfortable shooting with physical aspects of film as well
- 1:22:48as CG, which is what he clearly is.
- 1:22:50And that's why the two were blended together so perfectly.
- 1:22:53It's it's really impressive. Yeah, I think what help with
- 1:22:56that is that there was no second unit on Inception.
- 1:22:59Everything we see was shot with both Northern and Fista present.
- 1:23:02All right, so what's your favorite shot in the film?
- 1:23:05It's quite a small one in some ways, but it's that one of the
- 1:23:09van falling backwards off the bridge in slow motion.
- 1:23:12Just find it such a hypnotic, fascinating shot.
- 1:23:17Yeah, I mean, it looks great, but like the chord, I've seen
- 1:23:19it. It's got a place in the
- 1:23:21narrative as well. It's just that reminder of where
- 1:23:23the characters actually are, where they've started forming in
- 1:23:26terms of the dream. And so it keeps cutting back
- 1:23:28there. It ties the whole thing
- 1:23:30together. I just love it.
- 1:23:31Yeah, I was going to say a witch shot because we're seeing it
- 1:23:33about 400 times. That's fine.
- 1:23:37To be fair, though, it is a perfect way of giving us a
- 1:23:39visual countdown clock so we can see exactly how long the team
- 1:23:42has left. It works really, really well.
- 1:23:44Yeah, from that point of view. I love the way the techniques
- 1:23:46are used as well to reinforce the story.
- 1:23:49They're not using slow, more just to be flashy.
- 1:23:50Yeah. But my favorite shot is when the
- 1:23:53extracting sight or at the start and Cob is being pushed and he
- 1:23:57has the kick and he's in the bath.
- 1:23:59But it's when he's in actually in the dream, it's that shot
- 1:24:01from behind him and all the water starts coming in.
- 1:24:03Yeah. And he's just silhouetted
- 1:24:05against that water. I remember watching this IMAX,
- 1:24:08first time I'd seen it, and that shot came on and I just went,
- 1:24:11that's filmmaking, that's amazing, that's so exciting in
- 1:24:14literally, what, four or five seconds?
- 1:24:16Beautifully done. It is a great shot.
- 1:24:19So Inception came out one year after Avatar, which at the time
- 1:24:23was the highest grossing film ever made.
- 1:24:25Avatar was a 3D film and because of this, Warner Brothers asked
- 1:24:28Norman to make Inception in 3D. Norman refused and said we'll be
- 1:24:32too restricted by the technology and it will distract from the
- 1:24:34storytelling. Yeah.
- 1:24:36Would you like to have seen Inception in 3D?
- 1:24:38There's. Only like 2 bits.
- 1:24:39That would have worked, wouldn't it?
- 1:24:40There's the cafe explosions. That would have been great.
- 1:24:43And then the whole city folded in.
- 1:24:45If that city was looking like it was folding in on you, that
- 1:24:48would have been great. Terrifying, terrifying.
- 1:24:53You know, you can make the argument that you could create
- 1:24:56more of a surreal atmosphere in 3D to reflect the dreamscapes at
- 1:25:00the rain, but it wouldn't fit. Yeah, cannot imagine this
- 1:25:03serving the story at all well. The only film that warrants 3D
- 1:25:07that really works is Space Hunter Adventures in the
- 1:25:09Philippines, and that's fantastic because it doesn't
- 1:25:15even have a story. Doesn't matter.
- 1:25:21Boys work on Inception. Wally Fester won an Oscar, his
- 1:25:24first, and about Inception. He now says Chris wanted a
- 1:25:28naturalistic look in the photography to reinforce the
- 1:25:30notion the dreamers can feel incredibly real when we're in
- 1:25:33them. I kept things simple and not
- 1:25:35overlit and tried to find the beauty in natural light.
- 1:25:38Job done, I think. Yep.
- 1:25:40Yeah, definitely. One long term Nolan collaborator
- 1:25:48to another. Hans Zimmer had previously
- 1:25:49scored Batman Begins in The Dark Knight, so this was their third
- 1:25:52partnership as director and composer.
- 1:25:54Johnny Moore plays guitar on the score as well.
- 1:25:56Yeah, he does better than anything he's done for the
- 1:25:59Smith. I've never.
- 1:26:03I. Fucking do.
- 1:26:07So what do we think of Zimmer's music in Inception?
- 1:26:10I think it's very Hans Zimmer, isn't it?
- 1:26:11I mean, it's just ultimately and immediately recognizable.
- 1:26:15It's big. It sounds as big as it looks.
- 1:26:17It's just huge. The whole score is just so
- 1:26:19sweeping and so dramatic. I went and did the Big Shop
- 1:26:23yesterday and I had this soundtrack on Asda.
- 1:26:25Never been so interesting. I was walking around just like I
- 1:26:28thought everything must be subconscious and I was just like
- 1:26:30jeez, this is huge. But it's superb.
- 1:26:32My favorites in my school. I can't recall another score
- 1:26:36that just seemed so immediately iconic as this one.
- 1:26:40Just after this, it just seemed like it was everywhere, almost
- 1:26:43to the point now where it almost feels like it's a parody of
- 1:26:45itself because it's been ripped off so many times.
- 1:26:49But it is incredible. It's massive.
- 1:26:51That's the words. I've got to get it because it
- 1:26:53just feels like he's restrained it in terms of like
- 1:26:55orchestration. I don't think there's like loads
- 1:26:57of instruments in there, but the instruments that he is using,
- 1:27:00he's just amped them up and it always feels like it's a wave
- 1:27:04kind of rolling over here, the music and this.
- 1:27:06It's like IMAX for your ears. Isn't it Emax?
- 1:27:11Yeah, yeah, Max. Yeah, Max doesn't sound as good.
- 1:27:16Get the cotton bud. There's a piece of music not
- 1:27:19composed by Hans Zimmer which crops up where Edith PF's Nausea
- 1:27:22and Regretta Ria is used by the team to initiate a kick when
- 1:27:25they want to wake up or move up from layers.
- 1:27:28We hear it most the way through the film.
- 1:27:31A slightly unexpected choice, maybe?
- 1:27:33No, that's the original.
- 1:27:56It's just one of those decisions where you've just got to sit
- 1:27:59back and applaud them for it because where did that concept
- 1:28:02come from? How did they even think of that?
- 1:28:05And it's kind of like what I said at the beginning about the
- 1:28:07technology that they use. I love how in this high concept
- 1:28:11sci-fi futuristic thriller, they use a song from the 1930s as the
- 1:28:16countdown. Like just.
- 1:28:21Much. It is it.
- 1:28:24It's one of these things. It just baffles me in a good way
- 1:28:28that didn't think, oh, we'll do what the Matrix did.
- 1:28:31Get the dust brothers in now. Get like a techno track.
- 1:28:33Thank God for. That, Yeah.
- 1:28:34Thank God for that, Yeah. But it's something really slow
- 1:28:38and mournful. It's brilliant.
- 1:28:40I think it's a great choice. I like how the song taps into
- 1:28:42the themes of the movie, memories, regret and moving on
- 1:28:45from regret. And there's a classic northern
- 1:28:47touch in there as well, where nausea and regret, a Rihanna is
- 1:28:502 minutes, 28 seconds long and Inception is 2 hours, 28 minutes
- 1:28:53long. So Nolan edited the film so the
- 1:28:56length reflected the song. That's ridiculous.
- 1:28:59I love everything about that choice.
- 1:29:00I think this would have been there when he was writing the
- 1:29:03script, to be honest. It is so reflective of the
- 1:29:06themes. I don't think this was an
- 1:29:07afterthought. I think that was baked in.
- 1:29:09And I did read somewhere that he was thinking about changing when
- 1:29:11he cast Marianne Coulter because she did play Edith PF and she
- 1:29:15sang this song as part of that role and he thought it would be
- 1:29:18too much. But I think it's worked the
- 1:29:20other way. I think if you look at Marianne
- 1:29:22Coulter, that is the song that you hear when you see her, for
- 1:29:24her to remind Dom of her and to use it as the kick.
- 1:29:28And I think he's chose that song because it reminds him of Mal,
- 1:29:30to be honest. Yeah, it was actually Zimmer who
- 1:29:33convinced Nolan to keep it after we thought about getting rid of
- 1:29:35it because he had doubts about how it might fit.
- 1:29:37And did you know that the score that Zimmer wrote basically
- 1:29:39begs, borrows and steals from Non General Regretta Riyadh?
- 1:29:42Yeah. So knowing that Nolan was using
- 1:29:44that song and knowing the time moves at different speeds
- 1:29:46depending on which dream level you're in.
- 1:29:48Zimmer based various pieces of music in In Inception on how Non
- 1:29:52general Regretta Riyadh sounds played at slower speeds.
- 1:29:55Yeah, you hear all the way through the film, don't you?
- 1:29:56That's where them bongs come from.
- 1:30:00Yeah. Well, if anyone that hasn't,
- 1:30:02we've got you covered. So this is non general regretta.
- 1:30:04We are slow down alongside Zimmer's inception score.
- 1:30:07So have a listen to this. I mean, how great is that when
- 1:30:32you hear those two side by side, it's.
- 1:30:34Just so good. I remember Matt, you text us
- 1:30:36about that because we're talking about what being say it and you
- 1:30:39are just like, did you know what this and I was like, shit,
- 1:30:41you're like, that just makes this like 10 times better.
- 1:30:43I was like, oh, how much more we're going to find out about
- 1:30:45this. We're still learning about it.
- 1:30:47It's just so good. And we can't talk about the
- 1:30:49score to Inception without mentioning time, which is one of
- 1:30:52the pieces in my wrote. It's used throughout the film,
- 1:30:55but most powerfully at the end when the team wake up on the
- 1:30:57plane with the mission accomplished and in the final
- 1:30:59scene of the movie. So what do you think of time as
- 1:31:02a piece of music in the film? I think it's one of my favorite
- 1:31:05pieces of of soundtrack in recent years, to be honest.
- 1:31:10It's superb. It's so big.
- 1:31:12I love that guitar part. It just adds to it.
- 1:31:15Zimmer's written this many times, this composition, this
- 1:31:19chord progression, this sound, the strings, everything.
- 1:31:22I mean, if you watch 12 Years a Slave, when Solomon comes back
- 1:31:25at the end, there's a track called Solomon, which is pretty
- 1:31:26much without the guitar part. Yeah, but this feels like he's
- 1:31:31been trying to get this to sit over a film that would really,
- 1:31:35really work. And it does here.
- 1:31:36This is just perfect. From the minute they wake up on
- 1:31:39that plane and it builds and it builds and you see them all kind
- 1:31:42of looking at each other and it just plays over the final
- 1:31:44sequence. It's just wonderful.
- 1:31:46It's probably going to be my funeral
- 1:32:00song, to be honest. I'll get it in there.
- 1:32:03It's straight and as the curtains are shutting on the
- 1:32:05coffin, it's just and I'll come back.
- 1:32:08But before that, it's the Braveheart soundtrack in full.
- 1:32:10OK. In full.
- 1:32:12Then it ends with time. Oh yeah, you'll be there a
- 1:32:14while. After inceptions, in my work
- 1:32:17with Nolan again on The Dark Night Rises, Interstellar and
- 1:32:19Dunkirk, and for composing the Inception score, he was
- 1:32:22nominated for an Oscar. Do you know who won that year?
- 1:32:26Whoever did The King's Speech? No, it wasn't The King's Speech.
- 1:32:29It was Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
- 1:32:32Social network. Social network shit, yeah.
- 1:32:34That is a great score, The social network.
- 1:32:36Yeah, that's fantastic. To finish with Hans Zimmer, the
- 1:32:38great German himself says about Inception.
- 1:32:41I never told Chris what part of the film I'd written a piece
- 1:32:43for. He used them where he thought
- 1:32:45best, and it all synced up with what I'd written, which was
- 1:32:48gratifying. Oh.
- 1:32:48Nice. Inception is a Rock'n'roll
- 1:32:51score. Right.
- 1:32:52Should have got Jimmy Page on guitar then.
- 1:32:56Kashmir, get out of here. Slow that down.
- 1:33:03Making movies is a collaborative creative process and no one
- 1:33:06understands that as well as anyone.
- 1:33:08He always surrounds himself with some of the best names out
- 1:33:10there. Oh, absolutely.
- 1:33:11Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- 1:33:19Swinging back and forth the end of Inception roller coasters as
- 1:33:23the team's plan falls apart, comes back together, then falls
- 1:33:26apart again. We're heading to the crazy world
- 1:33:28of Limbo and discussing the most famous ambiguous ending of the
- 1:33:31century. But at first, it's Dream Level
- 1:33:333. There's no hospital.
- 1:33:35Yeah. After telling Fisher they're
- 1:33:38going into Browning subconscious, the team heading
- 1:33:40to Eames Dream to explore Fisher's subconscious.
- 1:33:43In Dream Level 3, we have James Bond inspired snow hospitals and
- 1:33:46skate chases, gunfights, and the team complete the mission by
- 1:33:50performing Inception on Fisher Dream Level 3.
- 1:33:54Then do we still know what's going on?
- 1:33:56Yeah, just about, I think, you know, yes, by this point,
- 1:33:59obviously well into the dream levels.
- 1:34:01For me, it gets off to a great start just through the set and
- 1:34:03I've always got like a soft spot for anything that set in like
- 1:34:07mountainous, wintry, snowy landscape because I think it
- 1:34:10just automatically, it already looks really cinematic.
- 1:34:13You mentioned the Bond influence.
- 1:34:14I think this section is why people always want Nolan to make
- 1:34:17a Bond film because this is his basic mini Bond film he's really
- 1:34:20making on her. Matches his Secret Service here.
- 1:34:22Yeah, that's his favorite Bond film, I think.
- 1:34:25Yeah. And the third in the influences
- 1:34:26of the levels, that's what I was going to say, is that this one's
- 1:34:29on a major Secret Service. Definitely.
- 1:34:30The only thing I would like a little bit more of just some
- 1:34:34kind of surreal aspect, like you get the training level one.
- 1:34:38I think there is room just for something.
- 1:34:40Doesn't have to be massive, just some kind of parallel that comes
- 1:34:43out of nowhere because it's just getting a little bit
- 1:34:45straightforward here for my liking it.
- 1:34:47Apart from that, it's really great.
- 1:34:50Yeah, I agree with all that. I think it would be nice to have
- 1:34:52something surreal happen in this level, which we don't really
- 1:34:54have, like the revolving corridor or the train smashing
- 1:34:57through the cars. But I think it looks great going
- 1:35:00from the tight corridors and level 2 to the huge mountains
- 1:35:03and wide open spaces in Level 3. And that hospital they built is
- 1:35:06incredible. They built that hospital is a
- 1:35:08real set on a mountainside in Alberta and Canada and also was
- 1:35:12a 20 foot scale model. And the moment the hospital is
- 1:35:15destroyed, they blew up the set, but Nolan wasn't happy with how
- 1:35:18it looked. So they blew up the miniature
- 1:35:20and Nolan wasn't happy with how it looked.
- 1:35:22So the building entirely new 20 foot model just so they could
- 1:35:25blow it up. Harry.
- 1:35:26Kubrick. And also the cross cutting, I
- 1:35:31think in the climax between the three dream levels is
- 1:35:34masterfully done. It's a bit of a northern
- 1:35:36trademark cross cutting between plot threads in the final act.
- 1:35:39And this is one of the best examples.
- 1:35:40I think the urgency levels between each thread match up
- 1:35:43perfectly and all ramps up together.
- 1:35:45It's really, really well done. Really well Applaud.
- 1:35:48Yeah, it's a really impressive final level, isn't it?
- 1:35:51All these snow shootouts are all the same though, aren't they
- 1:35:53really? You know, you've got the snow
- 1:35:55bikes, you've got the ropes going across the trees, people
- 1:35:57are getting taken off a van full of them jumping out.
- 1:36:00It's a die hard two. And then it's like all these
- 1:36:03different kind of action films just smashed together.
- 1:36:05But it's just a celebration of them.
- 1:36:07It's you don't really feel like he's written anything off.
- 1:36:09And there's that picture as well.
- 1:36:10And did you know that was actually Cillian Murphy posing
- 1:36:12in that picture with a Tash on? Oh, is it really?
- 1:36:15Yeah, to play the younger puzzles with.
- 1:36:17All right. Oh great.
- 1:36:18So that's really nice. But then as it comes up, the
- 1:36:21layers, it's so rewarding when you see everybody falling at the
- 1:36:24ground, waking up, going on the lift, wig and up again and the
- 1:36:27thought everything through and you just think that this is just
- 1:36:29so fucking clever. Everything, emotional, impact,
- 1:36:32action, it's fantastic. One of my favourite end in
- 1:36:35Stanley film really. It does tie everything together
- 1:36:37at the end because there's so many threads that we need to get
- 1:36:39pulled into one place. And he does it so well.
- 1:36:42Absolutely fantastic. Also, when Youssef drives the
- 1:36:46van off the bridge in level one, there's an avalanche in Level 3,
- 1:36:48isn't it? Yeah.
- 1:36:49Yeah. So that was a real avalanche.
- 1:36:51The detonated explosives on the mountain top which caused the
- 1:36:54avalanche. OK, wiped out an entire town.
- 1:36:57Shut up man. Fucking hell, I was like, I'm
- 1:37:03sure I would have heard about that.
- 1:37:05But it is a real avalanche that the dead cause intentionally
- 1:37:08takes no prisoners doesn't all in when it comes to his movies.
- 1:37:10But that does look impressive. That avalanche, the spectacle of
- 1:37:13it's massive. You can tell it's real.
- 1:37:15Yeah. Superb.
- 1:37:22After Marle appears from Cobb subconscious and kills Fisher
- 1:37:24Cobbin, Ariadne follow him in Limbo for the climax of the
- 1:37:27film. The ending of Inception sees
- 1:37:29Carl with himself of Marle, rescue Sido from Limbo and
- 1:37:33return home to his children. Or does he?
- 1:37:37Here we go. Should we talk about the
- 1:37:38sequences of Limbo first of all? I like it.
- 1:37:41I think it's great. The fact that it's all just
- 1:37:44decaying, it's deteriorating. His subconscious isn't as strong
- 1:37:48as it used to be. Everything around him is falling
- 1:37:50apart, but he still doesn't really acknowledge that, you
- 1:37:53know? And then when he gets there
- 1:37:54again, you know, it's one of your favorite, favorite
- 1:37:56sequences in the whole film. That conversation between them,
- 1:37:59when you finally realize that we've seen one Inception and
- 1:38:01it's worked, but this is the real one.
- 1:38:03I really get the emotion in this scene really fucking got me.
- 1:38:07When I watched it the other day, I was like, this is just so
- 1:38:10true. Anyone else would have just
- 1:38:12ended it with them kicks coming through and then waking them up
- 1:38:15on the plane and just be like, that's the end of the film.
- 1:38:17That would be good enough for any of the filmmaker out there,
- 1:38:19I think. But Nolan takes it that extra
- 1:38:21element. Love it.
- 1:38:22Yeah, that final conversation between Cobb and Mall is pretty
- 1:38:26great, and it's got loads of power.
- 1:38:27A little when they first get into limbo.
- 1:38:29And you sort of mentioned it there, Wesley, when the
- 1:38:30buildings are all crumbling into the sea, that looks just so
- 1:38:33grey. I mean, that's all CGI.
- 1:38:35And that's to me how you use CGI, because it looks incredible
- 1:38:38still to this day. And he now sees mall as that
- 1:38:41version that is hard to move away from.
- 1:38:44And it just says you're not good enough.
- 1:38:45I'm sorry I'm not good enough to remember you with all of your
- 1:38:47complexities and all of your flaws.
- 1:38:49It's just so fucking beautiful, man.
- 1:38:51Dicaprio's delivery of that line is just sensitive.
- 1:38:54Oh yeah. So good.
- 1:38:55Yeah. I love how it's all about
- 1:38:58Coleman and Mal. You don't need any other
- 1:39:00character in there. Everyone else's storyline is
- 1:39:02done. So it completely suits the
- 1:39:04narrative at this point that Limbo is completely devoid of
- 1:39:08anyone else, because that's what it's been coming down to right
- 1:39:12then. Here we are.
- 1:39:14Should we talk about that final shot?
- 1:39:16Yes, please. So Inception has one of the most
- 1:39:19famous ambiguous endings in films.
- 1:39:21Cobb returns to America and is reunited with his children.
- 1:39:24The final shot in the film slowly Pines in the Cobb
- 1:39:27spinning top and cuts the black before we see if it falls or
- 1:39:30not. Nolan said about it.
- 1:39:32I put that cut there at the end and posing an ambiguity from
- 1:39:35outside the film that always felt the right ending to me.
- 1:39:38I mean, it's a fantastic way to end the film.
- 1:39:41The big question and one our page when Matt Lummers asked is
- 1:39:45called back in reality or is he still dreaming?
- 1:39:48Matt, what's your interpretation?
- 1:39:50I think as well as what Nolan has actually gone on record to
- 1:39:54say, I think he's having a little bit of a laugh and I
- 1:39:58think he's seen an opportunity just to tweak the audience right
- 1:40:02at the end to make sure that everybody is going to go out and
- 1:40:05go. But what did that mean?
- 1:40:07What did that mean? Which everyone does.
- 1:40:10Which one does? Yeah.
- 1:40:11Of the opinion that everything happens exactly as we've seen it
- 1:40:15happen, I don't think there's enough of a strong indication
- 1:40:19that he is still in a dream. I think he's been honest with
- 1:40:23us, he's been straight down the line.
- 1:40:24He hasn't been deceitful in the way he's presented defence.
- 1:40:27I think he's in reality at the end.
- 1:40:31I think there's no shot ever that is so simple, but being
- 1:40:34talked about as much as this one because Nolan tells the story
- 1:40:37well. Then DiCaprio plays it so well.
- 1:40:39Cobb being reunited with his kids already has power, sort of.
- 1:40:42Then pan to the top and say, or is it?
- 1:40:45It's just genius, absolute genius.
- 1:40:48But I've got another quote from Nolan on this where he said I've
- 1:40:51been asked the question more times than I've ever been asked
- 1:40:54any other question about any other film.
- 1:40:56What's funny to me is that people really do expect me to
- 1:40:59answer it. So he's never going to tell us,
- 1:41:02and I hope he never does. My interpretation is the same as
- 1:41:05Matt. Cobb isn't dreaming, he's back
- 1:41:07in the real world. And to be honest, I don't think
- 1:41:09that for any reason other than it's what I want to believe, I
- 1:41:13like Cobb. The emotion DiCaprio portraits
- 1:41:15in this scene when Cobb sees his kids with hardly any words is
- 1:41:17incredible. And I want Cobb to have a happy
- 1:41:20ending. So for me, he's back home
- 1:41:22basically because I want him to be in Westy.
- 1:41:27Yeah, you're smoking thinking I'm going to come up with
- 1:41:28something ridiculous. Well, to me, this is all about
- 1:41:35the assassination of JFK. No, I believe he's in reality.
- 1:41:41You're missing the point if you're focusing on that spin and
- 1:41:43talk. Because he's not anymore.
- 1:41:45He's in the reality that he is chosen.
- 1:41:47He is in his happy reality. So whether that's a dream or
- 1:41:50not, it really doesn't matter. It's the fact that he's
- 1:41:53exorcised the demons and I think everyone misses the glaring
- 1:41:57point that it's not even his totem.
- 1:41:58That's Mal's totem. And there's a lot of talk and
- 1:42:01what I really believe in is that his actual totem is his wedding
- 1:42:04ring. He would know the weight, he
- 1:42:06would know the size and every time he's in a dream sequence,
- 1:42:09he is wearing that wedding ring. And you see when he hands his
- 1:42:11passport over at the end, there's no ring on there.
- 1:42:14When Michael Caine said he was interviewed and he said that
- 1:42:17Chris Nolan told him if he was in a scene, it was reality.
- 1:42:20If he wasn't in a scene, it was a dream.
- 1:42:22And the final thing I'll say that reinforces it, in my
- 1:42:24opinion, is that one of the major themes is how did you get
- 1:42:27here? It's how he convinces Ariadneish
- 1:42:29is in a dream. It's how he convinces fisheries
- 1:42:31in a dream when he's in the hotel room.
- 1:42:33How did you get here? You can always land in the
- 1:42:35middle. We see them land the plane, go
- 1:42:38through customs, arrive at home. You know exactly how we got
- 1:42:41there. Yeah, with some start, middle
- 1:42:43and end. This is the end.
- 1:42:45He's in reality. There's nothing more to talk
- 1:42:47about. The top fell.
- 1:42:48Of course it did. It wobbles a bit at the end.
- 1:42:50Anyone's got anything else to say?
- 1:42:51Then stick it on Twitter. That give us a shout.
- 1:42:54But he's in reality. That's it.
- 1:42:55We'll solve the problem. End of story.
- 1:42:57He will ignore it though. He'll get no reply.
- 1:43:01Maybe some insults? You can invoices for the mic
- 1:43:03because I'm going to drop it. Now I'm convinced you've got
- 1:43:09lovely. It is quite interesting in the
- 1:43:11end though, because like Nolan says and what you said there was
- 1:43:14he is this, the significance of the thing isn't about whether
- 1:43:17he's dreaming or whether he's in reality.
- 1:43:18It's about the fact that he's ignoring a spinning top.
- 1:43:20So whoever he is, he's accepted that as reality.
- 1:43:23And that raises all sorts of other questions, like if he is
- 1:43:26in a dream and he's accepted it as reality, does that matter?
- 1:43:28No, I don't think it does. I think it matters.
- 1:43:30Is he happy? Is he content as a person?
- 1:43:32Because what is reality? Exactly.
- 1:43:34Exactly. The reality is what you choose
- 1:43:36it to be, because nothing's really a reality.
- 1:43:39Everything's a construct of something.
- 1:43:40It's what you choose. But what did throw a spanner in
- 1:43:43the works for me is that people have argued that he's back in
- 1:43:46limbo, that you never actually got out of limbo.
- 1:43:49Right? And the point that reinforces
- 1:43:51that is that I put the captions on so I can see the subtitles
- 1:43:55because I need to know what the kids are saying at the end
- 1:43:57because it sounds so exciting. So do you know what they say,
- 1:43:59what your son says to him? No.
- 1:44:01No, it's hard to make out, wasn't it?
- 1:44:03Yeah. And he says to them, what you
- 1:44:04guys been doing? And his son turns around and
- 1:44:07says we're building a house on a Cliff that is limbo.
- 1:44:09Yeah, yes, I do. Houses on the Cliff, isn't it?
- 1:44:12So you could arguably say it, he's still in limbo and that's.
- 1:44:14All there's hard in what's going on.
- 1:44:18Can I change my answer please? That's a spanner in the works.
- 1:44:22So I've kind of just give you both answers.
- 1:44:24So just change what you want. It really do a spanner in the
- 1:44:29works for me. Last day I was like, oh for
- 1:44:30fuck's sake, what did I do that for?
- 1:44:33I've been sitting on this where Matt was going.
- 1:44:35His dialogue is not memorable. It fuck it is now.
- 1:44:39Yeah, that's pretty great. To be fair, there's something
- 1:44:44else Nolan does after the final shot, which is great.
- 1:44:47So as the end credits roll, the title Inception appears three
- 1:44:50times. This represents moving up the
- 1:44:53three dream levels. And as the credits finish, he
- 1:44:55plays nausea and regret area again, which is a signal of the
- 1:44:58audience is waking up from the dream that is the film.
- 1:45:01Yeah. Which is pretty awesome.
- 1:45:03Yeah. So they have it.
- 1:45:05The team perform Inception and Covert turns home to his
- 1:45:08children, or doesn't, and is back in reality.
- 1:45:12Or isn't. We've answered that pretty
- 1:45:14conclusively, I think. How's the film even finished?
- 1:45:19I mean, to quote Morgan Freeman in Seven, I think we've brought
- 1:45:22this to as close of a conclusion as humanly possible.
- 1:45:27But there is something that I've been sitting on this all the way
- 1:45:30through it. It's one final thing that I've
- 1:45:32researched it and I've definitely got the answer.
- 1:45:34Go on. Go on then.
- 1:45:35It's. Reception and awards.
- 1:45:46Production companies and studios only tend to spend bigger movies
- 1:45:49nowadays when they're part of an existing IPA sequel, a reboot or
- 1:45:53a novel or comic book adaptation.
- 1:45:55Unless, of course, you're Christopher Nolan.
- 1:45:58Yeah, Sue Crawl was the president for Warner Brothers
- 1:46:01Worldwide marketing team and said about the release of
- 1:46:03Inception. We didn't have the brand equity
- 1:46:05that usually drives a big summer opening, but we had a great cast
- 1:46:08and a fresh idea from a film maker with a track record of
- 1:46:11making incredible movies. Christopher Nolan was a brand.
- 1:46:14If you can't make those elements work, it's a sad day.
- 1:46:18He's at that level, isn't he? His name is like a brand mark
- 1:46:20and he has consultants. Yeah, exactly.
- 1:46:22I mean, I don't think any of the director could have got people
- 1:46:25out of the fear of, you know, the virus that's flying around
- 1:46:29and locked down and going back into a cinema to watch tennis.
- 1:46:32I mean, we couldn't even get together to discuss anything to
- 1:46:34do with this. But he brings a film out and
- 1:46:36it's like, yeah, let's get out. You know, everyone's terrified
- 1:46:39to go to the shops, but like, tennis outright.
- 1:46:41Fuck that. I'll take me transit too, right?
- 1:46:46So a huge $100 million marketing campaign was put in place.
- 1:46:50And that's not the initial trailer for Inception in 2009.
- 1:46:53The movie was everywhere. Do you remember that at the
- 1:46:56time? I remember the trailer very,
- 1:46:58very vividly. I remember seeing that, and on
- 1:46:59the big screen I remember thinking, this looks like
- 1:47:02something I've never really seen before.
- 1:47:05I don't understand what this could possibly be about.
- 1:47:07It's a lesson on how you do a trailer, really.
- 1:47:09It's blueprint. It's amazing.
- 1:47:12But with that trailer, Hans Zimmer hadn't yet written the
- 1:47:14score, so they had some original music composed just for the
- 1:47:16trailer, which is pretty unusual.
- 1:47:19That music is called Mind Heist and was written by a composer
- 1:47:21called Zach Hemsi. It went down so well that it
- 1:47:24went viral and thousands of mash ups appeared online where people
- 1:47:27had laid that score over other classic trailers.
- 1:47:30So you can see what I mean. There's an example from a film
- 1:47:33you might know here. So listen, you smell something.
- 1:47:39Ray, for a moment, pretend that I don't know anything about
- 1:47:44metallurgy, engineering, or physics and just tell me what
- 1:47:48the hell is going on. The city is headed for a
- 1:47:55disaster of biblical proportion. What do you mean biblical?
- 1:48:06Serious Ghostbusters there. What do you think of that?
- 1:48:10I think it's great. It makes it look better than
- 1:48:12Ghostbusters too, which it is terrifying when you see the
- 1:48:19Marshmallow man at the end. They're stomping along.
- 1:48:21Fucking hell. Imagine that was the actual
- 1:48:23trailer and you went to see it and it was Ghostbusters Lords of
- 1:48:26Laughs. Yeah, you'd be furious.
- 1:48:29You'd be relieved. So in terms of how Inception
- 1:48:34performed, the production budget for the film was $160 million.
- 1:48:38Nolan brought it in both under budget and within schedule, and
- 1:48:42the film grossed $826,000,000 worldwide, making it the fourth
- 1:48:46highest grossing movie of 2010. Do you know what was highest
- 1:48:49that year? It.
- 1:48:51Was Toy Story 3 out there? It was Toy Story Three.
- 1:48:53Yeah, there. You go.
- 1:48:54Harker took just over $1 billion critically.
- 1:48:58Inception performed well, too. Roger Ebert gave the film four
- 1:49:01stars out of four and said the movie is all about process,
- 1:49:04about fighting our way through enveloping sheets of reality and
- 1:49:07dream. It is a breathtaking juggling
- 1:49:10act. Few directors will attempt to
- 1:49:11recycle Inception because when Nolan left the labyrinth, he
- 1:49:14threw away the map. Yeah, it isn't.
- 1:49:17That is nice. Praise for me, but lovely.
- 1:49:19About time. Mark Moore named Inception is
- 1:49:24the best movie of 2010 and said Inception is proof that people
- 1:49:29are not stupid, that cinema is not trash, and that it's
- 1:49:32possible for blockbusters and art to be the same thing.
- 1:49:35Yeah, lovely. That from MK, Yeah.
- 1:49:38Really nice. Yeah, not everybody was a fan,
- 1:49:40and Rex Reed of the New York Observer said Inception.
- 1:49:43It's pretty much what we've come to expect from summer movies in
- 1:49:46general and Christopher Nolan movies in particular.
- 1:49:48It doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment to me.
- 1:49:51Wow, really? What does he want?
- 1:49:53I mean, if you don't like the film, that's fine, but if you're
- 1:49:55a film critic and you can't even recognise how this film achieves
- 1:49:58some impressive things, then what you're doing, yeah.
- 1:50:01You're in the wrong draw you. Have to know what his top three
- 1:50:02is. Christ.
- 1:50:06On Rotten, Tomato's Inception has 87% and it's summary says
- 1:50:10smart, innovative and thrilling. Inception is that race summer
- 1:50:13blockbuster that succeeds viscerally as well as
- 1:50:16intellectually. Yeah.
- 1:50:18And that IMDb Inception has an enormous 8.8 out of 10, which
- 1:50:24makes it, according to IMDb, the 9th greatest movie ever made.
- 1:50:28Yep, it's up there. Really.
- 1:50:29That high? I would have said so, yeah.
- 1:50:33Wow. At the Oscars, Inception won
- 1:50:34four Best cinematography for Wallyfister, best sound editing
- 1:50:37for Richard King, best sound mixing for Laura Hirschberg,
- 1:50:40Gary A Rizzo and Ed Novick, and best visual effects for Chris
- 1:50:44Cobald, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley and Peter Beb.
- 1:50:47And it was nominated for four, which were best pitcher, best
- 1:50:50original Screenplay, Best art Direction and Best original
- 1:50:53score. Is that all fair?
- 1:50:55How we did it at the Oscars. I don't think anyone was ready
- 1:50:58for it. I think if this came out now, it
- 1:51:02would just be like Jesus Christ. It would get everything.
- 1:51:04It baffles me that you know Nolan doesn't get a direct
- 1:51:07nomination for. This I know, yeah.
- 1:51:09What he's done? How is that not in that select
- 1:51:11group? It's an original story, it's
- 1:51:12pretty much about Phil, Megan and for the Academy not to
- 1:51:15recognise that or see it, there's a joke really.
- 1:51:17Yeah, I mean, I think blockbusters and science fiction
- 1:51:19have been overlooked for years and decades, haven't they?
- 1:51:22Oh yeah. Yeah, of course they have.
- 1:51:24Yeah. So Inception was fantastically
- 1:51:26well received at the time of its release.
- 1:51:28A huge smash hit, critical and public acclaim almost across the
- 1:51:31board, and performing pretty well at the award ceremonies.
- 1:51:34Good, so it should have. Not bad.
- 1:51:40Sequels and influence. After the release and successive
- 1:51:44inception, there was a spurt of high concept science fiction
- 1:51:47movies that played around with time.
- 1:51:49Lupa Source Code in the Edge of Tomorrow were the most
- 1:51:52acclaimed, and Marvel's Doctor Strange shamelessly ripped off
- 1:51:55the cityscape twisting moment from inception, Yeah.
- 1:51:58Yeah, it does. That was pretty short lived,
- 1:52:00though, and Inception rip offs faded pretty quickly.
- 1:52:02And that's basically because studios won't give film makers
- 1:52:05$160 million to make an original idea unless you're Christopher
- 1:52:08Northern. Yeah.
- 1:52:10Do you think studio has a right to do that?
- 1:52:11Is there just not an audience for original ideas anymore?
- 1:52:14No, I think there absolutely is. Look at the amount of money that
- 1:52:18Inception made, and the conversation doesn't end there.
- 1:52:21Think of last year. Knives Out, completely original
- 1:52:24film that made loads of money, was hugely well received by
- 1:52:28critics. No so much more.
- 1:52:29There's going to be a sequel. Look how excited we get when
- 1:52:33there's going to be a new Tarantino film.
- 1:52:35Look at Ed Gride, Paul Thomas Anderson.
- 1:52:37It's always a huge event. So I think there's absolutely
- 1:52:41the audience out there for them. But I have something out there
- 1:52:44that is original. I think people absolutely want
- 1:52:46to have that experience. I just think studios are
- 1:52:49probably scared of throwing that much money at a director because
- 1:52:53I think they will take the position, probably wrongly, that
- 1:52:55having an IP to fall back on makes it more safe.
- 1:52:58I don't think that's necessarily true.
- 1:53:01But also The thing is, these original ideas are pretty rare.
- 1:53:05Not everyone is Enolan, Ryan Johnson, Tarantino.
- 1:53:08Look at those guys and look how long it takes them in between to
- 1:53:11make films, because it takes them that long to get the idea
- 1:53:15and to follow that idea through. So yeah, absolutely.
- 1:53:19There's an audience out there, but it takes a lot of talent to
- 1:53:24get something that's worthy of that audience.
- 1:53:27Yeah, I think there's a lot of factors, isn't it?
- 1:53:29I think the whole industry's changed in responses to
- 1:53:31everything. I don't think cinema is as
- 1:53:33popular as it used to be. I think ticket prices have been
- 1:53:36a real problem for people. But the other factor is this
- 1:53:40isn't Chris Nolan's first film, and he couldn't have made this
- 1:53:43after The Prestige. You got to do The Dark Night,
- 1:53:46basically. And then people went, oh, holy
- 1:53:47shit. Well, yeah, you can do it.
- 1:53:49There's some money. It's the same in any industry,
- 1:53:51in any profession. Nobody's just going to give you
- 1:53:53a ton of money for your original idea that don't know if you can
- 1:53:56deliver it. What springs to mind when you
- 1:53:58were listening directors there, Matt is Jordan Peele.
- 1:54:00You know, if you've got a really good idea like Get Out was huge,
- 1:54:04but it was small. It depends on how big you want
- 1:54:07to make something and how big you want to make something is
- 1:54:09dependent on a the story and the idea and if it warrants it and B
- 1:54:13if you can pull it off. Yeah, I think not only is there
- 1:54:17an audience for new ideas, I think there's a bit of a
- 1:54:19clamouring from audiences for new ideas.
- 1:54:21I think Avatar was proof of that.
- 1:54:22When Avatar came out in 2009, highest grossing film ever
- 1:54:25because it was totally new, something we hadn't seen before.
- 1:54:29And the 3D aspect, everyone was talking about how it looks great
- 1:54:31in 3D and audiences just flocked to see it and kept going to see
- 1:54:34it and made it the highest grossing film ever.
- 1:54:35But imagine nowadays. No way is George Lucas getting
- 1:54:38Star Wars made nowadays. Absolutely no chance.
- 1:54:41No, no. Do you not think?
- 1:54:43Studios just won't pay for original ideas.
- 1:54:45It's going to be a sequel or a comic book adaptation or
- 1:54:48something like that. So it's like Christopher Nolan,
- 1:54:50just no one's getting the made, and he's only getting the made
- 1:54:52because he did a comic book, first of all, comic book.
- 1:54:55Yeah. Inception's biggest influence,
- 1:54:57though, might be this. That foghorn effect cropped up
- 1:55:05everywhere for a few years. Transformers, Independence Day,
- 1:55:08Resurgence, Prometheus, Pacific, Raymond Lord, Lord Moore
- 1:55:11blockbusters all have foghorn base scores.
- 1:55:14Is that a good thing, do you think?
- 1:55:16No. It's not the official title of
- 1:55:18Foghorn based score. Oh.
- 1:55:22Well. That's great enough.
- 1:55:25We live next to the coast. I can hear the foghorn now and
- 1:55:28again and I'm just thinking, Jesus Christ, am I going to wake
- 1:55:30up? It's too soon.
- 1:55:33Yeah, it's overused and it's turned into a gimmick and I
- 1:55:36think Chris Nolan's used it because it's a slowed down
- 1:55:38version of the Edith PF song and it serves the story.
- 1:55:41If you put it in Transformers, it doesn't make any sense and it
- 1:55:43just makes it might obey even more.
- 1:55:45So. It's got its time, it's got its
- 1:55:48place, but I feel like it's been lifted and whenever you hear it
- 1:55:50somewhere else, I mean even the new Rambo had it in certain
- 1:55:53bits. It's just like, what the fuck?
- 1:55:55What they've done is just taken that one element and try to use
- 1:55:57that to elevate their shit, which doesn't work.
- 1:56:03Well, Hans Zama himself said about people copying that score.
- 1:56:06Oh, it's horrible that music became the blueprint for all
- 1:56:10action movies. If you get too many imitations,
- 1:56:13even I get confused. Yeah.
- 1:56:15Yeah, he's dead on. No sequels to Inception, of
- 1:56:18course, though Northern crumbs in enough ideas, rules, and plot
- 1:56:21points to fill a cinematic universe.
- 1:56:24I doubt we'll ever get a sequel, but that does lead us into a
- 1:56:26question from one of our page runs on Patreon.
- 1:56:29Just Joe. Hello, Joe.
- 1:56:31Hello. Joe.
- 1:56:33So, Joe asks, what sort of film would you like to see
- 1:56:36Christopher Nolan make next? So it would obviously have to be
- 1:56:41something that plays to his strengths, and I think his
- 1:56:43strengths are his ability to ground a film in a concept.
- 1:56:46But I would want him to do something I hasn't done before.
- 1:56:49So making like a spy fellow or a Bond film doesn't appeal to me
- 1:56:52whatsoever. I think what would be really
- 1:56:54interesting if he could do would be to do something like Zodiac
- 1:56:58or JFK, something based in the real world, real life event.
- 1:57:03A spot like what he did a bit with Dunkirk where he said, you
- 1:57:06know, I'm going to make a war film, but I'm going to make a
- 1:57:08war film like you've never seen before because of the way I'm
- 1:57:10going to do it. So I would like him to take
- 1:57:13something more specific than that though, and then see how he
- 1:57:16would do it in his usual style. I think that could be really,
- 1:57:19really interesting. Great, for me Norman's thing is
- 1:57:23high concept, smart, innovative science fiction.
- 1:57:26That's what I think he does best and that's all I really want
- 1:57:28from him to be honest. Because there's nobody else
- 1:57:30doing it. He's done his superhero movies,
- 1:57:32he's done dreams, he's done time travel now with tennis.
- 1:57:35But there's plenty of science fiction sub genres left.
- 1:57:38Post apocalypse, artificial intelligence, Dystropian future,
- 1:57:41they would all be great. I would love to see Norman's
- 1:57:44take on an alien invasion movie. I can't imagine him ever doing
- 1:57:48one, but Northern taking that old classic idea and spinning
- 1:57:52into something new as he does, I would definitely go for that.
- 1:57:55Yeah, you. Just want to see him do Star
- 1:57:57Trek, that's all. I've got 2 answers really.
- 1:58:02One of them is really pretentious.
- 1:58:04Obviously kind of what I'd like. To share, I'd like to see him do
- 1:58:14a western. No.
- 1:58:16Like a really big, epic sweeping IMAX Weston that's just got like
- 1:58:22really complex themes in it. I'd like to see him explore his
- 1:58:26emotional stabs a little bit more.
- 1:58:28I'd like to see characterization a little bit more.
- 1:58:30I'd like to see advance in dialogue.
- 1:58:33And I think this genre is almost dead and buried.
- 1:58:37I'd like to see him bring something back.
- 1:58:38And I think he could make a western in the style of like
- 1:58:41Kubrick would have made a Western.
- 1:58:42I think it's one of my favorite genres.
- 1:58:45It what if John Ford had an IMAX camera?
- 1:58:47It would be it'd be something else.
- 1:58:49And I think Scorsese's moving there.
- 1:58:51And I think, you know, Killers of the Flower Moon's going to be
- 1:58:53one of them films that might just kick up this genre again.
- 1:58:56And I think Nolan's take on something like that would be
- 1:58:58really, really interesting. I'd love to see him like sell a
- 1:59:00tape an IMAX camera to a horse. It'd look superb.
- 1:59:04You just have that type of grand.
- 1:59:06That would be amazing. But the other answer is, I don't
- 1:59:12want to predict what Chris Nolan can do because I don't
- 1:59:15understand what he can do. And I really, really wanted to
- 1:59:17do a Chris Nolan film. And that's my pretentious answer
- 1:59:20because Chris Nolan films are experiences.
- 1:59:23It is a Chris Nolan film and it always will be.
- 1:59:25And I think I'd just like to see as many Chris Nolan films as I
- 1:59:28possibly can without them running out of really strong
- 1:59:31ideas. I think combine my answer and
- 1:59:33your answer there, we assume we could have Cowboys and aliens
- 1:59:36too. Oh just remake that because it
- 1:59:40was shit. Since Inception was released,
- 1:59:45nothing like it has came out of Hollywood in terms of combining
- 1:59:47originality and scale. And unfortunately with the way
- 1:59:50the studio system is at the minute, that looks like it's not
- 1:59:53going to change anytime soon. So Chris, if you're listening,
- 1:59:57it's all on you. Yeah, sorry mate.
- 2:00:04All right, when you do the ranking.
- 2:00:07You've made it to the end of this podcast within a podcast.
- 2:00:10We know everybody's in limbo waiting to find out where
- 2:00:13Inception will sit in the All the Right Movies leaderboard.
- 2:00:16So Matt, do you want to start us off?
- 2:00:18What are your rating Inception? So this film I find endlessly
- 2:00:24fascinating. It's bold, it's ambition is sky
- 2:00:28high, and it's completely suited to the talents that Nolan has as
- 2:00:34a film maker. And it's infiltrated popular
- 2:00:37culture to the extent that before came out, some people
- 2:00:40were genuinely convinced that Tenet was like a stealth sequel
- 2:00:44to Inception that he made on the sly.
- 2:00:47That's how much Inception has got under people's skins.
- 2:00:50There are sequences within this film that are absolutely
- 2:00:54staggering, both on a visual sense and on a narrative sense
- 2:00:58and a thematic sense. And the ability he has to pull
- 2:01:02it all together is incredible. Loads of good performances in
- 2:01:06there, but I do still have issues with some of the writing.
- 2:01:10I've got to deduct a point for that so it gets a night.
- 2:01:14Shut up, man, Matt. I don't think Inception is
- 2:01:24Nolan's best film. I think that's The Prestige.
- 2:01:27But Inception is my favorite Nolan film.
- 2:01:30Not just that, it's probably my favorite film of the 21st
- 2:01:32century. Amazing.
- 2:01:34I agree entirely with that Markham Ward quote I read out
- 2:01:36earlier. Blockbusters can be artistic and
- 2:01:39Nolan proves that and is out there on his own doing it.
- 2:01:42I think he's fantastic. I love the concepts here and the
- 2:01:45amount of ideas Nolan introduces is just outrageous.
- 2:01:49I love the narrative and the personal drama, The heart of
- 2:01:51everything. The cast are all brilliant.
- 2:01:53Hans Zim and Wally Fister's work is among their best.
- 2:01:56I think. It's not perfect and as I
- 2:01:58mentioned, some of the writing and plotting gets a little bit
- 2:02:01convoluted sometimes and for that reason I would say it's a
- 2:02:059.5. But that ending, that final shot
- 2:02:11is magnificent and that makes up for it.
- 2:02:13So it's a 10 for me. Westy nearly walking off there.
- 2:02:20I saw Westy's face there, so I bet she's your mind.
- 2:02:22Yeah. And Rusty. 7 out of 10, No.
- 2:02:32This made a real impact on me when I saw it in IMAX and I saw
- 2:02:35it in the morning and then I go and see it again in the
- 2:02:38afternoon. It was just an eye opener for me
- 2:02:41personally. It's a really personal film.
- 2:02:43It's one that I find quite comforting to watch.
- 2:02:45I love how you kind of taking through it, it's endlessly
- 2:02:48entertaining. Like you said, the characters in
- 2:02:50it are all relatable, the performances in it are all
- 2:02:52outstanding, the directions just so confident.
- 2:02:55It just begs to be appreciated. I guess.
- 2:02:58I think this is just why I love cinema.
- 2:02:59It's just filmmaking. It doesn't disappoint on any
- 2:03:02level. There's not one department
- 2:03:03working on this film. Who brought the B game?
- 2:03:06Everything is top notch. Every single thing is just the
- 2:03:09best it can possibly be. At the time that it was made, it
- 2:03:12was a real inspiration for me to try and do this stuff, to pick
- 2:03:17up a camera and try and make things and edit them together
- 2:03:19and make people feel something, you know?
- 2:03:22So that was 10 years ago and I've tried to do whatever since.
- 2:03:24That was one of the first films that I saw that just made us
- 2:03:26want to try and do something. It inspired us enough to be
- 2:03:31creative and to push that and to know that I could maybe one day
- 2:03:35make something that is as good as this is.
- 2:03:38So in my eyes, all day it's a 10.
- 2:03:40Fantastic. As always, we asked our Twitter
- 2:03:43followers to vote some of their comments.
- 2:03:46Ralph Dalliwell at Rothstead said for movie fans, Inception
- 2:03:50is like a dream within a dream within a dream come true.
- 2:03:55It's that classic Nolan phenomenon of being truly
- 2:03:57rewarding on a second watch. 9 Rob Crue S Our Rob Crue S said
- 2:04:02while I was troubled with the concept, if I was someone ended
- 2:04:04the dream, I assume it's an IV. Once you get past that, the rest
- 2:04:08was just pure genius. An absolutely original
- 2:04:11storyline, fantastic acting, Zimmer score, fist of
- 2:04:13cinematography. It was a marvel to watch a solid
- 2:04:169.5. Robberies is quite an
- 2:04:19interesting point. They actually.
- 2:04:20Nolan never actually tells us how they get into the dreams.
- 2:04:23No, Does that bother you? Nope.
- 2:04:25Nope, I'm the slightest. It's definitely is, because
- 2:04:28Seidel, when he's on the tree and checks his wrist and he sees
- 2:04:30it, he's got the puncture marks. It's a dream machine, isn't it?
- 2:04:32Dream machine, Yeah. King Woody at King Woody 45
- 2:04:36said. Stunning set pieces, incredible
- 2:04:39special effects, and the great cast all held together with a
- 2:04:43plot that is just plain silly poor face nonsense.
- 2:04:46Wow. Six Woo starred.
- 2:04:48Well, that one. How does in the first half
- 2:04:51there? A review with any review.
- 2:04:54I mean for people that don't like Inception, words like poor
- 2:04:56face to pretentious do seem to crop up.
- 2:04:59I think probably because it takes itself so seriously.
- 2:05:01Pi doesn't like it either and he said it has over the top visuals
- 2:05:05and plot. A dream inside of a dream inside
- 2:05:07of another dream. Clearly there's too much cheese
- 2:05:10being consumed before bed. This.
- 2:05:13Is pissed off Hackman's not in it.
- 2:05:15And our Twitter followers ranked the film as 8.5 out of 10.
- 2:05:19That's low. Which gives Inception a total
- 2:05:22score of 37.5 out of 40. You can check our site to see
- 2:05:26where it is in the leaderboard. So that's everything on
- 2:05:29Inception. Hopefully we've not turned
- 2:05:31everyone's brains to scrambled egg next time.
- 2:05:34It's another 21st century classic.
- 2:05:36Matt, Luke and Pi are going all in on the Coen Brothers Oscar
- 2:05:39busting No Country for Old Men. Yeah, looking forward to.
- 2:05:43That yeah. Nice.
- 2:05:43To get you all the right movies filled between now and then, you
- 2:05:46can visit our Patreon page for bonus podcast episodes and to
- 2:05:49access our archive. That's our patreon.com/all the
- 2:05:52Right Movies. Speaking of Patreon, a special
- 2:05:56mention for our directors chair level patrons who are Adam
- 2:05:59Cowie, Adam Yates, Andrea Barka, Syed, Anna Randall, Damian
- 2:06:03Lennox, Gary W, George Anderson, Graham Cheater, Jamie Russell,
- 2:06:06Just Joe, Kenny Morrison, Matt Low, Mike Riley, Robbie D, and
- 2:06:11Robert Shearer. Thanks everybody.
- 2:06:13Thanks guys. Yeah, lovely guys.
- 2:06:14Thank you. On social media, you can keep up
- 2:06:17with all the right movies. On Twitter, we are at right
- 2:06:19under score movies. On Instagram we're at all the
- 2:06:22under score right movies and our website is all the mymovies.com.
- 2:06:27We're all off now to take a leap of faith or become old men and
- 2:06:31filled with regret, waiting to die alone.
- 2:06:34Well, not decided yet. I think I know which way it's
- 2:06:36going, to be honest. So thanks everybody, sleep well
- 2:06:42and bye for now. Yeah, sweet dreams.
- 2:06:44I'm off to watch Inception again.