Inception 2010
Below are various enlightened people who can help us understand the film Inception.
Below are various enlightened people who can help us understand the film Inception.
Inception...: an act, process, or instance of beginning
In psychology, the word subconscious is the part of consciousness that is not currently in focal awareness. The word "subconscious" represents an anglicized version of the French subconscient as coined by the psychologist Pierre Janet (1859-1947), who argued that underneath the layers of critical-thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness that he called the subconscious mind.
is a 2010 neo-noir science fiction heist film written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan, and co-produced by Emma Thomas. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious, and is offered a chance to have his criminal history erased as payment for the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious. The ensemble cast additionally includes Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine.
After the 2002 completion of Insomnia, Nolan presented to Warner Bros. a written 80-page treatment about a horror film envisioning
"dream stealers"
based on lucid dreaming. Deciding he needed more experience before tackling a production of this magnitude and complexity, Nolan retired the project and instead worked on 2005's Batman Begins, 2006's The Prestige, and The Dark Knight in 2008. The treatment was revised over 6 months and was purchased by Warner in February 2009. Inception was filmed in six countries, beginning in Tokyo on June 19 and ending in Canada on November 22. Its official budget was $160 million, split between Warner Bros and Legendary. Nolan's reputation and success with The Dark Knight helped secure the film's $100 million in advertising expenditure.
Inception's première was held in London on July 8, 2010; it was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters beginning on July 16, 2010. Inception grossed over $828 million worldwide, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 2010. The home video market also had strong results, with $68 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales. Inception opened to acclaim from critics, who praised its screenplay, visual effects, score, and ensemble cast. It won four Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for four more: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Score.
In psychology, the word subconscious is the part of consciousness that is not currently in focal awareness. The word "subconscious" represents an anglicized version of the French subconscient as coined by the psychologist Pierre Janet (1859-1947), who argued that underneath the layers of critical-thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness that he called the subconscious mind.
is a 2010 neo-noir science fiction heist film written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan, and co-produced by Emma Thomas. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious, and is offered a chance to have his criminal history erased as payment for the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious. The ensemble cast additionally includes Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine.
After the 2002 completion of Insomnia, Nolan presented to Warner Bros. a written 80-page treatment about a horror film envisioning
"dream stealers"
based on lucid dreaming. Deciding he needed more experience before tackling a production of this magnitude and complexity, Nolan retired the project and instead worked on 2005's Batman Begins, 2006's The Prestige, and The Dark Knight in 2008. The treatment was revised over 6 months and was purchased by Warner in February 2009. Inception was filmed in six countries, beginning in Tokyo on June 19 and ending in Canada on November 22. Its official budget was $160 million, split between Warner Bros and Legendary. Nolan's reputation and success with The Dark Knight helped secure the film's $100 million in advertising expenditure.
Inception's première was held in London on July 8, 2010; it was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters beginning on July 16, 2010. Inception grossed over $828 million worldwide, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 2010. The home video market also had strong results, with $68 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales. Inception opened to acclaim from critics, who praised its screenplay, visual effects, score, and ensemble cast. It won four Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for four more: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Score.
Directed byChristopher Nolan
Produced by
Written byChristopher Nolan
Starring
Music byHans Zimmer
CinematographyWally Pfister
Edited byLee Smith
Production
companies
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date
Running time 148 minutes
Country
Language English
Budget US$160 million
Box office US $828.3 million
Produced by
- Emma Thomas
- Christopher Nolan
Written byChristopher Nolan
Starring
- Leonardo DiCaprio
- Ken Watanabe
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt
- Marion Cotillard
- Ellen Page
- Tom Hardy
- Cillian Murphy
- Tom Berenger
- Michael Caine
Music byHans Zimmer
CinematographyWally Pfister
Edited byLee Smith
Production
companies
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date
- July 8, 2010 (Odeon Leicester Square)
- July 16, 2010 (United States and United Kingdom)
Running time 148 minutes
Country
- United States
- United Kingdom
Language English
Budget US$160 million
Box office US $828.3 million
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Art Direction - Nominated
Douglas Mowat, Larry Dias, Guy H. Dyas
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Cinematography - Won
Wally Pfister
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Original Score - Nominated
Hans Zimmer
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Original Screenplay - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Picture - Nominated
Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Sound Editing - Won
Richard King
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Sound Mixing - Won
Ed Novick, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Visual Effects - Won
Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Pete Bebb, Andrew Lockley
2010 American Society of Cinematographers
Best Cinematography - Won
Wally Pfister
2010 Art Directors Guild
Best Art Direction in a Fantasy Film - Won
Guy H. Dyas
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Cinematography - Nominated
Wally Pfister
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Editing - Nominated
Lee Smith
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Original Music - Nominated
Hans Zimmer
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Original Screenplay - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Production Design - Won
Douglas Mowat, Larry Dias, Guy H. Dyas
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Sound - Won
Ed Novick, Richard King, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Visual Effects - Won
Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Pete Bebb, Andrew Lockley
2010 Directors Guild of America
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Original Score - Nominated
Hans Zimmer
2010 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Screenplay - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 L.A. Film Critics Association
Best Production Design - Won
Guy H. Dyas
2010 London Film Critics Association
Best British Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 London Film Critics Association
Best British Supporting Actor - Nominated
Tom Hardy
2010 London Film Critics Association
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Writers Guild of America
Best Original Screenplay - Won
Christopher Nolan
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Art Direction - Nominated
Douglas Mowat, Larry Dias, Guy H. Dyas
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Cinematography - Won
Wally Pfister
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Original Score - Nominated
Hans Zimmer
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Original Screenplay - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Picture - Nominated
Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Sound Editing - Won
Richard King
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Sound Mixing - Won
Ed Novick, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo
2010 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Best Visual Effects - Won
Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Pete Bebb, Andrew Lockley
2010 American Society of Cinematographers
Best Cinematography - Won
Wally Pfister
2010 Art Directors Guild
Best Art Direction in a Fantasy Film - Won
Guy H. Dyas
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Cinematography - Nominated
Wally Pfister
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Editing - Nominated
Lee Smith
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Original Music - Nominated
Hans Zimmer
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Original Screenplay - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Production Design - Won
Douglas Mowat, Larry Dias, Guy H. Dyas
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Sound - Won
Ed Novick, Richard King, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo
2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Best Visual Effects - Won
Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Pete Bebb, Andrew Lockley
2010 Directors Guild of America
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Original Score - Nominated
Hans Zimmer
2010 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Screenplay - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 L.A. Film Critics Association
Best Production Design - Won
Guy H. Dyas
2010 London Film Critics Association
Best British Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 London Film Critics Association
Best British Supporting Actor - Nominated
Tom Hardy
2010 London Film Critics Association
Best Director - Nominated
Christopher Nolan
2010 Writers Guild of America
Best Original Screenplay - Won
Christopher Nolan
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Ariadne daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë who gave Theseus the thread by which he escaped from the labyrinth: deserted by Theseus on Naxos, she became the bride of Dionysus. 2. a female given name. Examples from the Web for Ariadne. The two even appeared onstage as party guests in Ariadne auf Naxos.
A multi-layered thriller shifting between levels of consciousness – exactly the thing cinema does best – and Christopher Nolan, on a roll after successfully reinventing the Batman mythos with Batman Begins, delivers the goods with an epic sweep.
As you might expect, the film flits seamlessly between widely varied locations.
It opens with nothing in the way of explanation, as Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is washed up on the shore beneath a ‘Japanese’ castle. In fact, the castle was added digitally and the shoreline is Abalone Cove Shoreline Park, part of Abalone Cove Ecological Reserve at 5970 Palos Verdes Drive South, Rancho Palos Verdes, on the Pacific coast south of Los Angeles.
The castle interior was created on a soundstage at Warner Bros, its painted gilt design based on Nijo Castlein Kyoto, built in 1603 for the first shogun of the Edo Period. If you want to visit the original, Nijo Castle is a short walk from Kyoto’s Nijojo-mae Station along the Tozai Subway Line.
It appears that Cobb is an ‘extractor’, with the ability to enter people’s dreams and extract content. As he’s explaining the concept of ‘extraction’ to the elderly Japanese gentleman, Cobb wakes up in ‘Mombasa, Kenya’ – a sequence filmed in the Old Souk of Tangier, on the northern coast of Morocco. The Souk is the city’s bustling marketplace, which you can see as itself in The Bourne Ultimatum.
There’s going to be a lot of ‘wakes up in…’, and the next awakening is on a Japanese bullet train, really filmed in Japan, though not in ‘Kyoto’ but in Tokyo, as Saito (Ken Watanabe) posits to Cobb the idea of moving from ‘extraction’ to the more dubious and risky ‘inception’.
Inception location: Saito’s helicopter touches down: Farnborough Airport, Hampshire | Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo / VIEW Pictures Ltd
Continuing by flight, the sleekly modern airport at which they land is the new (as in 2006) £10 million operational centre of Farnborough Airport, about 25 miles southwest of London, in Hampshire. It’s the site of the world famous Farnborough International Airshow, a seven-day trade fair for the aerospace industry which has been held here every alternate year since 1948.
Against the better judgement of others, Cobb begins to consider the risky proposition of planting an idea in the mind of Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the heir to a multibillion-dollar oil company.
Inception location: Cobb meets architecture student Ariadne: Flaxman Gallery, University College of London, Gower Street, London | Photograph: wikimedia / LordHarris
In order to recruit an architect to help build a convincing ‘dream world’, Cobb heads off to Paris. In fact, the lecture theatre where he reveals to former tutor Miles (Michael Caine) that he needs to get mysterious ‘charges’ fixed before he can return home, is the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre of University College London, in the Wilkins Building, Gower Street, London. Built from the proceeds of a donation in the 1920s by the then President of the Jewish Historical Society, Gustave Tuck, the theatre has appeared in many film and TV productions, including 2006 rom-com Starter For 10, with James McAvoy.
Still not in ‘Paris’, Miles introduces Cobb to Ariadne (Ellen Page) in UCL’s Flaxman Gallery, situated in the library underneath the dome of the 19th Century building that overlooks the Gower Street quadrangle. The Flaxman Gallery is open to the public on weekdays from 1 to 5pm, accessed via the Strang Print Room.
Inception location: Ariadne experiments with physics within a dream: rue Valentin Hauy, 7th arrondissement, Paris
When Cobb and Ariadne suddenly find themselves sitting outside the ‘Café Debussy’, where Cobb reveals that they are in fact within a dream, it finally is the real French capital.
The ‘Debussy’ is Da Stuzzi Patisserie, 6 rue Cesar Franck at the corner of rue Bouchut in the 7th arrondissement. The authorities in Paris don’t allow the use of real explosives, so so the production used high-pressure blasts of nitrogen to blow apart the contents of the surrounding shops and finally the bakery itself.
After the dream café explodes, Cobb and Ariadne return to the area, walking along rue Bouchut toward the café. In one of the movie’s most celebrated visual coups, Ariadne tests the possibilities of the new dream geometry by spectacularly folding up the rue Cesar Franck.
Inception location: Ariadne creates the footbridge: Avenue du President Kennedy, Paris
She goes on to ‘create’ the footbridge over Avenue du President Kennedy near Passy station, and they ascend to the double-decker Pont Bir Hakeim, where Ariadne is given a serious warning about the dangers of creating real places from memory.
The bridge has been featured on screen before in New Wave movies Zazie Dans Le Metro and Louis Malle's recently re-released l’Ascenseur Pour l’Echafaud, but most famously in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris, with Marlon Brando (the film’s apartment building stands at the foot of the bridge).
Inception location: Ariadne is warned about basing creations on real places: Pont de Bir-Hakeim, Paris
It’s back to ‘Mombasa’/Tangier to recruit Eames (Tom Hardy), where the foot chase once again utilises the maze of narrow streets and alleyways of Tangier’s historic Souk.
The huge glass-fronted atrium in which Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) demonstrates the paradox of the ‘Penrose steps’ (based on the drawings of artist MC Escher) is the lobby of the office at 2000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey in Surrey. The illusion was achieved by adding false steps to the building’s existing staircase.
Inception location: Yusuf’s ‘Mombasa’ pharmacy: The Farmiloe Building, 28-36 St John Street, Clerkenwell, London EC1
The ‘Mombasa’ pharmacy of Yusuf (Dileep Rao), where the powerful sedative that will allow three levels of dreaming is obtained, is a Christopher Nolan favourite. It’s the Farmiloe Building, St John Street, in Smithfield, London, which formerly became ‘Gotham’ police station in Batman Begins, The Dark Knightand The Dark Knight Rises.
Inception location: the suite of dying businessman Fischer: Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London
Also in London is the old-world suite of dying businessman Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite), which is the Conference Room of Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square. This impressive Grade II listed building, occupying a prominent site bounded by Bloomsbury Square to the west and Southampton Row to the east, was built in the 1920s for the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society. The house was used as the bank in Jonathan Glazer’s surreal 2000 caper Sexy Beast, more recently became the ‘Hotel Grushinski’ in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and the exterior of 'Selfridge' department store, where Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) gets kitted out with a more appropriate wardrobe, in Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman.
But once the team gathers to discuss how to ‘plant’ an idea into the head of Fischer Jr, the locale has changed to Los Angeles, and the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and South Hope Street, downtown.
Inception location: the hotel lobby and bar: Creative Artists Agency, Avenue of the Stars, Century City, Los Angeles
The hotel lobby, where they realize they need a minimum of ten hours sleeping time and Saito reveals he’s bought the airline, is the entrance to the Creative Artists Agency Building, 2000 Avenue of the Stars in Century City. You might recognize it again as the office of The Daily Sentinel in Michel Gondry’s 2011 version of The Green Hornet, with Seth Rogen.
Inception location: Cobb’s home: South Grand Avenue, Pasadena
Via the strange elevator, Ariadne gets to visit Cobb’s elegant home, which turns out to be a 1908 Greene & Greene craftsman-style house in Pasadena, complete with wood features and stained glass, at 215 South Grand Avenue. The property, which was put on the market in 2001 for $2.5 million, is a private home, and there’s not a great deal to be seen from the street.
Inception location: picking up Fischer Jr: Wilshire Boulevard at Hope Street, Downtown Los Angeles
As Fischer and the team begin their epic snooze aboard the airliner, in a dream state they commandeer a taxi in downtown LA, back at Wilshire Boulevard and Hope Street. Though they seem to have driven away from the spot, it’s at the steps directly opposite, on the same road junction, that they pick up Fischer Jr.
Inception location: Cobb's unconscious mind conjures up a railway train in the street: South Spring Street at 7th Street, Downtown Los Angeles
Cobb’s unconscious mind conjures up a train, hurtling north along South Spring Street and crashing through traffic on 7th Street (just a block south of the ‘New York’ electronics store in Cloverfield). Once again, Christopher Nolan keeps a convincing physicality by constructing the railway engine as a shell on the chassis of a tractor trailer, and not falling back on CGI.
The mission gets more complicated as Fischer’s well-trained mind fights back with a gunfight on 7th Street, just east of the junction with Broadway.
Inception location: Cobb walks with his wife in their own universe: Ahmanson Music Center, North Hope Street, Downtown Los Angeles
The dream world is disrupted by Cobb’s dead wife, as she walks with Cobb in their own self-created universe. The columned walkway is on the west side of the Ahmanson Music Center, on North Hope Street south of West Temple Street, downtown LA.
Inception location: the city waterway with the submerged buildings: John Ferraro Building, North Hope Street, Downtown Los Angeles
Just across Hope Street, the waterway with the (CGI) submerged buildings is the moat surrounding the John Ferraro Building, the office of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, on North Hope Street.
Inception location: Cobb’s wife leaps from the window: the Chester Williams Building, Frank Court at Fifth Street, downtown Los Angeles
With Cobb getting dangerously deeper into his dream, Mal (Marion Cotillard) sits on a window-ledge above Frank Court at West 5th Street, asking him to take a leap of faith with her. The apartment is the Chester Williams Building, 215 West 5th Street , which you might remember as the apartment block of Karen (N’Bushe Wright) in the original 1998 Blade, and the entrance of which became a subway station for Phone Booth. It’s also directly opposite John Doe’s apartment building from Se7en.
It’s back to the CAA Building in Century City, which now provides the hotel bar and lobby where Cobb attempts to convince Fischer that he’s entered his dream.
The hotel corridors and bedroom were created in built in one of the two huge airship hangars at Cardington, three miles south of Bedford in Bedfordshire. The largest structures of their kind in Europe, the Cardington Hangars obviously suit Christopher Nolan’s style of epic film-making, as sets for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises were also built here.
On yet another dream level, the sleeping team is being driven in a van across a transporter bridge, from which it careers with excruciating slowness. This is the Commodore Schuyler F Helms Draw Bridge, spanning the Los Angeles River, on connecting Terminal Island to Long Beach and Wilmington, south of LA. The same bridge mysteriously turns up in ‘Washington DC’ during the freeway chase in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.
The snowy fortress assaulted in the lowest dream level was constructed at at the Fortress Mountain ski resort, at Kananaskis (about 55 miles west of Calgary), in Alberta, Canada. Leonardo DiCaprio returned to the same area for Alejandro G Iñárritu's The Revenant.
Finally, it’s back to the UK to find ‘LAX’, Los Angeles International Airport, where Cobb meets Miles and finally returns to the US with a clear record. With admirable economy, it’s once again Farnborough Airport in Hampshire.
As you might expect, the film flits seamlessly between widely varied locations.
It opens with nothing in the way of explanation, as Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is washed up on the shore beneath a ‘Japanese’ castle. In fact, the castle was added digitally and the shoreline is Abalone Cove Shoreline Park, part of Abalone Cove Ecological Reserve at 5970 Palos Verdes Drive South, Rancho Palos Verdes, on the Pacific coast south of Los Angeles.
The castle interior was created on a soundstage at Warner Bros, its painted gilt design based on Nijo Castlein Kyoto, built in 1603 for the first shogun of the Edo Period. If you want to visit the original, Nijo Castle is a short walk from Kyoto’s Nijojo-mae Station along the Tozai Subway Line.
It appears that Cobb is an ‘extractor’, with the ability to enter people’s dreams and extract content. As he’s explaining the concept of ‘extraction’ to the elderly Japanese gentleman, Cobb wakes up in ‘Mombasa, Kenya’ – a sequence filmed in the Old Souk of Tangier, on the northern coast of Morocco. The Souk is the city’s bustling marketplace, which you can see as itself in The Bourne Ultimatum.
There’s going to be a lot of ‘wakes up in…’, and the next awakening is on a Japanese bullet train, really filmed in Japan, though not in ‘Kyoto’ but in Tokyo, as Saito (Ken Watanabe) posits to Cobb the idea of moving from ‘extraction’ to the more dubious and risky ‘inception’.
Inception location: Saito’s helicopter touches down: Farnborough Airport, Hampshire | Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo / VIEW Pictures Ltd
Continuing by flight, the sleekly modern airport at which they land is the new (as in 2006) £10 million operational centre of Farnborough Airport, about 25 miles southwest of London, in Hampshire. It’s the site of the world famous Farnborough International Airshow, a seven-day trade fair for the aerospace industry which has been held here every alternate year since 1948.
Against the better judgement of others, Cobb begins to consider the risky proposition of planting an idea in the mind of Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the heir to a multibillion-dollar oil company.
Inception location: Cobb meets architecture student Ariadne: Flaxman Gallery, University College of London, Gower Street, London | Photograph: wikimedia / LordHarris
In order to recruit an architect to help build a convincing ‘dream world’, Cobb heads off to Paris. In fact, the lecture theatre where he reveals to former tutor Miles (Michael Caine) that he needs to get mysterious ‘charges’ fixed before he can return home, is the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre of University College London, in the Wilkins Building, Gower Street, London. Built from the proceeds of a donation in the 1920s by the then President of the Jewish Historical Society, Gustave Tuck, the theatre has appeared in many film and TV productions, including 2006 rom-com Starter For 10, with James McAvoy.
Still not in ‘Paris’, Miles introduces Cobb to Ariadne (Ellen Page) in UCL’s Flaxman Gallery, situated in the library underneath the dome of the 19th Century building that overlooks the Gower Street quadrangle. The Flaxman Gallery is open to the public on weekdays from 1 to 5pm, accessed via the Strang Print Room.
Inception location: Ariadne experiments with physics within a dream: rue Valentin Hauy, 7th arrondissement, Paris
When Cobb and Ariadne suddenly find themselves sitting outside the ‘Café Debussy’, where Cobb reveals that they are in fact within a dream, it finally is the real French capital.
The ‘Debussy’ is Da Stuzzi Patisserie, 6 rue Cesar Franck at the corner of rue Bouchut in the 7th arrondissement. The authorities in Paris don’t allow the use of real explosives, so so the production used high-pressure blasts of nitrogen to blow apart the contents of the surrounding shops and finally the bakery itself.
After the dream café explodes, Cobb and Ariadne return to the area, walking along rue Bouchut toward the café. In one of the movie’s most celebrated visual coups, Ariadne tests the possibilities of the new dream geometry by spectacularly folding up the rue Cesar Franck.
Inception location: Ariadne creates the footbridge: Avenue du President Kennedy, Paris
She goes on to ‘create’ the footbridge over Avenue du President Kennedy near Passy station, and they ascend to the double-decker Pont Bir Hakeim, where Ariadne is given a serious warning about the dangers of creating real places from memory.
The bridge has been featured on screen before in New Wave movies Zazie Dans Le Metro and Louis Malle's recently re-released l’Ascenseur Pour l’Echafaud, but most famously in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris, with Marlon Brando (the film’s apartment building stands at the foot of the bridge).
Inception location: Ariadne is warned about basing creations on real places: Pont de Bir-Hakeim, Paris
It’s back to ‘Mombasa’/Tangier to recruit Eames (Tom Hardy), where the foot chase once again utilises the maze of narrow streets and alleyways of Tangier’s historic Souk.
The huge glass-fronted atrium in which Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) demonstrates the paradox of the ‘Penrose steps’ (based on the drawings of artist MC Escher) is the lobby of the office at 2000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey in Surrey. The illusion was achieved by adding false steps to the building’s existing staircase.
Inception location: Yusuf’s ‘Mombasa’ pharmacy: The Farmiloe Building, 28-36 St John Street, Clerkenwell, London EC1
The ‘Mombasa’ pharmacy of Yusuf (Dileep Rao), where the powerful sedative that will allow three levels of dreaming is obtained, is a Christopher Nolan favourite. It’s the Farmiloe Building, St John Street, in Smithfield, London, which formerly became ‘Gotham’ police station in Batman Begins, The Dark Knightand The Dark Knight Rises.
Inception location: the suite of dying businessman Fischer: Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London
Also in London is the old-world suite of dying businessman Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite), which is the Conference Room of Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square. This impressive Grade II listed building, occupying a prominent site bounded by Bloomsbury Square to the west and Southampton Row to the east, was built in the 1920s for the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society. The house was used as the bank in Jonathan Glazer’s surreal 2000 caper Sexy Beast, more recently became the ‘Hotel Grushinski’ in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and the exterior of 'Selfridge' department store, where Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) gets kitted out with a more appropriate wardrobe, in Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman.
But once the team gathers to discuss how to ‘plant’ an idea into the head of Fischer Jr, the locale has changed to Los Angeles, and the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and South Hope Street, downtown.
Inception location: the hotel lobby and bar: Creative Artists Agency, Avenue of the Stars, Century City, Los Angeles
The hotel lobby, where they realize they need a minimum of ten hours sleeping time and Saito reveals he’s bought the airline, is the entrance to the Creative Artists Agency Building, 2000 Avenue of the Stars in Century City. You might recognize it again as the office of The Daily Sentinel in Michel Gondry’s 2011 version of The Green Hornet, with Seth Rogen.
Inception location: Cobb’s home: South Grand Avenue, Pasadena
Via the strange elevator, Ariadne gets to visit Cobb’s elegant home, which turns out to be a 1908 Greene & Greene craftsman-style house in Pasadena, complete with wood features and stained glass, at 215 South Grand Avenue. The property, which was put on the market in 2001 for $2.5 million, is a private home, and there’s not a great deal to be seen from the street.
Inception location: picking up Fischer Jr: Wilshire Boulevard at Hope Street, Downtown Los Angeles
As Fischer and the team begin their epic snooze aboard the airliner, in a dream state they commandeer a taxi in downtown LA, back at Wilshire Boulevard and Hope Street. Though they seem to have driven away from the spot, it’s at the steps directly opposite, on the same road junction, that they pick up Fischer Jr.
Inception location: Cobb's unconscious mind conjures up a railway train in the street: South Spring Street at 7th Street, Downtown Los Angeles
Cobb’s unconscious mind conjures up a train, hurtling north along South Spring Street and crashing through traffic on 7th Street (just a block south of the ‘New York’ electronics store in Cloverfield). Once again, Christopher Nolan keeps a convincing physicality by constructing the railway engine as a shell on the chassis of a tractor trailer, and not falling back on CGI.
The mission gets more complicated as Fischer’s well-trained mind fights back with a gunfight on 7th Street, just east of the junction with Broadway.
Inception location: Cobb walks with his wife in their own universe: Ahmanson Music Center, North Hope Street, Downtown Los Angeles
The dream world is disrupted by Cobb’s dead wife, as she walks with Cobb in their own self-created universe. The columned walkway is on the west side of the Ahmanson Music Center, on North Hope Street south of West Temple Street, downtown LA.
Inception location: the city waterway with the submerged buildings: John Ferraro Building, North Hope Street, Downtown Los Angeles
Just across Hope Street, the waterway with the (CGI) submerged buildings is the moat surrounding the John Ferraro Building, the office of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, on North Hope Street.
Inception location: Cobb’s wife leaps from the window: the Chester Williams Building, Frank Court at Fifth Street, downtown Los Angeles
With Cobb getting dangerously deeper into his dream, Mal (Marion Cotillard) sits on a window-ledge above Frank Court at West 5th Street, asking him to take a leap of faith with her. The apartment is the Chester Williams Building, 215 West 5th Street , which you might remember as the apartment block of Karen (N’Bushe Wright) in the original 1998 Blade, and the entrance of which became a subway station for Phone Booth. It’s also directly opposite John Doe’s apartment building from Se7en.
It’s back to the CAA Building in Century City, which now provides the hotel bar and lobby where Cobb attempts to convince Fischer that he’s entered his dream.
The hotel corridors and bedroom were created in built in one of the two huge airship hangars at Cardington, three miles south of Bedford in Bedfordshire. The largest structures of their kind in Europe, the Cardington Hangars obviously suit Christopher Nolan’s style of epic film-making, as sets for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises were also built here.
On yet another dream level, the sleeping team is being driven in a van across a transporter bridge, from which it careers with excruciating slowness. This is the Commodore Schuyler F Helms Draw Bridge, spanning the Los Angeles River, on connecting Terminal Island to Long Beach and Wilmington, south of LA. The same bridge mysteriously turns up in ‘Washington DC’ during the freeway chase in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.
The snowy fortress assaulted in the lowest dream level was constructed at at the Fortress Mountain ski resort, at Kananaskis (about 55 miles west of Calgary), in Alberta, Canada. Leonardo DiCaprio returned to the same area for Alejandro G Iñárritu's The Revenant.
Finally, it’s back to the UK to find ‘LAX’, Los Angeles International Airport, where Cobb meets Miles and finally returns to the US with a clear record. With admirable economy, it’s once again Farnborough Airport in Hampshire.
Inception 2010
Director:
Christopher Nolan
Writer:
Christopher Nolan
Stars:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Others…
Edith Piaf
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien Song Title
(English translation)
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié
je me fous du passé
Avec mes souvenirs
J'ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
je n'ai plus besoin d'eux
Balayés les amours
et tout leurs tremolos
Balayés pour toujours
Je repârs à zéro
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies
aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toil
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
Not the good that has been given
Not the bad, it's all the same to me
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
It is payed, done, forgotten
I don't care about the past
With my memories
I light the fire
My pains, my pleasures
I don't need them anymore
I'm done with the loves
and all their troubles
I'm done for ever
I start over with nothing
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
Not the good that has been given
Not the bad, it's all the same to me
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
Because my life, because my joys
today, they start with you
Director:
Christopher Nolan
Writer:
Christopher Nolan
Stars:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Others…
Edith Piaf
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien Song Title
(English translation)
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié
je me fous du passé
Avec mes souvenirs
J'ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
je n'ai plus besoin d'eux
Balayés les amours
et tout leurs tremolos
Balayés pour toujours
Je repârs à zéro
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies
aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toil
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
Not the good that has been given
Not the bad, it's all the same to me
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
It is payed, done, forgotten
I don't care about the past
With my memories
I light the fire
My pains, my pleasures
I don't need them anymore
I'm done with the loves
and all their troubles
I'm done for ever
I start over with nothing
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
Not the good that has been given
Not the bad, it's all the same to me
No, absolutely nothing
No, I regret nothing
Because my life, because my joys
today, they start with you