Epic New Inception Production Stills; LA Times Set Visit Claims It Will Be “Hollywood’s First Existential Heist Movie”

With the online viral marketing kicking into high gear, footage screenings at ShoWest and Wondercon, and the inevitable third trailer debuting next month, it’s about time Warner Bros. released some new photos of Inception. Geoff Boucher of the L.A. Times Hero Complex blog visited the set of Inception in Cardington, England last summer and has now been given the green light by to publish his experience there.

Boucher was the only journalist to ever be allowed on any set during the six-month Inception shoot that spanned six countries; he also was the panel moderator when Nolan made his Wondercon appearance. They must be really good friends now, huh?. The article is unbelievably long, but fascinating nonetheless, so I’m not going to post everything that Boucher had to say, but here’s some bullet points:

● Boucher acknowledged that Nolan’s critics highlight his track-record of making “cold, frosty” films, with little emotional substance; though I thought The Dark Knight was a very emotional film. Nolan had originally written the script in the form of a superficial heist movie, like Mission Impossible or the Ocean’s films, but with the creative input of Leonardo DiCaprio, Nolan re-wrote the script so that Leo’s character’s emotional journey is now the driving force of the story. Take that critics!

Here’s what Nolan had to say about Leo’s contribution and the story’s “Inception” (ha!):

“I’ve incorporated a huge number of his ideas,” Nolan said. “Leo’s very analytical, particularly from character point of view but also how the entire story is going to function and relate to his character. … It’s actually been an interesting set of conversations, and I think it’s improved the project enormously. I think the emotional life of the character now drives the story more than it did before.”

“I originally wrote it as a heist movie, and heist movies traditionally are very deliberately superficial in emotional terms,” Nolan said. “They’re frivolous and glamorous, and there’s a sort of gloss and fun to it. I originally tried to write it that way, but when I came back to it I realized that — to me — that didn’t work for a film that relies so heavily on the idea of the interior state, the idea of dream and memory. I realized I needed to raise the emotional stakes. What we found in working on ‘Batman’ is that it’s the emotionalism that best connects the audience with the material. The character issues, those are the things that pull the audience through it and amplify the experience no matter how strange things get.”

● As we’re trying to figure out what to compare Inception to, Nolan said that the film is “older school” and is in the same vein as The Matrix, Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor. Not bad company at all.

● That crazy, gravity-defying fight scene from the first teaser was apparently shot in aa giant rotating corridor, made to look like a hotel hallway that left Joseph Gordon-Levitt bruised after weeks of “thrashing.”

● Nolan’s had the idea for Inception since he was 16 years-old and wrote the first draft of the script nearly 10 years ago. So this is no doubt a passion project.

That’s all I’m going to cover because there’s A LOT of information in the article. I really suggest you read it. Go to the Hero Complex link at the top of the page. And last, but not least, we have four new production stills for you to drool over. One features that hallway fight scene, another one shows Nolan gazing up at a monstrous set piece, another one shows Nolan and Leo standing side-by-side thinking intensely, and the last one (my favorite) features Ken Watanabe’s character, Saito, holding Lukas Haas hostage with a gun. It’s so damn cool and is now currently my desktop wallpaper. Check out the pics.

What Do You Think? Discuss.