At ShoWest Christopher Nolan has been interviewed about his new film Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio,Ellen Page,Joseph Gordon-Levitt,Ken Watanabe,Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy.
Steve'Frosty'Weintraub from Collider.com asked him couple of questions:
-Did you have a long conversation with your actors, especially Leonardo, about the concept of the movie which is quite surprising?
Nolan:"Oh yeah, definitely. Leo primarily because he was the first to come on board. And he’s an actor who’s absolutely relentless in his demands for authenticity of the character. The truthfulness of what he talks about the underlying truths of the character-emotional truths. The journey that character is on, and so we spent months talking about the script and re-writing the script. I spent a long time re-writing the script to make sure that the emotional journey of his character was the…that’s the driving force of the movie. That’s the journey the audience is on and he, as a great actor and a great movie star with his charisma and his emotional openness to the audience, he carries the audience through on that journey."
-I was curious if you could talk about IMAX and 3D? These are both things that are…you really pioneered what IMAX could do with “Dark Knight” and 3D seems to be a revolution and it’s changing everything. Could you talk about your feelings about 3D and also with IMAX, did you shoot any of “Inception” in IMAX or was it all done in post?
Nolan:"We shot the film with a mixture of mostly the predominant bulk of the film is anamorphic 35mm, which is the best quality sort of practical format to shoot on by far. We shot key sequences on 65mm, 5 perf not 15 perf, and we shot VistaVision on certain other sequences. So we’ve got a negative - a set of negative - that’s of the highest possible quality except IMAX. We didn’t feel that we were going to be able to shoot in IMAX because of the size of the cameras because this film given that it deals with a potentially surreal area, the nature of dreams and so forth, I wanted it to be as realistic as possible. Not be bound by the scale of those IMAX cameras, even though I love the format dearly. So we went to the next best thing which was 65mm. So we have the highest quality image of any film that’s being made and that allows us to reformat the film for any distribution form that we’d like to put it in. We’re definitely going to do an IMAX release. We’re excited about doing that and using our original negative 65mm photography to maximize the effect of that release. 3D I think is an interesting development in movies or the resurgence of 3D. It’s something we’re looking at and watching. There are certain limitations of shooting in 3D. You have to shoot on video, which I’m not a fan of. I like shooting on film. And so then you’re looking at post-conversion processes which are moving forward in very exciting ways. So really, for me, production of a large scale film is all about recording the best, highest quality image possible so that you can then put it in any theatre in the best way possible. And 65mm film, IMAX film, VistaVision, 35mm, that’s the way you do that. "
-I heard that right before I think you mentioned you were working on this for like what 13 years?
Nolan:"I mean the script specifically about 10 years. 9 or 10 years. I can’t remember exactly."
-Where did this idea of stealing an idea come from?
Nolan:"Well, I stole it. It’s a little risky putting yourself out there again stealing ideas, yes. It really came about as a result of…I don’t remember specifically where the idea came from except that once I started exploring the idea of people sharing a dream space-entering a dream space and sharing a dream. That gives you the ability to access somebody’s subconscious. What would that be used and abused for? That was the jumping off point. And clearly being able to extract information from somebody’s brain would be the obvious use of that because obviously any other system where it’s computers or physical media whatever, things that exist outside the mind, they can all be stolen…up until this point or up until this movie I should say, the idea that you could actually steal something from somebody’s head was impossible. So that, to me, seemed a fascinating abuse or misuse of that kind of technology."
-What’s it like for you guys having in essence the keys to the kingdom at Warner Brothers? Like you guys seem to be able to make the movies you want to make and also, you know, there’s other things, which I will not talk about, that are going on too. But I mean, what’s it like being in that position?
Nolan:"Well, I don’t think we’ve ever really felt like we are in that position. I mean, we’ve always had since we did “Insomnia” with them, we’ve always had a very, very positive experience with those guys and they’ve been extremely fair and consistent as collaborators. Supportive but challenging. You know, it’s been a genuine collaboration and so you know it’s never really been a question of them saying, oh go off and do what you want. They’re extremely hard in their scrutiny of the way we put a film together-as they should be, because it’s their money. It’s their name on the front of the film and so they’re very close collaborators with us in that. And I wouldn’t say I feel that with our success they’ve really treated us any differently than they did when we first started. That’s one of the things I really like about them."
You can read the rest of the interview by clicking the link below!