"Inception"
By CBS News.com producer David Morgan
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dom Cobb, whose career of corporate espionage takes him into the dreamscapes of his targets, where he is able to extract information from their subconscious. Shared dreaming, developed by the military, has for Cobb become an avenue to accessing others' secrets - but his subconscious poses threats of its own.
Production Designer: Guy Hendrix Dyas
Special Visual Effects Supervisors: Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin
Stunt Coordinator: Tim Struthers
Editing: Lee Smith
Christopher Nolan
Writer-director-producer Christopher Nolan studied English literature and filmmaking in London before shooting his first feature, "Following" (1998). But it was his time-shifting mystery "Memento" (2000) that put him on the map, earning Nolan an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay (shared with his brother Jonathan) and a Best Director nomination from the Directors Guild of America. His later credits include the Al Pacino-Robin Williams thriller "Insomnia"; "The Prestige," starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale; and the 2005 reboot of the Batman franchise, "Batman Begins."Click on the links below to hear samples from the score:
"The Dream Is Collapsing" Excerpt (mp3)
"Time" Excerpt (mp3)
Leonardo DiCaprio
Since his breakthrough in the 1993 film "This Boy's Life," Leonardo DiCaprio has grown to one of his generation's leading talents, nominated for three Academy Awards (as Best Supporting Actor for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," and Best Actor for "The Aviator" and "Blood Diamond"). His other credits include "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," "Marvin's Room," "Catch Me If You Can," "Gangs of New York," "The Departed," "Revolutionary Road," and a little film called "Titanic." "Incepton" followed his deeply emotional performance in another head trip of a movie, Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island."Ken Watanabe
Ken Watanabe received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor for "The Last Samurai" (2003), and starred in Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima." He was also featured in "Memoirs of a Geisha," and Chrisopher Nolan's "Batman Begins."Marion Cotillard
French actress Marion Cotillard rose to international stardom playing Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose," for which she won the Oscar. She was the second woman to win Best Actress for a non-English langauge performance. Cotillard also appeared in "Big Fish," "Public Enemies" and "Nine."Ellen Page
Born in Nova Scotia, Ellen Page played in a variety of TV movies and series before starring in "Mouth to Mouth," "An American Crime" and "The Tracey Fragments," and playing Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat in "X Men: The Last Stand." Her big break was playing a pregnant teenager in "Juno" (2007), for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar and received the Breakout Performance Award (Female) from the National Board of Review. Page appeared again opposite Cillian Murphy in the 2010 drama "Peacock."Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting began at age 7, with a variety of TV credits (such as "Murder She Wrote" and "Dark Shadows") and films ("A River Runs Through It"). He starred in the TV series "3rd Rock from the Sun." Other recent film credits include "(500) Days of Summer" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra."Tom Hardy
Tom Hardy plays Eames, a forger who can impersonate other people's projections within their subconscious. After his debut in the TV mini-series "Band of Brothers," Hardy gave an acclaimed lead performance in the drama "Bronson" as a prison inmate and his alter ego, Charles Bronson. Hardy's other credits include "Black Hawk Down," "Layer Cake," "RocknRolla," and TV's "Wuthering Heights."Tom Berenger
Tom Berenger, who plays Fischer's confidant (and who appears as a shade of the forger's projection), starred in the 1986 Academy Award-winner "Platoon" (for which he received an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor). His other credits include "The Dogs of War," "Major League," "Gettysburg" and "Training Day."He also rejected 3D technology (some scenes of "Inception" had been converted from 2D but those tests were abandoned). "I'm personally not a big 3D fan. It doesn't really work for me. I don't like the glasses, I don't like the dark image . . . It feels a little gimmicky to me."
As did several other craftspeople, Pfister gave a shout-out to his union crew while on stage. "I think what's going on in Wisconsin is kind of madness right now," he explained later. "I've been a union member for 30 years and what the union has given to me is security for my family; they've given me healthcare in a country that otherwise does not provide healthcare. And I think the unions are a very important part of the middle class of America. So I stand strong behind any of the union members in this country and any other country, because all we're trying to do is get a decent wage and have medical care."
Hirschberg described what Nolan wanted the rich sound of "inception" to achieve: "One of the things that Chris wanted to do with the soundtrack was to kind of delineate the different layers or levels as you're going down from a dream into another dream into another dream - playing a song, slowing it down or speeding it up. And so we did the same thing with other elements in the soundtrack: A gunshot that turns into thunder, the thunder that turns into an earthquake, or rain that turns into an ocean, as you go down the levels. So that was our piece of that expression."
Oscar Cold Shoulder: Nolan, Moore
Leonardo DiCaprio Gets in Our Heads
Nolan's "Inception" a Dream of a Movie
The Showbuzz: "Inception"
Photos: "Inception" Premiere
"Inception" Sparks Interest in Dreams
Photos: Leonardo DiCaprio
Photos: Marion Cotillard
Photos: Ellen Page
"Inception" (Official Movie Website)
"Inception" Score - Music Samples of Hans Zimmer's Score
Screenplay of "Inception" Written by Christopher Nolan (Download pdf)