Inception - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[jamie]

When explaining why he thinks implanting an idea is not possible, Arthur says "don't think about elephants" to actually make Saito think of them and thus "insert" an idea into his mind. The line is a reference to the title of a famous cognitive semantics book, "Don't Think of an Elephant" by George Lakoff. The book describes conceptual framing, the use of certain words to literally insert certain ideas about a subject into the listener's mind in a surreptitious way (implanting the idea that taxes are a bad thing by using the phrase "tax relief").

[marc]

Despite prominent billing, Sir Michael Caine has only three minutes of screentime.

[bessie]

The movie's runtime (two hours and twenty-eight minutes) is a reference to the original length of Édith Piaf's song "Non, je ne regrette rien", which lasts (on its first recorded edition) two minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

[amber]

One of the reasons why Christopher Nolan cast Tom Hardy as Eames was because of his performance in RocknRolla (2008). Hardy stated that he thought he was cast because of his role in Bronson (2008). He arrived on-set, only to learn that Nolan has never even seen Bronson (2008).

[chad]

Dom Cobb's main objective is to get home. Dom is the word for "home" in most Slavic languages (Polish, Russian, and Croatian), derived from the Latin word "Domus". Words like "domesticated" and "domicile" all share the same "dom" root.

[cameron]

"Yusuf" is the Arabic form of "Joseph", the Biblical figure from Genesis 37-50, who had the gift of interpreting dreams. He was sold out by his brothers to slavery. Through his gift of dream interpretation, he helped Pharaoh to prepare for the disaster of the "seven lean years", and was rewarded as a result. The same story is also told in the Quran.

[richard]

The Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne regrette rien" is used as a plot device. Marion Cotillard played Piaf in La Vie en Rose (2007). Christopher Nolan has stated that this is "pure coincidence". After Cotillard was cast, Nolan intended to change the song to eliminate speculation on the subject, but composer Hans Zimmer persuaded him to keep it.

[edgar]

Ariadne, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and his Queen, Pasiphaë. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur by giving him a ball of red fleece thread that she was spinning, so that he could find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth. The myth was also the basis for Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's opera "Ariadne auf Naxos," a play-within-a-play, just as the movie is about a dream within a dream.

[toni]

A direct translation of the lyrics for the song "Non, je ne regrette rien" as performed by Édith Piaf is: "I regret nothing/no, I have no regrets/I regret neither the good things that were done to me nor the bad things/They are all the same to me/...The past is payed, swept away, forgotten/I don't care of the past anymore/I set my memories on fire/My agonies, and my pleasures/I don't need them any more/Swept away in the agonies of love/Swept away forever, I'm restarting with nothing..." Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan has made a point of saying that he chose the song specifically for this movie, which is heavily concerned with the effect of memories on the psyche, and specifically the disastrous effect that not letting go of memories of love-gone-wrong can have on the subconscious, exactly what the song discusses. Also of note: in the original French, "I regret neither the good things done to me nor the bad things" is "Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait ni le mal", and since Cobb's wife is named Mal, that gives the line a double meaning.

[jesse]

While shooting the snowmobile chase, there were intermittent wind gusts. In order to preserve continuity during the takes without natural wind, the camera helicopter was used to blow snow into frame.

[manuel]

The "Penrose stairs" (with a woman perpetually picking up papers) that Arthur shows Ariadne is a reference to a lithograph print by the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. The print is usually called "Ascending and Descending" or "The Infinite Staircase", and was first printed in March 1960; Escher is well-known for his drawings exploring optical illusions and real architectural, mathematical, and philosophical principles rendered in fantastical ways.

[albert]

Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan's first movie since his feature debut, Following (1998), that is a completely original work. All of his movies between them are either remakes or based on comics, novels, or short stories.

[darrell]

A series of numbers keeps appearing: the number that Fischer gives Cobb/Arthur is 528491, The two hotel rooms used are rooms 528 and 491, the number that Eames (as a woman) gives to Fischer is 528-491, the combination to the strongroom starts with 52, and the combination to the safe is 528-491. This is all to reinforce the importance of the number throughout this movie. Mathematically, the number 528491 is a prime number.

[miriam]

The exterior of Fischer's snow fortress is based on, and actually contains some elements of, the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego, designed by famed futurist architect William L. Pereira.

[ivan]

The running time of the movie on DVD is exactly 8888 seconds.

[kristina]

This was the last movie shot on film to win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. All of the winners since were shot digitally until 2016, when La La Land (2016) broke the streak.

[janice]

Marion Cotillard's character is named "Mal", which is short for "Malorie", a name derived from the French word "malheur", meaning misfortune or unhappiness. The shorter version "mal" means wrong/bad or evil (when a noun) in French, as well as some other Latin-based languages. Years after appearing in this movie, Cotillard appeared in the French movie From the Land of the Moon (2016), whose original title is "Mal de Pierres" (Stone Pain/Stone Ache).

[melinda]

Just as Cillian Murphy's character was named Robert Fischer as a tribute to champion chess player Bobby Fischer, his father's (Pete Postlethwaite's) character is named Maurice Fischer as an homage to artist M.C. Escher (full name Maurits Cornelis Escher), whose art was an inspiration for many of the visual effects in this movie.

[jamie]

When Cobb is on the plane, and is given Fischer's passport, the face seen in the photograph is actually that of writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan.

[tammy]

Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, and Sir Michael Caine worked with Christopher Nolan on The Dark Knight Rises (2012).