Christopher Nolan began using nonlinear structures for his plots with his debut film Following, and continued with a reverse structure in Memento and one in The Prestige that splintered in three ways. Despite its large budget and prime summer release date, it appears Inception will continue Christopher Nolan’s use of distinctive plot structures, according to an Empire interview with Leonardo DiCaprio.
“It is complicated, it’s a complicated story-structure. It sprung from the great filmmaker Chris Nolan’s mind and he’s been able to take highly complex jigsaw puzzles in a narrative and put them together in an entertaining way that we could have never foreseen. Like you look at Memento, I don’t know how a filmmaker is able to pull a narrative like that off and have you be fully engaged. And this is another one, done on a much grander scale with more spectacle to it.”
The precise structure remains a little foggy. DiCaprio goes on to explain something that seems similar to The Prestige, yet at the same time sounds like nothing we’ve ever experienced in a film before.
“It is a plot-structure that’s working on multiple layers simultaneously – and quite literally when I say simultaneously, I do mean multiple narratives simultaneously. So everyone’s going to be in for a treat when they see it, including myself. I want to see how he puts it all together.”
Nolan recently described the film as dealing with “levels of reality, and perceptions of reality.” And in an earlier interview with the Los Angeles Times, Nolan mentioned that the globetrotting aspects would not just be in a geographic sense, but also “in time and dimensions of reality as well.” It will be very interesting to see how this plays into what appears to be a tricky narrative structure. DiCaprio’s comments also clarify what he recently stated to be some on-set confusion amongst the cast members: “It didn’t make sense to many of us when we were doing it. We had to do a lot of detective work (laughing) to figure out what the movie was about.” Inception is certainly is shaping up to be the most complex blockbuster ever filmed.
Thanks to filipeG for the tip!
