Monday, September 21, 2015

DREAMS & REALITY





"Dreams are a universal experience ...
but a very private one."
-Christopher Nolan




Push play to listen to the soundtrack.




How do we know what is real and what is in our minds? 
-Christopher Nolan


In the late 1990´s when we all thought when the year 2000 gets around there is going to be an apocalypse or an electrical shut down. Everything will go crazy. A new SUBgenre was born in movies such as : The Matrix(1999),  Dark City (1998), Strange Days (1995), MEMENTO (2000), Fight Club (1999) , eXistenZ (1999) or the Thirteen Floor (1999).



Christopher Nolan realized "Dreams feel real in a dream " so he decided after doing Batman Begins, his next project would be "INCEPTION". I wanna really absorb the audience, that was Nolans goal.



Imagine someone can enter your mind using a new revolutionary technology so he could plant an idea. 
A facinating and  frightening thought.
Nolan had wanted to do something about dreams since he was a kid but it wasn’t until 10 years ago that he zeroed in on the idea of doing a heist film that takes place within dreams. Despite his clout after the success of the Batman reboot, he finished the entire script before pitching it to Warner Bros. because he wanted them to see his whole concept.

Mixing Movie genres, fantasy, love story, action, suspense, drama. As dreams often do . It all begins with the sound of the sea. A calm , relaxing atmosphere that brings us to the character of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). A strange man, in a strange place. He is taken prisioner and brought to  questioning to an elegant room where there is a very old man.







"I feel ....that with every film i do, i want to be...pushing myself, moving on, building on what i´ve done."
  -Christopher Nolan



(Excerpt of Hans Zimmer's "Inception" Suite performed in Vienna on Oct 23 2012 with "Time" and "Dream is Collapsing" at film music concert "Hollywood in Vienna". Conducted by DAVID NEWMAN. )


 As the film has many layers or dreams inside dreams. Our own mind and perception is expanded and manipulated by very intelligent craftsman. As we become active viewers, we are not bored by the complexity of the plot. Nolan knows this, so he uses every single device under his sleeves by using images, sounds, colors, feelings, every emotional tie to the audience. Even what we know about movies is tested. To feel comforably in a multi-layer audiovisual experiment. I love the use of a non conventional soundtrack. By using electric guitars, to me amplifying every single note.






The zero-gravity hallway fight scenes were achieved by using massive, rotating sets that twisted and turned and forced Gordon-Levitt to maneuver with utmost caution. Five-hundred crew-members were involved in the scene, which took a full three weeks to complete." The sets were built in a London airplane hangar, including a horizontal hallway that rotated 360 degrees, a vertical one and a set with steel trolleys to which the actors were attached by wires (later erased using visual effects).



Heist films are usually methodical, but Nolan decided to make this an emotional love story, because that’s what keeps him passionate about what he does.




 The biggest challenge for producer Emma Thomas was shooting in six countries, including Morocco, France and England. When she read the first 80 pages of Nolan’s script many years ago, she had no idea how it could be brought to the screen. By the time the script was completed, she had the Batman movies under her belt and was more equipped to take on a big project like this.



Nolan made clear there would be no strange color palettes to indicate when someone’s in a dream. He wanted all scenes to look real so audiences would never be sure where they are. Director of Photography Wally Pfister and Nolan do very little pre-planning when it comes to lighting, keeping it natural and allowing the locations to dictate how they should light them. There was never any scheme to use lighting to delineate between the dream levels.




" For me ...the character , this man goes through a therapy session of 4 different stages of the human sub conscious, the deeper he gets through out the film  the closer he comes to terms with  his own  nightmares and the truth about his past. "

-Leonardo DiCaprio





 "This man was a drug addict, this was a guy who was  addicted to the dream state. A man who was escaping from the reality at all cost. "
-Leonardo DiCaprio
 During the sequence when the team is skiing, Wally Pfister had to hire Chris Patterson, an experienced skier, to shoot footage while going downhill. Nolan really wanted the handheld effect to put viewers inside the action, but it was something Pfister couldn’t do. Patterson had to capture every shot while skiing and they’re not sure how he did it without slamming into trees.










Nolan looked at different formats to shoot the movie. It was mostly shot in 35mm, some 65mm, up to 360 frames per second. 




Nolan tested 3D conversion in post-production and got good results but didn’t have enough time to do it in the scientific way he wanted. When asked if any images from his subconscious are in the movie, Nolan said he had no idea. 




Worth watching the trailer one more time.





"WELCOME HOME MR. COBB"

There is a fan theory that claims Cobb’s wedding ring is his totem. Watch it carefully during the movie and you’ll notice that it disappears and reappears at specific times. 

By specifically we mean it only appears on his hand when he’s inside a dream. It fits the criteria of being a totem. 

It’s small, personal and no-one else touches it. 

He often checks it during the dream sequences to ensure that it’s still there. 
And at the end of the movie…it’s not there.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

F.A.Q.



OR FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS


YOU CAN PUSH PLAY WHILE YOU READ






1. Do you remember the first MOVIE you ever saw?



My first memory is at my house, with my sister and my brother , very early one day my dad woke us up i think we saw on BETA HOME VIDEO CASSETTE...Ringo Starr´s "CAVEMAN" or Gene Wilder´s "YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN". I know in a movie theatre, i think my dad took us to see "Gandhi" in 1982.


2. Was there a defining moment you knew you "LOVED MOVIES”




Yes, i think it was 1985.watching at a movie theatre "Back to the Future " with my whole family. I knew, i loved the huge screen, the smell of popcorn and watching something more powerful than the T.V. all together. But watching behind me and seeing so many people watching the same movie, laughing, reacting to what was going on. To this day i am amazed about movies.

It changed my life.


3. What was the first time you heard about "PULP FICTION"?



In a party, somebody brought the soundtack and i was hooked. Since i heard " I LOVE YOU PUMPKIN I LOVE YOU HONEY BUNNY" and then 
track one"MISIRLOU" and i wanted to know what was that? When i found out it was a film i HAD TO SEE IT. Loved it.

4. What’s the first FILM you ever bought?

I think it was, "TRUE ROMANCE" (1993)in a video shop. I later found out it was directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino.




5. What’s your favorite DANIEL DAY LEWIS film?



The Last of the Mohicans (1992)














6. WEIRDEST JOHN CARPENTER FILM ?

Vampires(1998 ) because its a mixture between western and horror. Its starts very, very cool and then it just gets Weird and ridiculous. It ends up being a comedy.


 A team of Vampire hunters in New Mexico, with Jack Crow( James Woods) as their leader.

Woods BEST PERFORMANCE  EVER with awesome LINES as: 

They are NOT ROMANTIC !!
iT´S time TO KILL some VAMPIRES!!
Sunlight turns them into Crispy Critters!!


7. DIRECTOR you’d love to collaborate with?

I´d love to work  with Martin Scorcese he is a genius!



8. What’s your favorite DAVID FINCHER FILM?

I love "The Social Network" but if i had to pick just one, "SE7EN" (1995), i can watch it over and over and over again. It gave birth to so many TV shows. I really enjoy it EVERY FRAME OF IT. And the soundtrack is AWESOME. That Opening CREDIT SEQUENCE. The birth of a 
GENRE, All the 90´s  CRIME shows were based on Se7en .





9. ANY Disney FILM scared you as a kid?



"PINOCCHIO" (1940), when they take the children to the island and gave them cigars and beers then they turn to donkeys. I had nightmares about that.


10. What most frustrates you about a movie?


The worst for me is A MOVIE WITHOUT A GOOD ENDING. You tell us a story , you get us excited and then you can´t END IT? I hate that. To me , a movie must have a VERY GOOD ending as " BATMAN BEGINS or The USUAL SUSPECTS".


11. Is there such thing as a PERFECT FILM?


NO. There is the perfect movie for me, or my top ten films or 100 films. But that is VERY
RELATIVE. Every person is different. And movies have a timless thing to them. To me  "The Crow" (1994) is perfect.











12. What was your FIRST SPIELBERG EXPERIENCE?


E.T. My parents took us to see it to the movie theatre. I thought it was a horror film the first 10 or 15 mins. After that when i saw "E.T." was a dream. A friendly ALIEN, who watched TV, eats candy and made your bicycle fly.

13.FAVORITE FEMALE DIRECTOR?





Kathryn Bigelow 

5 reasons: Point Break, Strange Days, K-19: The Widowmaker, The Hurt Locker  and Zero Dark Thirty.













14. Favorite CHRIST FILM?





The Last Temptation of Christ



















15. What’s your favorite HITCHCOCK film?


I have 2 , PSYCHO and The BIRDS. It is a close tie, i love them both. They both end in such a mysterious way, to this day those plots and endings haunt me.




16. BEST FILM you´ve seen this YEAR
?




so far.....MAD MAX: FURY ROAD












17. Coppola or Scorcese? 



BOTH. There is not one or the other.

There is a GODFATHER and a TAXI DRIVER for me.

There is The Godfather part II and RAGING BULL. They are two of my favorite Directors EVER. I could never pick just one.


18. Do you have any rituals before you begin a writing session?

YES. COFFEE, listening to soundtracks,a bottle of water and my headphones ON!













19. UPCOMING MOVIES you’re excited about?



YES! 

STAR WARS 
EPISODE VII 
THE FORCE AWAKENS



20. If you could share one piece of advice for an aspiring MOVIE blog writers, what would it be?


 WATCH as many films as you can. To compare, to be able to criticize you must watch A LOT OF FILMS.