This image of Teddy smiling in the doorway, and the accompanying sound of the bell ringing, is another “icon” made to be distinct so that the audience remembers it when it re-appears.

Nolan on this interaction between Leonard and Burt:

“That’s what’s most frightening for Leonard. The continual impression that he’s had an interaction with these people before that he can’t tap into.”

Another way the creative team kept the movie together despite its complex structure was using “icons” – images that stuck in the viewer’s head and were easily recognizable when they re-appeared.

In the beginning of the film I wanted to do [an icon] in its most exaggerated form, and it seemed like a gunshot to the head was about as unsubtle as you can be in that regard. So having this shot, first in reverse, and then coming back to it at the end of the next color sequence, was a very effective and dramatic way of bringing the audience’s attention to the relationship between these two scenes they’ve just experienced.

As with every color scene in the movie, this scene ends with the footage of the beginning of the previous scene.

We couldn’t use different takes for the repeated actions because the subtleties of differences in the performance would throw people off. They needed to know that it was exactly the same event, exactly the same material.
–Dody Dorn, editor

This was important in keeping the audience engaged with an increasingly complex movie, because it helped them realize that the film was non-linear and it was OK to not understand a scene the first time you see it.

This sequence is the first example of Nolan achieving reality-defying shots without resorting to optics or CGI. Rather than simply filming the shot then reversing it, which often leads to grainy images, Nolan filmed the entire scene with a reverse magazine, creating a clearer and more authentic shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5YZSQ5m9NY#t=897

These types of shots have become one of Nolan’s directorial trademarks, as he avoids non-authentic shots at all costs – he even created a spinning set for Inception, so that his characters could actually walk on the walls.

Despite the fact that the “derelict building” is decrepit and intentionally receives no backstory, the creative team put a lot of effort into constructing the building. They wanted something that was ordinary enough so as to not reveal anything about the location, but unique enough to be easily recognizable in black-and-white scenes as well as colored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5YZSQ5m9NY#t=752

Fun Fact: Since the creative team wanted Leonard’s motel room to remain anonymous yet somehow personal to Leonard, they sent an assistant in to take pictures of motel rooms after the guest had checked out but before the room was cleaned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5YZSQ5m9NY#t=714

Teddy is played by Joe Pantoliano, though Nolan was originally hesitant to cast Pantoliano in this role because he had a reputation of playing bad guys.

But Nolan’s original fears that casting Pantoliano would tip their hand on his morality subsided when he realized he could manipulate Pantoliano’s notoriety to serve the film.

What was interesting about casting Joe Pantoliano is that when I first met him I had a lot of resistance to casting him because of his familiarity… they think they know who this guy’s gonna be. But throughout the course of the film, you’re kind of turning it on its head or you’re tweaking it, and you’re saying ‘well, maybe I don’t quite know who this guy is’