The Prestige (2006)
By Santiago Pliego
(this review contains spoilers)
“Are you watching closely?”
The world of film is filled with clichés. Repetition of plotlines, cast, dialogue lines, and endings is very common and tiring, and it lessens the magic and power of film and has audiences rolling their eyes, saying “I have paid ten times for different movies but I get the same junk.” Genres are also repetitively used in film without any doses of originality, and the theaters are spammed with ten action films, five romance, and six kid movies, all at the same time. It is not very often, then, when one gets to experience an unusual genre: Tragedy. Even rarer is a perfectly crafted tragedy that not only amazes in its story but also in its portrayal of the human heart, but Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Prestige delivers an insightful, original critique of the sinful nature of humans.
One of Aristotle’s comments about tragedy says that “the structure of the best tragedy should be not simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing fear and pity—for that is peculiar to this form of art.” The Prestige follows this comment exactly to the letter; the story starts with a simple premise but becomes extremely complex as the film progresses, while maintaining a continuity that gives the audience a clear idea of what’s going on. The film has two main characters, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), who are both young and promising magicians with aspirations to become the greatest magic performers in late 1800’s London. At the beginning, they work together with John Cutter (Michael Caine) and Angier’s wife, Julia (Piper Perabo) to give magic shows with some risky illusions. Angier and Borden’s relationship, however, is destroyed when Borden ties Julia’s wrists with a different knot than usual, and when she tries to slip it inside a water tank and is unable to do so, she drowns. From that moment on, Angier and Borden continue to improve in their performances and begin to hurt each other—sometimes literally, in order to prevent the other from becoming the best magician of London.
When it comes to fascinating films that capture the audience and still present a true view of the world, there is no one better than Christopher Nolan. Technically speaking, this film is a masterpiece. Even though it is an adaptation of a novel, Nolan and his brother changed certain things and adapted others to provide their visual equivalents on the screen. Whenever one looks at any Nolan film, the first thing that must jump out is the masterful writing, and this film does not fail to deliver. Even though it is not as stunning or complex as Memento, the film’s non-chronological plot still transforms into a linear narrative that is exciting and intriguing. The film, however, would not work if it weren’t for Nolan’s excellent casting ability. The film is also written around the three-part structure of magic tricks, a Pledge, a Turn, and the hardest part, the Prestige. Each character is portrayed perfectly by his or her respective actor or actress, and not only that, but the dialogue and the language that are used provide a certain air of solemnity whenever each character speaks. Listening to Michael Caine’s voice, as always, is an experience by itself, and yet, Bale and Jackman deliver their lines with crispness and emotion that compels the audience not only to watch the film but to listen to it. The performances of many well known actors and actresses, including Andy Serkis and Scarlett Johansson, are among their best performances in film. Also included in the technical package is an eerily beautiful cinematography by Nolan’s long time collaborator, Wally Pfister (Inception, Memento, The Italian Job). This, combined with the sets, the costumes, the locations, and the editing, brings a rich, dark world to life that is very absorbing but at the same time dangerously mysterious—much like the magic tricks in the film. The use of a duality or “cloning” motif is also prevalent and interesting; references to brothers, copies, dual personalities, are present throughout the narrative but become clearly explicit when the finale is revealed. Perhaps the only weak element on the film is the soundtrack, which in the film, provides powerful ambience crescendos but might not be a good soundtrack to listen by itself because of its constant use of long, varied sweeping themes.
Just as Nolan is not repetitive in the technical side of his film, so is he not repetitive in his film’s philosophical themes. The Dark Knight gives us a great insight of Postmodernism and the embodiment of evil versus objective values and sacrificial redemption. Memento deals with the questions of whether man can or cannot trust in only his own mind and his interpretation of the world based on a sinful nature. The Prestige, however, is different also in that it presents not one but two themes, each of them embodied in one of the protagonists. The two lines of thought are the driving force of the film just as they are the driving force of the characters and what brings forth their ultimate demise, and Nolan utilizes the combination of both to criticize the human heart and show where stubbornness to stay in sin will eventually lead to.
Robert Angier’s life was perfect at the beginning: he had a wife and a job, and he was happy, at least until Borden tied a knot that his wife couldn’t slip underwater and she drowned. At Julia’s funeral, Angier asks Borden which knot he tied, and Borden responds, “I don’t know.” Angier attempts to kill himself and goes into a state of depression, while Borden finds a young girl, marries her, has a little girl with her, and starts to become noticed in his magician ego, “The Professor.” Angier feels cheated when he sees Borden’s life and thinks that he, and not his wife’s killer, deserved a perfect life. When Borden shows his greatest trick, “The Transported Man”, Angier sets his sights on one thing which he expresses to Cutter: “The man stole my life. Now I’m going to steal his trick.” Borden’s trick, however, is not easy to duplicate: on a stage, two doors are positioned, one on each side of the stage. Borden stands in front on the left door and bounces a rubber ball towards the door on the right side of the stage. As soon as he bounces the ball, he enters the left door and then emerges on the right door to catch the ball, almost instantaneously. Angier believes that the same man comes out of the second door, and refuses to listen to the wiser counsel of Cutter, who is an ingenieur, or a man who designs tricks and the equipment needed to perform them. Angier’s narrative is one of obsession. He is consumed by the fact that Borden’s trick is the greatest magic trick he’s ever seen, and wishes to find its secret. The search for the answers about the trick, however, take him not only to the other side of the world—Colorado Springs—but also reveal the darker side of his own nature. One of the most important scenes in Angier’s narrative is his talk with Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). When Angier goes to meet Tesla in order to buy a machine that will allow him to perform “The Transported Man”, Tesla asks Angier if he has considered the cost of the machine, to which Angier coolly replies that “price is not an object”. “Perhaps not,” says Tesla, “but have you considered the cost?” Angier doesn’t understand Tesla, and Tesla says, “Go home. Forget about this thing. I can recognize an obsession, no good will come out of it.” Angier mockingly asks, “Hasn’t good come out of your obsessions?” The important and critical line is Tesla’s reply: “Well at first. But I’ve followed them too long. I’m their slave, and one day, they’ll choose to destroy me.” The film argues that man is not only destroyed in the end by his obsessions but that while he arrives to the end, he is a slave to them. Angier ends up forgetting about his wife, his past life, his friendship with Borden, and is unable to let go of his stubbornness in abiding in an obsession—a perfectly mimicking narrative of how man is not only sinful but craves to abide in sin and be a slave to it.
Alfred Borden’s story presents us with a different theme, which is the idea of duality and secrecy, specifically dealing not with one’s personality but with one’s essence of what constitutes a person. The way Borden does his “Transported Man” is through the help of his exact twin, Fallon—one man enters the left side door and the twin exists through the right side door. The problem, however, is that Borden extends the use of his twin into his real life and this complicates matters with his family and the way in which his theme is revealed becomes more complex. Sometimes Borden is Fallon and sometimes the real Fallon is Borden (which is why Borden/Fallon is really telling the truth when he answers that he doesn’t know which knot he tied). However, the message of this two characters’ narrative is conveyed through the audiences through a single character—Alfred Borden “The Professor”—and through the apparent notion that Borden is Borden and Fallon is Fallon; thus, apparently the man named Alfred Borden is a hypocrite, who has a wife but has a lover at the same time, who lives a life of secrets, pretending to be someone else the whole time. Of course, this is not true, because it is Fallon who has the lover. Even though Borden is not lying to his wife about having a lover, Alfred Borden is. However, the combination of Borden and Fallon’s character, Alfred Borden “The Professor”, is a destructive wedge that is the driving force of the criticism of a life of hypocrisy and secrecy. The lies that Alfred Borden “The Professor” says end up engulfing him and becoming similar to Angier’s unstoppable obsession, with very similar results—both things destroy a person’s life and the life of those around him. In Alfred Borden’s theme also comes into play the fact that living a half-life is catastrophic, since we see both Fallon and Borden living a half a life each. In the end, before Fallon is hanged for his “murder” of one of Angier’s clones, he says to Borden, “You go and live your life in full now, all right? You live for both of us.” Borden’s life doesn’t reach a climax of happiness until he starts to live a full life and until he stops pretending and shifting in his own understanding of who he is.
The two philosophical critiques come together and overlap at several points of the film, but most specifically at the end, providing yet a third theme, which is that sacrificing the wrong things for the wrong goal (in this case, a man’s obsession) is destructive and brings no good to a man’s life. Alfred Borden’s motto is that “Sacrifice is the price of a good trick.” Full devotion to one’s art, he says at a certain point, is the only way to escape the solid walls of the world—the only way to create another world through illusions. Angier complements this idea with one of his own: “My passion is equal to the task.” When we analyze both together, we see that the underlying idea that joins the two men's motivation is this: get to your goal, whatever it takes, and if you need to sacrifice your whole life to get there, so be it. In the last scene, Borden shoots Angier and tells him that he never sacrificed anything for his tricks. Angier says that he did, and that it took courage to climb into his copying machine every night, not knowing whether he’d be the man in the prestige or the copy that drowned in the water tank. It is here, in this final confrontation, that we realize that Angier sacrificed everything—even his life—for the look in the faces of the audience when they were fooled, even for just a second. Borden, at this point, however, has gotten rid of his other half and of Angier, and goes on to life a full life with his daughter.
This film is very dark, and there is no doubt about it. Nolan, however, does not leave his narrative without the alternative, without the Prestige of a man’s soul, which is presented in Borden’s actions at the end. Once he gets rid of his old self—Fallon—he is no longer Alfred Borden, and can actually start a new life with his daughter. However, the tragedy is still embedded in the narrative of the story all the way to the end, when Cutter narrates, “Now you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled.” A man’s heart wants to be fooled, it wants to live in his passions, it wants to be a slave to sin. Only after we’ve been tried for our sins and found guilty in the eyes of God are we able to mortify sin and die to our worldly desires—very much like Borden’s trial that condemns Fallon to die. Overall, this film is one of the most powerful presentations of the love of an unredeemed man for sin, and not only his unwillingness to leave sin, but his love of abiding in it and increasing it. The truthful understanding of man’s heart and the detailed consequences of the nature of man are bluntly put by Nolan in this masterpiece. The love of sin is a road that does not lead to a happy ending, but men do not want leave it. Now they aren’t looking for the exit, because they won’t even find it, because of course they’re not really looking. They don’t really want to leave the road. They want to be fools. The question that we must ask ourselves after watching this film is: are we watching closely where we stand?”
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