The Prestige - Spoilers

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by GregM, Feb 19, 2012.

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  1. GregM

    GregM The expanding man Thread Starter

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    One of my favorite directors of the past 10 yrs is Christopher Nolan. I think he hit his stride with Batman Begins and his next movie, with a similar cast, was his masterpiece. The Prestige is a period piece set in turn of the century London and Colorado. Rival magicians Borden and Angier, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, respectively, face off in the transporting man trick. The premise is there is a logical explanation to every "trick" made up of three acts: the pledge, the turn and the prestige. Michael Caine's voice-over at the beginning comes right out and challenges the audience, "you don't want to figure it out. You want to be fooled." This premise is again repeated at the end of the movie after Borden and Angier reveal how they performed the trick. If you haven't seen it and think you want to, don't read any more. Order it, watch it and then come back and weigh in. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ref_=sr_1_1&s=movies-tv&qid=1329624097&sr=1-1

    If you have seen it, let me know if my theory works for you.

    My interpretation is Angier is lying about the way he performs the transported man because he claims to perform the trick using an invention by Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie). This invention would take the film out of the logical zone that Nolan set up and into the realm of sci fi. The invention is not possible or logical. Also, Tesla was known to be desperate for money at the point in time shown in the film, and there are strong clues that he ripped off the vulnerable Angier and left town, which could drive Angier to perform the trick by killing body doubles. Caine's character had taught Angier how to use body doubles earlier in the film, but the look-alike realized (with help from Borden) that he had tremendous power over Angier. The double ended up embarrassing Angier, injuring him and wrecking his act. So that gave Angier the motive and the anger to murder body doubles. And the final scene showed he had done exactly that. But most people wanted to believe the illusion, as Michael Caine said at the outset.

    Regardless how you interpret the movie you have to admit it's one of the best of the last ten years.
     
  2. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    I don't think there's any reason the film can't delve into the fantastic; that said, your interpretation is probably the perfect one for grounding the film in reality.

    It's quite a bit more chilling with the sci-fi twist, definitely... Murder is murder; nothing new in movies. Repeated suicide, night after night? Now THAT's creepy!
     
  3. Yovra

    Yovra Collector of Beatles Threads

    I really like the 'fantastic' angle in the movie.
    It occured to me some time ago that most Nolan's movies (Insomnia, Dark Knight, Prestige) have a strong moral question in the plotline. In the Prestige the canary gets killed; so part of many tricks it that you, the viewer, see the 'nice' bit (someone/something disappearing), but aren't bothered with it's ugly side.
    The fun thing is: I'v just seen this movie for the 5th time a few weeks ago and with all it's mysteries it's easy and fun to com up with different theories!
     
  4. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Funny... the script, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, says exactly what the movie said: that he did dematerialize and rematerialize with Tesla's box, and that the duplicate magician was killed every single night. This left 100 glass cases filled with water, each with a dead body in it, as shown in the final shot.

    Read the original novel by Christopher Priest, which has the same story. I agree, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and to me, it's an enormous weakness of an otherwise excellent movie.

    [​IMG]

    One of the basic tenets of magic is Occasm's Razor: the simplest explanation, no matter how hard to believe, is probably true. There are a lot of cool stage illusions done over the past 100 years that were done through doubles, trap doors, and even phony audience members. It's the most direct and foolproof way of doing the trick. Duplicating the magician and then killing the original guy is not a simple method. It's stupid and bizarre, and to me, it's a bad ending to an otherwise interesting movie.
     
  5. GregM

    GregM The expanding man Thread Starter

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Yes, I'm aware the book and Nolan's script supports Angier's story, but since those scenes are told through the voice of Angier--and the book alternates in chapters supposedly written by Borden and Angiers--can you trust what is said or shown? Remember, magicians will never willingly give away the secret to their trick. The key to figuring it out is the camera slowly panning over all the hats and cats on Tesla's property, which is shown at the beginning middle and end. The interpretation of the film hinges on what you think of those hats and cats. Were they teleported there as copies of the real thing (which is impossible) or were they deliberately placed there by Tesla to trick Angier (Tesla had motive)? Like Caine says, you don't want to work it out; you want to believe the illusion. So it doesn't really bother me that there is supposed contradiction or diversion in the screenplay or book. To have it be more straightforward would be a letdown.

    I agree there is a strong moral statement. It starts out with the death of Angier's girl, partially Borden's fault. So Angier's has the upper hand morally. But by the end Angiers has lost his soul and fallen far below Borden. It's a great movie. The first time I saw it, man it threw me for a loop.
     
  6. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I know the "disappearing dove cage" trick extremely well -- I remember the collapsing cages when I did magic as a kid in the late 1960s. But then, we always did a quick swap of the real canary with a rubber one. I was stunned when I saw the movie to realize that, at the turn of the century, they just killed a dove during every performance!

    But once again... the simplest explanation is the one that works. Oh, well -- we need to get another bird! I think that's the biggest clue that, in the magician's mind, it's not too great a sacrifice for him to drown to death every single night. Which makes no sense, especially when you find out that all the stage-hands under the floor are blind. Stuff like that just made me roll my eyes and say, "why, oh why, did I spend ten bucks to see this crap?"

    Really fine movie, other than that.
     
  7. Matthew B.

    Matthew B. Scream Quietly

    Location:
    Tokyo, Japan
    Not buying the non-duplication theory. Yes, the film does give us one body double who looks exactly like Angier, and indeed is also played by Hugh Jackman, but the film also shows that Angier went to considerable trouble to find and train him. There is no evidence in the film that England contains enough identical doppelgangers of Angier to populate a small village.

    Think of the conversation where Cutter turns on Angier, telling him that drowning is the most painful possible way to die. Nothing in their dialogue or reactions makes any sense unless Angier has indeed been killing himself horribly night after night.

    I'm glad to agree, though, that it's Nolan's masterpiece, and one of the best films of the past ten years.
     
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  8. GregM

    GregM The expanding man Thread Starter

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Why do you think cloning yourself is a simple explanation, when very obviously cloning via Tesla device is a total impossibility? You're believing the illusion.

    Not England, but remember Angier had a long time--a year or more--and was not in England when he plotted his comeback. As Borden says at the end, "You went half way around the world... you spent a fortune. You did terrible things. Really terrible things Robert." If you think it's more reasonable to assume that referred to killing clones (impossible) than rounding up, training and murdering look-alikes (possible), I'd say you're believing the illusion and you don't want to work it out, as Cutter challenges the audience.

    Angier didn't want to divulge his trick to Cutter or anyone else. He needed Cutter's connections to get a big theater but he very obviously kept Cutter and everyone else in the dark--using only blind stage hands. He had been on a downward spiral into madness since the beginning of the film. So it's no stretch for me to interpret that dialogue as either outward deception (to keep Cutter believing the illusion that Tesla's machine worked), inward deception (he was indeed a murderer and needed to justify it to himself), or some other form of insanity. Quite obviously he was surviving night after night and not dying night after night.

    Indeed. :cheers:
     
  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    If the duplicate has all your memories up to the moment of death, then for all practical purposes, you did "survive"... in a way. (Still, you think there'd be some generation loss, since he's making a copy of a copy of a copy.)

    But still, it begs the question: if Tesla had the ability to duplicate matter, why not duplicate gold? Why not transmit people from Chicago to New York and eliminate trains and wagons? There's a thousand logical questions, many of which have no good answers.

    To me, it's just a bad idea for a story, because of all the illogic and loose ends. It's an intriguing idea, and Nolan is a terrific filmmaker... but this thing is just all over the place, a real piece of crap at the end. I swear, he did the entire movie just so he could do that final shot showing 100 identical dead, drowned bodies in 100 glass cases. And those did not look imaginary to me.
     
  10. Concur with GregM that it's Nolan's masterpiece. There is more going on in the script on a philosophical level than most other Hollywood movies. To me the core of the movie is about identity and how much of it is an illusion we build as we grow up. Nolan's script is infinitely better than the book.

    I firmly believe Tesla did solve the matter duplication problem in the film but I understand that some people wanted everything grounded in our reality. Bowie was great in the role.
     
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  11. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    this movie is never on the pay channels, i wonder why?
     
  12. Ken_McAlinden

    Ken_McAlinden MichiGort Staff

    Location:
    Livonia, MI
    If you go with the "Sci-fi" angle, one can't help think the film was amusingly inverting and riffing on the Arthur C. Clarke quote about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic.

    This is my favorite Nolan film.
     
  13. GregM

    GregM The expanding man Thread Starter

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Wow, I totally disagree on all counts. The shot at the end showed nowhere near 100 bodies or tanks. Only one body was shown with any level of detail (and not much detail at that). No more than 5-10 tanks were shown--the camera panned over them in the same slow style as with the hats and cats on Tesla's property in Colorado, and that shot is shown again at the end. It's the same idea: are you looking at something planted designed to fool a magician? And Cutter's voice challenges you to not be fooled.

    There are many other fantastic shots and themes in Prestige--not just at the ending. The wireless lights turning on in rows of bulbs stuck in the snow. The many stage shots, beautifully choreographed and filmed--some featuring Scarlett Johanssen who is not bad to look at. The dolly shots of an impeccably reproduced turn-of-the-century London street. The aerial shots of a train speeding through the mountains of Colorado. Cutter's meticulously engineered contraption to spare the dove. Christian Bale revealing a two-headed coin to a young boy. You're saying all these amazing scenes that Nolan directed to perfection were incidental to the shot of 100 identical bodies in 100 tanks, which wasn't even shown? You didn't even look--either that or you don't remember. You wanted to be fooled, as Cutter says.

    It sent chills down my spine when the hats and cats were re-shown at the ending. Powerful film making at its finest.
     
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  14. DrPhibes

    DrPhibes Vengeful Revenant and 5.1 Fanbeast

    Your theory is interesting and worth mulling over. I like it.

    What I don't like is the idea that anyone who disagrees with your theory is "believing the illusion". Ghosts, time travel, aliens speaking english, moving faster than the speed of light, and "real" magic pop up in works of fiction all the time. Accepting that something similarly fantastic would appear in another work of fiction is hardly a sign of gullibility or "believing the illusion".

    As it is, I found the ending satisfying at the time, but it did not pass fridge logic. When I was looking in the fridge for a snack afterwards, a simpler solution presented itself. Perform the trick once, and don't kill the double. Both you and the double want the same thing, and neither of you want to die. The remaining tricks are an illusion. He'd have to share his identity with the double, but it's far less messy than stacking scores of bodies in the cellar.
     
  15. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Thank you! :righton: But of course, if you use a logical explanation like this, then you can't have the killer gee-whiz shot at the end. (Which, a friend of mine reminds me, was only 50 tanks, not the 100 I said above.) Wikipedia says in their thoughtful piece on the film:

    A final shot shows that each of the several dozen tanks in the abandoned building contained a drowned Angier.

    It also quotes from Roger Ebert's review: "Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, describing the revelation at the end a "fundamental flaw" and a "cheat"." I agree 1000% with this assessment.

    I believe Hugh Jackman did have a line earlier saying he was only going to do 50 shows and then that was it, so it's a safe bet that there were 50 giant glass cases filled with water, each with a dead duplicate of his body in them.

    There was a previous explanation where the other magician had tried to use a double, but it went badly because the other guy was a drunk and a jerk. The implication was that the main magician wanted to use a different technique and not have to worry about an identical twin walking around, getting in trouble and spoiling his act.

    The stuff about the blind people backstage, the whole Tesla side plot, and on and on and on... like I say, it's all over the place, like an episode of Fringe or X-Files where they had nowhere to go with it except throw some metaphysical crap at the wall and see if it stuck.

    Nolan's a very fine filmmaker, but I think this was one where the story couldn't support the weight of what he was shooting.
     
  16. DrPhibes

    DrPhibes Vengeful Revenant and 5.1 Fanbeast

    And I think that's the main reason why my afterthought was compelling, if the double was you, your double would not be out making your life complicated.

    The competing theories are good, and I like them. I don't need to pick one. I feel the same way about Memento and Inception.

    Nolan films are just great. in The Dark Knight, every time Batman arrived to kick posterior and take names, I'd think "oh no, what's going to go wrong this time?" That feeling of apprehension was a welcome change for the genre.
     
  17. swandown

    swandown Under Assistant West Coast Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    It's still murder if you kill your clone!
     
  18. GregM

    GregM The expanding man Thread Starter

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    But it's not my idea--it's the premise to the film, as expressed in no uncertain terms in the voice-over by Caine. There is a trick. It can be figured out. But you want to be fooled.

    Totally agree. But the issue I make here is that the film has a logical premise and everything that builds on the premise can be worked out in reality. The sci fi "interpretation" simply accepts the illusion. Magic tricks involve an illusion that defies reality and requires deception that hides the real trick. If you believe the sci fi explanation, you haven't worked anything out and have ignored Cutter's voice-over (which is so central to the film that it is said at the beginning and repeated at the end).

    Yet Angier had already learned the lesson earlier in the film that a double couldn't be trusted. Plus, there were bodies that had drowned. Who were they?
     
  19. benjaminhuf

    benjaminhuf Forum Resident

    I see Vidiot's point, but I just disagree.

    I think The Prestige and Memento are Nolan's two greatest films. The ending of The Prestige is like a the twist given at the end of a Twilight Zone episode. And it's not tacked on, it's built into the story and prefigured from that first shot of all of those hats lying on the ground.

    Vidiot: I'm not meaning to be sarcastic at all, just asking, but I assume that the Twilight Zone is not a show you enjoyed much? It seems like that show is full of fridge moments....Or, maybe they are different and I just haven't thought about it enough. Don't know.
     
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  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
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    I watched the original Twilight Zone when it was new. I've read most (but not all) of the scripts, particularly the ones by George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, and the ones credited to Charles Baumont. I recorded every syndicated episode off-air on Betamax tape in the late 1970s; then I bought them when CBS Home Video released them for sale on VHS in the 1980s. Then I bought them again on laserdisc in the early 1990s. Then I bought them again on DVD in the late 1990s. I think I bought them again on Blu-ray in the last year, but who knows? They're over there in a pile of stuff I haven't gotten around to watching yet.

    On top of that, I actually worked on a half-dozen episodes of the (short-lived) CBS revival of Twilight Zone in 1985. So, yeah -- I'm sort of familiar with the show.

    Let me again quote from Ebert's review:

    Now how will Robert ever discover the secret of the Prestige? He treks into the snows of Colorado to visit the hidden laboratory of the (real-life) Nikola Tesla (David Bowie), who may have manufactured the trick for Alfred. Tesla, the discoverer/inventor of alternating current, was believed at the time to be capable of all manner of wonders with the genie of electricity, but how could AC, or even DC, explain the Transported Man?

    You will not learn here. What you will learn in the movie is, I believe, a disappointment -- nothing but a trick about a trick. With a sinking heart, I realized that "The Prestige" had jumped the rails, and that rules we thought were in place no longer applied.


    And that's pretty much what I think. Twilight Zone's shows were short stories with O'Henry surprise endings -- little character sketches with twists at the end. That's a big difference from a gigantic 130-minute long shaggy dog story with an ending that makes no logical sense. Twilight Zone at least had the sense to say, "we have no idea why this guy from 1875 is now in modern times," or "we don't know why this little girl fell into another dimension," or "surprise -- the robots attacking this old woman are actually American astronauts!" Or: "Here's a camera that can take a picture of events that happen 10 minutes in the future!" or: "There's been a nuclear war, and a guy who survived by being a bank vault gets out, only he breaks his glasses and is now in hell because he loves to read."

    I can buy all that. It's logical and makes good dramatic sense within the context of a half-hour show, whether it's a morality play or just something to shock you at the end. But this movie jumped the shark for me, because the ending was silly. Let's just agree we have different tastes.
     
  21. benjaminhuf

    benjaminhuf Forum Resident

    You make some good points. Actually, I think our tastes are fairly similar, except when it comes to this one movie. Oh, and I guess we disagree on The Artist too, which doesn't bug me--it just doesn't seem like Best Picture material imho, esp. compared with War Horse, Hugo, etc.

    I can take a Twilight Zone twist a little better in a movie. What gets me are all the Fridge moments in a show like Fringe that goes on for years. Talk about a shaggy dog story! And that's what Lost was too. Or was it a shaggy polar bear story? Fringe has it's own double wide fridge with chilled, heated, and filtered impossibility Kool-aid to drink each episode going on for years! And yet, in spite of that, I still like Fringe because of the great cast. But Fringe has jumped the nuked fridge for me, I guess, because I've stopped watching.
     
  22. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    I'm with you. I was totally sucked in and then the ending.... Serious flaw.
     
  23. tonyc

    tonyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I was lost the previous times I watched it. I'm looking forward to the next time the movie is on so I can study the end in better detail and compare it to the responses in this thread.
     
  24. GregM

    GregM The expanding man Thread Starter

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I know, but I just explained how that interpretation fails to meet the challenge to work out the trick and there is an explanation based on logic that doesn't jump the rails. Why keep going back to a review by someone else who failed to work it out? All the clues are there for you to piece together.
     
  25. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    love the movie and I own the DVD...when used DVD shopping I come across this title often in the bins...must have been a big seller...
     
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