The Prestige movie analysis

The Prestige

Movie Analysis

4.5/5

Cast: Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Rebecca Hall, Scarlette Johansson, Andy Serkis

‘Abracadabra’ The use of this word is mostly associated with disappearance of an object, esp when uttered by magicians. But as Caine’s character would say in ‘Prestige’, making something disappearing isn’t everything. You have to make it appear again. The reappearance is the lawful end to the trick and the answer of how it came from the thin air is the one-million-dollar answer or prestige. As mentioned in the starting prologue, it is the last part and reason of the trick, after the pledge (showing the object) and turn (act). All of us after watching the magic show are enthralled but sincerely hope if we would have known the prestige of the trick. But if we know it, it will cease to amaze us and magicians cease to exist. The sleight of hand has come a long way. From catching bullets with mouth to making national monuments disappear, conjuring had taken leaps and bounds. And the men involved did many sacrifices. Because keeping a thing secret is a much burdened work. It eats you and if you divulge, you are nothing.

            Based on Christopher Priest’s novel, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) are two illusionists who begin their professional life as shills at a very famous magician in 19^th century England. Angier’s wife (Piper Perabo) is the assistant to the magician. The magician’s trump card is the illusion in which a girl comes out of the locked water tank even after being rope bound. She can do it under a minute. The young fellows are herded by the magician’s engineer, Cutter (Michael Caine), the real brain behind the ops. He advises them to see a chinaman’s trick of conjuring a bowl of fish out of thin air and ask them to crack it. Borden cracks it and therein lies the whole story. When Angier’s wife is dead because of Borden’s complacency regarding tying knots, they become lifelong and bitter enemies. Angier loathes and sabotages the other’s tricks when the latter starts his own small magic shows. Angier doesn’t rest when Borden loses his fingers during his interference of his shows. His loathing deepens when he sees Borden happy with his family. Borden’s business booms as he affords his own engineer, Fallon, and starts conducting his shows in bigger halls. Angier, though is backed by Cutter’s science and connections, is bitter and envious of his archrival and who doesn’t recognize the love of the girl, Olivia, who works as his assistant. His only ambition is to destroy Borden. But the plot completely changes one day when he sees the best magic trick of his life performed by his enemy. His ambition for the first time changes. He needs to know the trick and he is ready to go till the end of the world for it.

            Angier at the end is destroyed by this expedition. Is there a moral for us to learn that envy eats you up, so we have to be broadminded? I don’t think so. It is easy to preach. Angier is a victim of the human emotion, which he couldn’t regulate. But at the end, I feel it is not about envy. For first time, when he sees the trick called ‘Transported man’, he temporarily forgets his vengeance. Look how powerful his art is. This is probably the moral of the story. Distraction is the only thing which will help you in overcoming your emotional problems. His life’s passion is magic tricks and he starts pursuing the prestige for ‘Transported man’. Borden on the other end is a devoted fanatic to his art. He lives for his profession when he starts keeping secrets from his wife, Sarah (Rebecca Hall). He starts having an affair with Olivia (Scarlette Johannson), who is sent by Angier to steal his diary. She does that and Angier reads it to no avail, as it doesn’t have the required prestige. He is given a clue to go to Tesla, one of the greatest scientists ever lived, to another end of the world. And when he returns from his travels, the plate is turned for Borden to suffer. Angier earlier copied his trick using a double but now he does it without the earlier way but with a machine. Borden tries to find out the prestige going disguised under the stage where he witnesses the death of Angier and is held for the charge of murder, which is where the movie begins.

            The transported man in a figurative way refers to the way Angier’s worry-ridden soul is transferred to that of Borden. Borden chides Fallon as to how Angier is doing the trick. He gets restless. His wife is vexed with his lies. She dies and Olivia leaves when she notices in the flippant way he forgets his wife’s death and proposes to her soon after Sarah’s Funeral. He starts losing everything and he hits the bottom when he is declared to be hung on the false charge. Both men lose everything because of the way they get devoted to their work and passion. It is wisely said that one should leave their work at the office. Nolan’s movie highlights the mind work of both the characters. Angier is the naïve of the two. He doesn’t see the obvious. It is so beautifully highlighted in the scene where Borden goes to get Fallon.

In the prison, Borden reads Angier’s diary, where he too is left short of the whole gist. In a defining moment, Borden desperately thrusts the prestige of his famous trick into the hands of Angier, which he tosses out without even looking. This is the abject humiliation Borden may ever experience. Their rivalry has gone to the point that Angier takes this way to vent his spite on his enemy. The movie is a tragic tale of lives destroyed by one great illusion. But in the end at the event of one’s death, both the illusionists connect with each other as to how they revel in their losses. Viewers are left in a quandary as to who suffered greater losses.

Nolan handles this well written, tightly wound script into a spellbinding screenplay. In this story of underhand dealings by the illusionists, he plays an open hand and deceives us successfully and rightly mentions we like to be fooled. Starting from the first monologue to the last words, Nolan uses simple but powerful words for dialogue. Look at the way Cutter mentions a story of drowning to Angier twice and gives a different reply each time. The first one placates him while the second one decimates him. And when Borden is asked about which knot he had tied, Borden’s reply has same words but completely different meaning. At the funeral his reply pleads for forgiveness, but during the bullet-catch, the same reply resonates defiance. Another fine bit of writing is in the way, Angier scoffs at the name, ‘great Danton’, but then keeps it as his stage name. Bale was his customary best revealing nothing with his inquiring eyes. If we have to hide something, we have to distract the person. Bale does that, with his eyes searching for something while it is you who should be searching. Hugh Jackman, who had been rid with muscle hewn roles in the last decade, had this movie as a blessing. He is the sufferer and he shows it. His Angier turns from careless, happy to purposeful, tragic. But then he should have understood that Borden would do the transported man even at the noose.