Christopher Nolan’s

The Prestige

Film Analysis
“Pay very close
attention.”
Christopher Nolan’s film about rival Magicians
looks beyond the magic tricks themselves and
into the heart of the magician. The film explores
what makes an illusionist tick, and to what
inexplicable extremes such men will go to
achieve their deceptive performance.

Alfred Borden & Robert Angier "The Great Danton "

Its irony is ultimately in the fact that no matter how closely you
pay attention, no matter how carefully you follow the subtleties
of the story, you are still going to be fooled. Try as you may,
The Prestige does not allow the option of realizing final twists
prematurely, because these twists so literally come out of
nowhere that you would have to read the minds of the
characters to know their tactics. The film, we realize, isn’t about
the “trick” at all, but rather our helplessness to it, and the
obsession that such helplessness casts over both the film’s
characters and us.
A magic trick consists of three stages:

The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige

A “prestige” is the magician’s definitive punch-line—it

is final part of a trick in which the “magic” has already
been performed, and the magician works backwards to
restore whatever it is that he has altered (no magic
trick is complete without reconnecting a woman who
has been sawed in half, for example).
A good magic trick is secondary to the
prestige, because in this final section, the
magician reveals his ability to spin a tale
beyond his simple performance. Every good
magician creates a trick that ends with an
impressive prestige; great magicians create
illusions centered on the prestige that are so
superior that even other magicians are
stumped. The prestige therefore becomes a
competition between magicians; if they are not
careful, they can easily become obsessed with
learning their adversary’s advanced tricks.
First, there is the setup, or the "pledge," where the
magician shows the audience something that
appears ordinary but is probably not, making use of
misdirection. Next is the performance, or the "turn,"
where the magician makes the ordinary act
extraordinary. Lastly, there is the "prestige," where
the effect of the illusion is produced. There are
"twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance
and you see something shocking you've never seen
before.
 The Prestige is like an irresistible puzzle box,
a perfectly executed magic trick

PLOT / STRUCTURE

The Pledge The Turn The Prestige

The film is split into three storylines, each

resembling one of "the three stages of magic".
The Prestige” is told through a
fragmented timeline. It is constructed
as a post-modern puzzle, framing stories
within stories, flashbacks within flashbacks,
and presenting us with at least two unreliable
narrators - one of whom is the victim in the
murder trial that opens the film.
MOTIFS
The audience routinely sees the same tricks
performed at least twice, once by Borden (aka The
Professor) and then again with Angier's more
cultivated pizzazz. To pull off his most famous trick,
The New Transported Man, Angier (aka The Great
Danton) requires his own double. Fortunately an out of
work thespian is on hand for the job. Unfortunately
he's a drunk with an ego, so the act is always teetering
on the edge of disaster.
Parallelism

There are other sets of pairs as well. David Bowie

has a pivotal cameo as the rogue genius, Nikolai
Tesla, and his rivalry with the inventor (and moving
picture pioneer) Thomas Edison mirrors the
magicians' relationship.

In the character of Tesla the film implies that 'magic'

is simply science we haven't figured out yet.
Every single scene in the film has a meaning
above and beyond the telling of the mainline.
Each scene also gives clues to secrets of the
film, and the main theme.

Problems To Puzzle Over

Who is the protagonist? At times, you'd think

Angier, because he is the murder victim. At times,
you'd think Borden.Who’s the Antagonist?
At one point in the film an astute child points out
that for the disappearing bird trick to work,
something has to be killed.

Borden has no problems getting his hands dirty

and kills the bird. He’s even willing to make the
final sacrifice, the death of his own twin brother.
Angier on the other hand, won’t kill the bird but
ultimately has no problem disposing the
replications of himself.
Borden figures out a Chinese magician's trick relies
entirely on the man living his entire life as though he's
a cripple. He's actually incredibly strong, but the only
way his trick works is if he's physically unable to do it.
Borden understands this, because of course, he's
been doing the same thing for a very long time.

Borden's wife understands implicitly, from the very

beginning that there are two Bordens. But she can't
verbalize it. To her, it's two Bordens in one body.
Nolan gives us another clue when Borden tells
Borden-as-Fallon to talk to her.
Ultimately,Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, play characters
that are required to be very controlled in their ability to reveal as
little as possible in as many exaggerated interactions as
necessary.

Obs e s s io n

How much of what they do is really a façade is always difficult to

ascertain, especially when they deal with one another and
characters directly related to their occupations. Both men have
questionable morals and limited capacities to experience life
beyond their performances, so we cannot decisively determine
which of them is the protagonist and which is the antagonist. By
the end, perhaps both are victims, and both have basically one-
upped each other so that it is too complicated to name the winner
or estimate the final number of points on their scorecards.
ABRACADABRA
 TESLA: MAN OUT OF TIME

Nikola Tesla (10 July Colorado Springs Magnifying Transmitter

1856 - 7 January 1943)
Nikola Tesla was a world-renowned Serb-
American inventor, physicist, mechanical
engineer and electrical engineer. Tesla is
regarded as one of the most important
inventors in history. He is well known for his
contributions to the discipline of electricity and
magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th
century. Much of his early work pioneered
modern electrical engineering and many of his
discoveries were of groundbreaking
importance. Tesla's legacy can be seen
across the modern world wherever electricity
is used.
Aside from his work on electromagnetism and
engineering, Tesla is said to have contributed
in varying degrees to the fields of robotics,
ballistics, computer science, nuclear physics,
and theoretical physics.
In his later years, Tesla was regarded as a
mad
scientist and became noted for making bizarre
claims about possible scientific developments.
Many of his achievements have been used,
with some controversy, to support various
pseudosciences, UFO theories, and New Age
occultism. Contemporary admirers of Tesla
have deemed him "the man who invented
the twentieth century.
In the Colorado Springs lab, he "recorded“
signals of what he believed were extraterrestrial
radio signals, though these announcements and
his data were rejected by the scientific

community. Tesla spent the latter part of his life

trying to signal Mars. In 1996 Corum and Corum
published an analysis of Jovian plasma torus
signals which indicate that there was a
correspondence between the setting of Mars at
Colorado Springs, and the cessation of signals
from Jupiter in the summer of 1899 when Tesla
was there.
General Questions to Ask
Yourself as You Analyze a Film:

What does the film establish about its

setting, characters, and plot within the first
few minutes?
Plot/Setting: Victorian Era / England
& Colorado Springs

Characters:
When looking to the Main Character we want to find out who
we empathize with most. Through who’s eyes do we witness
the story? Are we looking at this character, or are we
looking from within this character ?
What are the key scenes or sequences in
the film, and where do they occur?
What was the pacing of the film like? Slow?
Quick? Frenetic? Lyrical?

How would you describe the acting

performances—were they restrained,
flamboyant, self-reflexive?
Do the actors costumes add to their characters
and make the film more plausible?

How does the film open? How does the film

end? Was the ending predictable, surprising,
ambiguous?
Was the film composed mainly of stars or
lesser-known actors, and how did this shape
your response to the characters, if at all?

How would you describe the cinematography?

Was it a highly stylized film, or one aiming for
a less intrusive and more “realistic” camera?

What is the Point of View of the film, how is

the story told? How does the director
assemble the film, how is it edited together?
Did the film make interesting use of color
or lighting? If so, where in particular?

What was the soundtrack like, as well as

the film’s use of sound and sound effects?

What about the dialogue?

Was there anything noteworthy about how

characters converse in the film?