Director Christopher Nolan’s latest, Tenet, is in theatres in my hometown, and what better time than to revisit his 2006 magician flick The Prestige.
‘To Touchstone and Beyond’ brings you front row center as Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale battle it out in London at the turn of the 20th Century. Pay close attention as The Prestige is about to begin.
The Plot
Alfred Borden and Robert Angier, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, are rival magicians in London, who strive to be the best. Though they initially work together with help from Cutter, played by Michael Caine, the two men separate after Borden accidentally gets Angier’s wife, played by Piper Perabo, killed during a show. Enraged, Angier blames Borden and becomes obsessed with destroying his rival magician.
Angier tries to build a new show with the help of Cutter and an assistant named Olivia, played by Scarlett Johansson, but his rivalry with Borden never ends. Angier even travels to America to meet with Nikola Tesla, played by David Bowie, so that the famed inventor could create a machine that will help Angier perform the trick, ‘the transported man’ better than Borden.
Returning to London, Angier stages a comeback that will bring him face to face with Borden. Though he gains fame for his death-defying trick, Angier and Borden will have one final battle that leaves neither man unscathed in this war.
The Best Moments on Screen
Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are perfect in their roles. They each bring their own intensity as competing magicians, and they play so well off each other in the scenes they share. The brilliance of their performance and the film is that you see Bale and Jackman’s characters as two very different people, but by the end of the film, both men are essentially the same.
Michael Caine is crucial to the movie. Many actors could play Cutter, but Michael Caine portrays him with a humanity that becomes the audience’s link to making sense of the crazy world in which Angier and Borden live. Cutter is impartial, unlike the wives, so he helps the audience see the right and wrong of Borden and Angier’s actions. Cutter exudes confidence and admiration for both Borden and Angier, but he also shows his disgust when the two men go to far in their quest for dominance.
David Bowie as Nikola Tesla is one of the best casting choices ever made for the silver screen. Bowie is perfect as the genius eccentric inventor. When he is on screen, we don’t see the rocker, rather Bowie brings Tesla to life with restrained sage wisdom. Bowie’s Tesla is trying to warn Angier about obsession and why he needs to walk away. Bowie doesn’t get much screen time but makes his performance memorable.
The Worst Moments on Screen
This is a minor complaint, but the female characters in the film, Rebecca Hall, Piper Perabo, and Scarlett Johansson don’t get enough screen time to make their performances memorable or move beyond simple story arcs. Each character has a crucial role in the development of Borden and Angier. However, the women’s importance is downgraded because they are incapable of seeing what’s happening to their loved ones.
Film Facts
- The movie is based on the 1995 novel The Prestige, by author Christopher Priest.
- The Prestige refers to the third part of a magic trick. The first two parts of a magic trick are called The Pledge and The Turn.
- Sam Mendes was originally in line to direct The Prestige as a follow up to his Oscar-winning film, American Beauty.
- Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman starred in another magic centered movie in 2006, Scoop.
- The Prestige was the second film that director Christopher Nolan filmed with Christian Bale and Michael Caine. He originally worked with them in 2005’s Batman Begins and would go onto to film two Batman sequels with the actors.
- David Bowie originally turned down the role of Tesla, but he was persuaded by a face to face meeting with Nolan to take the part.
- Borden’s child in the film is played by one of Christopher Nolan’s children.
- Both Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall co-starred in Iron Man sequels. Johansson in Iron Man 2, and Hall in Iron Man 3.
- The film has Angier travel to Colorado Springs, Colorado to meet with Tesla. In real life Tesla conducted multiple experiments at his lab in Colorado Springs.
- Magician Ricky Jay who appears in the film as the magician that Borden and Angier are apprenticing from, taught Bale and Jackman how to improve their sleight of hand tricks.
- Borden takes the nickname ‘The Professor’ when he starts his own shows. This was a common stage name that many magicians at the time took.
- The Prestige was nominated for two Oscars, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction, at the 2007 ceremony. It lost in both categories.
See It/Skip It?
See It! Christopher Nolan always strives to create films that are meaningful and thought-provoking with complicated themes that challenge the audience to pay attention. The Prestige is a tale of magic that showcases how obsession and the pursuit of fame by two men lead to their own destruction. While the film focuses on the magicians Borden and Angier, Nolan has brilliantly crafted a tale that mirrors the real-life battle of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Each was brilliant in different ways and they spent much of their lives trying to outdo one another through Machiavellian ways.
The Prestige shines brightest by bringing an audience into a world that we know little about, 19th Century magicians, and becoming heavily invested in the welfare of the characters. Borden and Angier are not special men, they just have a commitment to their profession that will force them to get their hands dirty to ensure supremacy.
Next week on ‘To Touchstone and Beyond’ we look at 2007’s Dan in Real Life.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Production Company: Touchstone Pictures, Warner Bros. Syncopy
Principal Cast:
- Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier
- Christian Bale as Alfred Borden
- Scarlett Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe
- Michael Caine as Cutter
- David Bowie as Tesla
Piper Perabo as Julia McCullogh - Rebecca Hall as Sarah
- Andy Serkis as Alley
Release Date: October 20, 2006
Budget: $40 Million
Box Office Gross Domestic = $53,089,891
Worldwide = $109,676,311