| The Prestige | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Christopher Nolan |
| Produced by |
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| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | The Prestige by Christopher Priest |
| Starring | |
| Music by | David Julyan |
| Cinematography | Wally Pfister |
| Editing by | Lee Smith |
| Studio | |
| Distributed by | Touchstone Pictures (United States) Warner Bros. Pictures (International) |
| Release date(s) | October 20, 2006 |
| Running time | 130 minutes |
| Country | United States United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $40 million[1] |
| Box office | $109,676,311 |
The Prestige is a 2006 British-American mystery/thriller film written, directed and co-produced by Christopher Nolan, with a screenplay adapted from Christopher Priest's 1995 novel of the same name. The story follows Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in London at the end of the 19th century. Obsessed with creating the best stage illusion, they engage in competitive one-upmanship with tragic results.
The film features Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier, Christian Bale as Alfred Borden, and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. It also stars Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Piper Perabo, Rebecca Hall, and Andy Serkis. The film reunites Nolan with actors Bale and Caine from Batman Begins, and returning cinematographer Wally Pfister, production designer Nathan Crowley, film score composer David Julyan, and editor Lee Smith.
Priest's epistolary novel was adapted to the screen by Nolan and his brother, Jonathan Nolan, using Nolan's distinctive nonlinear narrative structure. Themes of duality, obsession, sacrifice, and secrecy pervade the conflict. The film was released on October 20, 2006, receiving positive reviews and strong box office results, and obtained Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.
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Magician Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) is on trial for murder, accused of killing his lifelong rival, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman). They had first begun working together as ringers for "Milton the Magician" (Ricky Jay), with John Cutter (Michael Caine) as Milton's engineer of illusions. Angier's wife, Julia (Piper Perabo), drowns while performing a predicament escape from a Chinese water torture cell; Angier suspects Borden purposely bound her wrists with a difficult knot, making him responsible for her death. At the funeral, Borden enrages Angier by saying he doesn't know which knot he tied.
The two men begin competing magic careers: Borden becomes "The Professor" and hires the enigmatic Bernard Fallon as his engineer; Angier performs as "The Great Danton" with Cutter and his assistant, Olivia Wenscombe (Scarlett Johansson). During a parlor magic job, Borden meets Sarah (Rebecca Hall); they marry and have a daughter, Jess. Both magicians begin to disrupt each other's acts: Angier interferes with Borden's performance of the bullet catch, severing two of Borden's fingers, and a disguised Borden sabotages Angier's performance of the vanishing bird cage illusion, damaging Angier's reputation.
Borden soon astonishes crowds with his new illusion, "The Transported Man", where he enters one cabinet and reappears a moment later in another one. Angier and Cutter argue over how Borden performs the trick with Cutter insisting that Borden uses a double and Angier insisting that there is a more complex explanation. They end up hiring a dissolute actor, Root (also played by Jackman), to be a double for Angier and steal Borden's act, calling it "The New Transported Man". Not content with having a more popular act, Angier sends Olivia to Borden in order to seduce him and discover the secret of his trick. However Olivia falls in love with Borden and leaves Angier, giving him an encrypted diary of Borden's as a parting gift. Borden then sabotages Angier's act, leaving Angier with a permanent limp. In retaliation, Angier and Cutter kidnap Fallon and bury him alive, demanding the secret to Borden's trick in exchange for his release. Borden gives Angier the name of inventor Nikola Tesla, insisting this is the key to both his encoded diary and to his trick.
Angier, now abandoned by Cutter who disapproves of his obsessive quest, travels to Colorado Springs to meet Tesla (David Bowie). He pays Tesla to make the same teleportation machine that Borden had. Angier learns from Borden's notebook that he has been sent on a wild goose chase. Feeling cheated, he returns to Tesla's lab to demand his money back, but discovers Tesla's machine creates an exact duplicate of an object and leaves the original intact. Tesla leaves Colorado Springs after his rival, Thomas Edison, sends henchmen to torch his lab, leaving the machine for Angier with a warning to destroy it.
Meanwhile, Borden's relationship with Olivia takes a heavy emotional toll on Sarah, and she eventually hangs herself. Angier returns to London to produce his new act, "The Real Transported Man". Borden attends Angier's performance again and slips backstage just in time to see Angier fall from a trap door into a locked water tank. Borden tries to save him, but Angier drowns before his eyes. Cutter catches Borden, who is convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
In prison awaiting execution, Borden is visited by a representative of a mysterious Lord Caldlow. Caldlow is a fan of stage magic and wishes to purchase the secrets to all of Borden's tricks. In exchange, Caldlow agrees to adopt and raise Borden's daughter Jess, who, being an orphan, would otherwise become a ward of the court and sent to a workhouse in the wake of Borden's execution. Borden is given Angier's diary as a gesture of good faith and while reading it encounters a shocking reference to his current incarceration. Borden insists on meeting Lord Caldlow personally in order to give him the secret to the Transported Man. When Caldlow arrives, Borden recognizes him as Angier, having mysteriously returned from the dead. Angier triumphantly rips up the paper containing the explanation of Borden's trick and then leaves with Borden's daughter. A short time later, Borden is executed by hanging.
Meanwhile, Cutter learns that Lord Caldlow has bought all of Angier's old effects, including the Tesla device, and meets him to argue for the destruction of the machine. He is horrified when he recognizes Caldlow as his old friend and sees Borden's daughter with him. Angier explains that he had always been Lord Caldlow and had merely pretended to be the American Robert Angier in order to spare his family the embarrassment of his theatrical career.
Cutter accompanies Angier to an abandoned building filled with tanks, and helps him store Tesla's machine. Cutter leaves, silently acknowledging the arrival of a very-much-alive Borden, who shoots Angier. As Angier lies dying, Borden reveals that he had an identical twin. They lived as Fallon and Alfred, alternating between each role. One twin (the one still alive) was the husband of Sarah and father to Jess, and loved Sarah more than the magic; the other loved Olivia. They played one individual in life and in the illusions. Borden reminds Angier of a Chinese magician they saw together years ago who pretended to have a limp when ever he was in public so he could use this to conceal his methods on stage and that the way he lived his life was the actual illusion. Borden tells Angier his devotion to the illusion was such that he and his twin were willing to live the same life in order to conceal their methods. Angier's method is also revealed: During the illusion, the machine created a duplicate of Angier, with one falling through a trap door into a locked tank and drowning, and the other being teleported to the balcony. This was always Angier's intention – to frame Borden for his murder as he knew sooner or later Borden would try and discover the secret to the trick by sneaking backstage to be caught watching Angier drowning. Borden leaves Angier to die as a fire consumes the building. Afterwards, Cutter reunites Borden with his daughter. A final shot shows that each tank in the abandoned building contained a drowned Angier.
Julian Jarrold's and Sam Mendes' producer approached Christopher Priest for an adaptation of his novel The Prestige. Priest was impressed with Nolan's films Following and Memento,[10] and subsequently, producer Valerie Dean brought the book to Nolan's attention.[11] In October 2000, Nolan traveled to the UK to publicize Memento, as Newmarket Films was having difficulty finding a U.S. distributor. While in London, Nolan read Priest's book and shared the story with his brother while walking around in Highgate (a location later featured in the scene where Angier ransoms Borden's ingénieur in Highgate Cemetery). The development process for The Prestige began as a reversal of their earlier collaboration: Jonathan Nolan had pitched his initial story for Memento to his brother during a road trip.[12]
A year later, the option on the book became available and was purchased by Aaron Ryder of Newmarket Films.[11][12] In late 2001, Nolan became busy with the post-production of Insomnia, and asked his brother Jonathan to help work on the script.[12] The writing process was a long collaboration between the Nolan brothers, occurring intermittently over a period of five years.[13] In the script, the Nolans emphasized the magic of the story through the dramatic narrative, playing down the visual depiction of stage magic. The three-act screenplay was deliberately structured around the three elements of the film's illusion: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. "It took a long time to figure out how to achieve cinematic versions of the very literary devices that drive the intrigue of the story," Christopher Nolan told Variety. "The shifting points of view, the idea of journals within journals and stories within stories. Finding the cinematic equivalents of those literary devices was very complex."[14] Although the film is thematically faithful to the novel, two major changes were made to the plot structure during the adaptation process: the novel's spiritualism subplot was removed, and the modern-day frame story was replaced with Borden's wait for the gallows in the mise en scene.[11] Priest approved of the adaptation, describing it as "an extraordinary and brilliant script, a fascinating adaptation of my novel".[11]
In early 2003, Nolan planned to direct the film before the production of Batman Begins accelerated.[5][16] Following the release of Batman Begins, Nolan started up the project again, negotiating with Bale and Jackman in October 2005.[17] While the screenplay was still being written, production designer Nathan Crowley began the set design process in Nolan's garage, employing a "visual script" consisting of scale models, images, drawings, and notes. Jonathan and Christopher Nolan finished the final shooting draft on January 13, 2006, and began production three days later on January 16. Filming ended on April 9.[18]
Crowley and his crew searched Los Angeles for almost seventy locations that would resemble fin de siècle London.[15] Jonathan Nolan visited Colorado Springs to research Nikola Tesla and based the electric bulb scene on actual experiments conducted by Tesla.[12] Nathan Crowley helped design the scene for Tesla's invention; It was shot in the parking lot of the Mount Wilson Observatory.[15] Influenced by a "Victorian modernist aesthetic", Crowley chose four locations in the Broadway theater district in downtown Los Angeles for the film's stage magic performances: the Los Angeles Theatre, the Palace Theatre, the Los Angeles Belasco, and the Tower Theatre.[19] Crowley also turned a portion of the Universal back lot into Victorian London.[20] Nolan built only one set for the film, an "under-the-stage section that houses the machinery that makes the larger illusions work,"[21] preferring to simply dress various Los Angeles locations and sound stages to stand in for Colorado and Victorian England.[22] In contrast to most period pieces, Nolan kept up the quick pace of production by shooting with handheld cameras,[22] and refrained from using artificial lighting in some scenes, relying instead on natural light on location.[5] Costume designer Joan Bergin chose attractive, modern Victorian fashions for Scarlett Johansson; cinematographer Wally Pfister captured the mood with soft earth tones as white and black colors provided background contrasts, bringing actors' faces to the foreground.[23]
Editing, scoring and mixing finished on September 22, 2006.[18] The song "Analyse" by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke is played over the credits.[24]
English musician and film score composer David Julyan penned the music for The Prestige. Julyan had previously collaborated with director Christopher Nolan on Memento and Insomnia. Like the film, the soundtrack was divided into three sections: the Pledge, the Turn, and the Prestige.[25]
Some critics were disappointed with the score, acknowledging that while it worked within the context of the film, it was not enjoyable by itself.[26][27] Jonathan Jarry of SoundtrackNet described the score as "merely functional", establishing the atmosphere of dread but never taking over. Although the reviewer was interested with the score's notion, Jarry found the execution was "extremely disappointing".[26]
Christopher Coleman of Tracksounds felt that although it was "a perfectly fitting score", it was completely overwhelmed by the film itself, and was totally unnoticed at times.[27] Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks recommended the soundtrack for those who enjoyed Julyan's work on the film, and noted that it was not for those who expected "any semblance of intellect or enchantment in the score to match the story of the film." Clemmensen called the score lifeless, "constructed on a bed of simplistic string chords and dull electronic soundscapes."[28]
The rivalry between Borden and Angier dominates the film. Obsession, secrecy, and sacrifice fuel the battle, as both magicians contribute their fair share to a deadly duel of one-upmanship, with disastrous results. Angier's obsession with beating Borden costs him a great deal of money and Cutter's friendship, while providing him with a collection of his own suicide victims; Borden's obsession with maintaining the secrecy of his twin leads Sarah to question their relationship eventually resulting in her suicide when she suspects the truth. Angier and one of the twins both lose Olivia's love because of their "inhumanity". Finally, a Borden is hanged and the last copy of Angier shot. Their struggle is also expressed through class warfare: Borden as The Professor, a working-class magician who gets his hands dirty, versus Angier as The Great Danton, a classy, elitist showman whose accent makes him appear American.[29] (through it is revealed towards the end that Angier is in fact the aristocrat Lord Caldlow, and that he only changed his name to Angier to avoid embarrassing his family). Film critic Matt Brunson observes a complex theme of duality exemplified by Angier and Borden, noting that the film chooses not to depict either magician as good or evil.[30]
Angier's theft of Borden's teleportation illusion in the film echoes the many real-world examples of stolen tricks among magicians. Outside the film, similar rivalries include magicians John Nevil Maskelyne and Harry Kellar's dispute over a levitation illusion.[31] Gary Westfahl of Locus Online also notes a "new proclivity for mayhem" in the film over the novel, citing the murder/suicide disposition of Angier's duplicates and intensified violent acts of revenge and counter-revenge. This "relates to a more general alteration in the events and tone of the film" rather than significantly changing the underlying themes.[32]
Nor is this cutthroat competition limited to prestidigitation: engineering "wizards" Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison engaged in a rivalry over electrical current, which appears in the film in parallel to Borden and Angier's competition for magical supremacy.[33][34]
Den Shewman of Creative Screenwriting says the film asks how far one would go to devote oneself to an art. The character of Chung Ling Soo, according to Shewman, is a metaphor for this theme.[11] Film critic Alex Manugian refers to this theme as the "meaning of commitment."[35] For example, Soo's pretense of being slow and feeble misdirects his audience from noticing the physical strength required to perform the goldfish bowl trick, but the cost of maintaining this illusion is the sacrifice of individuality: Soo's true appearance and freedom to act naturally are consciously suppressed in his ceaseless dedication to the art of magic.
Nicolas Rapold of Film Comment addresses the points raised by Shewman and Manugian in terms of the film's "refracted take on Romanticism":
Angier's technological solution – which suggests art as sacrifice, a phoenix-like death of the self - and Borden's more meat-and-potatoes form of stagecraft embody the divide between the artist and the social being.[36]
For Manugian the central theme is "obsession," but he also notes the supporting themes of the "nature of deceit" and "science as magic." Manugian criticizes the Nolans for trying to "ram too many themes into the story."[35]
Touchstone opted to move the release date up a week, from the original October 27, to October 20, 2006.[37] The film earned $14,801,808 on opening weekend in the United States, debuting at #1. It proceeded to gross $109 million, of which $53 million was from the US.[1] The film received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction and the Academy Award for Best Cinematography,[38] as well as a nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form in 2007.[39] Along with The Illusionist and Scoop (also starring Jackman and Johansson), The Prestige was one of three films in 2006 to explore the world of stage magicians.
The Prestige received generally favorable reviews from film critics.[40] Rotten Tomatoes reported that 76% of critics gave the film positive reviews, with an average score of 7.1/10, based upon a sample of 179 reviews.[41] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 66, based on 36 reviews.[40] Claudia Puig of USA Today described the film as "one of the most innovative, twisting, turning art films of the past decade."[42] Drew McWeeny gave the film a glowing review, saying it demands repeat viewing,[43] with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone agreeing.[44] Richard Roeper and guest critic A.O. Scott gave the film a "two thumbs up" rating.[45][46] Todd Gilchrist of IGN applauded the performances of Bale and Jackman whilst praising Nolan for making "this complex story as easily understandable and effective as he made the outwardly straightforward comic book adaptation (Batman Begins) dense and sophisticated... any truly great performance is almost as much showmanship as it is actual talent, and Nolan possesses both in spades."[47] CNN.com and Village Voice film critic Tom Charity listed it amongst his best films of 2006.[48] Philip French of The Observer recommended the film, comparing the rivalry between the two main characters to that of Mozart and Salieri in the highly acclaimed Amadeus.[49]
On the other hand, Dennis Harvey of Variety criticized the film as gimmicky, though he felt the cast did well in underwritten roles.[50] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter felt that characters "are little more than sketches. Remove their obsessions, and the two magicians have little personality".[51] Nonetheless, the two reviewers praised David Bowie as Tesla, as well as the production values and cinematography. On a simpler note, Emanuel Levy has said: "Whether viewers perceive The Prestige as intricately complex or just unnecessarily complicated would depend to a large degree on their willingness to suspend disbelief for two hours." He gave the film a B grade.[52]
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, describing the revelation at the end a "fundamental flaw" and a "cheat". He wrote, "The pledge of Nolan's The Prestige is that the film, having been metaphorically sawed in two, will be restored; it fails when it cheats, as, for example, if the whole woman produced on the stage were not the same one so unfortunately cut in two."[53] R.J. Carter of The Trades felt, "I love a good science fiction story; just tell me in advance." He gave the film a B-.[54] Author Christopher Priest saw the film three times as of January 5, 2007, and his reaction was "'Well, holy shit.' I was thinking, 'God, I like that,' and 'Oh, I wish I'd thought of that.'"[55]
The Region 1 disc is by Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and was released on February 20, 2007, and is available on DVD and BD formats.[56] The Warner Bros. Region 2 DVD was released on March 12, 2007.[57] It is also available in both BD and regionless HD DVD in Europe (before HD DVD was canceled). Special features are minimal, with the documentary Director’s Notebook: The Prestige – Five Making-of Featurettes, running roughly twenty minutes combined, an art gallery and the trailer. Nolan did not contribute to a commentary as he felt the film primarily relied on an audience's reaction and did not want to remove the mystery from the story.[58]
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