The Prestige: Nolan’s Movie Magic

Watch closely, want to be fooled

Christopher Nolan makes blockbuster movies. His films are immersive, impressive, and distinct. Distracted by the remarkable set pieces, we sometimes forget that Nolan is also a master storyteller. Few directors working today have such complete control over their narratives. My favorite example of Nolan’s mastery is his fifth film, The Prestige.

I love this film because Nolan exploits the audience’s familiarity with the language of cinema. He weaponizes common tools of the filmmaker, like editing and narration, and uses them to subvert our expectations. His complex narrative structure is just simple enough to be comprehensible but complicated enough to hide the film’s twists in plain sight. He manipulates this structure in a way that comments on the craft of filmmaking.

In other words, The Prestige is a film about magicians that uses movie magic to make a point about movies.

Set in Victorian-era London, the film stars Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as two stage-magicians with a dark rivalry. Bale plays Alfred Borden, gruff and dedicated to the craft. Jackman’s character, Robert Angier, is more polished and charismatic, the greater showman. Their rivalry begins as good-natured competition, with Borden as the brains of the act and Angier as the face. When tragedy strikes on stage, their relationship devolves into an ugly battle, with each man trying to sabotage the other. Borden debuts an incredible new trick and Angier becomes obsessed with discovering the secret behind the magic.

The bitter rivalry consumes the two men and envelops everyone close to them. Michael Cain plays Angier’s mentor Cutter, who is equal parts wise and weary. Scarlett Johansson is the eager assistant and love-interest, Olivia. They are both affected by the conflict, but no one suffers more than Borden’s wife Sarah, heartbreakingly portrayed by Rebecca Hall. Bale and Jackman are both superb as the leading men, bringing a palpable intensity to their competition. There is also a wonderfully weird role for David Bowie, as mechanical magician Nicola Tesla, and Andy Serkis (*Gollum *Gollum) as his assistant.

Early in the film Cutter explains the three parts of a magic trick. First, the pledge, where the magician shows us a regular object. Next, the turn, where the object does something amazing. The prestige is the dramatic conculsion, where the object comes back with a flourish and applause.

This three-part structure mirrors the classic three-act structure of a movie. First, we are introduced to the characters and the plot begins with an inciting incident. In the second act, the stakes are raised until we have a confrontation or a twist. In the end, we reach the climax and the story is resolved. Nolan assumes we are familiar with this structure, and he uses that knowledge to confound the audience, like a magician drawing your attention to something ordinary and then doing something extraordinary.

In cinema, the filmmaker has the power to traverse time and space with a single cut. The audience can usually follow such a leap because we are comfortable with the language of film. When we cut from one scene to the next, we make some assumptions: that first scene is over, some time has passed, this is the next scene. The audience here mirrors the audience in a magic show. We know how these illusions work, we’ve seen them before. We’re watching carefully for the type of tricks the magician is likely to use, but most of us still want to be fooled.

(Here is where the spoilers begin)

Nolan uses the movie magic of editing to jump between acts, stitching together dialogue from one scene with the visuals from another. This trickery begins in the first shot, the title card over top hats strewn across the ground. We read ‘The Prestige’ and consider the hats. Later we realize the hats are themselves a type of prestige, the end product of Tesla’s machine. This shot also exhibits the motif of multiplicity, which is central to many of the magic tricks in the film. This pattern hints at the final twist, the prestige of the film itself.

The motif continues in the next shot, of yellow birds in their cages. Michael Cain’s narration begins, explaining the three parts of a trick as he entertains a little girl. It isn’t until the next scene we realize the narration is actually testimony during Borden’s murder trial. Nolan plays with our perception of time from the beginning. Only at the film’s end do we understand that the scene with Borden’s daughter and the birds is actually the last moment chronologically.

Nolan establishes parallel storylines between Borden in prison and Angier reading his diary. He layers the two scenes together even though they occur at different moments in time. The two magicians try to discover the other’s method as Nolan reveals his own. Angier’s great trick, and later Borden’s, is all about transporting the magician through space and time. Nolan takes the audience on a similar trip, with his creative editing and innovative structuring.

Behind the safety of this complex structure, Nolan is free to give the audience evidence of the final trick at the heart of the film. I mentioned how the motif of duplicates points towards the truth, but there are more overt references as well. Sarah’s nephew sees through the artifice when first seeing the trick with the birdcage. Later, Cutter insists, multiple times, that Angiers must be using a double. That double is frequently paraded in front of the audience throughout the film. We’re too amazed by the fact that David fucking Bowie is in this movie to see the truth staring at us.

The potent acting, exceptional writing, and meticulous cinematography all serve as the beautiful assistant, distracting us from the magician’s trick. The structure allows Nolan to keep his twists secret until he is ready to reveal them.

In addition to the structure, I also love The Prestige for its performances. I knew Christian Bale was a serious actor. Films like American Psycho and The Machinist made that abundantly clear. He delivers another poignant performance here. One of the wonderful parts of subsequent viewings is trying to decide which twin Bale is inhabiting at a given point of the film. His performance is subtle enough to pull this off.

I knew that Bale was an accomplished actor, but this film completely changed my opinion of Hugh Jackman. Before The Prestige, when I thought of Jackman, I thought of one-dimensional characters like Wolverine. In this film, he proves he has emotional range paving the way for him to star in other serious films like The Fountain and Prisoners. He never feels out of place next to skilled actors like Bale and Cain.

Since this is a Christopher Nolan film, Michael Cain has to appear, but this role feels different. Sometimes I think that Michael Cain is so iconic that any character he plays is Michael Cain first and then the character second. Not in The Prestige. The character of Cutter is so well written that it feels distinct from his other roles. Michael Cain then takes that character and delivers a nuianced performance. We get bits of the cheerful Cain we know and love, but he is also somber, tired, and eventually disgusted with the central conflict.

The rest of the emotional heavy lifting comes from Rebecca Hall as Borden’s wife Sarah. Despite having a smaller role, she receives the brunt of the trauma in this film. I love Hall’s performance because she feels truly broken without ever feeling pitiful, which is a difficult balance to find. Scarlett Johansson also delivers a strong performance but is a bit underused. David Bowie is not just a wonderful surprise but is also surprisingly good. As is the non-CGI Andy Serkis as Tesla’s assistant.

Most of Nolan’s films are met with critical admiration, but that was not the case with The Prestige. Some people complain this movie cheats, the narrative structure means that the audience can’t guess the ending. Some people think the film has one twist too many, or they hate when the plot crosses over from Victorian stagecraft to steampunk fantasy. Some people find the film to be self-important. These criticisms are all fair, but they don’t detract from my love for the film.

As I said, I love how the structure of The Prestige comments on the craft of filmmaking itself. This means that the work is meta-cinematic, and any work that is meta is by definition self-aware. Everyone must decide for themselves where to draw the line between self-aware and self-important. For me, The Prestige is on the right side of that line. If it crosses your line, I can appreciate that.

Next, I like how this film about stage-magic contains just a dash of real magic. I love that the purveyor of that magic is David fucking Bowie, one of the most magical men in human history. The suspension of disbelief is different for each person and each movie. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. If The Prestige loses you along the way, I can see why.

Finally, I feel that Nolan gives us plenty of hints before the (last) big reveal. I love noticing these subtle clues later, which is why I revisit this movie every year, always finding something new. During my most recent viewing, which must have been my fifteenth time though, I finally realized that the man who verbally berates Tesla at the world’s fair is one of Thomas Edison’s men who appear later in the film. These little nuggets keep me coming back.

Endlessly rewatchable, The Prestige is a classic bit of movie magic and my favorite Christopher Nolan film. It’s a triumph of filmmaking, about filmmaking. It’s a film that rewards the audience for watching closely, and it’s most enjoyable if you want to be fooled.