The Prestige – Illusions are everything

The Prestige (2006) is directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Hugh Jackman, Christopher Bale, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine and also has a wonderfully obscure David Bowie in the role of Tesla.

The two young magicians Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Bale) start out as friends and colleagues working the magic circle of late nineteen century London under the watchful eye of the experienced Cutter (Caine). One night an illusion goes horribly wrong and Angier’s wife dies on stage. Angier and Borden become bitter enemies and rivals stopping at almost nothing to sabotage each other’s acts and lives.

The setting is frankly sumptuous. It’s a dream London where even the nasty bits look gorgeous. This could have been a price of baroque gothic if it hadn’t been for the stellar performances of the main cast. One of the best tricks to get away with a movie like this is to get actors who will commit to their roles. Angier and Borden are set up as opposites in almost every respect, including social backgrounds, but they share one overriding passion – magic. Or, perhaps more correctly, illusions.

The basic premise for watching a magician is what the poet Coleridge termed “the willing suspension of disbelief”. We all know there is no such thing as magic. Still, the illusionists job is to sow the tiniest little doubt and make us go Oooooh. This might take hours and hours of practice and any number of tricks and trapdoors and slight of hand. For me the biggest parallel is of course self-referential. Illusions and movies are the same thing. Keep that in mind when the veteran actor Caine talks of magic and it will all make beautiful sense – all the way to the end.

The McGuffin of the plot is the magic trick Borden uses in his act that Angier tries to replicate. Angier goes so far as to hire the scientist Tesla played by Bowie. And here you really have to let the suspension of disbelief get to work, but frankly I don’t mind. Especially not when Bowie as Tesla delivers the brilliant line “Exact science, Mr Angier, is not an exact science.” What Angier forgets is how deeply obsessed illusionists get – and Borden is no exception to that rule.

It’s difficult to speak of the actual plot of the movie without giving away the ending. And the beginning. And, actually, some of the middle bits… Suffice to say you can watch it twice and enjoy it twice. And it’s beautiful and masterly. Movies and illusions. Same thing. This one definitely makes you go Oooooh.

Mule