I always saw The Prestige as a story about self destructive obsession with competition and success, how far that can drive you, and how it can prevent you from seeing the forest for the trees. These are two men who destroyed their lives, because they couldn't stop trying to one-up each other. They were willing to pay anything to win. They had so much talent and potential, and they squandered it on an obsessive and brutal rivalry, in spite of having every opportunity to just.... not.
Yeah, honestly, thats what I took away from it. And im not sure who was really the one that was driving it. Angier for causing Borden to lose a finger, or Borden for ruining Angier bird cage trick afterwards.
I don't see it like that at all. I saw it as a deconstruction of what it takes to be famous, successful, and an artist. It doesn't matter if you are the most talented, if you can't capture the public. The other part of it is what it takes to be a real artist. Giving your full life for art. I loved the part where Christian Bale tries to explain to Hugh Jackman, that the real act is the old man pretending to be frail, and it goes over his head.
Science was always the magic of magic. From flash powder, to intricate physics needed for complex tasks, to the biology needed to know how fast your hand can move to the physicology of the audience. The game of magic has always been the game of science. Only scientific precision after all can be used when deathly accurate stakes are on the line. Mirrors are a form of optics. Name a magic trick and I’ll name the schools of science necessary to under for the trick to work. Inventing a new trick requires a new insight into science. David blane was interested in the science of holding breath and used modern technology for his breath holding trick. The trick is the application of the new technology it’s the hook to get people wanting to know more. They want to know how it’s done so they can do it
Not technically a cameo, he’s a supporting character. He’s got a fair bit of screen time and spoken dialogue, far more than a cameo appearance would entail. Like Stan Lee in the marvel movies is a cameo. Sorry for the pedantry.
Did you catch the twist that Lord Caldlow isn't Robert Angier's alias. Robert Angier is Lord Caldlow's alias. Angier's wife stated to Robert that he was playing someone else, where he replied that he would not embarrass his family with his theatrical endeavours. He is also independently wealthy, and stated to Tesla for making his machine that "Price is not an object." At the end of the film, Robert Angier revealed his true identity with his true accent. An English lord from the prestigious Caldlow family. BORDEN: "You must be Lord Cal..." ANGIER: "'Caldlow.' Yes, I am. I always have been."
@@ShedALight Caldlow is the Prestige. The viewers are tricked from the opening shots in Colorado and with every word uttered in an American accent. Caldlow’s real accent only slips once, during his wife’s accident.
@@billmozart7288 It is one of the rare instances where I thought the movie was as good as the book... and one of my favorite movies. Just want to get Christopher Priest his creative credit :)
One thing that I finally cottoned on to after years of watching this movie is the opening monologue. "We were two young men at the start of a promising career..." We're meant to think this means Borden and Angier. But since it's Borden narrating it, it actually refers to... Borden and Fallon.
You have to remember that he didn't want to share the fame and glory, he reluctantly used the drunk double because he couldn't figure out Borden's trick, and tried his best to absorb the praise of the crowd while he was under the stage.
I always wondered which of the original or the clone is killed every show. Does the machine create a clone a few feet away or does it transport the subject and leave a copy in the original place ? At the same time is there such thing as an original or a clone, if the clone is exactly the same with all the memory, and thoughts, can we say it’s a mere copy ?
One crazy trick this movie is still pulling on its viewers, is the illusion that this story was between two magicians, Borden and Angier. This movie was about 3 magicians, Borden 1, Borden 2, and Angier. I love rewatching this movie and being able to pick out when we're watching the aggressive, obsessive, competitive Borden who loved Olivia, and the much more compassionate Borden who fell in love with Sarah.
Pretty sure the movie made that clear when it broke down how the twins would switch places and basically live eachother’s life. Especially the parts where he asks what knot he tied and sometimes he said he doesn’t know and other times he doesn’t say anything. Thats literally the entire twist of the movie and you’re acting like it’s some secret lol
@@dominiquewilson Nah, I mean like how even years later after the movie, even in this video they constantly get referred to as "Borden and Angier". When we talk about them we refer to them as 2 people, subconsciously maybe, even though we're talking about 3 people.
What's really clever about that is that, for most of the movie, you don't know which to cheer for since Borden seems to go back and forth between being a sympathetic character and being an asshole.
I think something everyone glosses over here is that if Huge Jacked Man used that machine just once to create a clone, then he could've done the trick that American Psycho twinsies were pulling off the whole time, but instead he opted for mass murdering himself.
Ironic how the bird trick at the very start is a foreshadowing of Angier's teleportation trick later in the film. They both rely on killing the original, hiding the body and then replacing it with a double.
@@littlewicky1 lol exactly. That's a Christopher Nolan trademark. Every singly movie I've watched always has the reveal at the end that colours the entire movie through a new lens, forcing you to have to rewatch to catch everything as an easter egg that it was hinting at from the very beginning. It's sort of like a one-trick-pony template, but he executes it so well. Memento Inception Interstellar To name a few....
The absolute best touch is the show promoters and trick creators who see the trick and become terrified and talk about how they don’t often see real magic. Because they know full well what misdirection and illusion can and can’t accomplish
The implication being that in some snowy cliff in Nepal, or some overgrown jungle in west Africa he has seen something he knew couldn’t be explained away as mere illusion…
Rest in peace, Christopher Priest. Thanks for reminding about him; it's probably been 20 years since I stumbled upon one of his novels, The Inverted World, at a local library, and was fascinated by it. I've read at least one of his much more recent novels set in the Dream Archipelago (The Gradual, I think it was.)
I unsubscribed from that other channel you used to be on because I didn't like that dude who took over after you. I'm very happy to have stumbled back into your work. Subbed and happy to hear your thoughts once more!
I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's quote; "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Re: Wanting to be fooled, I find that most people don't want to know, but rather, to THINK they know.
This is my favorite Nolan movie and one of my all-time favorites. There is SO much packed into this movie. The theme of duality is peppered throughout in so many different ways in addition to the characters' obsessions. I guessed the "twin" reveal on my first watch based on Borden's reaction to Fallon's burial as Fallon had to be someone very dear to him, then connecting to Borden's comments about sacrifice, Cutter's insistence that Borden uses a double, and finally, Sarah's description of Borden's radical changes in behavior. To me, I was actually more fascinated by Borden's reveal than Angier's scientific discoveries.
The book does a good job of making the twin seem less possible. It is also Angier's thought on it and he goes through much trouble trying to prove there is a twin. In the end he can't prove it and comes to the conclusion there can not be a twin because it would just not be possible for two men to live one life without anyone figuring it out. In the novel, even his wife only figures it out after many years.
@@Edowin-jz2sj it's worth a read. major plot points are mostly the same, but there's some extra stuff and some things different, plus a whole extra story.
I thought Fallon was a clone. I knew it was Christian early on because it was rather odd how the character never spoke and they concealed his face alot, despite him always being around
As someone who is a big movie fan with a social sciences degree, I've been loving watching your channel of late, and how you weave the two together in a very thought-provoking and theoretically-backed exploration. Great job, my man!
Both main characters were willing to kill their souls bit by bit to be the top of their field. Thank goodness that one of the Borden twins, the twin who actually loved his family knew when it had to stop. Imagine putting your trust in your identical twin brother to treat the wife well. And he drives her to such a low she can’t live with herself anymore. Between the two twins, who was the dominate one and who was the subservient one? Was the twin who fell in love and got married to Sarah the dominant twin, and his brother was lashing out being so open about his relationship with Olivia. Or was the twin who married Sarah subservient and the dominant twin let him have the relationship to keep him happy and on side for their career. That is until Olivia came along and the dominant twin could use her. Poor Sarah being gaslight, and driven to despair. She didn’t figure it out herself in time. But she knew when she was told ‘I love you’ when it was true and when it wasn’t.
I’ll definitely never understand why these twins just never let their loved ones in on the secret. Just seem shady and mean spirited at this point. I mean yea you run the risk of the secret getting but that’s marriage you just go with the flow. I’m also not even sure why the other brother ever needed to be near his wife. He should have been the one to go home to her every night. They both just came off as selfish. I wonder if either of them ever felt any guilt for what they did to Jackmans wife. I definitely felt the ‘colder’ brother didn’t give any shits lol…
The reference to the "greatest trick the devil ever pulled" as coming from the Usual Suspect is incorrect. This was first coined over a hundred years earlier by Charles Baudelaire, a French novelist. Movies are rarely very original, anymore, and it's a safe bet that if you heard it in a movie, they're quoting someone else who, unfortunately, never gets the credit after the movie was made. The phrase is found in Baudelaire's book, Le Joueur Généreux (The Generous Gambler) published in 1864. Fifty years before Baudelaire, John Wilkenson wrote, "One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist." I hope you'll pardon my pedanticism, but as an author myself, I lament whenever another author is forgotten for their contributions, and a movie (however good) is cited instead.
He never said that is the origin source, just that it is a famous line from the movie. Where did Kevin Spacey's character get it from? What about the script writer then. If actor says "to be or not to be", does one assume that is totally original?
@@jnemo2605 The comment is still correct. Thats not where it 'comes from'. Thats a USE of it. And I get his point, and actually I think even BEFORE that I remember researching it (not researching it before, researching it AND:) and its actually from an unnamed pamphlet publicist even prior to that. People forget that a main means of communication after the printing press was pamphleteering, for those who couldn't afford to publish whole books and newspapers. What happens even MORE often is that writers get great ideas or sayings from random places, then THEY get credit because they stuck their name on it. And so began the writing profession. Hows THAT for pedantic. Frankly I liked The Usual Suspects for a long time, now I kind of hate it and hate how 'brilliant' some people think it is simply because its got a 'hook' you dont see coming. Of course the SECOND greatest trick the devil pulled is convincing mankind that he DOES exist. Don't go stealing that!:)
@@jessejordache1869 Like I said, he gets credit from a pamphlet but it was a common saying of the time. Look it up on wikipedia and they explain his 'credit'. It wasn't in a poem, but it was originally said 'poetically'.
@@mikearchibald744 My screen formatted your first paragraph and I didn't notice the "read more" where you expand and make it clear you know what you're talking about. My bad.
Something I hadn’t noticed until my umpteenth watch is that because of the way the Tesla machine seems to work, the original copy stays in the machine, while the copy is the one that is ‘transported.’ (In fact, this makes sense, otherwise the machine would be doing two things at one, both cloning the original and teleporting the original, rather than just creating the clone at some distance away.) But … I don’t think Angier ever really understood how the machine worked. The man frustrated by being under the stage for the applause at the end of his trick ends up killing himself upon the very first night of performing the trick (not the demo, the clone is killed that time). Now there’s an argument to be made that if they have the same memories, maybe it doesn’t matter, but the reality is that the original Angier is gone long before the end of the film, clones continuing the feud because it’s just what they do at this point.
Angier says in the film that he doesn’t even know who comes out the other end and who drowns. But at this point it doesn’t matter. Just like you said, the need to be the best overrides everything to the point where, as you said, the clones perpetuate the desire to be the best because in the end, it doesn’t matter who drowns or who lives… …Angier’s ambition continues.
I've always interpreted "who" dies as being ambiguous as Borden says "not knowing whether he's the one taking the bow or drowning in the tank below the stage". I think this plays into the mirroring between Angiers and Borden that occurs throughout the movie with the theme on who is the "real" Borden
@@Here_is_Waldo interesting, I didn't even think of the link to Angiers wife... The tank is quite a deliberate choice... I'm sure he could have created something less painful... Although maybe it's because of Alfred talking about drowning earlier in the movie how it's peaceful...
After watching this tens of times; the prestige of this film is how good an actor Bale is. The twins are vastly different characters throughout the film. You know who loves who and how their personalities match that of their chosen partner, you know which dies and how desperately more sad it is. This film was and is a masterpiece.
The film is actually a warning about Bacon’s worldview, which sets up a vision of reality in which nature is the enslaver of humanity (which is what Bacon is suggesting when he famously declares that ‘knowledge is power’ (over nature). This invites the obvious question: is every natural restraint actually disempowering for humanity, or are there limits we shouldn’t go beyond because they will diminish, rather then empower, humanity? And, if there are limits, where should we seek the moral guidance to know and enact those limits on scientific prowess? The movie directly parallels C.S. Lewis’ warning about science without moral restraint, and he even called science ‘the magicians twin’, because, just like a magician, a scientist can do powerful things. But unlike a magician, where the so-called ‘magic’ is actually just an illusion, science actually has the ability to do extremely powerful things in the world, and Lewis warned that this makes it all the more imperative that the power of science is kept in check by moral restraint.
THIS was the most pertinent comment I've read here thus far. The last couple of sentences remind me of both The Magi (Babylonian and beyond) - -one example being The 3 Wise Men from the East at Christ's birth anointing the destiny of a Messiah. Rasputin was another carrying ancient esoteric practice. Right up to the Manhattan Project and CERN, where forces that have very severe and various (oftentimes unpredictable) outcomes are "harnessed".
Hugh Jackman's character, what an idiot! Not only does he squander the greatest technological invention mankind has ever seen, but getting back to the petty magic and rivalry bullsh!t, just keeping one double of himself alive would have been enough to do tricks repeatedly without continually creating and murdering a double of himself and risking his life every time he performed it like he has been doing. Having his secret double probably would have made _himselves_ realise that his nemesis must be using a secret twin too.
I think the only reason Tesla agrees to sell him the device is that he can see that Angiers is so consumed by his quest that he’ll squander it instead of allowing it to get free and cause the havoc it has the potential to.
You really think the device REALLY made clones? That was just the 'prestige' to make you think it was magic, and not just a trap door and his double from the previous trick?
@@mattwhorlow9900 Where'd he get all these doubles for those performances? LMAO I kinda tuned out from the movie when Tesla was introduced and when he showed this device (wasn't too impressed before either). If someone actually could clone anything, most of the world's problems would either be solved or exacerbated, hard to tell which would come first.
The discussion of ideas presented in The Prestige is great! Tying it to modern presentations of data and business is mind blowing because it’s so true! Great video 🥰
The titles of the characters support your thesis: Virgil, Milton, The Great Danton (Dante) are all the names of poets who visit Hell in their epics. The Professor is arguably Faust, but it's not as clear a reference as the first three. I love this movie. I love Michael Caine, and angry, emotional Michael Caine is the best Michael Caine. "I saw you on a bloody slab!" "She was sixteen years old -- you were only supposed to blow the bloody door!" "I am aware that I am acting badly; I have every intention of acting badly. In fact, one would argue that this is precisely the situation where one should act badly!" before breaking down in tears. Everytime this movie is on, I watch it all the way to the end.
This film is so brilliant. The Metaphor with the bird in the cage... we as audience get the whole premise of the trick explained so early in the game "but we want to be fooled", too, and do not want to see that the explanation with the dead bird / double bird (brother) is the same as with the magicians. There is so much layering.
I like to think of the Mysteries of Reality like a "Knot" and no matter how much of the mysteries we unravel & solve there's always even more left unraveled in the Knot. If Not because we only scratched the surface, or because with each new solution we create new issues that we are or aren't aware of. So this fear of solving the world & making it a mundane, 2-Dimensional existence devoid of wonder is really an unfounded one. I've been alive a lil while and the more I think I know, the more I get reminded that there's so much more that I Don't.
Wasn't Borden brought up in a workhouse? I think Borden's secret is one he's been keeping since the workhouse. Borden understood the Chinese magician's act because he was doing something one level beyond. Angier was just as fooled by the trick as any audience member would be because of those details to which attention was paid. Angier had to go to the extreme of using his fortune to finance the research and equipment. Edit: my point is that Borden's secret was so simple and perfect, in performance. Off stage it created such strife in his own lives.
When I last saw the movie I kept thinking about carl jung's shadow. There are a bunch of dualities in the movie -- the obvious one being Borden and his twin, one the ambitious obsessive one, the other the family man. but the same duality seems to exist in Angier, with his love for his deceased wife, but later obsession and admittance that 'I don't care about my wife'. And the fact that the teleporter duplicates, not teleports. I feel like it's partly about how in every person there is multiples of selves, and that on a given day one may express itself more so than the other
Thank you, Jared. As a movie lover and philosophical geek, it's always refreshing and insightful to watch the work you create. As morty said in the lighthouse in S.2.E.9 'look whos purging now,' "nope, i just enjoyed it. Please write more." (Though unlike morty, I am quite sincere.)
I think that, usually, whatever we DON'T think is real or normal seems wonderous. When radio was first used to remote control things it seemed wondorous, and now nobody gives a shit, that's just a lart of the world. Once we establish a feat as readily doable, it no longer feels magical, creating a treadmill of mysticism.
Your video is excellent. I love your observations and the commentary. You got me thinking harder about the movie but even more, about the relationship between science, magic, and human perception. Awesome job. Thank you!
Me and a buddy once got stoned, watched the prestige, discussed it afterwards. Got so heated and annoyed at the others lack of understanding. That we had to rewatch the entire movie.
"We were two young men at the start of a great career. Two Young men who did not intend to hurt anyone" As this is narrated we see Borden and Angier. But the notebook really speaks of Borden and his Brother.
I get it, it took me fifteen years or so to understand The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai completely. But it is a more complicated film than The Prestige.
Prestige is one of my favorite movies I've probably rewatched it as many times as any of my other favorites. To me the Prestige mirrors a common situation that happens in offices. One person relies on presentation, the other relies on expertise, they naturally butt heads, and the rivalry ends up making both of them far more productive than they otherwise would be. I do think you hit the nail on the head in that the movie is ultimately an existential commentary about how if we don't have deception there appears to be no real point to life for intelligent beings. As Angier said, "it was the looks on their faces..."
I love you and the scope through which you look at things. You are probably one of the few RUclipsrs I actually click on. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with is.
Crazy thing is, I can imagine Tesla really making something like that back in the day, man was a underrated genius. The Tesla plot was my favorite part of the movie. Great movie.
Took a while to randomly algorithm stumble on you after wisecrack but got-DAMN it's good to hear that voice again and I'm glad the depth and nuance of the analysis wasn't just wisecrack writing team.
Are you possibly thinking of The Illusionist? They came out very close together and they've got a lot of common points (Totally different stories though!)
It's about the Hollywood battle between practical special effects that people are bored by and high tech visual effects that impress initially but have hidden costs.
Nothing is a bigger example of the idea that "people want to be fooled" than RUclips,social media itself and the idea of "authenticity" and "relatability".
The Prestige has always been my favorite Nolan movie and yes I think Nolan's BEST work and contribution; each of our many interpretations of the same film reflects and reveals ourselves mostly, and that is whyThe Prestige epitomizes movie magic
@ikmor it's rarely - if ever - relevant, yet people still do it. I don't get pointing it out myself, she would never have been an actor if she were one of us uggos, but there you go.
The prestige is, as most Nolan's movies, mostly about how Nolan is clever. The real prestige is that the self publicity really looks like a movie, sometimes even like a great movie.
His movies are clever, but usually require some really huge suspension of disbelief. The most obvious question in this movie is, why did Tesla sell the duplicator for money, when he could just duplicate anything, including money, himself?
I agree fully. Nolan’s movies are always way too self serious and usually rest their whole premise on a 13 year old boys version of deep. Always spectacle over story or humanity. Oppenheimer felt like his first human movie.
@@Studeb The Tesla machine was just a closet that shoots sparks. It didn't clone anything. Borden sent Angier to Tesla on a wild goose chase. Angier figured it out and turned the tables by telling a better story. Borden was the better mechanic, but Angier the better story teller.
@@fgoindarkg Exactly. One clue is the preamble to the performance with Root. Angier talks about the secrets of the trick being known only to holy men and monks in the Himalayahs or something like that. Strange, mysterious men living in the snowy mountains, sounds like his story about Tesla in the Rockies, right?!
I'm terribly sorry - you've activated the pedant in me. When somebody has been executed by hanging its referred to as hanged, not hung. Most people these days forget that
Meh, that's but a tiny nitpick. The video creator's misunderstanding of the supernatural and the paranormal is far more alarming (and of course, quite common today. We can thank Compulsory Schooling imported from 19th C Prussia and Austria for our twisted state of the current "culture").
You probably won't see this for several days, if at all, because RUclips keeps suppressing my comments, but I have a different interpretation of the movie than it would seem everyone else. My interpretation is not that the journal is fake, but rather that Borden had used Tesla's machine once and realized the implications of such a machine after which he destroyed his copy of it and vowed never to use such a machine ever again. But if I missed anything or are misremembering because it has been so many years since I saw it, I'm sure someone will see my post and comment to correct me, because that's always how it works.
I never got Bordens were twins but rather result of the one time Borden used the machine. That seemed like that from my first viewing 20 years ago. Thematically it makes more sense than them being twins.
@markkjacobson but remember that the woman, scarlet Johanson, remarks that the Christian bale character acts completely different and cold from time to time. That indicated to me more likely twin than clone.
@@swampfaye Something to consider there. Why do twins with identical DNA have different personalities ever? One possible theory is that our actual personalities, what makes us tick, is not really what's inside our brains but rather a random perturbation of a quantum field that our brains interact with. If even close to the truth, then it's more than likely that even these type of clones, what I would refer to as a quick clone because they're not grown but directly copied, would also have differing personalities from one another. The DNA aspect could be a matter of how your brain matter connects to the quantum field and that similarities will exist, but never will someone be identical.
I tought it was a duplicate Borden , not a twin? That is maybe why the diary leads Angier to Tesla, because he used the same tech, but only used it once instead of repeatedly killing himself. When the surviving Borden explains the love for both Olivia and Sarah, he claims that a PART of him loved each one. Am i remembering wrong?
The way I remember it. Didn't the movie specifically say that the second Borden was a homeless doppelganger? That's why they had different loves, because they were literally different people.
I very much remember them revealing that they were twins that grew up dedicating themselves to this trick. And they stuck with it even tho the one who didn't kill the assistant at the beginning and was the faithful one ended up being the one stuck behind bars for the rest of his life.
@@SephWarrenAngier found a homeless man doppelganger and had to take his bows below the stage, and eventually the doppelganger became less cooperative/wanting more. Borden and his twin were always twins to my understanding.
Pet peeve: It is HANGED, he is hanged for his murder, not hung. Hanged is exclusively used for hanging people. Everything else is hung. Take note, Star Trek writers.
1:34 - 3:05 By far best summary of the film I've ever seen, and I watch a lot cuz it's my fave Nolan. My majors were epistemology & sociology, so really appreciated the Weber (and correct pronunciation!) and Bacon references... Been a filmmaker for 25 years or so and your essay unlocked an insight: Nolan was thinking about the magic of film, specifically the defining magic of the cut. How do we know that actor/character is the same actor/character cut after cut after cut? It's a social contract... like a magic show. Teleportation and secret twins are the reductio ad absurdum of classical stage craft and yet also stab at the heart of "movie magic," i.e. ten thousand takes re-contextualized in post-production to create the illusion of a performance and a story. I have a strong hunch Nolan was thinking about the Venn overlap of screen craft and stage craft when conceiving this masterpiece.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I always saw The Prestige as a story about self destructive obsession with competition and success, how far that can drive you, and how it can prevent you from seeing the forest for the trees. These are two men who destroyed their lives, because they couldn't stop trying to one-up each other. They were willing to pay anything to win. They had so much talent and potential, and they squandered it on an obsessive and brutal rivalry, in spite of having every opportunity to just.... not.
Add in a dash of revenge and grief and I agree!
Yeah, honestly, thats what I took away from it. And im not sure who was really the one that was driving it. Angier for causing Borden to lose a finger, or Borden for ruining Angier bird cage trick afterwards.
Thats accurate to movie and novel. Theres many layers to the story.
The truth is Borden and Angier were the birds smashed in the cage all along.
I don't see it like that at all. I saw it as a deconstruction of what it takes to be famous, successful, and an artist. It doesn't matter if you are the most talented, if you can't capture the public. The other part of it is what it takes to be a real artist. Giving your full life for art. I loved the part where Christian Bale tries to explain to Hugh Jackman, that the real act is the old man pretending to be frail, and it goes over his head.
It's not about the destination, it's about the top hats we made a long the way
Glad you were able to spare us the time of getting to the heart of the message.
😂
🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡 🎩 💡
Reading this in Michael Cera's voice has improved my day, thank you
Brilliant
I like how the movie itself foreshadows Tesla as a real wizard, indicating that science is the real magic of the story.
Science was always the magic of magic. From flash powder, to intricate physics needed for complex tasks, to the biology needed to know how fast your hand can move to the physicology of the audience. The game of magic has always been the game of science. Only scientific precision after all can be used when deathly accurate stakes are on the line. Mirrors are a form of optics. Name a magic trick and I’ll name the schools of science necessary to under for the trick to work. Inventing a new trick requires a new insight into science. David blane was interested in the science of holding breath and used modern technology for his breath holding trick. The trick is the application of the new technology it’s the hook to get people wanting to know more. They want to know how it’s done so they can do it
Or Andy Serkis is the wizard and Tesla is the actual assistant.
@@easilytrackableinternethum3018 that would make the "tesla" clue make sense
A bit off topic but Bowie as Tesla is the best cameo in cinema history imho.
I legit jumped a mile, it was so perfect!
Agreed, I loved that when I saw it in the theater!
Not technically a cameo, he’s a supporting character. He’s got a fair bit of screen time and spoken dialogue, far more than a cameo appearance would entail. Like Stan Lee in the marvel movies is a cameo. Sorry for the pedantry.
I personally didn’t realize it until the second time I saw it. I was like “Oh shit!! That’s David Bowie! Lol
Bowie as Warhol too.
Michael Caine's character tells you the truth all the way through. One of the best films ever.
The same in Inception. He's never in a dream world.
... but in Interstellar, he's the one telling the Big Lie.
HE LIES ABOUT SALIORS DROWNING
Initially...then he tells the truth.@@DrBallSac
Did you catch the twist that Lord Caldlow isn't Robert Angier's alias. Robert Angier is Lord Caldlow's alias. Angier's wife stated to Robert that he was playing someone else, where he replied that he would not embarrass his family with his theatrical endeavours. He is also independently wealthy, and stated to Tesla for making his machine that "Price is not an object."
At the end of the film, Robert Angier revealed his true identity with his true accent. An English lord from the prestigious Caldlow family.
BORDEN: "You must be Lord Cal..."
ANGIER: "'Caldlow.' Yes, I am. I always have been."
I've seen this movie so many times and never realized that. 😂
Finally someone else gets it! This is why Caldlow quickly called Chung Ling Su’s act.
Omg how did I missed this 😂
@@ShedALight Caldlow is the Prestige. The viewers are tricked from the opening shots in Colorado and with every word uttered in an American accent. Caldlow’s real accent only slips once, during his wife’s accident.
@@JoJoJokerwhen he reads about it in the journal “he doesn’t know?!”
Batman Vs Wolverine:
The Clone Wars
😂
Or…
The Black Widow Deception
Okay but like, why is that so accurate?
This is pure genius 😄
Begun the clone wars, have.
I think The Prestige is Nolan's finest work
Like the best magic it's the least understood.
When I try to explain the truth all I get is anger. Anger I get. Ignorance is hard to understand.
@@fgoindarkg why waste your time on such people then?
What about the guy who wrote the book first..?..
@@travisbeeman7506 I was unaware it was a book first. That doesn't surprise me, and I'm sure that you're right
@@billmozart7288 It is one of the rare instances where I thought the movie was as good as the book... and one of my favorite movies. Just want to get Christopher Priest his creative credit :)
One thing that I finally cottoned on to after years of watching this movie is the opening monologue.
"We were two young men at the start of a promising career..."
We're meant to think this means Borden and Angier. But since it's Borden narrating it, it actually refers to... Borden and Fallon.
What a great observation. I never thought of it that way but wow you're exactly right.
I just realized that Angier can literally just do what the Borden twins does for their magic trick the first time he clone himself
Fucked.
He could have if he hadn't scared the shit out of himself doing it and went down the path of self-murder. 😅
You have to remember that he didn't want to share the fame and glory, he reluctantly used the drunk double because he couldn't figure out Borden's trick, and tried his best to absorb the praise of the crowd while he was under the stage.
@@dargossss true, but two hims might have understood it and switched places every night. Anyway, Angier was an entitled dope in general.
I always wondered which of the original or the clone is killed every show. Does the machine create a clone a few feet away or does it transport the subject and leave a copy in the original place ? At the same time is there such thing as an original or a clone, if the clone is exactly the same with all the memory, and thoughts, can we say it’s a mere copy ?
Such a great idea, i personally think the Prestige is so underrated.
I agree, but it's not a movie for the casual watcher.
Took me way too long to watch it but so happy i did. Amazingly layered film.
I think about this movie all the time - something I can’t say about 99% of other movies I’ve seen. For that reason alone, it’s a classic movie for me.
Read the book.
One crazy trick this movie is still pulling on its viewers, is the illusion that this story was between two magicians, Borden and Angier. This movie was about 3 magicians, Borden 1, Borden 2, and Angier. I love rewatching this movie and being able to pick out when we're watching the aggressive, obsessive, competitive Borden who loved Olivia, and the much more compassionate Borden who fell in love with Sarah.
Albert is the compassionate one who loved Sarah. Frederick is the engineer who loved Olivia.
Al+Fred=Alfred
More like Borden 1, Borden 2, and Angier 5,361 🤣
Pretty sure the movie made that clear when it broke down how the twins would switch places and basically live eachother’s life. Especially the parts where he asks what knot he tied and sometimes he said he doesn’t know and other times he doesn’t say anything. Thats literally the entire twist of the movie and you’re acting like it’s some secret lol
@@dominiquewilson Nah, I mean like how even years later after the movie, even in this video they constantly get referred to as "Borden and Angier". When we talk about them we refer to them as 2 people, subconsciously maybe, even though we're talking about 3 people.
What's really clever about that is that, for most of the movie, you don't know which to cheer for since Borden seems to go back and forth between being a sympathetic character and being an asshole.
I think something everyone glosses over here is that if Huge Jacked Man used that machine just once to create a clone, then he could've done the trick that American Psycho twinsies were pulling off the whole time, but instead he opted for mass murdering himself.
Ironic how the bird trick at the very start is a foreshadowing of Angier's teleportation trick later in the film. They both rely on killing the original, hiding the body and then replacing it with a double.
Thanks for repeating what every mediocre movie Essay says
@@lukasb2790 If I ever read another post about "foreshadowing" in a movie review I'm going to throw up. 😬🤮
@@pdcdesign9632Must be a sad existence for you 2 to both hate life so much.
You have my pity
@@kennywilkinson913 Did I hit a nerve there?
it also goes incredibly wrong, mauling the original bird and breaking fingers in the process
One of a few movies where multiple rewatches are *required*
One of maybe 3 movies so excellently disturbing that I will never watch them again. :-)
Who directed the other movies I wonder! 😂
@@littlewicky1 lol exactly. That's a Christopher Nolan trademark. Every singly movie I've watched always has the reveal at the end that colours the entire movie through a new lens, forcing you to have to rewatch to catch everything as an easter egg that it was hinting at from the very beginning. It's sort of like a one-trick-pony template, but he executes it so well.
Memento
Inception
Interstellar
To name a few....
This movie has the greatest cameo role entrance I've ever seen.
Right ? And one first watch I didnt even realise who it was. And he fits sooooo well
The absolute best touch is the show promoters and trick creators who see the trick and become terrified and talk about how they don’t often see real magic. Because they know full well what misdirection and illusion can and can’t accomplish
That and Cutter walking past Borden at the end. I really want to know what went on between them.
The implication being that in some snowy cliff in Nepal, or some overgrown jungle in west Africa he has seen something he knew couldn’t be explained away as mere illusion…
Just take a moment to remember Christopher Priest, the author of the novel this was built from. RIP.
Rest in peace, Christopher Priest. Thanks for reminding about him; it's probably been 20 years since I stumbled upon one of his novels, The Inverted World, at a local library, and was fascinated by it. I've read at least one of his much more recent novels set in the Dream Archipelago (The Gradual, I think it was.)
And also raise a glass to Mr. David Bowie as well.
The book sucks, the movie is a million times better
I unsubscribed from that other channel you used to be on because I didn't like that dude who took over after you. I'm very happy to have stumbled back into your work. Subbed and happy to hear your thoughts once more!
I finally found you! You were the reason I subscribed to Wisecrack, and without you I haven't been enjoying that at all. Good to find your channel!
I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's quote; "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Re: Wanting to be fooled, I find that most people don't want to know, but rather, to THINK they know.
The real illusion is believing that magical phenomenon and explainable phenomenon are at odds. Magic is the product of intelligence.
You both Sound like Dunning Kruger
And if they ever do come to know, they will hate you for letting them know.
@@CordeliaWagner1999 may you evermore rest assured that you are the smartest person in the room.
most people don't want to know, but rather, to THINK they know
Isnt that the same thing?Knowing ISN"T thinking?
This is my favorite Nolan movie and one of my all-time favorites. There is SO much packed into this movie. The theme of duality is peppered throughout in so many different ways in addition to the characters' obsessions. I guessed the "twin" reveal on my first watch based on Borden's reaction to Fallon's burial as Fallon had to be someone very dear to him, then connecting to Borden's comments about sacrifice, Cutter's insistence that Borden uses a double, and finally, Sarah's description of Borden's radical changes in behavior. To me, I was actually more fascinated by Borden's reveal than Angier's scientific discoveries.
The book does a good job of making the twin seem less possible. It is also Angier's thought on it and he goes through much trouble trying to prove there is a twin. In the end he can't prove it and comes to the conclusion there can not be a twin because it would just not be possible for two men to live one life without anyone figuring it out. In the novel, even his wife only figures it out after many years.
@@johngaltline9933 Wow, I'm glad to hear the book delves deeper into the twin reveal and I might just have to read it now🤔
@@Edowin-jz2sj it's worth a read. major plot points are mostly the same, but there's some extra stuff and some things different, plus a whole extra story.
I thought Fallon was a clone. I knew it was Christian early on because it was rather odd how the character never spoke and they concealed his face alot, despite him always being around
"Abracadabra" *breaks neck*
That was such a boss line.
Aveda cadabra
*washes hair*
Now I gotta watch this again. A great movie
So wild that this was uploaded today as I've been on a prestige youtube binge rabbit hole all morning now this pops in my feed 😂❤🎉
As someone who is a big movie fan with a social sciences degree, I've been loving watching your channel of late, and how you weave the two together in a very thought-provoking and theoretically-backed exploration. Great job, my man!
Both main characters were willing to kill their souls bit by bit to be the top of their field. Thank goodness that one of the Borden twins, the twin who actually loved his family knew when it had to stop.
Imagine putting your trust in your identical twin brother to treat the wife well. And he drives her to such a low she can’t live with herself anymore. Between the two twins, who was the dominate one and who was the subservient one?
Was the twin who fell in love and got married to Sarah the dominant twin, and his brother was lashing out being so open about his relationship with Olivia.
Or was the twin who married Sarah subservient and the dominant twin let him have the relationship to keep him happy and on side for their career. That is until Olivia came along and the dominant twin could use her.
Poor Sarah being gaslight, and driven to despair. She didn’t figure it out herself in time. But she knew when she was told ‘I love you’ when it was true and when it wasn’t.
I’ll definitely never understand why these twins just never let their loved ones in on the secret. Just seem shady and mean spirited at this point. I mean yea you run the risk of the secret getting but that’s marriage you just go with the flow.
I’m also not even sure why the other brother ever needed to be near his wife. He should have been the one to go home to her every night.
They both just came off as selfish. I wonder if either of them ever felt any guilt for what they did to Jackmans wife. I definitely felt the ‘colder’ brother didn’t give any shits lol…
@@michaelpowers6551 It's easy. They loved their art more than their loved ones. Being twins was a secret they didn't want to share to anyone.
great video...i always find it hard to have conversations about philosophical topics, but this always gives me new ideas to evaluate
I love this take. We do often demystify very wonderous things because our desire to feel we know.
The reference to the "greatest trick the devil ever pulled" as coming from the Usual Suspect is incorrect. This was first coined over a hundred years earlier by Charles Baudelaire, a French novelist. Movies are rarely very original, anymore, and it's a safe bet that if you heard it in a movie, they're quoting someone else who, unfortunately, never gets the credit after the movie was made.
The phrase is found in Baudelaire's book, Le Joueur Généreux (The Generous Gambler) published in 1864. Fifty years before Baudelaire, John Wilkenson wrote, "One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist."
I hope you'll pardon my pedanticism, but as an author myself, I lament whenever another author is forgotten for their contributions, and a movie (however good) is cited instead.
He never said that is the origin source, just that it is a famous line from the movie. Where did Kevin Spacey's character get it from? What about the script writer then. If actor says "to be or not to be", does one assume that is totally original?
@@jnemo2605 The comment is still correct. Thats not where it 'comes from'. Thats a USE of it. And I get his point, and actually I think even BEFORE that I remember researching it (not researching it before, researching it AND:) and its actually from an unnamed pamphlet publicist even prior to that. People forget that a main means of communication after the printing press was pamphleteering, for those who couldn't afford to publish whole books and newspapers.
What happens even MORE often is that writers get great ideas or sayings from random places, then THEY get credit because they stuck their name on it. And so began the writing profession. Hows THAT for pedantic.
Frankly I liked The Usual Suspects for a long time, now I kind of hate it and hate how 'brilliant' some people think it is simply because its got a 'hook' you dont see coming.
Of course the SECOND greatest trick the devil pulled is convincing mankind that he DOES exist. Don't go stealing that!:)
Baudelaire was a poet -- are you sure that's a quote from him? It's not characteristic of his style.
@@jessejordache1869 Like I said, he gets credit from a pamphlet but it was a common saying of the time. Look it up on wikipedia and they explain his 'credit'. It wasn't in a poem, but it was originally said 'poetically'.
@@mikearchibald744 My screen formatted your first paragraph and I didn't notice the "read more" where you expand and make it clear you know what you're talking about. My bad.
just scrolling through my recommendations and damn this is a really good video, instant sub
Very wise insights at the end. You took it beyond the text. Great video.
One of my favorite movies. Glad to see it still being discussed. Excellent review.
Something I hadn’t noticed until my umpteenth watch is that because of the way the Tesla machine seems to work, the original copy stays in the machine, while the copy is the one that is ‘transported.’ (In fact, this makes sense, otherwise the machine would be doing two things at one, both cloning the original and teleporting the original, rather than just creating the clone at some distance away.)
But … I don’t think Angier ever really understood how the machine worked. The man frustrated by being under the stage for the applause at the end of his trick ends up killing himself upon the very first night of performing the trick (not the demo, the clone is killed that time). Now there’s an argument to be made that if they have the same memories, maybe it doesn’t matter, but the reality is that the original Angier is gone long before the end of the film, clones continuing the feud because it’s just what they do at this point.
That explains the increasing brain-rot between the rivals .
Angier says in the film that he doesn’t even know who comes out the other end and who drowns.
But at this point it doesn’t matter. Just like you said, the need to be the best overrides everything to the point where, as you said, the clones perpetuate the desire to be the best because in the end, it doesn’t matter who drowns or who lives…
…Angier’s ambition continues.
I've always interpreted "who" dies as being ambiguous as Borden says "not knowing whether he's the one taking the bow or drowning in the tank below the stage". I think this plays into the mirroring between Angiers and Borden that occurs throughout the movie with the theme on who is the "real" Borden
I always thought he knew he would drown, but he did it deliberately out of guilt for drowning the lady from earlier.
@@Here_is_Waldo interesting, I didn't even think of the link to Angiers wife... The tank is quite a deliberate choice... I'm sure he could have created something less painful... Although maybe it's because of Alfred talking about drowning earlier in the movie how it's peaceful...
This movie was underated
After watching this tens of times; the prestige of this film is how good an actor Bale is. The twins are vastly different characters throughout the film. You know who loves who and how their personalities match that of their chosen partner, you know which dies and how desperately more sad it is. This film was and is a masterpiece.
My favorite Nolan film by far
The film is actually a warning about Bacon’s worldview, which sets up a vision of reality in which nature is the enslaver of humanity (which is what Bacon is suggesting when he famously declares that ‘knowledge is power’ (over nature). This invites the obvious question: is every natural restraint actually disempowering for humanity, or are there limits we shouldn’t go beyond because they will diminish, rather then empower, humanity? And, if there are limits, where should we seek the moral guidance to know and enact those limits on scientific prowess?
The movie directly parallels C.S. Lewis’ warning about science without moral restraint, and he even called science ‘the magicians twin’, because, just like a magician, a scientist can do powerful things. But unlike a magician, where the so-called ‘magic’ is actually just an illusion, science actually has the ability to do extremely powerful things in the world, and Lewis warned that this makes it all the more imperative that the power of science is kept in check by moral restraint.
THIS
was the most pertinent comment I've read here thus far. The last couple of sentences remind me of both The Magi (Babylonian and beyond) - -one example being The 3 Wise Men from the East at Christ's birth anointing the destiny of a Messiah. Rasputin was another carrying ancient esoteric practice.
Right up to the Manhattan Project and CERN, where forces that have very severe and various (oftentimes unpredictable) outcomes are "harnessed".
...not to mention Sabbatai Zev, possibly the maddest magi of all since antiquity.
Hugh Jackman's character, what an idiot! Not only does he squander the greatest technological invention mankind has ever seen, but getting back to the petty magic and rivalry bullsh!t, just keeping one double of himself alive would have been enough to do tricks repeatedly without continually creating and murdering a double of himself and risking his life every time he performed it like he has been doing. Having his secret double probably would have made _himselves_ realise that his nemesis must be using a secret twin too.
Valid argument . He was in such a hurry to defy the success of his rival that he destroyed himself in the process .
Or start a butcher shop with duplicate cows. Or duplicate gold. Or anything really.
I think the only reason Tesla agrees to sell him the device is that he can see that Angiers is so consumed by his quest that he’ll squander it instead of allowing it to get free and cause the havoc it has the potential to.
You really think the device REALLY made clones? That was just the 'prestige' to make you think it was magic, and not just a trap door and his double from the previous trick?
@@mattwhorlow9900 Where'd he get all these doubles for those performances? LMAO I kinda tuned out from the movie when Tesla was introduced and when he showed this device (wasn't too impressed before either). If someone actually could clone anything, most of the world's problems would either be solved or exacerbated, hard to tell which would come first.
Jared this is brilliant. Thank you for sharing this
One of my favorite movies. It just never ceases to amaze me
Indeed ! It’s also one of the rare instances where the film is better than the book, dispite the respect I have for Chritopher Priest, the author.
The discussion of ideas presented in The Prestige is great! Tying it to modern presentations of data and business is mind blowing because it’s so true! Great video 🥰
The titles of the characters support your thesis: Virgil, Milton, The Great Danton (Dante) are all the names of poets who visit Hell in their epics. The Professor is arguably Faust, but it's not as clear a reference as the first three. I love this movie. I love Michael Caine, and angry, emotional Michael Caine is the best Michael Caine. "I saw you on a bloody slab!" "She was sixteen years old -- you were only supposed to blow the bloody door!" "I am aware that I am acting badly; I have every intention of acting badly. In fact, one would argue that this is precisely the situation where one should act badly!" before breaking down in tears.
Everytime this movie is on, I watch it all the way to the end.
This film is so brilliant. The Metaphor with the bird in the cage... we as audience get the whole premise of the trick explained so early in the game "but we want to be fooled", too, and do not want to see that the explanation with the dead bird / double bird (brother) is the same as with the magicians. There is so much layering.
I like to think of the Mysteries of Reality like a "Knot" and no matter how much of the mysteries we unravel & solve there's always even more left unraveled in the Knot. If Not because we only scratched the surface, or because with each new solution we create new issues that we are or aren't aware of.
So this fear of solving the world & making it a mundane, 2-Dimensional existence devoid of wonder is really an unfounded one.
I've been alive a lil while and the more I think I know, the more I get reminded that there's so much more that I Don't.
Science does NOT disenchant, if anything it enchants it more than ever before … that’s Kabalah
This movie blew me away
Real Magic is in Frequency and Vibration, as Nikola Tesla said😉
“Sometimes, exact science is not an exact science. That’s how I got my weird eye.”
- David Bowie, probably
David Bowie got his "weird eye" in a fight. That's not heterochromia. It's an inner eye injury that never healed properly
@@SavageMinnow Hilarious that Davy "TheLaughing Gnome" Jones ... _was a brawler_
This channel is about to blow up! I can feel it
I think that CS Lewis said that science was the magician's twin.
“Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one."
Jared you are so wise and I’m absolutely hooked on your content so glad you’re making it!
Wasn't Borden brought up in a workhouse? I think Borden's secret is one he's been keeping since the workhouse. Borden understood the Chinese magician's act because he was doing something one level beyond. Angier was just as fooled by the trick as any audience member would be because of those details to which attention was paid. Angier had to go to the extreme of using his fortune to finance the research and equipment.
Edit: my point is that Borden's secret was so simple and perfect, in performance. Off stage it created such strife in his own lives.
the novel goes in to much more detail than the film on the background and in to the hardships caused by two men living one life.
The greatest trick the youtube algorithm ever pulled,
was convincing most of it's potential viewerbase that the Presitge it didn't exist
When I last saw the movie I kept thinking about carl jung's shadow. There are a bunch of dualities in the movie -- the obvious one being Borden and his twin, one the ambitious obsessive one, the other the family man. but the same duality seems to exist in Angier, with his love for his deceased wife, but later obsession and admittance that 'I don't care about my wife'. And the fact that the teleporter duplicates, not teleports. I feel like it's partly about how in every person there is multiples of selves, and that on a given day one may express itself more so than the other
An excellent analysis of an excellent movie. The Prestige is one of the few movies I use to judge the quality of new movies that I watch.
I'm looking forward to the Jared Bauer video on the analysis of "Wisecrack".
Thank you, Jared. As a movie lover and philosophical geek, it's always refreshing and insightful to watch the work you create.
As morty said in the lighthouse in S.2.E.9 'look whos purging now,' "nope, i just enjoyed it. Please write more."
(Though unlike morty, I am quite sincere.)
I think that, usually, whatever we DON'T think is real or normal seems wonderous. When radio was first used to remote control things it seemed wondorous, and now nobody gives a shit, that's just a lart of the world.
Once we establish a feat as readily doable, it no longer feels magical, creating a treadmill of mysticism.
Your video is excellent. I love your observations and the commentary. You got me thinking harder about the movie but even more, about the relationship between science, magic, and human perception. Awesome job. Thank you!
Really enjoyed this one
What an excellent insight. I can't say I've been this engaged by a piece of film analysis for a long time.
Me and a buddy once got stoned, watched the prestige, discussed it afterwards. Got so heated and annoyed at the others lack of understanding. That we had to rewatch the entire movie.
I can re-watch this anytime its on. Great film
If you think you understand The Prestige, you don't understand The Prestige.
I understand it : Embarrassingly Overrated !
@@bentonrpI think it’s rather your comment that’s embarrassingly pretentious.
"We were two young men at the start of a great career. Two Young men who did not intend to hurt anyone"
As this is narrated we see Borden and Angier.
But the notebook really speaks of Borden and his Brother.
I get it, it took me fifteen years or so to understand The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai completely. But it is a more complicated film than The Prestige.
Now I have to watch it to see if there's something I missed....because I THINK I understand it.
Prestige is one of my favorite movies I've probably rewatched it as many times as any of my other favorites.
To me the Prestige mirrors a common situation that happens in offices. One person relies on presentation, the other relies on expertise, they naturally butt heads, and the rivalry ends up making both of them far more productive than they otherwise would be.
I do think you hit the nail on the head in that the movie is ultimately an existential commentary about how if we don't have deception there appears to be no real point to life for intelligent beings. As Angier said, "it was the looks on their faces..."
I love you and the scope through which you look at things. You are probably one of the few RUclipsrs I actually click on. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with is.
Crazy thing is, I can imagine Tesla really making something like that back in the day, man was a underrated genius. The Tesla plot was my favorite part of the movie. Great movie.
This movie was so mysterious. Kept you wondering the whole time. It did for me. Everyone should watch this movie.
Begun the Clone War has.
Took a while to randomly algorithm stumble on you after wisecrack but got-DAMN it's good to hear that voice again and I'm glad the depth and nuance of the analysis wasn't just wisecrack writing team.
Wtf? I swear I've watched this movie twice and I don't recall half this shit.
NGL, sometimes life is better that way
Nolan movies have that effect. That's not a good thing.
Are you possibly thinking of The Illusionist?
They came out very close together and they've got a lot of common points
(Totally different stories though!)
not sure why i didnt check for your channel earlier, bc thats what i was missing. never stop dropping! hope youre doing well!!!
It's about the Hollywood battle between practical special effects that people are bored by and high tech visual effects that impress initially but have hidden costs.
Interesting take. Nolan also addressed the movie industry in Inception.
Wow, from a movie review to an inspiring philosophical explanation :) Thank man
Nothing is a bigger example of the idea that "people want to be fooled" than RUclips,social media itself and the idea of "authenticity" and "relatability".
The Prestige has always been my favorite Nolan movie and yes I think Nolan's BEST work and contribution; each of our many interpretations of the same film reflects and reveals ourselves mostly, and that is whyThe Prestige epitomizes movie magic
Here, here!
You know it's a great movie when no one even mentions how hot Scarlett Johansson is in it in the comments...until now.
It's not relevant.
@ikmor it's rarely - if ever - relevant, yet people still do it. I don't get pointing it out myself, she would never have been an actor if she were one of us uggos, but there you go.
Her hotness is a given, mate. Nothing to convince anyone on there!
/2¢
It's insane It's been 18 years. I'd have thought 10 maybe
Im simple man, I see a video of Christopher Nolan and I click inmediatly
Simp
Christopher "please don't think too hard about this" Nolan
four things are certain in this world. Death, Taxes, and Nolan-Caine duo
The prestige is, as most Nolan's movies, mostly about how Nolan is clever. The real prestige is that the self publicity really looks like a movie, sometimes even like a great movie.
His movies are clever, but usually require some really huge suspension of disbelief. The most obvious question in this movie is, why did Tesla sell the duplicator for money, when he could just duplicate anything, including money, himself?
I agree fully. Nolan’s movies are always way too self serious and usually rest their whole premise on a 13 year old boys version of deep. Always spectacle over story or humanity. Oppenheimer felt like his first human movie.
@@Studeb
The Tesla machine was just a closet that shoots sparks. It didn't clone anything.
Borden sent Angier to Tesla on a wild goose chase. Angier figured it out and turned the tables by telling a better story.
Borden was the better mechanic, but Angier the better story teller.
@@fgoindarkg Exactly. One clue is the preamble to the performance with Root. Angier talks about the secrets of the trick being known only to holy men and monks in the Himalayahs or something like that. Strange, mysterious men living in the snowy mountains, sounds like his story about Tesla in the Rockies, right?!
Dude I thought you stopped doing stuff? I'm so happy to see you! I literally went "Jared, Jared?"
I’m a simple man. I see a video by Jared in my feed, I click on it.
Are you a clone? I see this exact comment all the time.
@@DM-mq6hx A lot of simple men in the world
@@DM-mq6hx
Nope. But I’m probably stating the fact that a lot of people here think.
Nolan is a master of using time as a storytelling!
I'm terribly sorry - you've activated the pedant in me. When somebody has been executed by hanging its referred to as hanged, not hung. Most people these days forget that
a sign that nowadays average people's web search history is full of porn
Meh, that's but a tiny nitpick. The video creator's misunderstanding of the supernatural and the paranormal is far more alarming
(and of course, quite common today. We can thank Compulsory Schooling imported from 19th C Prussia and Austria for our twisted state of the current "culture").
I am not at all convinced that you are sorry in the slightest... let alone terribly.
Being an insufferable pedant is optional, you choose to be this way.
jared’s content always so good. prestige is all time in my top 5
You probably won't see this for several days, if at all, because RUclips keeps suppressing my comments, but I have a different interpretation of the movie than it would seem everyone else. My interpretation is not that the journal is fake, but rather that Borden had used Tesla's machine once and realized the implications of such a machine after which he destroyed his copy of it and vowed never to use such a machine ever again. But if I missed anything or are misremembering because it has been so many years since I saw it, I'm sure someone will see my post and comment to correct me, because that's always how it works.
True - just got it today
I never got Bordens were twins but rather result of the one time Borden used the machine. That seemed like that from my first viewing 20 years ago. Thematically it makes more sense than them being twins.
@markkjacobson but remember that the woman, scarlet Johanson, remarks that the Christian bale character acts completely different and cold from time to time. That indicated to me more likely twin than clone.
@@swampfaye Something to consider there. Why do twins with identical DNA have different personalities ever? One possible theory is that our actual personalities, what makes us tick, is not really what's inside our brains but rather a random perturbation of a quantum field that our brains interact with. If even close to the truth, then it's more than likely that even these type of clones, what I would refer to as a quick clone because they're not grown but directly copied, would also have differing personalities from one another. The DNA aspect could be a matter of how your brain matter connects to the quantum field and that similarities will exist, but never will someone be identical.
@@anon_y_mousse because they have developed different personalities. A clone of an adult who is the same in every way... is the same in every way.
Excellent, keep doing these.
I tought it was a duplicate Borden , not a twin? That is maybe why the diary leads Angier to Tesla, because he used the same tech, but only used it once instead of repeatedly killing himself. When the surviving Borden explains the love for both Olivia and Sarah, he claims that a PART of him loved each one. Am i remembering wrong?
The way I remember it. Didn't the movie specifically say that the second Borden was a homeless doppelganger? That's why they had different loves, because they were literally different people.
I very much remember them revealing that they were twins that grew up dedicating themselves to this trick. And they stuck with it even tho the one who didn't kill the assistant at the beginning and was the faithful one ended up being the one stuck behind bars for the rest of his life.
@@SephWarrenAngier found a homeless man doppelganger and had to take his bows below the stage, and eventually the doppelganger became less cooperative/wanting more.
Borden and his twin were always twins to my understanding.
Thank you! I have never heard anyone else come to this same conclusion I did.
This is how I remember the movie, too. I thought it begged the questions, what would you do if you met yourself? How would you treat/judge them?
Quite impressive how Nolan dropped two smash hits back to back only one year apart
Batman Begins 2005 //
The Prestige 2006
The real question is, do you finally understand Barbie?
Come to think of it, was there something to understand?
Is it the friends we make along the way?
@@MammothBehemoth You just have to learn to accept you are Kenough.
@@MammothBehemoth There actually is! Check out the video by Pop Culture Detective about it.
Ignorance is bliss, and one likely will never understand a thing in this big bad world without also understanding Barbie.
"finally" is what younger ones say just before discovering the next layer of the proverbial onion
For a minute I thought this was classic Wisecrack. Good to see you again!
Pet peeve: It is HANGED, he is hanged for his murder, not hung. Hanged is exclusively used for hanging people. Everything else is hung.
Take note, Star Trek writers.
Men are hanged, horses are hung.
1:34 - 3:05 By far best summary of the film I've ever seen, and I watch a lot cuz it's my fave Nolan. My majors were epistemology & sociology, so really appreciated the Weber (and correct pronunciation!) and Bacon references... Been a filmmaker for 25 years or so and your essay unlocked an insight: Nolan was thinking about the magic of film, specifically the defining magic of the cut. How do we know that actor/character is the same actor/character cut after cut after cut? It's a social contract... like a magic show. Teleportation and secret twins are the reductio ad absurdum of classical stage craft and yet also stab at the heart of "movie magic," i.e. ten thousand takes re-contextualized in post-production to create the illusion of a performance and a story. I have a strong hunch Nolan was thinking about the Venn overlap of screen craft and stage craft when conceiving this masterpiece.
Always hated this movie
Batman vs Wolverine?
DC vs Marvel?
why the hate?
@@MammothBehemoth it absolutely BUTCHERED the book.
Easily Nolan’s best movie. Great video and analysis.
I thought I had heard this voice before - so glad I stumbled back to your channel after leaving that other one.