12th Feb: A new policy is being put in place for TRS threads: If there is no evidence provided in the Opening Post that the page is broken, the thread will be nuked immediately. See Everything You Wanted To Know About Changing Names for what constitutes evidence.
5th Feb: Echo Chamber Season 1 blooper reel on Youtube here
"Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call the prestige."
— Cutter
The Prestige is a 2006 film, directed by Christopher Nolan. It was based on a book of the same name.The story follows an escalating rivalry between two magicians, Alfred Borden and Robert Angier. They started their careers as partners until Angier's wife died during a performance, possibly because Borden may have tied a stronger rope knot than necessary (with the wife's permission). The rivalry extends into the magician scene as the two compete to see who is the best at their craft.Told through the framing devices of the two men reading one another's journals, the plot is not shown in chronological order.Interestingly, the film cannot really be said to have a protagonist. Both sides are portrayed neutrally without either getting a sympathetic point of view. This gives a different slant on a story instead of just the normal protagonist vs. antagonist story. Instead we get a story about two overly obsessed flawed men.Also, this film has Nikola Teslaplayed byDavid Bowie.MAJOR SPOILERS ABOUND, THIS IS A FILM ENTIRELY ABOUT UNEXPECTED TWISTS, READ THIS PAGE AT YOUR OWN RISK
Examples
A Real Man Is A Killer: Angier is told that he needs to be willing to "get his hands dirty" if he wants to be a truly great magician, which in context meant being willing to kill doves to maintain an illusion. Borden actually does just that in an earlier trick.
Determinator: Angier and Borden. Angier killing himself several times is just psychotic, particularly since he never knows whether he'll be the man on the stage or the man in the box. Borden is nearly as bad, willing to have two of his fingers severed just to keep matching his twin.
Doing It for the Art: In-universe example. While Angier is after the Transported Man trick simply because it'll make a great show, Borden wants to try and push the limits of the art of magic. Arguably, the whole movie could be seen as a debate on the nature of art in general.
Dueling Movies: One of two period pieces that focus on magicians to come out in 2006 (along with The Illusionist, which is actually quite different).
Dueling Stars Movie: Unlike some films which use this trope, the chemistry between them is excellent.
Estrogen Brigade Bait: Oustanding performances aside, it doesn't hurt that the two leads are played by the not entirely unattractive Jackman and Bale, with Bowie on hand too.
Evil Will Fail: The more absorbed the dueling magicians become in their vengeance-fueled-rivalry, the more their lives fall apart, until finally Angier's ingénieur abandons and betrays him when he crosses the Moral Event Horizon.
Face Heel Double Turn: Angier starts out with the audience's sympathy after his wife dies and Borden just seems to be a Jerkass. But as the film goes on we start to see Borden become more sympathetic as Angier slips even further into revenge.
Fake Brit: Scarlett Johansson got some criticism for her accent. Interestingly, her character is an American in the novel, which means it might have been deliberate for her to talk like an American imitating an English accent.
Also, Daniel Davis of The Nanny, using the exact same accent as he did in said show.
Londoner Andy Serkis plays Alley with a Big Applesauce accent.
Fingore: The malfunctioning magic trick that crushes a poor volunteer's hand, then Borden losing two fingers, and subsequently his twin brother.
Foe Yay: Borden and Angier pretty much personify this trope. Lampshaded in the book when Olivia tells Angier that he and Borden "are like two lovers who can't get along together."
In the movie, the words are "You should go to him. You two deserve each other."
Foreshadowing: Both major twists at the end of the film are foreshadowed pretty subtly.
Starting with Borden immediately grokking the fishbowl trick.
Go Seduce My Archnemesis: Angier to Olivia. One of the first obvious signs that the two are willing to go to extreme lengths to try and defeat each other.
I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Piper Perabo's character, Julia, who drowns during a stage performance, setting Angier against Borden.
Insufferable Genius: Borden's a fantastic magician, he's just a terrible performer.
In the novel it's the other way around, with Borden pointing out several times that Angier just didn't understand showmanship. Angier also trolled magician trade publications early in his career.
Irony As She Is Cast: Ricky Jay, the film's magic consultant, has a role as an incompetent stage magician.
Lovely Assistant: Olivia is this to both of the stage magicians involved (and has affairs with both of them). Angier's wife was also this.
Mad Artist: Angier shows more traits than his rival. In the end he explains that the magic shows's main point (and all that it implied) was to puzzle the audience and be considered the best magician ever. Judging from his popularity it was a complete success, but the price he paid was very high.
Magicians Are Wizards: Subverted: the movie explains every trick, and at one point Michael Cane snaps "You're a magician, not a bloody wizard! If you want to do magic, you've got to get your hands dirty." Perhaps more specifically, Tesla is the wizard, having created Angier's cloning device.
Perhaps, though Tesla didn't get a chance to replicate gold because it was technically Angier's machine after financing its completion, and Angier only cared about the show.
Plus, Edison's hired thugs destroyed everything at Tesla's lab, and would've destroyed the prototype if it hadn't already been shipped. Even if Tesla hadn't decided the device was evil, he might not have been able to re-create it; the film even demonstrates how hard it was to create, with Angier's tophats being replicated way off in the forest instead of in the lab as planned which was only discovered after Alley's cat was copied.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the book, Borden shuts off the power to Angier's machine while the latter is in the midst of the In A Flash act. This effectively creates a ghostly version of Angier who is seemingly immortal and more vengeful than before.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Arguably, Borden's disguises: they start out seeming very transparent and obvious until we find out that Borden had also been disguising himself as Fallon the entire time.
Out Gambitted: Both Angier and Borden time and time again. At the end though, Borden comes out on top.
People Jars: Angier's many drowned copies of himself, stored in a warehouse.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: Tesla knows how twisted his teleporter is, and even tries to warn Angier by letter after it is delivered to him.
Red Herring: Angier spends a great deal of time deciphering his way through Borden's journal for his secrets, only to find a message from Borden near the end, which explains how he just got him to waste months deciphering nothing.
The Reveal: The secrets to both Borden's and Angier's Transported Man tricks.
Rival Turned Evil: Both of them. Part of the enjoyment of the movie is trying to decide who has fallen the furthest.
Serious Business: These people are serious about stage magic. Dangerously serious, in fact.
Shout Out: In the Bullet Catch scene, one of the performers on the list is "Harry Dresden".
Single-Minded Twins: "Borden" is actually a pair of twins who have made it their life's work to be so identical to each other that no one can tell the difference. The one flaw in their arrangement is that they fall in love with different women.
Its not perfect though The women they love can tell some difference. Specifically, the wife can tell that sometimes Borden genuinely means it when he says he loves her, and sometimes he doesn't.
Steam Punk: Tesla is the poster wizard for this kind of genre.
Stealth Pun: Tesla's assistant is named Alley. He has a cat.
Technician Versus Performer: A key thematic element of the rivalry between Borden (the technician) and Angier (the performer). There's also a bit of this between Angier and his double (whose drunken antics have quite the theatric touch) There are hints that the two Bordens differ on this as well—one is is a technician, the other more or less along for the ride.
Teleporters and Transporters: The rivalry is focused around who can pull off this magic trick most convincingly. Tesla creates a literal one, except it turns out to actually be a matter replicator.
This Cannot Be!: One of the characters in the end, and arguably the viewer on first watching.
Xanatos Gambit: Angier killed himself dozens of times so that when Borden inevitably made it backstage, he could be framed for murder on circumstantial evidence. Whether he's the man in the box or the man outside, Borden goes down. However, Angier didn't know Borden had a twin who could avenge him, then take back his daughter. Incidentally, this turns his Xanatos Gambit into a Batman Gambit which was, adequately enough, pulled off by Batman himself, Christian Bale.
Also qualifies as a Thanatos Gambit for the Angier clones that end up as the "man in the box."
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