The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

More Nineteenth-Century Magicians: The Prestige

April 1st, 2007

In the duel between the two nineteenth-century magician films of the summer, The Illusionist and The Prestige, I grant the victory to The Illusionist (see my previous post). Unfortunately, because both movies rely so heavily on intrigue, I can’t completely explain my reasons without resorting to spoilers. So I’ll make some general comments, safe for everyone’s reading, and then proceed to spoil away.

The Prestige is very cleverly crafted—I’ll give it that—but I still don’t buy it. Themes and images and motifs connect very nicely throughout the movie, themes such as “What are you willing to sacrifice for magic?” (though really the question the two main characters seem to be asking is “What are you willing to sacrifice for revenge?”). I liked the narrative device of having both magicians, the slick performer Angier (Hugh Jackman, with an American accent) and the driven, lower-class Borden (Christian Bale, with a Cockney accent), learn the other’s story by reading his diary. The narrative arc jumped here, there, and everywhere in time, but it didn’t bother me because it was skillfully handled.

But what is all this skill for? We know almost nothing about Borden and Angier except their hatred for each other, and it’s hard to identify with them on that alone. The only character I sympathized with was a little boy who was inconsolable when he figured out that birds were actually being killed in magic tricks. Of course, sympathy for characters isn’t the only component of a great movie, but, as Steven Greydanus of Christianity Today writes in his review of The Prestige, “If only the story had something decent at its center, rather than being a tightly wound Möbius strip with a dark side that just keeps going and has no other side.”

Aside from its lack of a heart, the other main problem I had with the movie was its implausibility after a certain point, namely after the introduction of Nikola Tesla, the real historical pioneer of electricity. Sure, the possible interchangeability of science and magic was a fun philosophical concept, but it seemed to be more of a concept than a well-integrated part of the story. It’s a shame, because, just having re-read Henry Adams’s “The Virgin and the Dynamo” chapter from The Education of Henry Adams (in which, at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, he reflects back wistfully on the great art inspired in the past by veneration of the Virgin Mary and wonders what the dynamo—sort of like an internal combustion engine—can possibly inspire in the century to come), I’d love a more thorough exploration of the anxieties of the age.

Okay, here we go with the spoilers.

SPOILERS!

The machine that Tesla builds for Angier has the ability to simultaneously replicate and transport matter (whether hats, cats, or Hugh Jackmans). Once Angier has this machine, he uses it to one-up Borden’s “Transported Man” act. However, apparently he can’t have multiples of himself running around, and so every night he kills the extra Angier. (Why couldn’t he have sent them all off to a farm or something? A machine that can produce lots of Hugh Jackmans? Now that would be a blessing to the women of the world.)

This is very intentionally paralleled with the revelation that Borden is indeed identical twins: in other words, he is by nature what Angier tried to become by science/magic. This is meant to explain all sorts of previous oddities in the movie, but, once again, though thematically resonant, it’s implausible.

One of the Bordens is executed in prison for the supposed murder of Angier, while the other Borden actually kills Angier (it’s really less confusing than it sounds). Then the remaining Borden gets to go home to his little daughter (and apparently no one will notice that he, who was presumably hanged, is still alive???). Why does he get to survive and not Angier? He’s equally despicable—the only reason seems to be that he has a kid. It definitely leaves you unsatisfied.

Of course, I may just be grumpy because at least two birds get squished in the movie. As you know, animal death causes a movie to lose major points with this Otter.

Entry Filed under: Movies