Are you watching closely?
The Prestige(2006), a movie adapted by a novel namely the same, is a master piece from my perspective. Borden and Angie are two greatest magicians in Britain, who are obsessed with developing more highly technically mysterious magic tricks, have been competing with each other the whole life time for a better prestige. The core of the plot of the movie is obsession and prestige. It is from Carter, the machinist of Angie, that comes out the word "obsession", and from Angie that mostly comes out the word "prestige", which is far away off than once. If someone who is reading this essay has not watched the movie, I am not going to leak the secret of the tricks, but I am here to discuss the comparative characteristics of the two great magicians.
The name of the movie is a kind of paronomasia: prestige can be both the meaning of widespread respect and admiration felt for someone, and the third and last act as well as the most hardest part of a magic trick, as Carter' s words in the beginning of the movie: "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." To be the prestige in a magic performance is also a kind of gaining prestige for a magician.
As my words in the title, obsession itself is a kind of trick: it can both be fascinating and helpful when you want to achieve something better, and be dubious when you turn it into the pursuit of false idols - prestige is a kind of them, while brilliant techniques are not. To quote one of my favourite actresses Natalie Portman: "Prizes serve as false idols everywhere. Prestige, wealth, fame, power, you will be exposed to many of these, if not all... So we bump up against the common troll I think of the commencement address people who achieved a lot telling you that the fruits of the achievement are not always to be trusted. But I think that contradiction can be reconciled and is in fact instructive. Achievement is wonderful when you know why you’re doing it; and when you don’t know, it can be a terrible trap."
The major dfference between Borden and Angie is that Borden is obsessed with magic tricks while Angie with prestige. It is very obvious that Borden and Fallon perform tricks during their whole lives sacrificing many of theirs, but never mean to hurt anyone. They don't even care about the secrets of Angie that much, though Borden cares about those more while Fallon not so much, and I consider it as half careness as average.
Angie, however, offers 100 percent careness on the prestige. From him laughing at Borden's idea, at the beginning, of creating some new magic that cannot be figured out by others, to trying every single effort to steal Borden's tricks and even secrets, including stealing his diary and going to the U.S. to purchase a special machine from Tesla (this part about Tesla's invention is as to pseudoscience, or can be called a fiction), and then to concerning very much about staying beneath the stage away off the prestige, and to the last trick when he still cares about wether himself can be the prestige or should be in the box. Even Tesla has said he could recognize the obsession.
To quote one of Carter's lines: ‘’Now you are looking for the secret, but you won't find it, because of course, you are not really looking: you don't really want to work it out; you want to be fooled.” Angie is too addited to the prestige to admit the truth that he has already known about Borden's trick, merely rejecting to accept the idea that Borden is better than him or Borden's secret is so simple but not complicate as he wishes. His obsession even goes to such an extreme that he spilled out the words "I don't care about my wife, I care about my secret." when all his partly desire of retaliation for his wife's death at the first place has been shaded by his endlessly inflated appetite.
What can Tesla's machine do? What is Angie's secret? And what is the true secret of Borden's trick? And how is the end of the two magician's competition? Let the plot tell its story on its own. More detailed analyses will be revealed in the next essay about my ratiocination about the implicit clues and hints of the plot.
LINES IN THE MOVIE: (dictation by myself)
Be very careful giving someone that power over you. -- Borden
Obsession is a young man's game. -- Carter
It's sacrifice, that is the price of the trick. -- Fallon
Now you are looking for the secret, but you won't find it, because of course, you are not really looking: you don't really want to work it out; you want to be fooled. -- Carter
The audience knows the truth: the world is simple and miserable, solid and ... . But if you can fool them, even for a second, and you can make them wonder, then you can see something very special, it was the look on their faces. -- Angie
No one care the man who disappear, the man who goes in the box, they care the one who coms out the ohter side. Maybe we can switch before the trick, that way I could be the prestige... -- Angie
No one cares the man in the box. -- Angie
It took courage to guide me to the machine every night, not knowing if i will be the man in the box, or the prestige, -- Angie
You are a magician, not a wizard, You gotta get your hands dirty, if you gonna achieve the possible. -- Carter
People actually believe the things I did on stage, they couldn't clap, they scream. -- Angie
I can recognize an obsession, not good will come of it. -- Tesla
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. -- Carter
