"Are you watching closely..." is one of the best taglines of all time.

David Bowie being cast as Tesla was a stroke of genius.

@StarkRG

2 ай бұрын

Honestly, I keep forgetting that's Bowie. I always think it's Tom Skerritt.

The Prestige is an underrated film. One of Christopher Nolan’s best. It’s one of those films that I immediately rewatched after the ending.

@cklambo

2 ай бұрын

I would rank it above Inception.

@dancarter482

2 ай бұрын

_Memento_ is his only other good film, arguably the best.

@Tribal260

2 ай бұрын

Never heard of somebody rate it mediocre after watching

@cjpolett2055

2 ай бұрын

It's ranked #43 on IMDb's top 250 movies of all time...above Grave of the Fireflies, The Usual Suspects, and Casablanca. It grossed over $100 million dollars and audiences rate it a 92% on RT. It's hardly underrated.

@happzy

Ай бұрын

@@cjpolett2055 People really overuse the word "underrated" these days.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke So yes, technically at that time, Tesla was a wizard. The uninvented thing was uninvented. Story purposes. :)

“I didn’t know if I’d be the man in the box….. or the prestige”. That’s why he was SO shook every time he did the act. He is both the man in the box AND the prestige. Love that line.

@PsychoMuffinSDM

2 ай бұрын

This literally is the result of survivalship bias, lol.

@Bonko78

2 ай бұрын

My assumption is that he is always the man in the box because the original person goes down the hatch and the clone appears in another location. The problem is, the clone always remember being the survivor, so he will think there is always a chance.

@rustincohle2135

2 ай бұрын

@@Bonko78 _"My assumption is that he is always the man in the box"_ If that's the case, then why have the line _“I didn’t know if I’d be the man in the box….. or the prestige”?_ He wasn't always the man in the box. It alternated. Sometimes he'd be in the box, sometimes he'd be the prestige. It was a gamble each time. The original Angiers clearly died long ago and who knows how many incarnations of him transpired into the final Angiers who Borden kills.

@StarkRG

2 ай бұрын

@@rustincohle2135 At least as many as there are tanks at the end.

@rustincohle2135

2 ай бұрын

@@StarkRG You mean at most as many tanks. Some of the Angiers in those tanks would just be clones, not the current original.

It will never not be funny to me that when Danton's wife dies in the beginning, on stage we have Batman and Wolverine but they let Alfred the Butler swing the ax

@TheJamieRamone

2 ай бұрын

Bro, I'll never be able to un-picture that in my mind! 🤣

@lokithecat7225

2 ай бұрын

There's no irony in Black Widow sleeping with both of them... cause she's a dedicated spy.

@csurampower

2 ай бұрын

We have two Alfred's in the movie with Andy Serkis showing up, as well.

Sooooo many little hints and allusions to the ending reveal. From when the little boy was crying about the birds "brother" dying and him calling him clever, to the both of them watching the old Chinese magician doing the goldfish bowl trick and Christian Bales character saying that him OFF the stage was the real trick. Because he knew that "living the lie" was the hard part that made the trick easy.

@commsense1979

2 ай бұрын

Not to mention the boy crying about the bird happens right before Bale "re-appears" inside of her apartment. It's impossible, yet most of us just go "oh he's a great magician". We want to be fooled.

The film is structured like the process of a magic trick. Act 1 ends with the wife drowning or the pledge, Act 2 ends with Angier stepping into the machine for the first time ("and here at the turn, I must leave you"). The ending of Act 3 is the reveal of Borden to Angier, or the prestige. The Borden twins actually have distinct personalities. The first of them (who loved Scarlett Johansson) is obsessed with performing magic tricks and is loud, confrontational, and quick to anger. He's the one who tied the double knot and killed Angier's wife in the process. He's also the one who got his fingers shot off by Angier and was ultimately jailed and hanged at the end. The second twin (who loved Sarah) is much more quiet, measured, and approachable. His talent is he's really good at deciphering how other magicians perform their tricks. Chronologically, we first see him when he and Angier go to figure out how the fish bowl trick is done. He is also the one who shows up at the funeral to pay his respects and says he doesn't know which knot was tied (he really didn't know and was telling the truth!). Tesla did build a machine for Borden when he and Angier's rivalry over the transported man trick started heating up, but it was just glorified set dressing, a machine that gave off electricity overhead. The trick was still performed by the twins as usual, there were no clones involved. Angier still believed Borden was just one man and that Tesla really had built Borden a teleporting machine. Angier asked Tesla to build one that could do the same thing, but better. Since Tesla was staring his last financial resource in the face he agreed to do it. Tesla did in fact succeed in building such a device for Angier, with the unintentional side effect of creating copies of beings or objects ("These things never quite turn out the way you expect them to"). Through science, Tesla inadvertently created a machine that could do REAL magic and you could calibrate how close or far away to send the duplicate. Tesla wanted Angier to destroy it because, well think about it: creating endless armies, endless resources to invade the world with if it fell into the wrong hands and such. Lord Caldlow is actually Angier's real name. Angier is his stage name. He came from a wealthy family who didn't approve of his interest in magic. He was a great showman but to fellow magicians his methods were amateur at best ("I can spot Angier's methods from the back of the theater"). Borden was good at magic tricks, but terrible at selling the crowd on them ("He's a wonderful magician, he's a terrible showman"). The first time you see Angier and Borden as magician's assistants walking up on stage you'll notice that Borden just walks up the stairs directly over to Angier's wife, whereas Angier faces the crowd, smiles and bows, putting on a show.

Was Tesla a wizard? No..... but also yes.

@charlize1253

2 ай бұрын

Tesla was a genius with electricity, he invented alternating current (AC) which powers the world today. The scene with the light bulbs in the ground was a real experiment he used to prove that electricity could be safely transmitted through the ground without wires. In another famous experiment, he held light bulbs in his hands and let electricity course through his body to light them. He believed that electricity could be transmitted through the atmosphere, without cables and without utility companies, for the world to use for free, but died before proving it. Unfortunately he was also an eccentric madman, so when he died, nobody else could duplicate his work.

@P-Mouse

2 ай бұрын

+

I have to say the late David Bowie was a decent actor in the few movies he did.

@LordVolkov

2 ай бұрын

Have you seen Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence? He's phenomenal.

@rogermorris9696

2 ай бұрын

@@LordVolkov Yes, and The Ma Who Fell To Earth seems to have been written for him.

@jerodast

2 ай бұрын

I like Bowie's music pretty well but I *love* him as an actor.

@hellomark1

2 ай бұрын

Which one was his best role and why was it Zoolander?

This is one of my favourite films ever. And i think it is one of those practically perfect movies. It has everything to keep one guessing, and even when the prestige is revealed, you can't help but want to go back and watch it all again to pick up every nuanced hint along the way.

Tesla was a genius with electricity, he invented alternating current (AC) which powers the world today. The scene with the light bulbs in the ground was a real experiment he used to prove that electricity could be safely transmitted through the ground without wires. In another famous experiment, he held light bulbs in his hands and let electricity course through his body to light them. He believed that electricity could be transmitted through the atmosphere, without cables and without utility companies, for the world to use for free, but died before proving it. Unfortunately he was also an eccentric madman, so when he died, nobody else could duplicate his work.

@ygkemosabi8280

2 ай бұрын

or the government did it... lol

@larrybremer4930

2 ай бұрын

Tesla worked for Edison, but Edison's ego kept him from recognizing Tesla was right about AC for transmission of power so eventually they had a falling out with Tesla leaving and licensing his own AC power patents to Westinghouse which handily beat out Edison's DC. If Edison had won the power wars there would be a powerhouse every few blocks, that is how bad DC would have been to build a power grid on. DC cannot be transmitted over long distance without significant voltage drop, however AC power can can easily increase its voltage lost to transmission line resistance using transformers and stepped down at the consumer which brings up the current as voltage is lowered. AC also meant you could use extremely high voltage, low current to long range transmission of power which did not require super sized wires to conduct the power. On top of all that an AC generator is much simpler than a DC Dynamo. Tesla was a genius in every regard.

@Enrique-Garcia

2 ай бұрын

I've heard that Tesla actually achieved over-the-air electrical transmission, but because none of his documents or records remain, no one could duplicate his work.

@larrybremer4930

2 ай бұрын

@@Enrique-Garcia Using air as a dielectric is nothing new. We can transmit power through air today, but it would be horribly impractical. Any time you receive a radio signal you are pulling power from the air. The radio waves are magnetic fields that your antenna converts into a tiny voltage and current (literally micro volts and amps) that came from a source usually operating a 50k watt transmitter. Tesla however built basically a huge tesla coil. It did not generate sparks but it would put free electrons into the air (a static charge) that could be tapped if near enough. There was no magical secret lost, it was just a technological dead end that has been hyped into a myth. The problem with transmitting power electromagnetically (which is far more efficient than electrostatically) is the same as transmitting radio or even your average light bulb. The energy declines roughly at distance to the power of pi or roughly losing 75% every time you double the distance from the source.

@Stevarooni

2 ай бұрын

"Free" electricity is a dream...even Tesla had to generate the electricity he was transmitting.

We do actually get a full close up of Fallon: right at the end when he visits Borden in prison and Borden tells him 'I'm sorry about Sarah.'

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

yes just very very sparing which made me say hmmmmmmm something's up

@BenjWarrant

2 ай бұрын

@@ShanelleRiccio Well, by that time Nolan has established Fallon as just a functionary, someone who designs the tricks but isn't really important, so you aren't looking to spot similarities with his brother.

@ericmm6822

2 ай бұрын

@@ShanelleRiccio Nolan knows how to do misdirection too!

@playerx3546

2 ай бұрын

@@ShanelleRiccio Please Watch The Spiderman Trilogy ( 2002 - 2007 ) Please :D APRIL 27, 2024

12:22 - No Shanelle, you can do that "wireless incandescent lamp" trick at home by building a Tesla coil. The Colorado Springs site was just a large scale test of wireless electricity transmission over a distance.

Technically, there are no clones. As Tesla told Angier, all the hats are his. The machine creates a paradox where the same person exists as two separate people each w/ their own consciousness. It's not even a guarantee that the original consciousness still exists after the 1st time that he used the machine. But in that 1st instance, the Angier inside the machine shoots the one outside of it. Hence, for the 2nd instance in which he uses the machine (the demonstration to the promoter), his POV is that he'll be the one who's about to drown and "go home" like Julia. "It takes everything" to steal the trick, after all. But then, of course, the prestige experiences being the transported man. Due to the memories of surviving inside the machine the 1st time and then outside of the machine for all the other times, he says to Borden that he doesn't actually know whether the person who enters the machine ends up living or dying. Alternatively, it's also possible that the Angier who shot the revolver eventually acknowledged that he may not even be the one who prepared the gun and walked into the machine to begin with, especially if he FELT some kind of effect. As for Borden's side of the story, you'll find that the surviving brother at the end, Alfred, was mostly caught in the crossfire between Freddy & Robert. Hence, while far from innocent, he's the one who gets the somewhat happy ending.

The Prestige and The illusionist are a natural double-feature imo

@AlleyKatPr0

2 ай бұрын

Well, apart from the ridiculous accent that Edward Norton uses. Sorry to ruin the movie for you, but, it is a dreadful accent.

What's interesting about the whole "which character are we supposed to like" is that clearly we are, as you said, supposed to be muddy on them both..... but there's a decent amount of evidence that the one twin was a far better man than the other, and it was only his brother who matched Angiers competitive obsession. This good twin made the effort to attend Angiers wife's funeral. He lets go of the feud and tells his brother to just leave Angiers alone, but his brother cannot. Luckily, we know he's the one who survives with his actual daughter at the end.

From the world of Thor quote: “Magic is science that we don’t understand yet.”

@Henrik_Holst

2 ай бұрын

which really is a copy of an older C Clark quote: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

@MrDevintcoleman

2 ай бұрын

Which is a repackaging of Arthur C. Clark’s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

@eddhardy1054

2 ай бұрын

Damn guys, you beat me to it. 😉😊

One of the greatest films of the 21st century, no argument. Borden wasn't attempting to do something bad to Angier at the end; he was trying to figure out how the trick worked - who knew Tesla would invent teleportation? - and the irony is that he was doing everything he could to smash the tank and save Angier, not realising that what was in front of him was one of two Angiers one of which *had* to die. In the warehouse where the second Angier did die, there's 99 tanks each with a dead Angier in it. Every night he started the trick knowing that one copy would live and the other copy would die. Angier is the bad guy in this film; Borden's a bit of a prick - otherwise Angier's wife would never have died - but he would never have set out to have Angier hanged, or even killed. He had a fantastic trick, and he waited years until he could bamboozle the whole of London with it, and Angier was furious that he couldn't figure it out, couldn't replicate it. Michael Caine had the answer all along: "he has a double". Angier was also incandescent that Borden had fooled him with the diary trick into thinking Tesla had the answer to how Borden's trick worked, but then Tesla managed to provide him with a teleportation trick anyway. Angier could just have become the most famous magician in the world, 'disappeared', and then live in comfort in the family mansion. Why did he have to put together a scheme to have Borden executed? That was nasty. In one sense, the biggest victim is Sarah; it's inexcusable that both Bordens should take turns in being her husband and driving her mad with confusion.

@jabecker21

2 ай бұрын

Bordon's only half a prick. There's the level-headed twin that ties the correct knot in the beginning and says "let him have his trick, we're done" at the end. Then there's the the twin that ties the wrong knot and goes under the stage at the end. At least the right twin got hanged.

@BenjWarrant

2 ай бұрын

@@jabecker21 You could be right. But neither of them is the sort of person to willingly endure 99 horrible deaths in order to get Angier unjustly hung.

@AlleyKatPr0

2 ай бұрын

@@BenjWarrant she hanged herself. and he was hanged. poetry.

@slonmish

2 ай бұрын

I agree. Behind all the bells and whistles too many people can't see that Angier was the malicious one, a true (multiple) murderer.

@jabecker21

2 ай бұрын

@@BenjWarrant You're correct that Angier must've always had it in him to do that but it never would've gotten to that point without Bordon pushing him. But of course, Bordon's plan to get rid of Angier was to trick him into moving to America, not frame him for murder, have him executed, and steal his child. That's a little over the top.

"Was Tesla a wizard?" Yes.

The end of the first watch of this movie is always fun. That time when you are sure that everything was withheld from you to make it work. Then you watch it for the second time, and you see just how wrong you are. Just how much is out in the open, hidden in plan sight. It's all misdirection and sleight of hand. The entire movie is constructed like a magic trick, and it isn't complete until you've had the experience of a second watch. Now you know how the trick is done, but rather than the magic being gone, you have an entirely new respect for the simplicity and execution of the illusion behind the trick.

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

yeah towards the end i was starting to be like OKAY why so little screen time on Fallon's face. He doesn't even speak! But he's definitely there. I feel like this was very very well done!!

@AlleyKatPr0

2 ай бұрын

The kid in the beginning, asking about the bird and his brother...little bits like this are hard to miss upon repeat viewing

As what seems to happen several times, there was another 'period' movie about magic in 2006 called the "Illusionist". This movie has its own twists along the way.

@BenjWarrant

2 ай бұрын

"Hey, I just heard. Paramount (or Fox, whatever) is doing a movie about magicians with a huge twist at the end." "What's the twist?" "I don't know." "OK, get some screenwriters on it and see if we can get ours out first. NOW."

@Wolvorine

2 ай бұрын

I actually like to watch Prestige & Illusionist as a double feature, they're both good.

@jerodast

2 ай бұрын

Prestige probably won that battle of hearts and minds, possibly just due to Nolan's...prestige :)

@mrpickmanb

2 ай бұрын

I saw The Illusionist in the theater and I think I figured out whole plot in the first 10 minutes.. and then I really just felt like I was waiting for the movie to end. I remember almost nothing else about it.

@Eidlones

2 ай бұрын

@@BenjWarrant Naw, this kindof thing tends to happen more often than you realize. It's just studios following trends and looking at what might be popular. Usually it ends up with a movie not being far enough along that they can just axe it without any serious loss, once they find out a similar movie is being made. Sometimes not, tho, like with this, or Dante's Peak/Volcano Less so, these days. Since 80% of all movies are based off of nostalgia/an already existing property. Less chances being taken on new IP

Brilliant movie from Chris Nolan, one of my favorite. The sequence with glowing light bulbs on the field in Colorado Springs, pure cinematic magic.

@jerodast

2 ай бұрын

The light bulbs is iconic, but I *love* the entrance shot of Tesla walking through the electric arcs. Maybe more fun knowing he's David Bowie haha. One of his finest stage entrances!

The bird trick exposes both Borden AND Angier's prestige. Such a brilliant "hiding in plain sight" aspect of the movie.

The Prestige is my favourite Nolan film. And Bowie as Nikola Tesla is the chef’s kiss.

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

that was pretty cool to find out!!

@jerodast

2 ай бұрын

Bowie just has this amazing quiet but unsettling but electric but casual presence as Tesla, it's one of my top 5 things he ever did I think.

@areskristoffer

2 ай бұрын

I would've gladly watched a Tesla biopic staring Bowie. Same with Kilmer as Doc Holliday. Some movies have a character I think could've been the main character & it would've been amazing. Forrest Gump but we follow Jenny instead. The Green Mile but just the perspective of the mouse Mr. Jangles...okay, maybe not that but you get the idea.

‘He came in to demand an answer and I told him the truth. That I have fought with myself over that night, one half of me swearing blind that I tied a simple slipknot, the other half convinced that I tied the Langford double. I can never know for sure.’ Love this line, when you know the twist, it has even more meaning, that the twins actually argued about what knot he tied, and ‘Freddy’ lied to his brother about tying the Langford Double.

The book had an additional layer of their great grandchildren going through the respective ancestor's journals, each having their own story that is related to what they discover in the reading.

Nolan did a good job adapting the novel. Was quite interesting.

The mystery and twists are the obvious high point of this film, but I think part of the reason this is one of my favorite movies is because it has an intensity underlying everything that gives the entire plot more punch. Lines like "I was lying. He was it was agony." aren't related to any of the plot twists, but it hits just as hard as the final reveal.

I love the slow reveal of all of the boxes lined up at the end, with a dead Hugh Jackman in each one.

“Was Tesla a Wizard guys?” All inventors are wizards. They make things appear that ordinary never existed before

15:38 Nobody really gives David Bowie the credit he deserves for his acting abilities.

This is truly one of my favorite films of all time. And with every subsequent watch, I find myself exponentially enjoying it more and more and more. It's brilliant storytelling and misdirection.

@kellyturner920

2 ай бұрын

Agreed. Out of my top-ten favorite films, Nolan occupies three slots, but this sits firmly at number 1.

This script is tight as hell. Three separate storylines are hurtling together and only collide at the final moment. There is not a single wasted frame in this film and it is Nolan's best.

This is the Nolan movie that really needs a second viewing to fully appreciate; a twin viewing, if you will. Tenet needs like four (which isn’t necessarily bad).

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

I want to see Tenet!

@loganessex699

2 ай бұрын

​@@ShanelleRiccio I want to see you see Tenet!

@Eidlones

2 ай бұрын

@@loganessex699 If she was confused by this... whooo boy, Tenet's gonna make her brain disintegrate. Which isn't a bash against her, Tenet is... needlessly obtuse about very hard to grasp concepts. Also I had a hard time hearing what they were saying a lot of the time (I don't get why Nolan is obsessed with that type of audio mixing)

@MarkHWillson

2 ай бұрын

@@Eidlones He is obsessed with it for the same reason a lot of other filmmakers try to omit as much dialogue as possible from their films: visual-first storytelling principles. In a lot of filmmakers' eyes, if their movie can be understood without sound on, then they have done their job correctly. Its an aspirational goal of the craft, not necessarily something the average audience member would or even should care about.

@leob4403

Ай бұрын

​@@MarkHWillsonwell he failed with Tenet because it's not good

"Was Tesla a wizard, guys?" Well, in a short answer, yes.

I imagine Christopher Nolan playing Diablo in the 90s, discovering the duplication glitch, and exclaiming, “What a twist!”

I was in high-school when this movie came out and I really liked it. One of my friends had seen it but misunderstood the ending. He thought that Bale's character was a magician and a clone, not twin brothers. He thought that he had originally gone to see Tesla, got cloned, and gave Jackman the real key to the trick. I told him that didn't make sense within the movie as we literally hear Jackman say "twins" when dying, so he went back to the theater to check and agreed with me.

13:18 - Who, Tesla? Nope. He died of an overdose of years.

@StarkRG

2 ай бұрын

Combined with a funding deficit. He probably could have lived longer had he not been destitute.

The look on their faces....it's literally why I feed off the pain and tears of others. I didn't get to feed this time but I shall

Sending you some love from across the pond in surprisingly sunny Scotland. 😊 Always great fun hanging with you on the channel!

This story is based on a book I read in the 90's! The movie is very close to what happens there, a great adaptation. Like most great magic tricks, the answer is in front of you for one thing all the time! The author is Christopher Priest.

I saw this movie in on the big screen, and I could tell that "Fallon" was wearing prosthetic makeup. Going by the eyes and the man's build, I figured it might be Christian Bale playing the role, I just didn't know why. I had forgotten about Michael Caine theorizing that Borden must have used a double in his trick, which was exactly right.

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

it's funny I assumed Fallon was the double the entire time and traveled with the show. and the bearded look was his natural state. The thing that was seemingly fishy was how little time we spent on his face, and he barely talked!

@CineRam

2 ай бұрын

@@ShanelleRiccio Yeah, he didn't speak at all! Definitely raised my suspicions.

@johanwilhelmsson1199

2 ай бұрын

For me it clicked in the scene where Fallon is captured. When he was shown walking from behind I realized that he had to be played by Christian Bale, because he had his distinctive gait.

The Prestige is a film that shows you something new each time you watch it. Really clever.

Wonderful reaction as always! On my first watch, I think I was still trying to keep pace with the twists and turns by the time it was all revealed. You're the only reactor I've seen guess Borden's secret in advance, and it's crazy you got it from such subtle hints. Saying all that... please don't give yourself a hard time about understanding things perfectly. Sure you guess wrong or misunderstand scenes every once in a while, but it never makes your video any worse. It's interesting to see how a movie can be interpreted differently, and those reactions are just as enjoyable as this one. You're a great creator and the fun is in seeing your unique take.

This movie does a great job depicting how rivalry can escalate into enmity. Each man feels like the scales aren’t balanced, and they are so fixated on having the last word that they burn down their lives.

Borden vs Angier angle. It's kind of tricky. Between the two of them alone, Border is certain the better person. What he did to Angier at the start was an accident that Angier's wife was fine with. If you ever rewatch the scene, you'll see her give a nod to Borden to go ahead with the other knot. The rest was basically payback for what Angier was doing to him. But the other angle is, Borden isn't great in his own right because of what he puts Olivia and Sarah through. In the end, I'm still on Borden's side. He didn't stoop to the level of Angier of intentionally putting someone's life at risk when he buried Fallon. Not until the end when Borden killed Angier for getting his brother killed.

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

I'm actually entirely with you! I think we're meant to be on Borden's side because he's playing defense and trying to do right by his daughter

@jerodast

2 ай бұрын

Angier's reaction to his double is a perfect psychological test. What do you do if you're alone in a room with your clone? Some people think "cool, this person is me, think of what we can do together!" Other people think "oh my god, this person is me - I better kill him." That interpretation ties into his thirst for the spotlight. He wanted the applause, every time. He didn't want to clone himself once and then have to share the glory, even with himself.

In any magic show, the assistant is the magician, the 'Magician' is the misdirect.

My favorite Nolan film after The Dark Knight. Also, My wife and I have been together for almost 18 years ... we saw this film on our first date.

When asked what person living or dead you'd choose to have a conversation with i'd choose Nikola Tesla. I'd ask him to keep it simple haha

Glad you mentioned that Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale looked somewhat alike in this movie… I actually found that confused me quite a bit, especially in the early part of the movie because I was having trouble keeping track of which of them was which in terms of remembering who had done what to whom. I thought it was just me, but perhaps it was a deliberate extra layer of confusion. This is a great film for sure. Great reaction as always! 👍

My favorite scenes: Tesla: Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine? Angier: Price is not an object. Tesla: Perhaps not, but have you considered the COST?! Cutter: This wasn't made by an engineer. This was made by a WIZARD!

If you want another great movie about magic then watch the "The Illusionist" featuring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel and Rufus Sewell.

many of the tricks seen in the movie were early versions of actual magic tricks. the bullet catch was a real illusion that was actually dangerous as there were reports of the selected spectator dropping a metal ball bearing or other shrapnel into the barrel just before shooting the magician, severally injuring or killing the magician. The vanishing bird cage used a series of pulleys and wires hidden under the magician's coat and actually did kill the bird in the cage. Also if a spectator had their fingers inside of the cage, their fingers were crushed or even cut off. The cages were also known to get caught in the sleeves of the coat, causing injury to the magician's arms. Later versions of the cage used a rubber bird inside the cage and designed newer safety features to prevent injury to the magician and assistant.

The Prestige is my favorite Christopher Nolan film. I've always loved magic, so this movie checked all of the boxes for me. I'm so glad you finally watched it!

The bullet-catching trick was very popular in the nineteenth century, but more or less abandoned by the end of the century because too many things could go lethally wrong. In one case, a credulous spectator, actually believing that the magician could catch bullets, fired his own gun at him in order to see him do so again. I understand that new versions of the trick have started being performed again in recent years.

The fact that the machine cloned things instead of teleporting them was the glitch that Tesla couldn't quite fix. The idea that teleportation doesn't quite work the way you think is an idea that occasionally pops up in science fiction. I know there's a short story from the point of view of someone being teleported, and there's an issue where the receiving end doesn't acknowledge a successful transport. The story teller gradually realizes the technology doesn't teleport people, it duplicates them, and once the duplication is confirmed as successful, the 'original' is immediately killed.

This is a movie that you will like more and more the more times you watch it. Seriously, if you watched it 10 times in 10 weeks you'd notice new hints and clues on the 10th watch. I think its Nolans best movie by a country mile

The double named "Root" - in systems admin, if you are root, or have root privileges, then you can control everything, in the film, Angier has control of the act for as long as he controls Root, which is lost when Borden interrupts.

Continue the great work Shanelle !!!!!!

The Borden/Fallon twin brothers played by Christian Bale has different personalities, one is more cunning, evil and obsessed, the other is more kind, nice and less obsessed! One loved Sarah and one loved Olivia! And than the Fallon guy Bale also played was more subtle!

This movie is unique in that it really rewards audience intelligence and attention span. Nolan doesn't insult his audience by assuming they are dumb.

@leob4403

Ай бұрын

Well at least until he made Tenet and Oppenheimer, which were stupid moview

Didn't include my favourite line from Hugh Jackman in the film. "It took courage to climb into that machine. Every night, not knowing if I'd be the man in the box or the Prestige"

I fucking LOVE this movie. It came out around the same time as “The Illusionist”, which is also PHENOMENAL

David Bowie as Nikola Tesla is such great casting, as well as Andy Serkis as Mr. Alley (Tesla's assistant).

My favourite movie of all time. It’s a great rewatch, I strongly suggest you watch it again as soon as possible, while your memory is still fresh. The number of nuances you’ll spot are astounding. I’ve seen it at least a hundred times (and it’s a conservative number lol) and I still pick up new things once in a while

I think you are initially meant to root for Angier, to sympathize with him over the loss of his wife, etc., and dislike Borden for the callous ambiguity in his responsibility in her death. But it's Angier's obsession for revenge that ultimately drives the film and their antagonistic relationship, and he would always push it the farthest, ultimately willing to literally sacrifice his own life to win. Angier did it for the prestige (pun intended lol), but the Borden's did it for the love of the craft. Regardless of the motivations though, they both made sacrifices to achieve their goals. This was probably the first Nolan movie I saw and it blew my mind at the time. I can't remember now when I figured it out, but Nolan was of course very intentional in telling the story to keep the films prestige hidden until the very end... like most of his and Jonathan's work lol

@jerodast

2 ай бұрын

I agree with that. In the end neither Borden had much malice whereas Angier was driven to get revenge. The worst thing Bordens did by far was either underestimate how much they were torturing Sarah, or not care enough to change it.

@AdamNisbett

2 ай бұрын

I feel like personally both Angiers and the Borden twin that was more interested in pushing the act (and loved ScarJo’s character) were both unsavory, while the Borden twin that loved Sarah was the one good guy. Yes, I think he probably should have recognized the torture of Sarah and quit the partnership with his brother (or at very least get her in on the secret and quit doing the double life on her), but it’s somewhat understandable that he had longstanding history and probably a lifelong agreement to this act with his brother. The really cruel stuff to Sarah all happened when his brother was Borden and we did see him try to reign in his brother - he just wasn’t able to.

The scene during the funeral where he asked what knot he tied, he really didn’t know because it was his twin that was the one tying it instead

Time really is the running theme across most of Nolan's films

The actor who plays the magician at the beginning is played by Ricky Jay, a real life magician.

Something I heard about Christopher Nolan movies that I can't forget is how a bunch of his movies are secretly ABOUT MOVIES. The Prestige goes on and on about how to structure a good magic trick, but it works almost line for line to describe how the movie itself is structured. In Inception a lot of the lines describing the way dreams work also describe how movies work (scenes beginning in the middle, our brains accepting distorted reality as long as it doesn't go too far). Memento matches memory up with how scenes deliver information to the audience. Great movie all around, very gripping, fun twists and turns. Enjoyed seeing you pick up on as much as you did. You definitely noticed a lot more than I did on my first watch, I never thought about how we never got a good look at Fallon during the movie. Good stuff.

I first watched this movie on a plane, was going through the options and the trailer had me hooked. I think i watched it again on the return flight, enjoyed matching each scene to which version of Borden it was

The prestige is like the 6th sense…. Its made to make you want to rewatch it to see all the clues you missed in the first viewing

The tragedy of the trick being so simple it was said from jump. It was a movie about the depths of obsession

The locations, sets and costumes are gorgeous.

This is a great movie. The small element of fantasy that is the cloning machine represents the length to which Jackman's character is willing to go to upstage his rival. He didn't understand how Borden performed his trick, and while it turns out to be the simplest answer possible (a twin brother), Angier takes his own trick to such ridiculous levels that he actually clones himself over and over just to be the better magician. The dedication from both these men, to essentially commit suicide every evening and to keep a twin brother a secret to your friends and family, became their mutual downfall. It's fantastic movie writing and one of Nolan's best imho.

The appearing fish bowl and performer is loosely based on American magician William Ellsworth Robinson who used the stage name Chung Ling Soo. One of his signature performances was the appearing fish bowl as seen in the movie. Robinson fooled many people for years while performing as Soo. He wore yellow face makeup and never spoke English while in public He conducted 100s of interviews with acting as his translator. Soo would speak gibberish that sounded like he was speaking Chinese. Robinson was killed on stage in London performing the Bullet catch in 1918. He was 56 years old.

I saw it in theaters. I've seen it many times since. I love this movie so much!

12:05 Wireless electric transfer is a real thing. It's not very practical because it only works short distances, but it was something Tesla was working on. He was trying to get the government to fund his research into it by promising them he could develop a death beam for them.

Great reaction Shan!

My mania has been horrible lately and I’ve been struggling bc of it. Glad to see you enjoyed this movie! ❤❤❤

How can you go wrong when you got Batman, two different Alfred's, Wolverine, Black Widow,and David freaking Bowie all in the same movie 🤣🤣

My twin probably already beat me to mentioning this, but this movie 100% deserves to be watched more than once -- on a 2nd viewing you see that basically every other line is a double-entendre, which adds a whole other dimension of richness to an already outstanding film.

34:15 yeah, that was my one complaint with this movie is that the whole movie was presented as if it was in a real world setting and then we suddenly are meant to believe we’ve shifted into an alternate universe where different laws of physics apply. (I think in reality the scriptwriters just intend for us to believe that creating matter from nothing is in fact possible with enough scientific knowledge, but I personally find that a bit too far to accept.) I haven’t actually read it, but my understanding is that the novel has a lot more fantasy style references all throughout so it’s not so much of a jarring shift in perspective to it accept the fantasy elements as fitting in with the world building.

It works because they repeatedly parade the characters in disguise. But from our viewpoint, obvious disguise. We know it's Nolan, so we're watching for it. We continually see through the disguise so we're conditioned to see ourselves as insiders in this particular regard. We're still "watching closely" for other tricks, of course; we're just unsuspicious of disguises. Then, at the end, they reveal a level of disguise to which we've been kept outside. It doesn't occur to us that there are insider disguises and outsider disguises. It really all pivots on this, as I see it.

You're right about Nolan keeping "Fallon" out of focus. I think it might have been *too* clever, though. For some people, that just made it obvious that Fallon's identity was the key to the whole thing; for others, it made it hard to remember that he was even part of the story. It's a hard balance to weigh.

@PaperbackWizard

2 ай бұрын

By the way, the book kind of cheats on Borden's trick. It has Angier early on research the possibility that Borden has a twin, but sees records that say Borden was a single birth. Then, at the end, it says Borden went back and falsified the records.

I loved this movie, it's very engaging, a true mystery / psychological thriller. I didn't realise there were quite so many time jumps - what a great piece of movie trivia! I wasn't sure I understood the full story even at the end, needs a second watch for sure.

"You must be Lord Caldlow." "Yes, I always have been." Money was never an issue for him & he took an alias to spare his family the shame of his theatrics.

love love love this film. still not sure if i'm happy or sad that i read the book before the movie was made, because the twists and turns would have been awesome to experience for the first time in this medium.

Compare and contrast with Nolan's earlier film, _Memento,_ which is also a story about how do we know what is true, and what happens when people conceal the truth from us. It also features time as an important element of the plot.

My Favorite Nolan Film!! Shoot good!!! To this day, it still gives me the chills!!!

Underrated Chris Nolan film

22:17 - I can't help but be reminded of the previous scene with Tesla...and the movie Multiplicity. 😉

If you want an interesting take on wizards, I recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell. This is a miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Susanna Clarke. Set in 19th century Britain around the time of the Napoleonic Wars, it also tells a tale of rivalry between two practitioners of magic, but this time the magic is real. Of course others become involved as well including King George, members of Parliament, the Duke of Wellington, and the King of the Good Folk among others. I'm so glad to see someone finally react to The Prestige and do it so well. Thank you.

I never really figured this one out until the reveal (or should i say, prestige) at the end. I was too enthralled in the story to really put any thought into it. If you haven't seen it yet. I HIGHLY suggest what in my opinion is one of if not the best performance from Hugh Jackman, Prisoners. It is a great film. You should give it a look.

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

I caught Prisoners when it came out, I LOVED -- so hard to watch too

I'm a disabled vet with chronic pain & often can't go to sleep. This a.m., I turned on my T.V. around 2 a.m. & caught the last 30 min. of a movie I had never heard of until this past yr. The movie stars 2 of the biggest stars of Hollywood, William Powell & Carole Lombard. The movie is "My Man Godfrey" (1936) a sophisticated comedy. As a child, I loved the "Thin Man" movies starring William Powell & Myrna Loy. This movie was made 11 yrs. before I was born but I find it worth watching over & over again. Do yourself a favor & watch this gem of a movie. "My Man Godfrey" (1936).

Bowie as Tesla .... Chef's kiss

Thanks, Shanelle! 🪄 I love this one. I'm so fortunate to have seen it on the big screen.

Awesome movie. TENET is Nolans most ambitious film yet u should watch that next.

@ShanelleRiccio

2 ай бұрын

I actually really want to see that one!

I understand that there's a push to put Borden in a more sympathetic light and Angier as more villainous. But to me I just can't get past the fact that most of the tragedy in the story is a result of the Borden's actions. Because of their obsession to maintain the transported man illusion, they set Angier on his revenge fueled tangent after his wife died. They are also responsible for the suicide of the wife of the brother, by not explaining what was going on to her.

@LordVolkov

2 ай бұрын

It's a movie about a villain who destroys his own life with deception... His deception kills his wife He makes Angier into a monster and loses his brother who takes the fall for him I guess he gets to win by getting his daughter back, but he's legally dead now 😅

@jerodast

2 ай бұрын

He is only responsible for the accidental death of Piper Perabo's character due to a gamble *she agreed to* , not another man's obsessive desire for revenge. Even his own revenge for getting his fingers shot off was comparatively mild. However his slow torture of his own wife was inexcusable.