The Prestige
Feb 19th, 2008 by trevelyan
There’s a point about a third of the way through The Prestige where we (the audience) are treated to a play within a play. A flashback shows an older magician performing a minor trick involving a disappearing/reappearing bird and collapsing cage. If you’ve seen the film you should remember the twist. If you haven’t you should skip this short review and rush out to rent it.
Getting down to details, what’s really interesting about this passage is the way it acts as a fable for the entire film. Not long after, Michael Caine’s character says something along the lines of “in this business you’ve got to be willing to get your hands dirty,” further cementing the marriage of entertainment and violence, a union which is visible writ-large in the narrative of The Prestige itself. The film starts with a murder involving two “brothers” who narratively and thematically double each other. Not conicidentally, the magic act in question also involves a “disappearing trick” and cage of death.
If I haven’t convinced you that this is intentional yet, consider that as the plot grows more complex, our fable strengthens reather than weakens. Instead of a single pair of doubled magicians, we are given two pairs who double both themselves as well as each other. The only thing that changes by the arrival of the film’s “prestige” is that its internal audience has disappeared: we are left as the sole observers for a magic act that is the film itself.
I’ve read others write elsewhere how The Prestige is at heart a film about obsession. I disagree. I think what it’s really doing is asking how much complicity we have for acts of violence performed for our (unknowing) entertainment. I don’t personally feel complicit in anything horrible (not owning a car helps), but I’m always charmed to be treated to such a neat structural twist in a film. The significance is just icing on the cake. This was a big step up from Memento: I’m looking forward to whatever the Nolan brothers put out next.
Final unrelated note: the head of casting gets extra points for putting David Bowie in a minor role. I’ve been listening to Heathen lately while coding, and especially the song Slow Burn. Great stuff.
While I agree that obsession usually implies a sin of commission and violence hidden from our sight implies a sin of omission on our part, the Prestige points out that obsession covers both types of sins: those committed by the actors and those of the audience that waits with bated breath for the accident (Michael Caine’s diatribe).
I do like the unthinking (”ooh magic!”) complicity argument, though. “It says hand-stitched in Pakistan, and you’re buying it retail for $15 in the US; just how much did you think the person that stitched it made?”
Good point.