I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #176 - The Prestige (2006, dir. Christopher Nolan)

One of the best ways to flummox movie audiences is to release two very similar movies within a few months of each other. At some point, a majority will pick one Truman Capote, one asteroid headed for Earth, one erupting volcano, or one talking pig. Although success, either commercial or critical, can help tandem movies like these break away from the association with another film, some of these works languish forever in a blurry region of pop cultural memory. As odd as it may sound, two different, stylish movies about magicians set in Europe during the late 1800s arrived in theaters in the fall of 2006. Whereas The Illusionist amounts to little more than a predictable, yet pleasant looking vehicle for Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, The Prestige holds up as an absorbing statement on obsession and sacrifice, a well-paced and riveting mystery, and one of Christopher Nolan’s most satisfying films.

Just over a year after Christopher Nolan kicked off his Dark Knight Trilogy with Batman Begins, he recruited Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman to play the leads in an adaptation of Christopher Priest’s novel about rival magicians. Bale and Jackman earned their reputations as charismatic, bankable action stars as the two most important characters of the modern era of comic book movies. As Batman and Wolverine, respectively, these actors set the bar for portraying the kind of flawed, morally ambiguous heroes who have become the standard for contemporary action movies. Nolan leveraged the talent and range of these actors by challenging them with roles that stretched beyond their well-known characters and allowed both actors to add distinctive, new performances to their bodies of work. As Alfred Borden, the industrious, working class magician who blends technical mastery of his craft with a willingness to take risks, Christian Bale creates a character who can shift from sympathetic and admirable in one scene to emotionally distant and ruthless in the next. In the role of Robert Angier, a mysterious performer with a flair for showmanship that compensates for his humble talents in magic, Hugh Jackman depicts an enterprising dreamer whose considerable ambition slowly gives way to an all-consuming desire to prevail over his adversary. Borden and Angier begin working together as assistants for a successful, yet complacent magician, but a pivotal, tragic event during a show causes a rift between them that sparks the epic competition that comes to dominate the rest of their lives. Michael Caine lends his remarkable abilities to the role of Cutter, a magician’s engineer who serves as a mentor to both Borden and Angier, and supplies the film with its conscience. As Sarah, Rebecca Hall gives the film its heart by demonstrating the true cost of Borden and Angier’s conflict through a harrowing, memorable, and nuanced breakout performance.

Although The Prestige is a work of fiction, it draws upon historical details like Nikola Tesla’s scientific experiments in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This element of the plot not only allows Nolan to include several beautiful sequences filmed in Colorado, but also gives David Bowie the opportunity to inhabit the role of the brilliant, otherworldly Tesla. Although a cameo like this could easily distract from the rest of the movie, Bowie’s presence enhances the whole film and endures as one of his last great acting roles. When I went out one cool Friday evening in Vermont eleven years ago to see this movie, I wasn’t entirely sure what I might experience. At that point I had seen a couple of Nolan’s other films, but I didn’t have any notable preconceptions of him as a director. That night, The Prestige presented me with one of my favorite of life’s simple, yet elusive pleasures: the unexpected.

-         John Parsell