Dear reader,
today I want to introduce you to a movie with
magicians and about magic. No, of course not Harry Potter! Probably
everyone knows that magician already, even those among you, who
didn't read the books or watched the movies know enough for me not to
write about him in my blog.
The movie “Prestige” is from 2006 with Christian
Bale as Alfred Borden and Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier. Borden and
Angier work together at first. Although Borden is the younger
magician and more a helper or stooge playing an audience member. One
day an escapology act goes terribly wrong though and Angier's wife,
who is bound underwater in a watertank dies. Since Borden as an
audience member tied the important knot, Angier makes him responsible
for the death of his wife. Needless to say that they go their
separate ways after that. Although not quite, because both spend a
lot of time to bust the other and being the better, if not the best
magician.
Both develop a number: they go into one cabinet and
seconds later, the step out from a second cabinet. That's the main
principle of the big number they both have. Is Borden using a double?
But Angier, in one of his bustings hurts Borden that he actually lost
fingers on one hand and Borden stepping into the cabinet as well as
the one stepping out are missing those fingers. Angier on the other
hand (no pun intended) is travelling from great britain to america to
meet the physicist Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). Tesla really existed
and was famous for unusual inventions. To this day it's not known how
some of his inventions he presented actually worked. In “Prestige”
we see that he hands Angier a light-bulb which then lights up in his
hand like that. But are feats and inventions like that enough to give
Angier a second man?
Angier wants to destroy Borden desperately and
definitely. That means that he has to set him up. During a
performance Borden gets to enter the backstage area and sees Angier
seemingly trapped in the watertank. The top lid can't be opened
anymore. Angier drowns. This leads to a trial. Borden, meanwhile with
a wife and a daughter, faces a possible death sentence. His life up
to that point is the main part of the movie. In prison, waiting for
his execution, Borden gets a visitor. Only when that man tells Borden
that he'll take care of his daughter from now on and is about to
leave, does Borden recognise that man. It's Angier! So Borden is no
murderer!
At the end both magicians paid a high price for their
big number and they know the secret of the other ones trick and what
that trick has cost him.
For me “Prestige” is something special, because
I'm interested in magic and do a bit of magic myself. I guarantee you
that almost all tricks are real and possible, the way they are
presented. The tricks are actually learnt and performed in front of
the camera by the actors, quite unlike “The Illusionist”. “The
Illusionist” is very disappointing in that regard, because many
things would be real, but were quite visibly, at least for me, done
with “film tricks”. “Prestige” is as real in the magic it
shows as it can be with a movie like that.
A couple of magic notes and anecdotes for those interested:
- Teslar isn't the only real person in "Prestige". In a performance Borden sees a chinese, Chung Ling Soo, who deceived the world (including Harry Houdini!) In reality he was an american by the name of William Ellsworth Robinson. But the first and only english words he ever spoke on stage would be shortly before his death, "My God, I've been shot."
- He was shot performing the so called "Bullet Catch", a classic magic trick, which Borden will perform in the movie, too. Robinson is one of the 11 magicians, who didn't take enough precautions, which cost them their lives.
- Other classic magic tricks performed in the movie are: the water tank (made famous by Harry Houdini especially), the "chinese linking rings", coin magic, the bullet catch. I don't know what the trick is called, but Angier tries to do one once where different objects are revealed from the long coat of the magician, usually ending with the revelation of a huge bowl filled with water and a gold fish in it.
I admit I haven't seen the movie in a long time. So I can't think of any more notes and anecdotes just now. Probably I missed some. If I should think of more, I'll add them here later. Anyway, the movie is a real pleasure for me to watch as someone interested in magic and sort of performer in magic myself, I love it for the relation to reality and because almost all of the tricks can be done that way, as you see them.
Also I like the soundtrack by David Julyan a lot.
The movie was made on the basis of the book by Christopher Priest with the same title. Like so often the case, the book is different from the movie. Angier and Boden never worked together. Angier's wife never died, but was pregnant and lost her baby because of Borden. The book is separated in different parts as diary entries which one reads and the rivalry goes on for several generations. The history of magic is more fleshed out. The background story of what life was like for the two magicians before they were on stage performing can be read. The book is different. Film and book are just two different media with their individual ways of story telling and creating suspense.
Until next blog,
sarah
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