M&M: Prestige

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.

My top favourite scene of all in the movie is when Borden is in prison and gives the warden a wipe. He does that with a combination of two main principles. He shows the warden a ball and throws him in the air. Once. That's supposed to be a magic trick? A second time. Okay, we get it now. On the third throw we look up and often the magician doesn't throw the ball really at that time. The human eye is used to the routine of the ball in the air, it looks like the ball vanishes in thin air. The second principle is to seemingly let the trick go wrong. The magician looks like an idiot. When Borden throws the ball a third time, he doesn't catch it and the ball drops off the table. The great magician is in prison for murder and can't even escape like Houdini, and then he can't even catch a ball properly.The warden likes that, of course, up until...

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

My motivation room

Dear reader,

I'm currently still living with my parents. So I can't make the whole flat the way I would, if it was my own. I'm not sure what I would change if it was my own. Anyway, today I want to write about my room.

You know, I was quite happy when in 2008 "The Dark Knight" came out. I didn't rush into the cinema, like probably many others did, to see one of the last movies with Heath Ledger. I had seen the first Christopher Nolan Batman movie, "Batman Begins" already and liked that. So it was quite natural for me to go and see the second and yes, I'm going to see the third and last one, too! What made me so happy about "The Dark Knight"? The Joker posters. Not because of Heath Ledger, but because of what it read on them: "Why So Serious?" I got a poster where the Joker is on it and wrote that line in blood. I had the poster on my door for a while. Now the poster is replaced by some other lines, I'm going to describe to you in a bit. "Why so serious?" helped me a lot for some time. It served as a reminder to smile. Even if it was a forced smile for the moment. The question seemed appropriate. Why walk around looking miserable so much? I forgot who it was and actually forgot the exact words of the quote, but it's something to the extend of: "Whether you smile or look sad, time keeps ticking anyway. So you may as well smile." The Joker's line was shorter though.

Now the only thing that reminds me or anybody of TDK are the three mini-posters on my wardrobe walls. I have three doors and it seemed fitting to put one poster up on each. The one furthest on the left has Harvey Dent's face with his right hand up holding one of his "I believe in Harvey Dent" badges hiding the right side of his face. The door in the middle has Batman's face with his right hand up holding one of his bat-boomerangs, whatever you call them, those bat things he throws sometimes. That, too, covers the right side of his face. On the right side has the Joker's face with his right hand up holding a Joker playing card hiding his right side of the face. I like those posters. Harvey is my favourite, because he's the character I like best in the movie. I have one of those badges now, by the way.

So then there's my desk. It stays in such a way that I sit right across from a wall. And I have one small bookshelf right on my desk and another on the wall a bit further up. The one on the wall has several postit's notes stuck to it. One reads "It's not over until it's over. Yogi Berra", another reads: "Like my mother used to tell me - if you're good at something, never do it for free. The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos: it's fair." Those three sentences are said by the Joker in the movie. I think the Joker's mom had a good advice. The other two lines are... debatable, I guess. Here's another sticker: "Who knows Master Wayne? You start pretending to have fun, you might even have a little by accident." That's a great line from "Batman Begins". Bruce Wayne's butler says it to him. Wayne is covered with bruises, because of his fights as Batman and the butler, rightly, says that Wayne would need some cover, some excuse for them. The butler suggests polo. Wayne doesn't like the idea at all. So that's when the butler says that line. He's so right. Sometimes we just need to do things, get started and it's not so bad after all.

That quote ties neatly into the movie "Love Happens". I know, it's a cheesy title, but it's really a nice movie. Not one of those stupid love-romance-flics you'd imagine it to be. And it has Aaron Eckhart in it, who played Harvey Dent in TDK. Anyway, the movie is about Burke Ryan, who lost his wife in a car accident a couple of years back. He got over his loss, or so he makes everyone believe anyway. He wrote a book about it and now does seminars to help others overcome their loss. Sometimes we hear Aaron Eckhart from the off citing lines from his book. One is this: "Devote five minutes a day to smiling, just smiling, and after a while it'll come naturally." (Funny enough at that moment we see him alone in his hotel room, sitting on the bed, staring blankly, looking very miserable.) I won't tell you what's up with him. You've got to see for yourself. There's no line from "Love Happens" at the shelf, but I love his advice and it just fits with the butler's quote. There are a couple of other quotes on those stickers, but they keep falling off on to the table. Also I'd advice you not to take my choices like that, but look for what fits for you. I picked those and some other lines, because they're special and mean something to me. I only write those for you to give you ideas of what may be working.

I wrote that my door doesn't have the Joker poster any longer. It has a couple of self-made papers. One has the first line Dracula said to Jonathan Harker as he enters the castle, although I took the liberty and changed one word for obvious reasons, here's the original line: "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will and leave some of the happiness you bring." Essentially it says that the person, who comes into my room, should bring and leave happiness. I like that idea. Sadness out, happiness in. Another paper has Charlie Chaplin sitting in front of a house on the steps, looking sad with only a dog next to him, like he's the only friend left for Charlie. I added a speech bubble with a quote from Charlie Chaplin, namely: "Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles." I think that's very important to keep in mind. We sometimes think that our troubles and problems have no end, but they do. Very important reminder. I wanted Charlie Chaplin to look sad on the picture though. Add a little bit of humor to the quote like that. (Much like Burk Ryan telling us to smile and sitting alone and sad in his hotel room.)

I have another late addition on the door. It's a german line, supposedly what a person suffering from dementia may ask. It reads: "Is it Monday or May today?" It's written in one of those old fonts, too. I just love it.

I also made a compilation of five of my favourite magicians one in each corner (among them Derren Brown and Harry Houdini, if you care to know) and the duo Penn & Teller in the middle. The line above them reads: "Hour youth income ache sad if stow watch oath ink." I think Milton Erickson would have liked that one. Hint: Read it aloud and listen to the sound of the words. If you catch me in a good mood, I may answer your message about that quote and tell you what it really means. That one's on my wall next to the bookshelves actually framed, too.

If you want some of my self-made posters, like the Charlie Chaplin one, drop me a message and I'll send it to you. I also made a compilation of lines of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight". I just don't know where to put it. It's several lines, among them those mentioned above, in different colours.

Go ahead, play with lines, stick some up at your place! I'd be happy to read your ideas and what you came up with, too! Drop me a message.

Until next blog,

sarah