What is Film?
Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige (2006), much like a magic trick, relies heavily on audience manipulation. Throughout the film, Nolan does a great job of manipulating the spectator and making them unsure of what is going on and who they should root for. Viewing the film under the guise of Ideological theory and trying to understand “how the director wants the world to be seen” leads me to believe that Nolan is making a statement about directors and film being much like a magician and a magic trick.
Perhaps Cutter says it best in the film, “The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled” –John Cutter from The Prestige (2006. I believe Nolan wants us to see the duality of the magician and the director. Each director looks for new and innovative ways to get people to watch their films. Spending a fortune even, just like Angier in the film, to make a film great.
“The world is on the brink of new and terrifying possibilities.” –Angier from The Prestige (2006)
With the scene of “The real transported man” it seems Nolan wants to send a message to the spectators that although, as Angier says, “What you are about to witness is not magic, it’s purely science,” the graphics of technology are no less mesmerizing and impressive than the trick of classic illusion.
Nolan also wants the spectator to grasp the dual meaning of the devotion to the art of directing being mirrored in the devotion to the craft of being a magician both by the old Asian magician, and by Borden and his twin. It takes a lot, too much, even, if we are to believe the movie’s metaphor to be literal, to pull off the greatest masterpiece.
