Bale, Jackman in talks for Nolan's 'Prestige'
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are in negotiations to topline Touchstone Pictures' "The Prestige," which will serve as Christopher Nolan's next directorial outing.
Bale and Jackman will play rival magicians in turn-of-the-century London who battle each other for trade secrets. The rivalry is so intense that it turns them into murderers. The title refers to the residue left after a magician's successful trick.
The script is based on Christopher Priest's 1996 novel of the same name and was adapted by Nolan's brother, Jonathan. He wrote the short story on which Christopher's Nolan's breakout movie, "Memento," was based on.
The movie will shoot in January with a budget around the $40 million range.
Nolan is producing with Aaron Ryder and Emma Thomas. Newmarket's William Tyrer and Chris Ball are executive producing. The movie was developed at Newmarket.
Nolan Talks Next
Batman filmmaker discusses sequel and new project.
Batman Begins helmer Christopher Nolan is making the rounds promoting the DVD release of his hit reinvention of the comic-based film franchise. We talked with Nolan on Tuesday about his current plans for the future of Batman and other upcoming projects.
Nolan says he intends to helm the next Batman movie, but was mum on the details. And it seems that fans will have to wait a bit for the next installment as Nolan confirmed that he'll be making another film first.
"I can't really talk about it other than to say that we are talking about doing a sequel right now," he says. "David [Goyer] and I have been talking about where we're taking the characters. ... We know what we're doing and we're pretty excited about it, but it's still very early. I'm actually making another film first that I'm just in preproduction on, so it's a bit of a ways off."
Although Nolan didn't toss us any Scarecrow casting possibilities, he did drop a couple of familiar names that are being eyed for his next project.
He says, "It's a film called The Prestige - the Christopher Priest novel. We start shooting in January and we're talking to Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale about starring."
Michael Caine has also been rumored to be up for a role in the project which was adapted for the screen by Nolan's younger brother Jonathan (Memento). The novel centers on the rivalry of two young stage magicians in turn-of-the-century London.
Bowie ponders 'Prestige' thriller
Rock star David Bowie is in talks to play inventor Nikola Tesla in "The Prestige," a thriller from "Batman Begins" director Christopher Nolan.
The cast also includes Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine in a tale of rival magicians in early 20th century London. The Tesla character is based on the real-life Serbian-American who discovered the rotating magnetic field.
The script, on which Nolan is working, is based on Christopher Priest's 1996 novel and was adapted by Nolan's brother, Jonathan, who also wrote the short story on which Nolan's breakout movie, "Memento," was based.
The movie is scheduled to shoot in January with a budget in the $40 million range. Disney will distribute the film domestically, and Warner Bros. internationally.
Bowie's acting credits range from 1976's "The Man Who Fell to Earth" to 1983's "Mr Merry Christmas," 1966's "Basquiat" and, most recently, 2000's "Mr. Rice's Secret."
'Prestige' role for Johansson at Touchstone
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Scarlett Johansson is in negotiations to star in Touchstone Pictures' "The Prestige," which is Christopher Nolan's next directorial outing.
In the movie, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play rival magicians in early 1900s London who battle each other for trade secrets. Johansson will play a magician's assistant named Olivia who is sent to spy on the competition.
Nolan's period project also has attracted Michael Caine and David Bowie.
The movie is scheduled to shoot in January with a budget in the $40 million range.
jesus!!! is she in EVERYTHING!??! and to think just a few short years ago she was hardly even hot.
Quote from: modage on December 09, 2005, 10:00:49 AM
jesus!!! is she in EVERYTHING!??! and to think just a few short years ago she was hardly even hot.
Them be fighting words.
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creeeeeepy...
Quote from: Gamblour on December 10, 2005, 07:03:43 AM
creeeeeepy...
yeah, i know, brace pants... what was she thinking?
Quote from: modage on December 09, 2005, 10:00:49 AM
and to think just a few short years ago she was hardly even hot.
i will fight you.
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yeah that was 1998, so i don't know why killafilm even posted that.
when u say "a few short years ago" you mean 2001 at the earliest, and that's Ghost World and The Man Who Wasn't There. hotness was born in that year.
:ponder:
For fun I think. Or possibly to give everyone (mainly Mod) an icky feeling.
according to the new EW, The Prestige hits theatres Oct. 27
Quote from: modage on June 23, 2006, 08:08:49 PM
according to the new EW, The Prestige hits theatres Oct. 27
I'm actually really excited about this movie... there's been a historical trend in which films about magic have been uniformly awful, but between this one and the one with Edward Norton in it, we should get at least
one good magic movie this year.
An early photo has finally surfaced from on the set of Christopher Nolan's The Prestige:
http://www.movie-infos.de/galerie_details.php?image_id=9779
trailer footage on Entertainment Tonight on YouTube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncttD0YhqPg
Trailer here. (http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/theprestige/)
i think this looks great. and i'm surprised he was able to get it done so quickly after BB.
"Abracadabra", I did a little giggle when he said that. Stiill looks good.
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That Light+Bold type is getting so lame.
But the movie does look great.
As face posters go, I think that one's pretty well done.
I was thinking the same thing. Hooray for marketing!
'The Prestige': They're men of mystery
Source: Los Angeles Times
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Much fun could be made of "The Prestige" as a sort of superhero showdown, cape versus claws, Batman versus Wolverine ... but that would be beneath us.
Although "The Prestige" does star Christian Bale ("Batman Begins") and Hugh Jackman ("X-Men"), neither will be found in tights or spikes in this film about rival magicians set in London of the early 1900s. The movie does, however, reunite the 32-year-old Bale with his "Batman" director, Christopher Nolan ("Memento").
"He is very solid," says Bale of the director. "He is kind of like the Egyptian pyramids — well-made and flush. You can't get a card between any of the bricks. I can't get anything past him, even the smallest detail to deal with my character."
It was during the production of "Batman" that the idea of Bale in "The Prestige," which opens Oct. 20, came up. "But it really didn't register with me properly until I read it after 'Batman,' " Bale says of the film, adapted by Nolan and his brother Jonathan from the 1995 Christopher Priest novel.
After completing two other films — "Harsh Times" and "Rescue Dawn" — Bale was looking to do something special and found the "Prestige" script to be "remarkable" and "enigmatic." And just as Nolan's acclaimed "Memento" demanded more than one viewing because of its unusual reverse story structure, Bale feels audiences will be compelled to check out "Prestige" more than once.
"I think it's very much its own creature," he says, "but absolutely something where you can appreciate it even more on the second viewing."
Bale describes his character of Alfred Borden, a young magician who comes up with the perfect illusion, to be a man of mystery. "He relies upon secrets and illusions," he says. "Not just in his work but in his every bone. He is somebody who lives for what he does."
So has the British actor hung up his Bat Wings for good? Not at all. He has two films lined up first, including James Mangold's remake of the western classic "3:10 to Yuma," and then Bale and Nolan will collaborate next year on "The Dark Knight."
It was Nolan's commitment to the second feature that lured Bale back to the cave. "I wouldn't have wanted to do a 'Batman' that was going down the old road," he says. "I would not have wanted to be involved in that at all."
New Trailer here. (http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1483403&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300)
that was like an awful re-edit of the old trailer with terrible narration. but this will still rule hard.
Quote from: modage on September 20, 2006, 09:10:07 AM
that was like an awful re-edit of the old trailer with terrible narration. but this will still rule hard.
Seriously. Awful, awful trailer. But this movie will make The Illusionist wet its pants in shame.
The Prestige Edit Bay Visit
Presto! We visit Christopher Nolan during the sound editing process and hear his thoughts on this magical film.
Source: IGN.FilmForce
Turns out the art of creating "staged" magic is not that different from creating "movie" magic. Both—when done well—are captivating and wonder-making, both require a suspension of disbelief, both trick audiences in delicious ways, both require a sharp intellect and sleight of hand... and if it all works out in the end, onlookers are more than happy to be taken on the ride. It's no surprise, then, that the world of magic tricks meshes well with the world of film, and moviegoers will soon get the chance to see them come together in glorious fashion when director Christopher Nolan's (Batman Begins) The Prestige—starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson—hits theaters around the world.
Recently, we were let behind the curtain to watch a magician at work on his tricks. More specifically, we were invited to sit in on a sound mixing session where Nolan and his adept crew of technicians addressed every part of the film's aural experience. All of the sounds and music had been laid in and synched to the picture, so the process was one of fine-tuning.
The scene being worked on is from the very beginning of the film, and most of it is recognizable from the trailer. As various preparations are made, Michael Caine speaks in voice over, introducing the three segments of a magic act. As he does, we are introduced to the characters—Hugh Jackman playing a masterful magician in the midst of an elaborate vanishing act, with an enormous Tesla coil crackling behind him; Christian Bale as his assistant (and rival?); and Michael Caine as the stately mentor.
Although the clip is less than a couple of minutes, we watch for nearly an hour as the crew takes pass after pass at the audio, making minor but affecting changes: from a swell of music as a character turns toward the camera to a jolt of thunder that transitions one scene to another.
Sitting in a large theater with the biggest mixing board known to man (think a Stones concert times 10) and four technicians at computers, Nolan directs the details, often isolating sounds that can scarcely be heard in the background—all to make sure they give the audience the exact effect he's after.
Whole conversations about which speaker to put a specific sound in come up during the process. At one point, a thunder effect is nixed for being "too spacey, too Star Wars-y." Things are tried, retried and discarded. And in the end, the mix is more emotional. Better.
After the lengthy editing session, the entire crew moves from behind their stations and into the theater seating located at the front of the room. Here, they watch as their creation plays out in context. We watch the first 15 minutes of the film with them and, just as our interest is piqued, the lights come up and we're ushered out of the room.
But the fun is far from over. The director agrees to answer a few questions about the making of the film—sharing his insight not only on the sound editing, but on the entire production.
The Prestige is based on a novel by Christopher Priest, and Nolan notes that the film version is merely "a loose adaptation." Although he had not read the book after beginning production, he states, "My opinion of the book is that it's very exciting [with] many, many ideas; many more than you could get into a screenplay. The challenge was trying to distill the essence of what we thought would be most interesting out of it. ... We had to throw away a lot of different ideas, a lot of different possibilities from the book in order to make it work as a film. In that sense, it's a pretty free adaptation, pretty loose, but I like to think it captures the essence."
Commenting on Christopher Priest's take on the film, Nolan says, "I think he liked the screenplay. We got his blessing early on."
The film is the director's first period piece, which he sees as a double-edged sword. "It can almost be easier, because it's a specific thing, and that's the trap of it, really," he says. "I think period films come off a bit stiff, a bit structured. We tried to be a little looser with the way we made the film."
To keep the authenticity of the period and the setting, the production traveled to Colorado, where much of the drama takes place. "We didn't build sets," Nolan says. "We tried to shoot in real places, just dress them as we needed them to be. There's an artificiality that creeps in when you build a set. ... We tried to restrict ourselves, have everything we did feel a little more spontaneous."
One of the more challenging elements to the storytelling, Nolan contends, is the revelation of twists; fooling the audience in the same way a stage magician must fool his. "People watch so many movies and are so sensitized to the grammar of films and language of films that any deviation from the norm, any slight alteration in the balance of how you do things is immediately noticed by the audience. It sets off alarm bells for people looking at things in a particular way, so it's been a pretty fascinating process of trying to figure out exactly the right emphasis in terms of story and at what point we want people to know more than the character onscreen and at what points in the story we want the audience to be behind the characters. It's a fine line between intriguing people and frustrating them."
Another difficulty in bringing the story to screen is preserving the "magic" of magic. A director with the ability to cut at any moment and manipulate cameras and effects is different from a magician standing on a stage attempting to fool his audience. "That was a challenge," Nolan admits. "That was the reason why—when we went around pitching the idea to several studios—they all said, 'Magic doesn't work on film. You can't do it.' We said, 'No one's ever tried.' The thing we wanted to do in this film that I think solves that problem to an extent is we don't attempt to present magic tricks—stage tricks—in the film as being in any way impressive. We're not expecting a cinema audience to react the way a live audience would to a magic trick. What we're actually doing is we're exploring the world of magicians and how they do things and actually show how something's going to be done.
"We're using the construction of the narrative itself to reproduce the effect of a magic trick or set of magic tricks. That's why the film—as you see in the beginning—sort of outlines the grammatical, structural idea of how a magic trick works, and we apply that to the way that the film tells its story. So there isn't really any point in our film where you show a magic trick—a stage trick—and have the audience be impressed by that. It's more of the creating of a cinematic world that makes the audience feel that they're engaged in the same process."
From our short glimpse at the magic Nolan is weaving, we're intrigued to see more of the story unfold. Stay tuned to IGN for much more as the movie nears release.
Exclusive : Nolan talks The Prestige
Source: Moviehole
"Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called 'The Pledge': the magician shows you something ordinary; but, of course, it probably isn't. The second act is called 'The Turn': the magician makes this ordinary something do something extraordinary. Now you are looking for the secret, but you won't find it. That's why there is a third act called 'The Prestige': it's the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance and you see something shocking you've never seen before."
These words, pronounced with solemn conviction by British actor Michael Caine, introduce Christopher Nolan's new movie: "The Prestige." Set in turn-of-the-century England, the film follows the battle for supremacy between two magicians: Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Borden (Christian Bale). In a world where magicians are the most popular and grand of public entertainments, where love is entangled with betrayal, tragedy forever links the two rivals, and nothing seems to get in the way of their mutual obsession. "In an era before television and radio, just at the very beginning of cinema, magicians were very much larger figures in the entertainment world than they are now," says co-writer/director Nolan. "They were the rock stars of their day. Magic still exists today, and always will, but it was much bigger then. It took to the popular culture's consciousness and imagination, and for that reason the stakes of the story become much higher than if it were set in the contemporary world, because of the element of fame, fortune and professional rivalry between magicians. It was also a time of massive technological change, and the story deals with the birth of the modern scientific era in the postindustrial revolution. So, it was a pretty extraordinary era, actually, in terms of intellectual adventure and scientific experimentation. All of these things that also drew me to the novel made it the ideal time to be addressing the issue of magic versus science."
The story revolves around this conflict, where the lines that delimit reality and fiction, scientific or supernatural, are not clear. As the filmmaker behind the acclaimed films "Memento" and "Batman Begins" explains: "The film has elements of what I suppose could be considered supernatural, but it is more about the relationship between new science and magic. When scientific discoveries are new, and the film takes place soon after the birth of electricity, for example, there are a lot of new and exciting things going on in the world of science at the time that would be seen as supernatural, but are not really. So, it is also perhaps about science fiction, about the science of tomorrow, in a way."
Working with the science of today is Christopher Nolan, who we met in the sound editing room of "The Prestige", meticulously revising and trying to enhance each frame of his film: "We have had a lot of fun making it, but I think the actual process we are doing now, which is the sound mixing, is generally one of the most fun parts of filmmaking for me, because basically you have made the film at this point and what we are now doing is simply trying to improve it. So, it is quite an enjoyable process, polishing what you have done." A delicate and fundamental process, that shows how closely involved Nolan is with his movies from beginning to end, from the writing to the last stages of postproduction. One wonders if it is hard to finally let go of the film: "It is a little bit hard, but you know when you have reached the point where you are just fiddling with the film and not improving it. You know when it happens and at that point you are finished with it, though a film isn't really finished until the audience sees it, because you don't make them for yourself."
Based on Christopher Priest's book, Nolan's film is a "pretty free and loose adaptation of a tremendously exciting book that had many ideas, more than you can get into a screenplay," he describes. "The challenge really was to try to keep the essence of what we thought were the most interesting elements of a large book, with a lot going on. I think Priest liked the screenplay, and we got his blessing, but he understood that we had to take some liberties in order to make it work as a film."
"The Prestige" reunites Christopher Nolan with Christian Bale and Michael Caine, both of whom he directed in "Batman Begins". "Christian and Michael came in quite late in the day," admits Nolan. "Originally we were going to make this film before 'Batman Begins', with a different cast, and then realized that we didn't have enough time to do it justice, so we put it off. Christian found out about it and read the script, called me up and said he was interested in playing the magician Alfred Borden, which seemed exactly right. In the case of Michael Caine, his character feels like it was written for him; but the truth is that it wasn't, rather years before I met him. But it fits him like a glove."
Nolan, on the contrary, had never worked with Hugh Jackman before: "Hugh came on board before Christian, actually. He just seemed to embody exactly the balance we needed between having that sense of integrity of the classic leading man and this great authentic stage showmanship that the magician Rupert Angier has to have. As opposed to Christian's character, he has a wonderful understanding of the interaction between performer and live audience, which Hugh actually has. And he also has great depths as an actor that I think hadn't really been explored."
In the case of music icon David Bowie, who had a song in "Memento", the British filmmaker took it upon himself to convince his admired musician/actor to accept a small but key role – that of scientist / electrical pioneer Nikolai Tesla. "He was the only guy I ever had in mind to play Tesla," says Nolan. "His function is small, but very important, and he really has an extraordinarily charismatic and noticeable presence. I wanted someone who wasn't a movie star. So, I flew out to New York to meet him and told him that he had to do it, that I didn't have anyone else in mind who could play his role the way I saw it, and he responded immediately. David is pretty clear on what he does and doesn't want to do."
"The Prestige" delves into the mysteries of illusion, a field that has fascinated him throughout his life. "What is interesting is that once you understand more about how tricks are constructed, and how the methods work, you will go see magicians and be able to figure out a certain amount of what they do," says the director. "But what that means is that it is even more impressive when they actually do something you can't figure out, because you are baffled. There is real joy to being fooled in that way, when you think you know how things are done. It is actually more fun."
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Quote from: MacGuffin on October 11, 2006, 10:17:52 AM
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i can dig it
edit: added pic
i'm a fan.
I don't get it. Are they rival hypnotists now? Engaged in some sort of climactic "trance-off"?
Chalk it all up to sibling scribery
Chris and Jonah Nolan often disagree, but that in turn leads to complex, identity-probing films.
Source: Los Angeles Times
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FILMMAKERS Chris and Jonah Nolan appear to be brothers in name only.
Chris has the scruffy pallor of a sleep-deprived father (the 36-year-old has three young children), while Jonah, 30, shows the robust physique of a gym rat. Chris favors suits and dress shirts, Jonah jeans and T-shirts. Chris speaks with an English accent, while Jonah's is Chicago American. Chris doesn't even use e-mail, but Jonah lives by the Internet.
People who meet them "think they are putting them on when they say they are brothers," says David Goyer, who wrote the story and shared screenplay credit on Chris Nolan's "Batman Begins" and wrote the story for Chris and Jonah's screenplay for the sequel, "The Dark Knight." "You don't think of brothers having totally different accents and mannerisms."
Despite all their obvious differences, though, the Nolan brothers speak with a distinct and unified screenwriting voice. Their collaborations — "Memento," "Batman Begins" and its upcoming sequel, and Friday's "The Prestige" — have accomplished what few screenwriters and directors manage: They wowed moviegoers and critics simultaneously.
"The Prestige" likely represents their greatest challenge yet. While "Memento," which Chris adapted from Jonah's short story "Memento Mori," was told in reverse chronological order, it didn't carry an exorbitant pricetag, budgeted at $5 million. "Batman Begins," on which Jonah served as a creative consultant but had no screenplay credit, cost a fortune at $150 million, but it benefited from pervasive brand-name awareness. "The Prestige," for its part, occupies Hollywood's most dangerous middle ground: It's a medium-priced (more than $40-million) adult drama based on a complicated novel unknown to most ticket buyers.
Written by English science fiction author Christopher Priest, "The Prestige" is an account of a duel between two magicians in turn-of-the-century London. Alfred Borden (played by Christian Bale) and Rupert Angier (whose first name is changed to Robert in the film and who's played by Hugh Jackman) are each obsessed with the other's tricks, especially iterations of a deception in which the rival magician appears to be transported across the stage — or even across the theater — in the blink of an eye.
The film as well as the 1996 book are anchored by the competition between the illusionists, which grows increasingly personal and cold-blooded. The book's largely diaristic narrative also strays in several directions, with elements of a ghost story and a detour into anti-spiritualism and the birth of electricity — all framed by a modern-day storytelling device. But the very literary ambitions that made "The Prestige" a memorable novel (it won the World Fantasy Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize) turned it into a nearly unsolvable cinematic riddle, one that would take the Nolan brothers seven years to crack.
"It's a really tough adaptation," says Chris. "It's just sprawling. It's got all this different crazy stuff in it. But you know there's a great movie in there." Adds Jonah: "It's just a grind figuring it out."
The resulting movie — like so much of the Nolans' earlier work — revolves around identity, the distinct differences of personality even within the same person. (Chris' first feature film, 1998's "Following," a movie about a mysterious voyeur made without his brother, as well as "Memento" and "Batman Begins" all dwell on various explorations of the self, the struggle between what a person assumes he is or wants to be and what he truly is destined to be.)
Those themes play a prominent role in "The Prestige," but there's not much more that can be said about the movie without giving away its plot twists. Let it be said that magic is only part of the deceit.
The movie wasn't always going to be a joint effort of the Nolan brothers. Aaron Ryder, an executive producer of "Memento," optioned Priest's book for Chris. Around the time he was directing Al Pacino in the remake of the Norwegian thriller "Insomnia," Chris tried to boil the book down.
"I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out what to do with it," Chris says. "And then it became apparent I wasn't going to have time to get on with it. So I told the story to Jonah — basically described it to him to see if it sounded interesting — and for years he wrote on it and wrote on it."
Rather than Jonah and Chris' spending all of their time sitting across a desk from each other bouncing around ideas, Jonah would retreat to write a draft by himself. Once he had enough to show his brother, he would ship it off to Chris, who would then make revisions.
"We are always talking," Jonah says. "So there's a collaboration there in terms of setting both of our minds on the task. But we write separate drafts. This has been the way that it has worked."
Key ingredient: dissent
BOTH Chris and Jonah say that their best work often grows out of their most spirited disagreements.
In the case of "The Prestige," the brothers argued over the modern-day framing device (it's out) to one character's suicide (it's in). "For the longest time, we couldn't figure out what to do with the women," Jonah says. Were they central to the story or glorified magician's assistants? They ended up favoring the former over the latter.
Nearly every line of dialogue was a battleground.
"In terms of story and script, Chris is the most rigorous taskmaster I've ever worked with," says Goyer. "It's like the way a coach would be on an athletic team, 'Give me 10 more!' And you say, 'I can't, I can't.' But you can."
"I'm almost at the point," Jonah says, "where I have a hard time thinking an idea through without hearing his opposition to it. If it's not opposed, it's not a good idea. Unless there's some friction, there is no achievement. It seems counterintuitive, but if an idea survives the combat, it's better."
Says Chris: "In all honesty, it works like this with the studio as well. When you are challenged on things, you have to really think about why they are important to you. You immediately know what it is you care about in a draft when somebody else criticizes it. It's a quite healthy process in that regard. To me, the key is to talk to somebody who has no agenda. There's no politics, no dealing with people you don't trust. And that's why I like to work with Jonah."
"It's not that I don't have an agenda," Jonah says, interrupting his older brother for once. "It's that you know what my agenda is, and most of it involves getting to the essence of the story."
As with any decision-making, though, one voice ultimately must trump the other, or else some choices would never be finalized. As with other movies, that power rests with the director, since Chris is the one who must stage the action and cut it all together.
Near the film's conclusion, for example, one of the magicians makes a lengthy speech about the state of the world; the text remains mostly unchanged from what Jonah wrote. Those words were originally spoken by Borden, but in the end Chris had Angier speak them. Says Chris: "The director is the person who has to make it work."
Being topped by his elder brother doesn't seem to bother Jonah much — "I have figured out various ways to trick him into liking my ideas," he says.
Between "Dark Knight" revisions, Jonah is working on a screenplay about the legendary 1871 Chicago fire, largely without his brother's assistance. "But I think I would probably find it impossible to write something without showing a draft at some point to Chris and figuring out what I'm blowing completely," Jonah says.
The apparent lack of competition between Jonah and Chris springs in part from their backgrounds — they never aimed for the same careers. Chris grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. Jonah dreamed of becoming a writer.
"And Chris grew up in the English school system. I grew up in the American school system," says Jonah, who attended Georgetown while his brother went to University College London; the family, including older brother Matt, moved from England to Chicago when their father's job changed. "So we were never able to compete on any of the standard markers that I think you need for a sibling rivalry. We couldn't compare our SAT scores. Chris played entirely different sports than I did. There were no points of reference, which actually was good."
Chris isn't 100% certain it will always be that way. "When my career is in the toilet," he says, "and Jonah's is doing really well — that's when there will be a sibling rivalry."
Nolan: Prestige Was Tricky
Source: SciFi Wire
Christopher Nolan, director and co-writer of the The Prestige, told SCI FI Wire that the film was structured to match the three stages of a magic trick. "The idea was always really to address ... magic from the point of view of not trying to show magic in the film and impress people with stage magic, because that can't work on film," Nolan said in an interview. "People are aware of camera trickery and all the rest. The idea was always to create a marriage of that function according to the principles of a magic trick, or a set of magic tricks. And that involved conforming to this three-act structure."
The film, based on the book by Christopher Priest, follows the careers of two magicians, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, who become obsessed with outdoing each other. Nolan, who wrote the script along with his brother, Jonathan, said that the book's use of different points of view and fractured narrative made it particularly difficult to adapt. "It was quite challenging to find the right structure," Nolan said. "It took a lot of time. We really spent years working on the script. And it required interlocking framing devices and interlocking voice-overs, combined with the notion of structuring using the three-act structure of the trick. Yeah, it took a long time. The key being the need to express multiple points of view purposefully and clearly. It was a difficult script to write."
Although Nolan doesn't reveal how the real magic tricks in the film are done, he does let the audience in on a few secrets by the end. "The real paradox, which is the paradox of magic—but this is to me what's interesting about the subject—is that, much as the audience wants to know the secret, the secret ultimately will be disappointing," he said. "That's the nature of magic. And that's, to me, the key thing which I'm trying to do in the film." The Prestige opens Oct. 20.
some directors don't talk enuff, some talk way too much.
I loved it. It was a little unfamiliar at first but soon after, the plot began to seem more fluent as it merges the life of the two magicians. You can tell it's a very complex concept, but well communicated through editting and pacing. **Spoilers Warning** I was not thrilled to see Nolan depend on the supernatural as the final take and I wasn't ready for that either. However, I did predict Bale's double very easily halfway through. It wasn't much of a discovery, Nolan lets you in on a few clues throughout and probably because he didn't want to disappoint anyone by making it seem as if he deliberately tricked the audience into believing a lie. I'd like to ask either brother a few questions about it, I still feel there's something more to Tesla's transport machine/trick or at least there should be, a practical method, this doubt inside of me!... or that's probably the intentional doing of Nolan...
spoilers and stuff
i'll preface this by saying that i'm not one of those types that sees things coming a million miles away. i would, however, consider myself fairly observant.
most questions i had near the end of the movie that i thought wouldn't be resolved were. the structure of the movie is a pretty tricky one to pull off.
:yabbse-thumbup:
any scene with tesla (bowie). i love bowie
"they're all your hat, mr. angier"
hats
opening shot: hats
"abracadabra"
"this town has electricity"
the end of the last shot/drop out of sound
the idea of a magician killing a hundred doubles of himself
little switches performed by the bordens that initially seemed unbelievable (borden getting into julia's apartment)
the flip flopping of my sentiments for the main characters was interesting. in the end i liked neither. maybe i liked jackman a little bit more. but he killed all those doubles. i don't think i'm qualified to talk much more about the movie, i really didn't pick up on everything.
:yabbse-thumbdown:
borden's wife, julia was ok.
i've seen better from bale. he was good i guess.
surprised to see thom yorke's 'analyse' as the ending credit music
Very Disappointing... not a BAD movie, but...
SOME UNSPECIFIC SPOILERS
I hate movies that rely almost only on "twists and turns", especially ones you can see coming from fucking MILES away. There were WAY too many clues in this movie and the plot twists were way too obvious and boring. Two and a half hours for that? I was REALLY hoping (as I usually do when I watch a movie as void of anything other than twists as this) that the obvious twists were just to misguide you while an actual interesting twist happened. At least that would have been something.
It's a well made film... Bowie is very entertaining and the acting is pretty nice... there are a couple decent chuckles throughout, but it was poorly written. It assumed the audience wasn't going to see shit coming so it got too cocky and installed so many winks and nods that it became easy to figure out.
If it would have underplayed the twists and made it more character driven or given it a better plot, it would have been a really good movie because the mood was set well.
They should have made Carter Beats the Devil into a movie.. with this and the Illusionist both being less than expected that might not ever happen.
SPOILERS
I liked it. I was able to figure out a couple of things early on but it didn't ruin the film for me. It's a movie about magicians. Of course there's going to be a twist.
But there's one thing that is keeping me from enjoying this completely:
Was the other Bale a Tesla machine double or just his twin brother? Because if they were twins, then that makes it WAY TOO convenient that he sends Hugh Jackman on a wild goose chase with the whole "Tesla is the key to my process" thing and Tesla happens to have invented a machine that does EXACTLY what Hugh Jackman needs to replicate the Transported Man trick. I was thinking that the other Bale was a Tesla double, which would have made it a little bit easier to buy that Jackman found that machine.
But other than that, I really liked it. It's not the masterpiece I was hoping for, and by all rights, had no real reason to expect, but it was a good time.
Quote from: othersparrow on October 22, 2006, 10:58:56 AM
SPOILERS
I liked it. I was able to figure out a couple of things early on but it didn't ruin the film for me. It's a movie about magicians. Of course there's going to be a twist.
But other than that, I really liked it. It's not the masterpiece I was hoping for, and by all rights, had no real reason to expect, but it was a good time.
yep, exactly. also: even to the point Bale was cast as Batman i still wasnt sure about him, but i love him now. and he's great here. i'm not sure how well this film will replay, but as a first viewing i really liked it.
SPOILERS AND ALL THAT JAZZ
Well it was no Memento, probably not even Batman Begins, I'd say on-par or slightly better than Insomnia. Like most of you have already said, wayyy to much is given away here. Fallen(I think that's his name) is always shot from the back and his face never shown, so it's pretty easy to figure he wasn't really who we thought he was, also the whole today you love me today you don't thing. Once you figure that the machine is a duplicator and not a transporter (cue: they're all your hats Mr. Algier) It's prety easy to know why Algier was drowning in the tub in the begining. So once i figured that out I assumed that this wasn't going to be the point of the story, but in the end it was. Nolan uses the typical unseen flashback revelation scene in the end which pissed me off because it's like "well hell we knew that already, you left us enough damn clues!", It was sort of like he was taking the audience for granted, that we couldn't figure it out ourselves. The film has the themes of obsession, and what a man has to do live a succesful life, but in the case of borden, it wasn't one man, it was two! What's the point? That's kinda cheating isn't it?
On the plus side, It looked really really good. The opening and closing shots are fantastic. Christian Bale is Awesome as always (easily one of the best actors working today) Hugh Jackman was really good as well. Scarlett Johannsen was pretty good, better than she was in the Black Dahila. David Bowie was... disguised? I couldn't even tell it was him! All the acting was good, and the movie had Ricky Jay.
I have the perfect name for Joel Siegel's review (if he feels the same i do): The Pledge is good, The Turn is great, but The Prestige doesn't live up to the other acts.
Or something along those lines...
Quote from: othersparrow on October 22, 2006, 10:58:56 AM
SPOILERS
I liked it. I was able to figure out a couple of things early on but it didn't ruin the film for me. It's a movie about magicians. Of course there's going to be a twist.
But there's one thing that is keeping me from enjoying this completely:
Was the other Bale a Tesla machine double or just his twin brother? Because if they were twins, then that makes it WAY TOO convenient that he sends Hugh Jackman on a wild goose chase with the whole "Tesla is the key to my process" thing and Tesla happens to have invented a machine that does EXACTLY what Hugh Jackman needs to replicate the Transported Man trick. I was thinking that the other Bale was a Tesla double, which would have made it a little bit easier to buy that Jackman found that machine.
But other than that, I really liked it. It's not the masterpiece I was hoping for, and by all rights, had no real reason to expect, but it was a good time.
I thought it was all of Tesla's doing...
SPOi-Oi-Oi-Oilers
Quote from: othersparrow on October 22, 2006, 10:58:56 AM
SPOILERS
But there's one thing that is keeping me from enjoying this completely:
Was the other Bale a Tesla machine double or just his twin brother? Because if they were twins, then that makes it WAY TOO convenient that he sends Hugh Jackman on a wild goose chase with the whole "Tesla is the key to my process" thing and Tesla happens to have invented a machine that does EXACTLY what Hugh Jackman needs to replicate the Transported Man trick. I was thinking that the other Bale was a Tesla double, which would have made it a little bit easier to buy that Jackman found that machine.
Quote
Quote from: overmeunderyou on October 22, 2006, 12:29:45 PM
I thought it was all of Tesla's doing...
I don't think so. He made it clear very early in his career that he had a trick that was going to blow everyone away, but he wasn't ready to do it yet. I assume it was a twin... I think the TESLA chase WAS just convenient.
Jackman even said "you never built any machine like this before" and Bowie replied "I never said that I did"... they also didn't seem clear about what the machine was doing exactly.
BTW: Did they CG Bowie's eye? They both moved.
Wasn't there shots of Bale up in the mountains where Jackman was when he was visiting Tesla?
They didn't last on screen for long, but there was an implication that Bale had been there before I thought.
Tesla wouldn't have necessarily built a machine for Bale, the twin could have been a result of something that happened while he was there.
But the "convenience" of it being a lie in the first place does make sense for Bale to write in his journal mocking Jackman's trip.
To paraphrase Paul Rudd in 40 Year Old Virgin, I always though Jackman was kind of a Streisand, but he's rocking the shit in this one. Yeah, the twists are too clever by half; yeah, the Tesla thing doesn't really make sense if you think about it for a couple of minutes; but the depth of Hugh Jackman's performance as a man who's destroyed by his obsessions is what redeems everything else in this movie. Seeing him in this just makes me that much more excited for The Fountain.
Quote from: RegularKarate on October 21, 2006, 05:30:54 PM
Very Disappointing... not a BAD movie, but...
SOME UNSPECIFIC SPOILERS
I hate movies that rely almost only on "twists and turns", especially ones you can see coming from fucking MILES away. There were WAY too many clues in this movie and the plot twists were way too obvious and boring. Two and a half hours for that? I was REALLY hoping (as I usually do when I watch a movie as void of anything other than twists as this) that the obvious twists were just to misguide you while an actual interesting twist happened. At least that would have been something.
It's a well made film... Bowie is very entertaining and the acting is pretty nice... there are a couple decent chuckles throughout, but it was poorly written. It assumed the audience wasn't going to see shit coming so it got too cocky and installed so many winks and nods that it became easy to figure out.
If it would have underplayed the twists and made it more character driven or given it a better plot, it would have been a really good movie because the mood was set well.
They should have made Carter Beats the Devil into a movie.. with this and the Illusionist both being less than expected that might not ever happen.
u shood come ovr sumtime, we culd watch Alf re-runs 2gether.
Little to argue about the production values, but another example of a weak script.
(Spoilers)
The first half hour or so of the film is very weak. The film gives us a tragedy and rivalry all in the first half hour. I just never felt any greater feelings that legitimized both events. When Jackman loses his wife, his feelings afterward are better implied than detailed. Even his relationship with his wife was minmal stuff. Then I had equal disinterest for Bale's character. He prides himself as the one who will take risks, but is this the only basis for his obsession? And why was he so keen to a rivaly with Jackman? The man who shot him early on during the stunt was never associated with Jackman or anyone significant. Plus Bale was always confident he was the better magician. He didn't worry about Jackman as an equal til much later on.
The film compounds itself early on because it starts out by telling dual stories and telling them mid story. Eventually the film finds a new storyline and develops characters (Johannsson and Caine). The problem at the end is that it still never is truly able to garner interest or belief in the rivalry or the depths of Jackman's and Bale's obsession. It tidies all this up by twists and turns that kill off much of the cast. These twists and turns are pay offs for the mind games of the subject matter, but sadly they are also the only elements that detail the two main characters.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 23, 2006, 06:27:34 PM
The man who shot him early on during the stunt was never associated with Jackman or anyone significant.
SPOILER
The man who shot off Bale's fingers was Jackman in disguise.
It's on my list next to Superman Returns and Lady in the Water.
Quote from: polkablues on October 23, 2006, 08:04:25 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 23, 2006, 06:27:34 PM
The man who shot him early on during the stunt was never associated with Jackman or anyone significant.
SPOILER
The man who shot off Bale's fingers was Jackman in disguise.
I can't believe someone missed that.
I liked it very much... was interested the whole time... thought the twists were not that great but the movie was entertaining enough and the performances were excellent.
Now, I'm a little tired of Nolan using the same technique and style always... back and forth and middle and back and forth... can he just fucking tell a story from beginning to end and still make it interesting?
David Bowie is the king.
Quote from: overmeunderyou on October 23, 2006, 09:22:20 PM
Quote from: polkablues on October 23, 2006, 08:04:25 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 23, 2006, 06:27:34 PM
The man who shot him early on during the stunt was never associated with Jackman or anyone significant.
SPOILER
The man who shot off Bale's fingers was Jackman in disguise.
I can't believe someone missed that.
Someone did. Humbly so.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 23, 2006, 11:32:49 PM
Quote from: overmeunderyou on October 23, 2006, 09:22:20 PM
Quote from: polkablues on October 23, 2006, 08:04:25 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 23, 2006, 06:27:34 PM
The man who shot him early on during the stunt was never associated with Jackman or anyone significant.
SPOILER
The man who shot off Bale's fingers was Jackman in disguise.
I can't believe someone missed that.
Someone did. Humbly so.
Hahaha god I'm trying to imagine how silly the whole rivalry plot must seem if you haven't noticed Jackman busted his hand !
Quote from: Pas Rap on October 24, 2006, 06:24:12 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 23, 2006, 11:32:49 PM
Quote from: overmeunderyou on October 23, 2006, 09:22:20 PM
Quote from: polkablues on October 23, 2006, 08:04:25 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 23, 2006, 06:27:34 PM
The man who shot him early on during the stunt was never associated with Jackman or anyone significant.
SPOILER
The man who shot off Bale's fingers was Jackman in disguise.
I can't believe someone missed that.
Someone did. Humbly so.
Hahaha god I'm trying to imagine how silly the whole rivalry plot must seem if you haven't noticed Jackman busted his hand !
There were still reasons to gage a rivalry (I guess). It was an honest mistake. I sometimes miss these details. My mind can't help circulating numerous thoughts during movies that I become prone to miss smaller details. I usually pick them up on second and third viewings. The Prestige stopped all interest after the first viewing.
Interview: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN MESMERIZES OVER THE PRESTIGE
The director of the magician flick talks the challenges of making a small film and working with Christian Bale again.
Source: iF Magazine
Christopher Nolan made a big impact with the amazing re-imaging of BATMAN BEGINS with a tale of the Dark Knight the way it should have been from the beginning and luckily for everyone no Governator in sight.
THE PRESTIGE is a far cry from BATMAN BEGINS in that it focuses on two competing magicians who are so fierce in their rivalry that it leads to murder. The film is a turn-of-the-century period thriller with no spandex in site and that means no superheroes but real world representations of character and, of course, the evil within humanity.
"I think that any field where obsessive behavior and extraordinary ambition are rewarded is a place where certainly that environment becomes conducive to otherwise unacceptable behavior," Nolan says. "I think that human society has all kinds of rationalizations and structures that allow for inhuman behavior whether it's the corporate structure that depersonalizes behavior towards other people or other institutions or whether it's the excuse of supporting a family or ambition or artistic achievement – whatever it is."
And people behaving badly is what THE PRESTIGE is all about and for Nolan that is where the mystery and the extraordinary nature of characters in film comes into play.
The novel which THE PRESTIGE was based on presented its own challenges because squeezing down a sprawling book into a two hour movie isn't the easiest thing to do.
"I think that the biggest challenge was probably translating some of the narrative devices that we really wanted to retain such as the use of diary's in the book and the specific resonance of that. Other things that we tried to retain like the present day framing device ultimately could not stand and we replaced them with different framing devices," Nolan says. "So it took a long time really to whittle it down and really focus on the essential elements that would make a movie. It's a loose adaptation, but I think that it's one that's true to the spirit of the novel."
But that was only one part of the challenge for Nolan and after having such a large budget for BATMAN BEGINS to direct a film on a much smaller scale presented challenges of there own. "I found THE PRESTIGE in technical terms to be something of a refresher course in keeping filmmaking a little looser and little more spontaneous and in going back to a more formal and bigger budget, an action film and all the rest, I would hate to not retain some of that spirit," Nolan says. "It was a fun way to make the film and it was much more in line with my first films in terms of just the feel of the filmmaking and it was fun to get back to that, and it's certainly something that I wouldn't want to dismantle. There is no reason to."
Nolan wasn't afraid that using Christian Bale again would be a problem after playing BATMAN because his chracters are never written with a specific actor in mind. "I don't think of performers because I find that limiting because you start to write them as like Christian Bale in AMERICAN PSYCHO or Christian Bale in ..." Nolan says. "I always try to view the characters as simply who they are in the script and so before I finished the script I certainly didn't say to him, 'Oh, I have this great part.' Or anything like that."
Actually, Nolan was afraid Bale might balk at the idea of working with him because of the possibility of the two doing another BATMAN film shortly. "So that's three films in a row," he says. "That's a very long road to walk together, but he seemed up for it which was great."
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 24, 2006, 09:27:30 PM
There were still reasons to gage a rivalry (I guess). It was an honest mistake. I sometimes miss these details. My mind can't help circulating numerous thoughts during movies that I become prone to miss smaller details. I usually pick them up on second and third viewings. The Prestige stopped all interest after the first viewing.
so you were missing crucial details in the film because you were already thinking up your negative review? surprising.
Quote from: modage on October 25, 2006, 09:28:01 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 24, 2006, 09:27:30 PM
There were still reasons to gage a rivalry (I guess). It was an honest mistake. I sometimes miss these details. My mind can't help circulating numerous thoughts during movies that I become prone to miss smaller details. I usually pick them up on second and third viewings. The Prestige stopped all interest after the first viewing.
so you were missing crucial details in the film because you were already thinking up your negative review? surprising.
my thoughts exactly.
Quote from: modage on October 25, 2006, 09:28:01 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 24, 2006, 09:27:30 PM
There were still reasons to gage a rivalry (I guess). It was an honest mistake. I sometimes miss these details. My mind can't help circulating numerous thoughts during movies that I become prone to miss smaller details. I usually pick them up on second and third viewings. The Prestige stopped all interest after the first viewing.
so you were missing crucial details in the film because you were already thinking up your negative review? surprising.
There was a time when you didn't approach me with an asshole mentality and we actually got along well. What happened? And no, I wasn't already rendering a negative verdict, I was just assessing the details of what I had already seen. My reviews on here are lengthier than others but they are actually still snippet reviews. My reviews are best exemplified by 3,000 word plus reviews I sometimes do for Alternate Takes. That's the only place I feel I get everything I want say in.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on October 25, 2006, 11:26:28 AM
There was a time when you didn't approach me with an asshole mentality and we actually got along well. What happened?
he realised you guys share the same opinion on The New World. he hates what he's become. also he saw a picture of you wearing a white wig.
This film is very interesting to me because it seems to be a return to his Following roots, a film that's hard to connect with because of it's collapsed timeline. The film plays with the idea of revisiting images, much like Following, but in a movie about tricks, that's not so smart because the audience will remember and figure things out too soon. I felt like you never like either Jackman or Bale, despite the turn that happens. The most interesting thing about the film to me was understanding Nolan's concept for the script, that each of the three acts are the Pledge, the Turn, and the Prestige. It made it a little too cerebral knowing that and trying to understand it. I didn't fully engage the movie as a result, but I still found much of it enjoyable. Bale impressed me more than Jackman, who still has a bit too much stage in him. Has me this worried about the Fountain. But I know he will show up for that one.
Quote from: overmeunderyou on October 22, 2006, 12:29:45 PM
Quote from: othersparrow on October 22, 2006, 10:58:56 AM
SPOILERS
I liked it. I was able to figure out a couple of things early on but it didn't ruin the film for me. It's a movie about magicians. Of course there's going to be a twist.
But there's one thing that is keeping me from enjoying this completely:
Was the other Bale a Tesla machine double or just his twin brother? Because if they were twins, then that makes it WAY TOO convenient that he sends Hugh Jackman on a wild goose chase with the whole "Tesla is the key to my process" thing and Tesla happens to have invented a machine that does EXACTLY what Hugh Jackman needs to replicate the Transported Man trick. I was thinking that the other Bale was a Tesla double, which would have made it a little bit easier to buy that Jackman found that machine.
But other than that, I really liked it. It's not the masterpiece I was hoping for, and by all rights, had no real reason to expect, but it was a good time.
I thought it was all of Tesla's doing...
spoilers as well:had to have been a twin. or at least in no way the same machine as cutter's cause when he is duplicated, he is the exact same person with same emotions and such right? borden and his twin had different feelings toward the gals.
stupid concept either way.
Quote from: pozer on October 25, 2006, 03:40:25 PM
Quote from: overmeunderyou on October 22, 2006, 12:29:45 PM
Quote from: othersparrow on October 22, 2006, 10:58:56 AM
SPOILERS
I liked it. I was able to figure out a couple of things early on but it didn't ruin the film for me. It's a movie about magicians. Of course there's going to be a twist.
But there's one thing that is keeping me from enjoying this completely:
Was the other Bale a Tesla machine double or just his twin brother? Because if they were twins, then that makes it WAY TOO convenient that he sends Hugh Jackman on a wild goose chase with the whole "Tesla is the key to my process" thing and Tesla happens to have invented a machine that does EXACTLY what Hugh Jackman needs to replicate the Transported Man trick. I was thinking that the other Bale was a Tesla double, which would have made it a little bit easier to buy that Jackman found that machine.
But other than that, I really liked it. It's not the masterpiece I was hoping for, and by all rights, had no real reason to expect, but it was a good time.
I thought it was all of Tesla's doing...
spoilers as well:
had to have been a twin. or at least in no way the same machine as cutter's cause when he is duplicated, he is the exact same person with same emotions and such right? borden and his twin had different feelings toward the gals.
stupid concept either way.
Yet more spoilers:Besides, if he was a Tesla double, he would have to have been made some time
after Borden's fingers got shot off (for one thing, he couldn't have afforded Tesla at that point), so the double would have come into existence with the missing fingers, and therefore wouldn't have needed to chop 'em off to match.
Spoilers:
If there was only one at first, it would be easier to think Bale genuinely forgot which knot he tied onto Jackman's wife and thus after that drama took place, he left to Tesla and didn't necessarily have to afford being cloned, it might have been something that happened as Tesla was demonstrating the machine for him. Could be the guy's best friend or something, who knows.
I don't see why Bale would claim that he forgot which knot he tied. If he was switched with his brother at the time, he could have found out by asking his brother, unless of course he just lies and says he forgot because of guilt.
(For some reason I believed he really didn't know, although we might have)
--
Seed Magazine, Article
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/10/real_magic.php
--
REAL MAGIC
The Prestige conjures up a dark relationship between science and the desire for power.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seedmagazine.com%2Fnews%2Fuploads%2Fprestige_article.jpg&hash=b12370586663ae89b7b67eac5a2668c5b6ae4352)
by Anthony Kaufman • Posted October 20, 2006 02:17 AM
Earlier this month, physicists in Copenhagen announced they had successfully teleported information through a half a meter of space to a large object. The experiment, the first to transport information from light and matter, is said to be a revolutionary step in the field of quantum teleportation. But while it's one thing to teleport atomic data, it's quite another to teleport an entire human being.
The Prestige, a new Hollywood thriller, takes up the question of teleportation as one of its central conundrums: Is it feasible? What would people leave behind after teleporting? And could you bring your hat along for the ride?
Set in turn-of-the-century London during the height of the electric age, the film—opening in theaters today—recounts the rivalry of two magicians, the aristocratic showman Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and his working-class, hard-knuckled foe, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale). The men meet as apprentices for the established magician Milton (real-life conjurer Ricky Jay), but their relationship turns brutally bitter after an on-stage mishap leads to tragedy.
The bulk of the film chronicles the escalating conflict between Angier and Borden, their attempts to sabotage each other's tricks and steal each other's secrets—primarily the how-to behind a marquee feat called "The Transported Man." In the stunt, first performed by Borden, a man apparently teleports from one side of the stage to the other in a split second. How does he pull it off? Does he use a body double, as Angier's sidekick Cutter (Michael Caine) maintains? Or has he enlisted the help of Nikola Tesla, the renowned engineer and early pioneer of alternating current, to devise a machine that facilitates actual teleportation? In other words: Is it simply old-fashioned sleight of hand or, as one character says, "real magic"—an advance look into the scientific "magic" of the future?
Like director Christopher Nolan's breakout film Memento, a clever mind-bender whose scenes played out in reverse chronological order, The Prestige has a complex contraption of a plot. Multiple storylines set in different time periods run side by side: In the film's past, Angier gets a hold of Borden's diary, which leads him to Colorado Springs to seek out Tesla; in its present, Borden sits in jail reading Angier's diary, trying to unlock his rival's ultimate secret. Each parallel storyline dovetails in flashbacks of events that both men shared. It's a neat trick to puzzle together a narrative this way, and neater still to stay ahead of your audience—but not so far ahead that viewers are baffled.
Is it simply old-fashioned sleight of hand or, as one character says, "real magic"—an advance look into the scientific "magic" of the future?
One of the chief pleasures of The Prestige—so named for the final part of a magic trick, when the vanished bird rematerializes or the beautiful assistant cut in half emerges again whole—is that it doesn't give an answer until very late in the game. Just when you expect Nolan has tipped his hat in one direction, he suddenly veers in another. And when the film finally offers a definitive answer, it only further complicates the layers of intrigue.
The scientific and historical accuracy of the movie are questionable—there is scant evidence to suggest that Tesla ever experimented with teleportation, for example. But those lightning-arrayed "Tesla coils"—which make a number of dazzling appearances in the movie—sure look cool.
If The Prestige were all smoke and mirrors, it might be mere cold, clever theatrics. But Angier and Borden have deep personal flaws: Each is ready to lose loved ones and sacrifice everything for his art —or if you prefer, his science. It's not the many love triangles that pop up—and are quickly discarded—that fuels The Prestige, but the relentless one-upmanship that absorbs the two protagonists.
When Nikola Tesla eventually shows up in the flesh (a brilliantly nuanced David Bowie, at once suave and subtly bizarre), he warns Angier about the dangers of his creations, forecasting that his own obsessions would eventually destroy him. (The real-life Tesla became destitute in his later years and developed a perhaps unhealthy obsession with feeding New York pigeons.)
The Prestige may touch on the dangers of science and technology, but it's mainly concerned with men who are driven to invent for the wrong reasons, either for vengeance or prestige, at the expense of family and sanity. If The Illusionist, the year's other movie magic show, was a middlebrow romantic crowd-pleaser that unveils the joy of an elaborate ruse, The Prestige paints a darker picture of the lies and destruction that accompany man's quest for technological prowess and domination
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MORE MAJOR SPOILERSAccording to what people who have read the book said, they're twins. Which makes it unsatisfying for me.
But I have another question:
Which twin was hanged? My friends and I have an argument about whether the Borden who lived at the end was the one who loved the wife/is the father of the child (my stance) or was the one who loved Scarlett Johansson (their stance). Does anyone remember?
Quote from: overmeunderyou on October 25, 2006, 06:49:20 PM
I don't see why Bale would claim that he forgot which knot he tied. If he was switched with his brother at the time, he could have found out by asking his brother, unless of course he just lies and says he forgot because of guilt.
Unless whichever twin it was who tied the knot did it on purpose, thus leaving the other one to cover and say "I don't remember." Yet another thing they could have touched on in the end... or did they?
Yeah after so much repetition and bullshit they could have asked ONE MORE TIME after he shoots the fucker "what knowt did you tie?"... but they didnt... which is fine.
I think for sure the twin that died is the one that loved Scarlett... the other one stayed with the daughter.
Quote from: othersparrow on October 26, 2006, 10:00:23 AM
MORE MAJOR SPOILERS
But I have another question:
Which twin was hanged? My friends and I have an argument about whether the Borden who lived at the end was the one who loved the wife/is the father of the child (my stance) or was the one who loved Scarlett Johansson (their stance). Does anyone remember?
I believe that was mentioned in the movie, *Spoiler* when he was about to shoot Jackman, he said that his brother that loved Scarlett Johansson was the one that was in jail to be hanged and he was the one who *had* a wife, and a daughter. The one with Johansson was also the one to be found at the crime scene (they didn't switch so the real father of the little girl remained with her). Because when he was in jail, he tells his twin that he was right and he should have left Jackman to his own yadda yadda.
EVEN MORE MAJOR SPOILERS
That's what I thought. I remember him saying to Hugh, "I loved Sarah. He loved Olivia." But my friends, all of them but one, swear it was the other way around, one friend citing that thematically, it had to be so because Sarah hanged herself and so he was hanged as well.
The movie clearly stated the Alfred that died was the one who tied the death knot and loved Olivia.
I loved this movie. All of it made sense (well, almost -- see below) and gave just enough exposition to fill in the gaps.
My only confusion is where Caine's character gets involved with the Alfreds. He ultimately delivers his daughter to him without a word, which tells me he knew there were two of them, instead of being surprised a hanged man is now taking home his child. But then why the testifying towards his guilt? He obviously didn't know about Danton's double until he met him as the Lord character and then realized he had Alfred's daughter, but with them crossing paths -- nearly brushing shoulders -- as Alfred went to kill Danton it seems too coincidental that he didn't know then too. I'm very confused by that part of it.
SPOILERS!!!!
Quote from: Raikus on October 29, 2006, 06:28:40 PM
My only confusion is where Caine's character gets involved with the Alfreds. He ultimately delivers his daughter to him without a word, which tells me he knew there were two of them, instead of being surprised a hanged man is now taking home his child. But then why the testifying towards his guilt? He obviously didn't know about Danton's double until he met him as the Lord character and then realized he had Alfred's daughter, but with them crossing paths -- nearly brushing shoulders -- as Alfred went to kill Danton it seems too coincidental that he didn't know then too. I'm very confused by that part of it.
I believe Caine knew all along that there were twins, he practically screamed it to Danton during that one scene but Danton didn't believe him. Hence Danton's obsession with trying to figure out the transporting man trick. Now what I think was the turning point for Caine's character in going with the Alfreds was that Danton basically kidnapped Alfreds daughter (well took something from Alfred he loved much like Alfred took his wife away) and could care less. Danton was so far gone out of his mind that Caine knew he had to be stopped.
Quote from: edison on October 30, 2006, 12:01:15 AM
SPOILERS!!!!
I believe Caine knew all along that there were twins, he practically screamed it to Danton during that one scene but Danton didn't believe him. Hence Danton's obsession with trying to figure out the transporting man trick. Now what I think was the turning point for Caine's character in going with the Alfreds was that Danton basically kidnapped Alfreds daughter (well took something from Alfred he loved much like Alfred took his wife away) and could care less. Danton was so far gone out of his mind that Caine knew he had to be stopped.
That still doesn't work for me because of Caine testifying towards the guilt of Alfred. His character was the only reason Alfred was convicted. It seems like he'd be aware that it may be the wrong one of the two before so vigorously going after him.
Also, Caine was partnered up with Danton the whole time. If he really knew about the two Alfreds he would have just flat out told Danton, not alluded to it or kept saying that the only way the trick could happen is because he's using a double -- because that's the only way HE (Caine's character) could devise pulling it off. He'd say, "Listen you daft bloke, he's got a twin brother. I know, I hired both of them ages ago. Now let's both go make some quid."
My guess is Michael Caine turned on Danton/Angier once he was discovered to be Lord Whatshisname. That doesn't explain how he knew that Alfred was twins but it explains when he said, "Fuck Danton."
This film is an anomaly. On one hand, I really enjoyed it. On the other hand, it has some big plot holes and one motherfucker of a suspension of disbelief for a film that should be airtight in that respect. I was thinking about it and, if the Alfred that loved the wife still continued with the ruse even after it essentially drove his wife to suicide, then he's still a scumbag and doesn't deserve our sympathies. Why should we care about him when his obsession to be such a great magician takes precedence over everything and everyone in his life?
But even so, it doesn't bother me that much. I still like the film.
Why are a lot of people concerned about liking either of the central characters? They were both horrible even before the drowning where the only traits portrayed were those of a susceptibility to obsession. At the end it's simply a question of who is worse and that judgement has to be based on our assesment of any moral issues surrounding the 'real' magic of the trick. Jackman drowns all these versions of himself. What are they?
I found Tesla's invention to be the most chilling part of the film and that which has stayed with me the most. Ordinarily I'd probably balk at the silliness of the idea but the way its presented in the context of The Prestige gives the whole thing a strong authenticity. David Bowie has been getting a lot of shit about his accent but I really liked his performance and was often thinking of the look on his face (as he leaves Colorado) during the final act of the film. Not to mention the box which the invention was housed in which was to me was almost as ominous as the the ark of the covenant in Raiders.
And of course he's his twin - the symmetry is too perfect - Sarah's nephew, crying watching the disappearing bird: "Where's his brother!?"
It's like David Copperfield meets Primer.
Quote from: Bethie on November 27, 2006, 01:57:58 AM
It's like David Copperfield meets Primer.
definitely stole that joke from me too.
Just got back from it and think it's fantastic. Don't care about any plot holes that might be there to be honest, there was so much else going for it that I'm a surefire supporter. Plus it makes me want to see The Fountain even more after seeing Hugh Jackman acting for grown-ups and acting very very well.
Quote from: gob on November 28, 2006, 05:31:51 PM
Just got back from it and think it's fantastic. Don't care about any plot holes that might be there to be honest, there was so much else going for it that I'm a surefire supporter.
I feel the same way, it's possibly Nolon's best since memento
i was watching a doc about the ark of the covenant on the national geographic channel last night, and it was mentioned that nikola tesla had a theory or had done an experiment to show electromagnetic properties that the ark may have had based on the bible claims that it fried those who touched it. anyways, i didn't realize this guy from the movie was a real scientist. quite an amazing dude according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
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one day in the distant future, ppl will watch the movie and not believe this david bowie dude was a real person.
Quote from: Pubrick on December 20, 2006, 07:57:25 PM
one day in the distant future, ppl will watch the movie and not believe this david bowie dude was a real person.
not only that, but they won't realize how close Tesla was connected to the machine he constructs in the film.
i originally thought that Tesla was just the cool underground scientist that the novelist and the film makers could use to get some Indy cred or something like that. and fair enough, if that was it alone, why not, it's cool shit. this was until i did some research on the scientist himself. about a week ago i looked him up on wikipedia and read through his biography (EDIT - the same link that pozer posted). it mentioned the lab that you see in the film, and various other little nit picky stuff that Nolan and the novelist did a good job reproducing. so at first i couldn't find any direct connection to teleportation until, strangely enough, i watched Brian depalma's "dressed to kill."
it's funny how one thing leads back to another within only two weeks. so i watched dressed to kill and it was a lot of fun. the actress Nancy Allen was in the film, and i was thinking how i used to think she was hot when i was younger. so after the movie was done i looked her up on imdb. i wanted to remember what other films she had been in, to ring a bell cuz i couldn't directly think of anything. i noticed she did the film "the Philadelphia experiment", which for those that don't know was the supposed conspiracy theory that a navy ship was teleported to Philadelphia port, a governmental warfar experiment. An alternate explanation was that the ship was rendered invisible and traveled to Philadelphia. both answers to the conspiracy were based on Einsteins unified theory that never got completed. Tesla, also, shortly before he died stated that he had finished the theory and put it to practice. which the film relies heavily on.
on the Philadelphia experiment page in wikipedia mentioned Tesla as a possible connection to the conspiracy:
"However, the brilliant inventor, Nikola Tesla, claimed to have completed a unified field theory shortly before his death in January 1943. He died before he presented it to the world, but after his death all of his belongings and scientific notes were seized by the FBI. This hugely influential scientist had also been theorizing on electricity and magnetism's power to warp, or rather change, space and time. His death in 1943 and the alleged date given for the Philadelphia Experiment coincide. Coupled to this is the fact that, although he was hugely well-known during his life-time, he has remained almost conspicuously unknown to the public since his death."
so there, that's what i dug up, and gives the film more credibility in my eyes.
-sl-
If u dont understand the purpose of the female character, u didnt get the film... ergo... your review is NOT valid :yabbse-thumbdown: :yabbse-grin:
Quote from: Garam on January 28, 2007, 11:42:01 AM
I got it, each one of the Bales loved a different woman, very clever. Still didn't think it was good, so harumph. Still, good to see Michael Caine stretching himself in roles like this, eh?
you my friend, are wrong
Quote from: socketlevel on January 29, 2007, 02:55:05 PM
Quote from: Garam on January 28, 2007, 11:42:01 AM
I got it, each one of the Bales loved a different woman, very clever. Still didn't think it was good, so harumph. Still, good to see Michael Caine stretching himself in roles like this, eh?
you my friend, are wrong
Except for the Michael Caine sarcasm. His character may as well have been an olde-timey phonograph through which Caine could have phoned it in.
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The Pledge, The Turn, The Prestige, The DVD
Exclusive Interview: Christopher Nolan talks about his magic movie, bolstering DVD bonus materials, and delving into The Dark Knight.
We can't be certain, but chances are that most of IGN's readers have heard the name Christopher Nolan. In 1998, he did a picture called Following, and more recently he shot a remake of the Danish film Insomnia. Oh yeah, and he also did Memento and Batman Begins. His latest film, The Prestige, features some similarly recognizable stars (Little Women's Christian Bale and Paperback Hero's Hugh Jackman) and debuts on DVD this week.
Nolan recently spoke to IGN for an exclusive phone interview about The Prestige. In addition to discussing his expanding profile as a filmmaker of note, Nolan talked about tackling magic - movie or otherwise - on the silver screen, and described his own challenges meeting the expectations of a demanding public while keeping true to his own creative vision.
IGN DVD: After the movie was released there was a lot of discussion among viewers about how quickly people "figured out" the plot. How much did you design this film to be a mystery that unravels, and how much does it just play to the line in the film that the idea is not to deceive but make the audience complicit in an illusion?
Christopher Nolan: It's very much a film that is defined be the viewer's response to it, which I like material like that anyway, but it's really the extreme of that because different people figure things out at different times as they watch the movie. There isn't a unified response, and to me that was always an interesting thing because that is very much the way magic works - magic depends on the way people watch things, and this film highlights and deconstructs the way in which people watch movies. It's very sort of concerned with that. So it was always my intention to play with those ideas, and there are a lot of surprising things that happened in the movie that most people don't see coming or look at the first time around, but at the same time whenever you put something in front of people and tell them it's playing tricks, you're inviting close scrutiny, so for some people there are a lot of very obvious and clear clues to things in the movie. Certainly the movie is constructed so that if anyone is interested to watch it a second time, they realize we've played very very fair with the audience in terms of providing all of the necessary information to work out what's going on.
IGN: How tough was it to create illusions in the movie that would photograph well and yet not look like typical "special effects" you might see in any other movie?
Nolan: Well a lot of what we did in terms of presenting magic in the film was to get the actors up to speed with magic so they could do their own small-scale illusions, the little prestidigitation or the little moves they could do with their hands - things they could make appear or disappear and so forth. With anything bigger than that, we actually quite purposefully put cuts in all of the wrong places, if you will; we allowed people to dismiss as camera trickery what illusions are presented on stage because that's not really the concern of the film. The fun of the film is that we engage and involve the audience in how those things are done, and we give away plenty of our tricks in that regard. But at the same time, the actual elements of magic and trickery that are most important in the film are actually in the narrative of the movie itself, and the script therefore was always constructed according to the principles of the way a magic trick is constructed.
IGN: Does that carry over when you're considering what will be on the DVD - how much to show and how much to keep "secret"?
Nolan: It definitely did, and there were certain things that we considered putting on the DVD that at the last minute we changed our minds because there are things that you want to reveal. I believe actually there are certain aspects of filmmaking that should be hid from the audiences - that revealing too much of how illusion is put together I think damages the appeal of those illusions ultimately.
IGN: It seems like there is this mentality now that all of the movie magic must be deconstructed or explained. Is that something you're trying to counter in general?
Nolan: I think that for me there is generally a sense in which too much of filmmaking is demystified - we know too much about the movie stars in their life, we know too much about how movies are made to some degree. I have a fascinating book that someone gave me about matte paintings, glass paintings and the film history of that, and when you look back it's sort of extraordinary to realize that when those guys were first working on sets they worked inside tents so that no one could see what they were doing even among the crew. Their art was as with magicians considered a mystery, something that people shouldn't know how it was done. I think there is a great appeal to that - there's a very important sense in which the way in which things are constructed should be left mysterious.
IGN: Is that at all why you decided not to do a commentary track for the DVD, or was that a matter of timing?
Nolan: It's both, really. There are two things behind the [recording] of a commentary: because of the lead times on producing elements, you are often asked to do a commentary before the film has been released, and particularly with this film, the film is all about audience response and you're not really qualified on what the film is until the audience has contributed to that. Also, from a point of view of not wanting to demystify the story we created too much, I really didn't feel it was appropriate to do one on this movie. I've done them sometimes and I've not done them sometimes and it's always for different reasons.
IGN: How involved are you in the production of the special features? Do they bring you ideas to approve, or are you involved from the conception stage?
Nolan: It's different on different projects, and on this I very much liked the direction they were going in and I let them kind of do their thing and then looked at stuff for approval. I was involved with various decisions related to what went on and what didn't, but it was interesting to watch someone kind of have fun with what we'd done. There are other DVDs where I've been intensely involved with it, and some less so; it's different in every situation and in the case of this film I was certainly involved, but a lot of other people's imaginations went into what it would be and that was actually very exciting to be a part of.
IGN: One of the most interesting themes you explore in this film is the disparity between showmanship and substance. Is that something that you have been challenged with in your career - balancing your own vision with a responsibility to your perceived or actual audience?
Nolan: I think very much it's something that I deal with in my job, really, because there are many different ways to approach filmmaking and film directing. There are very different levels of stylization, for example, or ways in which you present the story that there are temptations to show off as a filmmaker and there are purist ideas behind certain things you want to do that call for more restraint or more subtlety than in other areas. I try not to have too many rules about the way I shoot a film, but I definitely have a very purist approach to why things should be shot in a particular way and I think that as a filmmaker, you do deal with these concepts - the purist aesthetic versus the slightly flashier way of doing things that might gain you more attention.
IGN: The casting is perfect in terms of embodying that dynamic - Christian Bale in particular practically embodies actorly integrity and his character's sense of commitment to his art. Do you like working with the same actors multiple times? Would you like to work, say, with Bale again on a third role?
Nolan: Well, I'm about to start working with him again, so I'd better be (laughs). To be honest I don't really worry too much about who's going to do a film; things come together in the way they are meant to, so if that means working with the same people that's wonderful thing, but sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Really every project is unique and has unique requirements and in the case of both Christian and Michael [Caine], it just so happened that we had two very different projects with very different requirements but both of which they fitted the characters just perfectly.
IGN: At this point in your career, do you have the freedom to explore what you want or do you similarly have to juggle that balance of personal vision and commercial responsibility?
Nolan: Well, every situation is unique, once again, but a lot of it is really balancing your time, frankly, because the turnaround times with a production lead times they have on the DVD material mean that you're not able to participate as fully as you would like to because you're actually finishing the film still. So for me I'm intensely involved with every aspect of making the film, and so when those two things overlap you can't spend as much time on one thing or the other, and you're very much at the mercy of having gone into bed with the right people who are going to be making the DVD and hoping to include you to the extent they can. Certainly I had a good experience on this one.
IGN: You moved so quickly from Batman Begins to The Prestige. Did this seem like a continuation of that work load or was this a change of pace?
Nolan: Well, there are a number of ways in which this film was a shift in gears and a change of pace. The scale of the film, although large for what the story is, is obviously much smaller than Batman Begins, and we had to work with far fewer material resources - which required a different type of ingenuity which was very refreshing, actually. The difference in subject matter was also interesting, and the methodology and where we shot the film; we shot the entire film in Los Angeles doing London in L.A. where we'd done the reverse for Batman effectively - we shot an American city in London. It had very different challenges and my brother and I'd been developing the script for several years prior to Batman Begins so that was the reason I was able to follow it pretty quickly. We'd already put in the time developing the script.
IGN: So how then does that reinvigorate or just challenge you moving back to something that is much bigger in scale?
Nolan: Well, I think it has been reinvigorating from the point of view of things that we learned about our process on The Prestige that we would actually attempt to carry through on the bigger film. On every film you learn a lot about what you're doing and why you're doing it, and those lessons that can be applied to the next thing.
IGN: What lessons did you learn on The Prestige?
Nolan: Well, I think what we did on The Prestige from my point of view very successfully was we created a production methodology that was based around flexibility for the actors. We shot the film not in conventional coverage, we used a lot of handheld camera, so within the same take we would be doing a close-up and a two-shot and a wide shot and just really moving around and following action much more like a documentary. That's a very efficient way of working, but it's also very liberating for the actors because it achieves a degree of reality with things that I'd like to maintain on other projects.
IGN: So are you taking a break between this and your next movie or are you starting up immediately on Dark Knight?
Nolan: No, I'm straight in. I'm doing three films in a row without a break, so maybe when I finish The Dark Knight I'll have time for a holiday.
SPOILERS
I already had an inkling before I started it of what some of the twists were because of my clicking on this thread. I avoided the posts that stated spoilers, but several of the posts freely talked about "the Bales." That's all I caught because I very quickly looked away after realizing that it was a spoiler. I suppose it's my fault for clicking on this thread, but there should be more careful monitoring of that sort of thing, as we all frequently look at threads before actually seeing the movie.
Anyway, even if I hadn't seen that spoilerful remark, it was obvious all along that there were two of the Bordens. That guy was fishy all along just hovering around all the time like that, also we very obviously aren't allowed to clearly see his face for a while and then when we are, he's clearly played by Bale. I assumed that Nolan was making that obvious until that apparently was the twist. Especially things like the scene where Borden is already in his future wife's apartment, and how she kept saying that some days he meant that he loved her and some days he didn't.
It also seemed to be made obvious that Tesla's machine made duplicates of things. "They're all your hat," and the cat thing SHOWED that the machine makes duplicates!
So when the last scene comes and they both very dramatically tell each other that one has a twin and the other had a duplicate... I dunno, I was expecting another twist because I thought that the twin/duplicate thing was the slight of hand on Nolan's part--in other words, that being led to suspect the twin/duplicate thing was a misdirection. But nope, that was it.
In any case, the movie was successful in generating atmosphere and it was an interesting enough, if relatively shallow, study of obsession. Entertaining to watch until the end, I felt.
chris nolan always looks like such a douchebag
I really hate movies that punish you for being smart. fuck that. I came back from a party that was super lame and super loud, and I thought, ooh, I'll watch the prestige to rinse out the bad taste, but then there it was, more punishment for smart people. fuck.
Quote from: pete on June 09, 2007, 05:45:39 AM
I really hate movies that punish you for being smart.
You sure you weren't watching The Illusionist?
is the illusionist even worse?
The Illusionist punishes you for having seen any other movies before it.
i actually enjoyed the illusionist more than the prestige. as predictable as the ending was, it didn't leave the bad taste in my mouth that the prestige did.
fuck the jackman/bale story, i would've rathered the whole movie focus on serkis and bowie.
But it wasn't just that the ending was predictable. There was absolutely nothing to talk about after The Illusionist. The Prestige's ending didn't sit right with me the first time around but I'll take an ending that doesn't entirely satisfy over one that is much too easy to figure out from the halfway point of the movie and reveals that a major character is only in the movie to conveniently spell everything out to the audience in the last 2 minutes.
So what about the discussion on the ending of the Prestige. All you're doing is discussing plot tricks and the make up of the con. It doesn't make the film good. It just distracts from the essentials of good storytelling.
The Illusionist has three quality actors at their most enjoyable in a script that allows the focus to be on them. It doesn't try to do too much but is rewarding as a simple love story.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on June 14, 2007, 01:40:17 PM
The Illusionist has three quality actors at their most enjoyable in a script that allows the focus to be on them. It doesn't try to do too much but is rewarding as a simple love story.
But it's also a film devoid of style, with a plot devoid of surprise, and a female lead devoid of believability. It was passable, certainly, but it's the sort of movie that you pass by in the video store and can't remember if you've seen it yet or not. I'd much rather watch a movie like The Prestige that tries too hard and falls short than a movie like The Illusionist, which aims low and nails the target.
Quote from: polkablues on June 14, 2007, 01:54:04 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on June 14, 2007, 01:40:17 PM
The Illusionist has three quality actors at their most enjoyable in a script that allows the focus to be on them. It doesn't try to do too much but is rewarding as a simple love story.
But it's also a film devoid of style, with a plot devoid of surprise, and a female lead devoid of believability.
The parts that do work for me still make it more rewarding than The Prestige.
Besides, I didn't find the Prestige that ambitious or memorable. The style isn't noteworthy. It doesn't tie into the storytelling. It just gives the film a good look. And all the twists become so continuous that the audience is looking for them. Any film that has twists can become predictable if that is all you're looking for. The Prestige made that all you looked for.
Also, the leads of Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale do not even come close to Edward Norton and Paul Giamitti. I've had problems with Bale's so called talent. He's proven himself to go to extremes for a role, but he is a cardboard cut out of his characters. There is little depth and Hugh Jackman has just become a pretty boy everyman for any role.
The Illusionist being good at story and acting means a lot more than the Prestige being good at twist endings and cinematography.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on June 14, 2007, 01:40:17 PM
So what about the discussion on the ending of the Prestige. All you're doing is discussing plot tricks and the make up of the con. It doesn't make the film good. It just distracts from the essentials of good storytelling.
The Illusionist has three quality actors at their most enjoyable in a script that allows the focus to be on them. It doesn't try to do too much but is rewarding as a simple love story.
In reading over your posts on both movies, GT, I see that we have the same praises and criticisms but about the opposite films.
The Illusionist
does try to do too much. It tries to be a fairy tale, serious period piece, and murder-mystery all at once and it failed to be any. It does a good job of pretending that it's as clever and romantic and suspenseful as it should have been but it's not. Not to say that The Prestige doesn't try to do too much as well but it was just a more interesting story.
It's not even rewarding as a love story. And if it's intent was to be so, then it succeeded as much as Ocean's 11 did at being a love story. As I wrote in the Illusionist thread (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=8830.msg240029#msg240029), not enough time was spent on the set-up of the love story. It wasn't convincing enough in that short amount of time, something that The Princess Bride (for example) manages to do quite well. It was just sort of implied, almost as if it wasn't important and not the entire driving force of the movie. And since it wasn't convincing, there was nothing there for me at all except to look for the twists, which were glaringly obvious. If they had managed to sell the love story, I might actually have enjoyed it. But the kids didn't do it and I never felt like Norton and Biel were anything besides actors in a movie, so they lost me.
I rather enjoyed The Prestige and enjoyed the performances, script, and story much more than The Illusionist's. I've detailed my issues with The Prestige's ending (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=8953.msg234567#msg234567) earlier in this thread but it didn't undo the whole film for me because the journey towards that ending was great fun. But after The Illusionist was over, I felt in a similar way to how I interpret Pete's comment about feeling like he was punished for being smart.
i just watched this again and this is kind of tangental but i think my favorite part in the movie is when the promoter says "I'm sorry, i just havent' seen real magic in a long time" or something to that effect. it's one of the many nice touches this film delivers. there is great wonder in a lot of characters in the film, where they hint at something yet beautifully don't over explain. in that one line this small character creates the fascination of what could be an entirely different story/film. what does he mean by that? and what was this true magic he's seen a long time ago.
oh and i agree 100% with polka's stance on the two films stated above.
Quote from: socketlevel on June 26, 2010, 03:24:37 AM
there is great wonder in a lot of characters in the film, where they hint at something yet beautifully don't over explain.
Exact science, Mr. Angier, is not an exact science.That is my favorite line from The Prestige. I might as well add that Mr. Bowie's emergence as Mr. Tesla from the spherical field of electricity is one of my favorite moments.
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I love that entrance.
Mr. Blackmirror, I find the way you talk very Mr.ious.
Haha. Mr.ious indeed.
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