Let's revisit The Prestige because I just watched it for the first time *Open Spoilers*

Cafe Society
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Ok so as the title of this thread indicates, I just got around to watching The Prestige for the first time and wow am I blown away. I immediately started reading every thing I possibly could, including several hours of reading through old threads here on the Dope about it.

I have a few nagging questions that I need some help with, for anyone who is willing to help me. And also I’d like to just share my feelings and inspire anyone who hasn’t seen it yet to go watch The Prestige as soon as possible because it is phenomenal.
When did Michael Caine’s character learn about the true nature of the machine? I am really confused as to why he couldn’t openly testify in court about the trick, but also didn’t understand when he realized that Jackman had set up the whole thing just to frame Bale. Basically I’m really confused about these series of events, when and why they happened:

Caine testifies in court that he can’t talk openly about the trick. The judge talks to him privately and Caine admits that the box is real magic, not just a trick.

Caine meets the Count who has bought all the tricks only to realize that it is Jackman himself the whole time, who never actually died.

Caine meets up with Jackman once near the water tank and tells him that drowning is actually an agonizing way to die. This was like a bit of revenge or punishment and seemed to indicate that Caine knew what the nature of the machine was.

Caine meets up with Bale and his daughter and shows to be on his side now, possibly knowing that Bale murdered Jackman in revenge for killing his twin brother.

So can someone sort this out for me? At the time of the trial, Caine couldn’t have known about the true nature of the trick, because he would have known that Bale was innocent and would not have testified against him. And yet he knew it was real magic and couldn’t testify in open court, and had to meet secretly with the judge? And so his testimony helps seal Bale’s fate. But then he meets up with Jackman two other times (once in front of the water tank to tell him how agonizing it is to drown, and another time when he wanted to plead with The Count to destroy the machine).

So my question basically boils down to, when did Caine learn the nature of the machine? He had to know it in order to give Jackman that warning about drowning being horrible, but he had to NOT know it in order to believe that Bale actually did murder Jackman by setting up the tank.

And we can discuss more of the movie as well. All the threads I found on this movie are many years old now, so how has it held up for you all? For those who loved it, do you still count it as one of your favorites? For those who didn’t, has it grown on you somehow? All Prestige discussion is welcome!

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I don’t remember the film clearly enough to answer any of your questions, but I now know what I’m going to watch this evening. Thanks!

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Sorry, I don’t know why I was calling Jackman’s nobility a Count… he was a Lord. So everywhere in my post where I referred to a Count, I was talking about Lord Caldlow or whatever it was, Jackman’s real persona as opposed to his stage name and life.

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He didn’t know the true nature of the trick any more than the theater’s owner did (“Pardon me, it’s very rare to see real magic. It’s been many years-”). He’d worked out that there was something miraculous about this machine and that it didn’t belong in the hands of some collector. His suspicions are confirmed when:

He testifies in court, knowing that there was something about the machine but still ultimately believing Borden is responsible and that this was just the latest in the escalating series of back-and-forth stunts they’ve been pulling on one another. Then he meets with Caldlow’s agent who directs him to Caldlow. Then he learns that Caldlow is in fact Angier, who he believed to be dead, but is up and kicking with Borden’s daughter in his custody. So it’s not until now that he realizes that Borden was innocent.

Angier reassures him that the machine is to be disposed of and later while they’re in the middle of disposing of it he makes the remark about drowning. In the sequence of the film’s events this is the second-to-last scene that takes place, followed by the scene that’s shown at the start and end of the movie (Cutter with Borden’s daughter).

The Prestige was from the moment I first saw it one of my favorite movies. I really suggest you watch it again- it’s a film that improves unspeakably on repeated viewings. I’ve seen it more times than I’d be comfortable admitting and I still feel as if my appreciation of it deepens with each rewatch.

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My recollection of the drowning discussion is that Cutter (Caine’s character) tells Angier (Bale’s character) the story about drowning being painless just to comfort him about Julia’s (Angier’s wife) drowning death during a trick. He denies it later just to drive home for Angier exactly what he’s been doing to himself, over and over again, simply to be famous and beat his competitor. Cutter was horrified that Angier had taken what he’d intended as a comforting lie and decided that it was therefore an awesome way to commit repeated suicide dozens of times. I don’t think it was intended as revenge, but rather as a “what the hell have you done?!” sort of wake-up call attempt.

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Watchable movie. David Bowie was great as Nikolai Tesla.

My central problem with the plot though, was why did Hugh Jackman need to go to all that trouble drowning himself and making a new double for every performance? He was having great success with the “teleportation” trick for awhile when he found a lookalike. The only problem was that the lookalike was a drunk and wouldn’t stick to the script. So once Jackman got the duplicator he only needed to make one copy of himself and he and his duplicate are in business.

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Yes, but then he would have to share the prestige with himself.

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Hugh Jackman’s character was obsessed with…well, not quite sure what you would call it, hubris I guess? Remember when he was doing the trick with the double and he wasn’t able to be onstage for the applause? The fact Christian Bale got to bask in the glow of the audience (well, atleast Jackman thought he did) after successfully performing the trick drove him mad.

I imagine two Hugh Jackman’s would have got in endless arguments about who gets the glory.

Edit: Yeah, what Miller said.

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It’s also about how far you were willing to go. The more you sacrificed, the better you were. Angier was willing to literally kill himself every night for the sake of a trick. How can you beat that?

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Angier hated himself and killed himself every night, pointlessly so. He was doing the trick the same way the Borden brothers were, but he was always killing his new-found twin. He had a new brother every night, but in his jealously against “Borden” failed to see “Borden” or the Borden brothers, where just the opposite of him, despite their flaws.

The whole movie is summarized when the little boy cries during the bird smashing trick.

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“I knew Batman. Batman was a friend of mine. Wolverine, you’re no Batman.”

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Ok I guess I kind of understand the timeline a little better, but it really really seemed to me that Cutter knew what the secret of the machine was while in court and I was confused.

So he was basically just bluffing when he said he couldn’t testify about it because it would ruin the trick? But why bluff? He was suspicious of the machine and very wary of it when talking to the judge about it. Why go through the theatrics while on the stand in court about how he can’t give away the secret but that he knows how the trick was done and that it had to be Borden who killed Angier? His testimony was basically just a lie then, wasn’t it, and he’s as guilty as Angier is for the eventual execution of Borden (one of them, anyway).

I definitely will rewatch this again sometime.

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I figured any explanation for it would be along the lines of his obsession and hunger for the ‘prestige’. He coulda just taken turns with his twin getting the applause though. And how handy when there were a lot of errands to run on his days off-- who couldn’t use a double now and then?

Not to mention always making a copy of a copy of a copy…that can’t be good after a while.

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solost, I know it wasn’t believable for you but it worked for me. The very fact that Angiers had to resort to real magic in order to reproduce the trick that had driven him mad is an important and powerful one. Because even after experiencing a truly miraculous thing and performing it many times, his obsession was STILL not over. He still had to know how Borden did his trick, regardless of the fact that Angiers had done it better and with a true miracle. It was almost as if Angiers realized that by using a true miracle he had cheated, and still was not as good as Borden, and he still HAD to know Borden’s method, at that point, for no damn good reason at all other than pure obsession.

That’s a very powerful statement I think, and kind of the point of the movie. That he didn’t end up keeping a duplicate to perform the trick is important, because he had to have complete control over his trick, and allowing a duplicate to survive and share in the prestige was unnacceptable, not to mention he honestly believed that Borden didn’t use a duplicate, and so neither would he in trying to replicate it. He had to kill that 2nd copy night after night in order for the trick to be better than Borden’s, and even then it wasn’t good enough.

But it drove him crazy that Tesla did not make a teleporting machine for Borden, so HOW did Borden do the original trick? It was just a crazy silly movie coincidence that Tesla ends up being successful (sort of) in making a working machine for Angiers for the first time. The forged diary admitted that he had sent him on a wild goose chase to waste his time and money. So even after Tesla made him this miraculous machine, he didn’t care. I couldn’t see anything other than “How the hell does Borden do his trick?”
Can anyone else tell how much I loved this movie? I can’t think of a movie that encapsulated a single theme so damn well (that theme being obsession).

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I remember being annoyed that the original trick (as presented by Bale and his character’s twin when one bounced a ball and the other caught it) wasn’t presented well. Perhaps my memory’s not perfect, but weren’t there rapid camera cuts and such? I felt cheated - it should have been presented as a single shot, the way the live audience would have seen it. Surely the special effects involved would be trivial by modern standards.

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Hey drewtwo99,

You offer up a very good defense of the movie, and make some good points… I feel a little trollish now.

I can see the theme of obsession in the movie, as well as I remember it since it’s been awhile. Borden made his twin brother cut off his finger after he lost his in that gunshot incident, after all, so they’d remain perfect copies. So the obsession was on both sides of the rivalry. I’m starting to think I need to watch this movie again!

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Yeah, this is the entire point. It’s what he talks about as he dies at the end of the film. It would be obvious to us that if there is a set of twins performing a trick like the Transported Man they’re probably taking turns playing the prestige but Angier still has to ask Borden which of them is the man in the box.

At the outset of the film it seems like Angier is driven by the death of his wife and a desire for revenge. But by the end of the story he’s been converted into a true believer like Borden and Chung Ling Soo. All three of them are about what it’s worth to master your craft and they’ve all made sacrifices, some more than the others.

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At the very beginning of this clip, you see the trick as a single shot. When they show it earlier in the film, I think it may have been shot in close up with a camera cut, but you do see it as a single shot seen from the audience.

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I thought you were wrong, and that you had the event in the time line confused, that Cutter had talked to someone about destroying the machine after Borden was executed.

But I rewatched it, and you appear to be correct. 4 minutes into the movie, Cutter is testifying at the trial.

Cutter: “The Real Transported Man is one of the most sought after illusions in this business. I have the right to sell it on. If I reveal the method here, then the trick is worthless”

Judge: “Mr. Cutter, I see your predicament. But Alfred Borden’s life hangs in the balance. If you were prepared to disclose the details to me in private, I might be able to judge their relevance to the case”

Now 21 minutes in, Cutter takes the judge to view the machine. I actually didn’t realize that the guy he’s talking to is the judge (first appearance second appearance). I guess the wig and the different timbre of voice threw me off. I’d thought this scene had taken place after the trial, after Cutter realized the machine had to be destroyed. But it’s the scene with the judge during the trial.

Judge: “You built this, Mr. Cutter?”

Cutter: “Oh no sir, this wasn’t built by a magician. This was built by a wizard. A man who can actually do what magicians pretend to do. Tell me your honor, what happens with these things after the trial?”

Judge: “They’ve been sold to a Lord Cordlow, an avid collector apparently very interested in the case”

Cutter: “Don’t let him take this”

Judge: “Whyever not?”

Cutter: “It’s too dangerous”

Judge: “I’m sure beneath its bells and whistles, it has a simple and disappointing trick”

Cutter: “Most disappointing of all sir, it has no trick. It’s real.”

But Cutter doesn’t realize what has happened until Angier reveals himself as Lord Cordlow. He was shocked to see him, and that’s well after these scenes.

The dialog says “after the trial”, making it clear that this takes place before Borden is killed.

I’ll note that I think Cutter is referring to “The Real Transported Man”, not the real “Transported Man” - the brochure for Angier’s show in London with Tesla’s machine is labeled The Real Transported Man. So he’s not talking about an earlier version of the trick that he designed using doubles.

But the show movie makes it clear that Cutter isn’t involved in creating this trick. That he’s only involved in finding a venue, running the show, etc. Angier deliberately kept him separate from the actual details of the trick. So why would Cutter say that he wanted to reserve the right to sell the trick when he doesn’t even know how it works? He could simply say that it wasn’t a trick he designed, so he doesn’t know how it works.

Furthermore, he’s talking to the judge to reveal the method privately, and all he can say is “it’s real magic” and the judge just leaves it at that? Implausible.

The only explanation I can come up with is that Cutter believed the trick really was magic (or magic-looking science), only he thought that it simply teleported someone, not duplicating them. So then when Angier never appeared in the prestige, and Cutter found him drowning, he may have thought that Borden really did murder him by sabotaging the trick somehow. He didn’t realize it was a duplicating machine until he saw Cordlow.

Still, that doesn’t make sense that he claimed to want to reserve the right to sell the trick, nor that he never really explained how it works to the judge.

Huh, that’s too bad. This is one of my favorite movies and I view the writing as very tight - this is probably a significant plot hole. I mean, it’s not a show stopper - if Cutter tells the court that he’s not sure exactly how the trick worked, but there’s no reason it would involve the water tank, then there’d still be good enough reason to convict Borden. But it does appear to be weak writing. Does anyone else have an explanation to explain it?

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Sure it does. You apparently think it’d make perfect sense if Cutter knew it was a duplicator: he says he wants to preserve the trade secret for resale value – but when that bluff lands him and the will-preserve-confidentiality judge in front of the duplicator, he of course begs the judge to to keep it out of the hands of anyone who’d use it but can’t actually explain how it works.

What changes if he doesn’t realize it’s a duplicator, but thinks it’s a teleporter?