Christopher Nolan and his brother are great storytellers, creating original and fanciful worlds in which magician’s square off, heroes grow from despair, and dreams become reality. However, while their love of cinema can be seen through the effort they place into their work, it can also be seen in the content in which they bring to the big screen. The Prestige, like other films of Nolan’s, is a brilliant essay on the magic of movies, and can be seen as another attempt for Nolan to express his opinions to the spectator on his own craft.
The Prestige, like his other films, does not ever reveal this comparison to the mainstream audience. There are no screens or cameras to parallel with the magic being done in the film. Like Inception, the film can stand on its own as a movie of depth and worthy of discussion, but it must be looked at deeper to see the real intentions. In creating a movie that follows magicians while simultaneously creating a mysterious reveal is no coincidence. Like a magician’s act, there are three parts to a film before we are completely satisfied. Let’s take a look at the opening monologue by Michael Caine that will explain this further.
First part of the film is the Pledge. We are given two characters in a realistic world. These characters we believe to be human, and living in a human world, and as far as we know are capable of thinks we as the spectator are only capable of. With the Turn, we kill off one of our main characters, which we perceive to be the protagonist. With the extraordinary comes when he is shown not dead (something we as the spectator were already aware was possible and probable) and he walks away with our (perceived) antagonist’s daughter. But, as Alfred is hung, we haven’t felt satisfied with the ending of the film. His muttering of “abra kadabra” is our reveal, learning his side of the story, and seeing our protagonist, who has now done enough to be shifted to an antagonist spot in our brains, being killed.
Nolan is not foreign to providing his thoughts on film through film, as Inception, his most recent release, has been critiqued as a parallel to the behind the scenes workings of a film, with all the main characters being a part of film (director, producer, actor, spectator, set designer, etc.)
I enjoy the way that you have decribed the three parts of a magician's act as to that of a cinematic act instead. I also must agree that Christopher Nolan is one of those directors. However, I would say that this three part act could apply to a large portion of his body of work, specifically using the examples of Memento, The Prestige, and Inception. This is probably something you were already thinking. In all of these movie Nolan presents us with some sort of Pledge, like in Memento, there is an ordinary poloroid photo. He also provides us with a Turn, as in The Prestige which you pointed out. There is even a Prestige in all his films, like in Inception, when the protagonist is brought back from sub-consious. Nolan himself is a magician and can be seen applying all of this to his films as a whole.
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