What is the significance of this film and its relationship to others?

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.) 

Screening Notes: The Prestige

One of my favorite films. Have probably seen it half a dozen times. May zone out watching it, be warned.

I love Christian Bale's pure impressiveness when he sees the old chinese man. I mean, that's the same thing he's been going through for years now, every since he decided he wanted to do that trick, and he knows what its like to have to do so. It's great foreshadowing in the beginning.

I love that upon my first viewing, I was more of a fan of Hugh Jackman's character, but ever since the final's moments of this film I've never EVER thought of him as the protagonist ever again. I've always thought of him as the antagonist, and you know what? It's quite easy to do so, since the character is written so well that he can be perceived correctly either way depending on what you know.

You wanna talk obsessiveness? The fact that these guys write in their journals with the full knowledge that a) their journals will be stolen, and b) that they were never writing their secrets or anything of value to their rival, is astonishing.

The use of the scientist is a pretty cool edition, kinda makes it seem a little more realistic than it did, even though he wasn't doing stuff of this, magnitude. I still enjoy scenes with him, its very very visual.

See, Hugh Jackman, asshole.

The Abra Kadabra moment when he hangs himself, and telling him you'll see me, is epic. He is going to die, but he just knows that Hugh Jackman is gonna see him again and pay for it. He just happens to not be the show, he has to be the man that goes into the box this time, but permanently. It's a sacrifice his own mistakes caused him to make, but he sees it only in a way a magician could.

Great movie. Great great great movie.

Screening Notes: Melancholia

I’m pretty weirded out by this entire opening sequence. She was on the 19^th hole, so it feels INCREDIBLY unrealistic.

Ok, so the planet has hit the Earth. Those were the moments we expect to see at the end of each of the parts. I really hope not in that slow of a montage again though…

I like the father, I enjoy this entire reception in fact. I reminds me a lot of Margaret At the Wedding. Even the real awkward parts. I enjoy this kind of filming and this kind of dialogue at wedding functions.

At this point its pretty obvious that the change in filming style is in relation to how close the planet is.

I still haven’t figured out certain people’s characters. Keifer Sutherland is especially confusing me. So is the kid, and whose kid he actually is.

I can’t tell if Justine or Claire is supposed to be in mourning or melancholic. I feel like I already know, since we saw Justine acting so calm during situations. I also can’t for the life of me figure out when the horrible thing is that they are talking about.

Ok, the “whole” family is grieving. That makes more sense.

Ha, at that picture.

Alright, again, I don’t know why (and I’m starting to think that will be a trend of this movie) but they are really pushing the “18 holes” on a golf course. So the 19^th clearly means something.

This mother is the last person she should be talking to right now.

The mother SUCKS. This new tagline guy, is a pretty funny person that has to now follow her around. She is also completely unable to make any attempt of enjoying her own wedding.

Ah yes, the old sky sequence to really tie everything together…

I wonder if it was a deliberate choice to make all unnamed party guests just act like absolutely nothing is the matter, or if they have prior knowledge of her depression and are just trying to be supportive.

I think it was almost hard not to predict some sort of hook up between Mr. Tagline and the other guy.

This is a really long part one.

Couldn’t have been a longer blackout for the transition from part 1 to part 2.

And now it becomes a tad scientific. It’s strange thinking over our previous class period that we watched something with so much special effect and cgi, since we were saying that it was the death of the cinema

I got really into the last half. Some final notes. I thought it was pretty interesting that Keifer Sutherland killed himself. I also liked the antithesis between Justine’s reaction to this and Claire’s reaction, and how it was opposite to the wedding. I think I actually need to have gone through this sort of depression to really understand where it is coming from, but it seems like it is a good explanation on how life feels under Justine’s mindset.

Screening Notes

The initial blast was in complete slow motion, shown four or five times.

The actual event leading up to it however, shows the act of war, the minute to minute activity, to be completely menial and chore like, making something out of the ordinary happening completely unprep-ed. The conversation (Owen talking about being dead, James talking about mortar’s coming through the roof) continues to discuss that unprepared ness for what is going to happen.

So many roof eyes. The idea of looking “up” besides across. Always being out of position in war, since the enemy only has to be a short distance away and holding a phone.

With the car bomb.

I love the scene when they reach the British (Austrailian?) men, and again, with the spit and rubbing, its such menial tasks, but under this pressure it becomes something so much more stressful. Specialist can’t do it. James has to come down and show him, but doesn’t do it himself. It’s a scene that shows why the Specialist is so worried about dying, he’s got no natural instincts of war. I mean, I wouldn’t have known why the bullets were jammed, or that the way to clean them was to spit and rub.

And again, with scoping, even after killing the men, they watch, and they (James and Sanborn) although have been elite officials up until this point, can’t help but close their eyes, get distracted, etc, ask for juice. The whole thing is a very rigorous and specific task. To learn how to do exactly this specific thing must not be hard, but to learn and remember every single part of the job is almost impossible, and that’s how mistakes are made, which seem to be made almost everytime. James is a freak, but also happens to retain more war knowledge than social knowledge, making him better for the jobs. 

Screening Notes

In a very quick shot, there is a shot of a man and a woman talking intimately at a dinner table in a restaurant. There are people behind them, and there is another woman in the shot. The female is smoking a cigarette, and the man has her hand grasped between his. The shot is a POV from another woman across the table. The man is talking and the woman is listening.

This dinner talk is a symbol of the main character's infidelity to his wife, who holds the POV. The shot is quick because the wife is only taking quick glances to look, and the people around him show that he does not even try very hard to keep the fact that he flirts and teases with other girls a giant secret. Him talking, holding HER hand, and her listening and smoking also show that he is the predator of the conversation, the initiator that is holding the conversation afloat. He was not roped into it or was not manipulated. This shot symbolizes early on in the film how terrible the relationship between the two main characters actually is. The smoking of the cigarette symbolize the woman as the one in the affair, as cigarette smoking is usually associated with the more bad characters and the ones doing things that are considered "against the norm".

If I were to make it a myth, I would say that from this shot, you can believe that this man has cheated on his wife before, and possibly multiple occasions. The clearly apathetic demeanor towards his own wife, across the dinner table, is showing that his feelings towards her do not extend far. He also does not car about embarrassing her or himself at this very public dinner. Just from this shot alone, I would not be very surprised if there was a past of infidelity  between the two main character's, which I predicted in the previous paragraph. Otherwise I would have only believed them bored within their marriage and now stuck with each other, and that being the biggest problem in their relationship.

Essay 1 Outline Blog Post

Main Argument: While both approaches can and do accurately theorize and criticize film, I believe that the Formalist Approach is the more effective method of STUDYING film. While the ideological approach has importance and sound, it can be used as a general method of studying all arts, while the formalist approach gives light to various aspects of cinema that make film unique, and critique whether those moments were helpful or hurtful to the film.

Claim 1: Formalist theorists and critics take a single aspect of the film (an edit, a camera angle, a lighting choice) and from there make claims about the directors themes and styles and all different analysis. These aspects are usually only unique to film, and therefore so is the formalist approach.

Support for Claim 1: There are no approaches to studying books in which we look at the type of page the publisher decided to print on, or the size of the text, or where he placed the words on the page. Instead, like most art, we use a ideological approach and look at it from a more narrative perspective.

Claim 2: The Ideological Approach loses its validity once a second person places their hand into the project. Whether it be a director taking a script from a screenwriter, or an editor making choices between shots without the director, or the producer limiting what the director is allowed to do. More than more set of minds went into building the project, and while looking at the rooted story (I.E. the original draft of the screenplay) would be very impactful in using ideological approaches, the formalist approach more accurately can show the entirety of the film, and how separate and different choices altered the effect of the film.

Support to Claim 2: "You have to be a great storyteller. And you have  to master the tools that you have to tell the story which are, in order of importance, the script, the actors and then the technical means."

—John Frankenheimer, director

Claim 3: It is easier to decipher what a filmmaker meant by making a film from concrete and proven shots and decisions than it is to assume the director was in a certain mindset or was pushing for a certain motive.

Support for Claim 3: If we were to look at the scene with the knife, and both the ideological writers and formalist writers were attempting to give evidence of their theory that Hitchcock was using the knife as a symbol of many different things, talking about the knife and the scene in an ideological way is going to be much less persuasive than someone with shot for shot proof of why they believe how they do. 

Screening Notes Pyscho

Friday, December 11^th, 2:43 pm.

So why are they so secluded, if she’s not married and he’s divorced? I understand he just comes during business trips.

Marriage has come up twice now in the first 5 minutes. I wonder if this will be the underlying “theme” that we were talking about, similar to the Wizard of Oz

He’s drunk!

THIRD TIME “He was flirting with you. I guess he must of noticed my wedding ring.”

Oh that’s pretty cool, she sees her boss.

I think the voiceover was pretty clear, it did its job in a good manner.

Well THAT doesn’t seem guilty! Look into a cops eyes, and immediately turn on the car and try to escape.

That exchange about something being wrong and am I acting wrong was pretty funny. She is an absolutely terrible liar and she should get arrested right here. I’m excited to see how this plays out.

Knowing what this film is actually about, this movie, set-up wise, is completely taking its time making its way to the Bates Motel and on a completely different plot point. That is pretty interesting to me.

She is a TERRIBLE LIAR. And now two people are almost positive that she has done something. Like he said, he doesn’t want any trouble.

I don’t think someone could act more like they have just stolen or murdered someone than this woman does right now.

These voice-overs are really, really well done.

I like that although it sounds like she’s going to be caught, her face during the flashbacks was that of satisfaction, of being able to steal so easily from him. She doesn’t mind that she will go down as a thief, that she will be known to have stolen it, but just that she got away with it. She’s not a good character because she not only stole, but got away with it BECAUSE of the faith people had in her, and she played on it and is proud of the fact that she thought to do that.

I really enjoy when a villain who comes across as likable.

“With my trusty umbrella”

I wonder if Norman Bates, the actor, actually does the voice of the mother during the argument our protagonist can hear from the window, because if so, that’s a very good old woman voice.

You could take his manner as pretty weird as of now, if she were more aware.

But I think that’s a huge personal trait. She not only cannot lie well, but she also isn’t very aware when strange things are going on around her. Its fitting that she trusts Norman so much when she herself broke so much trust.

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.” Classic line.

“She’s as harmless as one of those stuffed birds” – FORESHADOW. See, shit got real in an instant. She just goes a little mad sometimes, oh my god I completely forgot that the entire reveal is that the mother doesn’t exist. I forgot that up until then that everyone thinks the mother is the killer.

I wonder if the shower scene from this movie was considered risky at the time, showing so much skin.

I also didn’t realize that they just straight up made it look like the mother. Hmm. That makes more sense.

I feel like I almost saw some boob, making my comment about the scene being provocative seem more legitimate.

And there’s the money. It is interesting that they make the plot seem to be about the money (technically, that’s what it IS about) but that no one remembers it for that. They remember it for this motel.

Furthermore, I really like that this female character is dead. Based on trust. It is very cool to have a main character (almost the only character as of now) die so soon into a movie. ALSO I really enjoy this cleaning scene. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t bore me like slow paced moves from old movies do.

So now we have reason to ever look for her again. I like this, it isn’t about the money or anything to do with Miriam, but it’s about the demise of a psycho killer. He’s probably done this a dozen or so times, maybe more.  And it just so happened this time he killed someone who will be followed back to the hotel, and will be caught. Smart.

This is great, he has no idea why this guy is here. No one can lie in this movie.

He’s lying about the wrong thing. It’s a shame, he could have completely told the truth (except for the murder) he probably would have believed.

I’m a little saddened by the fact that I’m positive I saw Norman walk away from the house when Asbergers showed up, and then was somehow on the 2^nd floor after that.

NORMAN BATE’S MOTHER HAS BEEN DEAD FOR YEARS

This psychiatrist is annoying. We get it, he’s acting like his mother. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that he physically did it. So stop saying it like he didn’t.

That’s a great ending. Enjoy your day!