NOLAN THE STORY TELLER

Now that we have the Interstellar trailer out in the world , i felt this would be a right time to retrospect Christopher Nolan the man who is bridging the gap between art and commercial movies.

Arguably one of the most innovative screen writers of our time Nolan uses
simple yet effective filming techniques which easily separates him from his counterparts.

Today I’d like to discuss The Prestige, Nolan’s dark and mind-twister of a movie, and my own personal favorite from his films .

Coming to Prestige the narrator Cutter gives us the key elements of a magic trick, every trick he tells has three crucial elements

The Pledge - the preliminary object or action;

The Turn- the action or the deed that misdirects and distracts the audience from the true purpose of the trick;

The Prestige- the final reveal which leaves us awestruck.

Angier’s(Hugh Jackman) obsession and the desire to be the man during The Prestige drives the movie.
Nolan’s obsession to jumble it up makes the movie interesting and confusing at the same point.
The story revolves around Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, the rival magicians , they engage in competitive one-upmanship with tragic results.

The last lines of the movie sums it all .

“Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.”

Many get confused with the ending of the movie.
i have watched the movie couple of times to get the clues.

SPOILERS:
I assume that the readers have watched the movie
.There are many interpretations of the ending.
There are two questions that pop into our minds .

In Angier’s final performance Borden watches Angier’s clone drown in the tank. Angier doesn’t reappear for the audience, and take a bow. how does the duplicate know not to do so? The duplicate would have no idea that Borden was below stage?

Ans:
From the previous experiences Angier clearly knows that borden would one day come to check out the trick as an imposter, so finally when borden comes to check out, Angier recognizes him and frames him for the death of the other Angier

When Angier tries out the machine in Tesla’s lab, he creates a clone of himself. One of them shoots the other, but who is the one who dies?

Ans:
it is impossible to know which is the original Angier as tesla himself is not sure how the machine works , but as the new clone shares the memories of Angier till that point we never know who is who .Borden might have killed the original Angier or the New Angier is also not Confirmed.

chronology

2014 Interstellar (post-production)

2012 The Dark Knight Rises

2010 Inception

2008 The Dark Knight

2006 The Prestige

2005 Batman Begins

2002 Insomnia

2000 Memento

1998 Following

so if you are planning for a weekend movie do watch one of these Nolan’s movie and have a good weekend.

Quote

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.“