The Prestige Film Analysis

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Amit Roy Ms. Riddle EG 102-8754 14 March 2011 The Final Act: An Analysis of The Prestige “Makes his ordinary something into something extraordinary” (The Prestige), can be credited to the world famous director and actor Christopher Nolan. With the help of his brother Jonathan, he has successfully written a script out of a 1995 novel, thrilling enough to leave its audience at the mercy of the intricate, yet elaborate, motion picture “The Prestige”. It demands attention and dictates the thought of its audience; nothing short of a Nolan film. The movie is carefully crafted and well stylized to depict the late-Victorian era where magic and theatrical performances were at the peak of the preferred form of entertainment. The Prestige begins and ends with death, filled by entangled flashbacks that only intensify the mystery, occasionally promising to reveal only to deny in the very final moment. Amidst the puzzle are two friends and highly ambitious magicians played by equally ambitious actors, namely, Jack Hugh and Christian Bale. Jack Hugh, well known for X-Men, plays the elegant, charismatic turned vindictive, Angier. Christian Bale of The American Psycho acts the aggressive, challenging and impulsive character of Borden. The friendship of Angier and Borden is quickly replaced by bitter rivalry, spurted from an accidental on-stage death of Angier’s wife. Critic, Paula Nechak labels this rivalry, “dark obsession” in her review of The Prestige: This dark obsession will force the secretive, talented Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and his nemesis, the less talented but consummate showman Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), to forsake all and face grave loss and death by upping the stakes on each other in a craftily designed plan to expose the machinations of the greatest illusion of all time. Influenced by the director’s love for contentious stuff, the movie is

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