The Prestige: A Dark Dive into Illusion and Obsession

As Michael Caine’s character explains early in the film, “prestige” isn’t just about status, high standing, or the envy of others. Prestige is the crucial third act of any magic trick, the reason behind the chilling illusions of sawing a woman in half or crushing a bird in a cage. Prestige is when the dazzling blonde emerges from the box, whole and unharmed, to take her bows.

Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige” unfolds on Moscow screens, offering a mesmerizing exploration of ambition, rivalry, and the dark side of showmanship.

The Illusionist’s Secret

Caine plays a “magic arts engineer,” crafting the enchanted boxes and cages, collaborating with the performers to devise new tricks and ensuring their technical feasibility. He alone knows all the secrets. Even a magician can convince himself that the cage won’t harm the bird. But the engineer knows that beneath the cage’s floor, hidden from the audience by a veil, lies the tiny corpse of a bird.

A Rivalry Forged in Tragedy

The story is set in London at the turn of the 20th century. Under Caine’s character’s guidance, two young magicians, Robert (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred (Christian Bale), begin their careers. Robert’s wife works with them as the “sawing girl.” A risky trick, initiated by the innovation-obsessed Alfred, costs her life. Alfred is banished from the company. The former friends and colleagues become lifelong enemies and rivals. The film chronicles their intense rivalry, culminating in an unbelievable outcome.

Nolan’s Dark Vision

Those who have read Christopher Priest’s novel, which serves as the basis for the film, claim that the stories of the murdered woman, shot-off fingers, broken legs, and live burial are the creation of director Christopher Nolan, who also wrote the screenplay (Nolan studied English literature in college and believes it greatly influenced his perception of cinema). The novel is more subdued, less flashy: simply the story of two talented magicians; one blessed with a twin brother, the other, unaware of the brother’s existence, trying to unravel the secret of doubling. It’s unlikely that the director of “Memento” (2000), “Insomnia” (2002), and “Batman Begins” (2005), a British filmmaker who has become a global star, would introduce bloody episodes solely for cinematic effect. Instead, Nolan is making a film not so much about magicians as about show business – a concept that didn’t exist at the time the novel is set, but whose emergence was as inevitable as the dawn of a new century.

The Dawn of a New Era

David Bowie’s portrayal of Nikola Tesla, the great inventor whose ideas remain fantastical even a century later, embodies the spirit of the coming century. The introduction of a science fiction element into a film where every miracle is explained in meticulous detail, and the details are crafted with true British thoroughness, disorients the viewer. The moment when Dickensian realism transitions into science fiction is elusive – which is why those who haven’t read the book find it difficult to grasp what’s happening in the finale. In the film’s own terms, Nolan’s prestige, the final, climactic act, isn’t entirely successful, but the process of building up to the culmination is truly superb.

Within the film, Christian Bale’s character is far more talented than Hugh Jackman’s, although the latter possesses greater star power. The director clearly considered this dynamic when casting the roles: the Englishman Bale is a truly outstanding actor, while the Australian Jackman is a star.

The Muse of Show Business

Scarlett Johansson, who plays Olivia, the love interest of both protagonists, whom they both exploit as a spy and provocateur, has become so entrenched in the world of theatrical artifice after her role in Woody Allen’s “Scoop” (2006) that she seems to have been born there. Her farcical duo with Hugh Jackman in “Scoop” truly transitions into tragedy in “The Prestige.”

Johansson becomes the muse of the phenomenon of “show business,” embodying the idea that the show must go on, no matter the bloody dramas unfolding behind the scenes. What drives these dramas: an obsession with art, a desire to defeat a rival, a pursuit of prestige in the conventional sense? The film offers no definitive answer. It’s all of the above. However, in Nolan’s story, the focus ultimately shifts from art and showmanship to their victims: the killed birds, the women who commit suicide or die accidentally, and the artists themselves, who come to believe in their superhuman powers.

“I’ve never considered myself a lucky person,” Christopher Nolan once confessed. “I’m a complete pessimist. It’s really true.”