Like The Illusionist , The Prestige is a turn-of-the-century period piece about magicians whose tricks blow away the stunts performed by modern magicians. Unlike the romantic Illusionist, however, The Prestige is about the destructive nature of obsession. Directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, Insomnia), this movie also features characters that are isolated from society and unable to forge any strong or lasting personal bonds. Like Batman, the magicians in The Prestige must keep secrets, and that prevents them from ever letting down their guard. Hugh Jackman plays Rupert Angier, a natural showman with great stage presence and crowd appeal, and Christian Bale plays Alfred Borden, the more clever and dedicated magician who lacks talent as a showman. Both Angier and Borden are crippled by their obsession with magic, just as Leonard is unable to escape his obsessive search for his wife’s killer in Memento.
The title of the movie refers to the third act of a magic trick where the horrible fear of a woman getting sawed in two, or the disappearance of a person into thin air, is relieved by the safe reconstruction of the woman or the reappearance of the disappeared, for example. The audience’s suspense is transformed into relief and admiration. Most of the plot of this movie, co-written by the director’s brother, Jonathan Nolan, is “prestige” and therefore impossible to describe without ruining that thrill of discovery of seeing the trick resolved. Ironically, however, the movie is told in flashback from a grim situation so that we know the grim consequences of the rivals’ actions in advance, and the prestige shows us how they got there. In that sense, the movie is skillfully written and told. But it is generally unpleasant to watch people of immense talent and potential willfully self-destruct.
A fundamental plot point hinges on Angier bypassing an opportunity to have everything he ever wanted in order to pursue a far more dangerous, unpleasant, and violent path. Since Angier is a clever character, I found this decision implausible and a weakness of the movie. If the Nolans were determined to have things come out this way, they could have eliminated the path not taken as a viable option for Angier, or had the character face the choice and justify his decision. I had the same reaction to the end of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” in which Sam Lowry is smart enough to (1) realize that the only way to escape the opressive state is to officially become non-existent in the state (that is, die), and (2) figure out how to get to the central computer and officially kill people thus making them immune to the state, and (3) gets to the computer and wipes out the record of his girlfriend, but inconceivably bypasses the chance to wipe out his own record. So the bleak ending of the movie didn’t feel unavoidable to me because Lowry should have (would have) wiped his own name from the state’s computers as well and not been taken into custody. So, what is the corresponding problem in The Prestige? To avoid ruining the surprise, here it is as a key cipher. If you see the movie, check back in and decipher it (okay, you could just ask me, but wouldn’t deciphering be more fun?) and let me know if you agree.
This is a key cipher (like the ones the magicians in the movie use for their diaries). The key word is “RINGS”, and here are the directions on how to decipher it.
Here it is:
ingaeucorlvhadearectndoeeboudldanekhpteiialmvdaneporfertedmhitrecrpekf
lcteyshejaaewmydorbeddinaedbnaeughseccustwishioknlginlx
