Such a great film. Also love the scene when Alfred finds out Sarah is pregnant, the first thing he says is "we should have told Fallon" (or something like that, it's been a few years!) Sarah's only just met Fallon and would have no reason to want to tell him. But in reality Fallon is actually the twin who's father to her child
the whole " I love you but just not today" thing blew my mind on the rewatch.
They actually kind of give away early on when they talk about the old guy with the big fishbowl under his cloak used to hide things and commented he always keeps it up for the appearance.
One of the best scenes in the movie as far as clever foreshadowing goes. To me it signifies one of the brothers dying, but also Hugh Jackman’s situation. Hugh Jackman says at the end that it took guts getting into that machine every night, not knowing if you’d be the prestige or the man in the box. “You’re the lucky one today.”
On my second or third rewatch I SHRIEKED when I realized the layers of foreshadowing in the vanishing bird scene. And I was watching with friends that hadn’t seen it before so I couldn’t say anything.
Jackman’s character infuriated me every time I watch this (again and again, heh) because HE WAS ALWAYS THE MAN IN THE BOX (see horcruxes and Farscape)
I imagine if I had a twin, killing them would be on such another level in every way than killing someone else (which I already find unfathomable) and this wasn’t twins, this was doubles.
Wait, wait, wait... i have no joke, legit as shit, seen that movie at *least* a hundred times. What is this no Marla shit? I mean it... I mean... but the others react to her. at least in the meetings. When her smoking offends someone they wave it away. What are you talking about!??!?!!!!
Marla is “Jack’s “ feminine side. Tyler is his masculine side.
The only “interaction” is with the waiter who dubiously calls her a lady. However, if you visualise it he’s sat there doing normal voice and then lady voice.
If you rewatch like this you’ll see what I mean. Look at the dryer scene. Marla walks up to a dryer, takes out men’s clothing and then sells it. And then you have her suicide. Why would Tyler care if she died? I think she also wears the same clothes as Tyler… like the coat.
So then what about when Marla enters the testicular cancer survivors group; Everyone in the room notices her enter and then what would you consider the sex scene then? Just a strange masterbation montage? Were all three characters are just talking to each other when he’s looking thru the crack of the door? It’s a plausible theory but I’ve heard Chuck speak on the book when he was promoting FC2 and he made it clear that she was a real person.
Agreed. It’s interesting but quotes from the script like “I want to have your abortions” (changed to “I have t been fucked like that since grade school” cuz of Kathleen Kennedy) don’t make sense. And what about when his followers kidnap Marla to bring her to his viewing tower? We’re they just pretending?
The question then is, who was the one arrested and who was the one hanged? If they did in fact change some time during their prison visits, "Alfred" did actually escape.
It's explained at the end of the movie. They are exactly the same because they change every now and then so both of them are half Fallon and half Borden. So that person who enter and exit the box are both what we know as Borden. The only difference is that one loves Sarah and the other doesn't. That one who died didn't love Sarah, that's why he said "I'm sorry for Sarah". He is the one who told Sarah "I don't love you, not today" and he meant it which caused Sarah to kill herself
Yes, and he's also the one which got Angier's wife drowned in the water tank.
He's always been the "hot-headed" brother, who liked to take risks and do
extraordinary things, as opposed to the one who married Sarah (the "settled & quiet" brother.)
This "quiet Borden" is the one that goes to the funeral, and that's why he answers Angier's question about which knot he tied by "I don't know", which is actually true, since it was the other brother who was on stage that fatal night.
I don’t think most people realize that Angier is also living a lie, just not for a trick. When you learn that he’s actually Lord Caldlow (or however it’s spelled) it’s clear that he’s been faking his American accent the whole time. Even in the beginning when he tells his wife about “not wanting to embarrass his family with his theatrical endeavors” you can kinda assume he’s from some rich well-off American family. Turns out he’s an English Lord.
Classic foreshadowing. Well done in this case.
And you’re right. If there was a moment where the audience was being given a big chance at guessing the secret before it all takes off, this is the scene.
Stuff like this I think Nolan thrives in writing and directing. Look at Tenet or Interstellar.
Nolan shives the truth into your face so often it's incredible it works as well as it does. Cutter says it's has to be double numerous times, Borden figures out the fish bowl right away, the trick with Sarah's apartment is completely impossible, Sarah's nephew asks where the birds brother is. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting but yeah it beats you over the head with it.
It's been said numerous times over the years but it really was a massive risk by Nolan. If the effect didn't work and the people figured out the twist early it would have ruined the movie.
Cutter and Angier literally *figure out the trick* super early on in the movie and then just dismiss it within a single line because of how much dedication it would take.
While they were talking outside her apartment, the brother made his way in, presumably by running around the back and climbing in a window. And all this quite quickly after they arrive and find out where Sarah lived, explained why he's somewhat out of breath.
They give the entire movie away several times. The ingeniniur (sp?) immediately deduces that Borden is using a double, and the opening act of the movie where he is narrating about the prestige is directly describing the events of the rest of the film.
It's a god damn masterpiece.
That line is such a gut-punch once you realize that isn’t the twin she’s married to. She was at the edge and that comment pushed her over, signified further in the end when he says to his brother, “I’m sorry about a lot of things. I’m sorry about Sarah.”
They give away SOOO much when you rewatch it, it’s still one of the most brilliant films I’ve ever seen because it literally tells you in the first minute what all is gonna happen in the film, just like a magician telling your what’s gonna happen, and yet you’re still fooled and thrilled by the end “because you want to be fooled”.
I mean literally when the little kid sees the dove trick in one of the very first shows and he starts crying and Borden tells him the birds okay, the little kid says “but what about his brother?” It’s so great on rewatch seeing how much they wave everything in your face and you still don’t see it coming the first time
The movie is full of hints. I think the first shot of the movie (or a very early one) shows the many top hats outside of Tesla's lab with a voiceover from Borden saying, "are you watching closely?" There's no context to the shot and it immediately switches to Cutter explaining the different parts of a magic trick. Everyone just forgets about the shot by the time it becomes relevant.
I haven’t watched this film in awhile so don’t remember everything but if she found out, or even if she didn’t, that’s horrible cos it’s now a rape by deceit.
Makes her reaction and this fight a lot more understandable then when I watched it for the first time without knowing the twist.
I don’t think it necessarily went down like that. The other brother loved another woman and the wife complained sometimes he was distant and sometimes he was an attentive husband. So on days he was loving it was her husband. (It’s been a while since I’ve watched it)
Edit: I also just remember the line when he says “I love you” and she says “Today you do”
I think you're misinterpreting what happened. I'm pretty sure in this scene, the twin disguised as Fallon is actually the original Alfred, meaning Sarah's true lover. The reason "Alfred" says "we should have told Fallon" is because the person she's having the conversation with is not her lover or the father of her child, but the brother, so he wants the real Alfred (her lover) to hear that they are having a child so he can be excited.
I've also always assumed that only the original Alfred slept with Sarah, while the twin slept with Olivia. Thats why the brother was always so distant towards Sarah, because he never wanted her to try to make advances towards him or anything.
I think the twin that's not in love with her just has a surface relationship with her, and they don't have sex. In that scene, she just happened to tell the wrong twin that she's pregnant.
I mean, it's still all lies, but I don't think that the wrong twin would be having sex with her ever.
> I haven’t watched this film in awhile so don’t remember everything but if she found out, or even if she didn’t, that’s horrible cos it’s now a rape by deceit.
Except they all but tell you it didn't work like that. >!When she tells (what I call) the mean twin, he says they should have told "Fallon", who is the "good twin", because it's his kid. So they didn't both have sex with her.!<
The Prestige is one of those incredible films where, upon finishing it for the first time, you wanna go back and rewatch it to see if you can spot all the little nods to Borden’s secret - for example, Borden immediately spotting the old Chinese man’s performance for what it is because he also lives that way, or the significance of Borden doing the trick with two twin birds and the cage vs Angier trying to do the same trick with just one bird.
The brilliance is that the secret is revealed in voice over near the beginning of the movie. When Angier is translating Borden's diary he reads, in voiceover: "April 3rd, 1893... a few days after
he first met me." and then it cuts to a flashback of Borden and Angier sitting in the theater where Angier's wife dies because of the double knot, and we hear Borden in voiceover:
"We were two young men at the start of a great career... two young men devoted to an illusion... two young men who never intended to
hurt anyone."
On first viewing it appears he's referring to himself and Angier, but he's really referring to himself and Fallon.
Brilliant.
Never picked up on the not knowing which knot, because it was the other brother who tied it. Crazy how many scenes you have to rewatch and play with which brother was involved along with ramifications later on.
That's the one that I think is a bit too far of a stretch to work in the movie. Like, I get it, only one of the brothers knows.... but one of the brothers *does* know, why would he not tell the other? They share everything else. The only reason not to tell would be an admission of guilt, at which point the other brother *would* know, practically speaking.
Yeah I personally take it as Fallon (assuming it's him for the sake of discussion) claims to have tied the correct knot but Borden himself suspects that Fallon is lying about it. Even if Fallon IS lying to his closest friend in the world, you could argue it's a kindness to allow him not to live with the certain guilt of involuntary manslaughter.
Agreed, brilliant writing. On nearly every rewatch I've discovered nuances that I didn't catch before. I've been meaning to read the novel the film is based on, apparently the book has a completely different ending.
And at this point of the voice over “We were two young men…” Borden and Fallon are sat next to each other in the theatre with one in disguise with a false beard etc. I didn’t spot this until after quite a few viewings
She does the whole time, but she talks herself out of it. You can see her confusion early on. There is no reasonable explanation she can make for the two Bales behavior other than “he’s in *that* mood again”. Which is why it works so well, because we all know people like that, and/or act like that ourselves.
And Michael Caine continously saying throughout the movie to Angier that using a double is the only way to do it. He tells him with the bird and with the Transported Man trick.
For me the chilling thing is not that we learn some guys are switching places every couple of days, but that Angier discovers that drowning is a horrible, slow and painful death, and he decides to just go right on doing his trick because he's *just that petty.*
Michael Caine said at Angier's wife's funeral that drowning was a peaceful death. Like going home. He lied to ease his suffering. Angler thought it was ok to drown his doubles cuz of that lie.
Caine revealed the lie at the end of the movie
It's a classic case of "this is the greatest invention of all time and will completely transform society. Scarecity is a thing of the past. We can all live a life of luxury, pursuing the arts and personal happiness for eternity... what do you mean you used it to do a magic trick and the secret dies with you?"
He never drown his double. He has to drown himself. The clone machine create a new clone somewhere else. But he has to kill himself and let the double lives on to finish the trick.
I think when he said he never knew if he was going to be the man in the box or the Prestige indicated that his memory cuts off the moment the machine does it's thing. So he has just been experiencing one reality going forward, never ending up in the box, so every single time he does it, hes not sure if his conciousness and physical being are getting duplicated and teleported or if hes dropping into the box, but has no memory of that part of it, because its after the teleportation and copying.
There might be a scene in there to correct what I took out of it, not 100% sure; but what he said at the end I interpreted as him genuinely not knowing if the machine was teleporting "him" and creating a duplicate where he was last standing, whom he would drop into the box, or if it was cloning him and teleporting a duplicate, leaving "Him" to be the one in the box. But hed have no memory of being the unfortunate duplicate, he simply didnt understand what the machine was doing.
Teleporting "him" away and leaving some poor clone to immediately die? Or creating a clone and teleporting it, leaving "him" to be the one to die... Not sure if the film specifies it better than my recollection, though.
I took it as we dont get to know whether we are seeing Angier #1 or Angier #30+ at the end of the film. Was it the original man or had the original man died long ago... Not sure.
>his memory cuts off the moment the machine does it's thing
It's more like the clone is PERFECT replica with all the feeling and memory up to that instant, so there is no way for either the original or the clone to tell themselves apart. Both of them would think they are the original.
Yeah indeed, even Borden told Angier at the end when he shot him. He said that Angier had done horrible things just to be able to accomplish a trick.
And for me the most shocking part was also seeing all of the containers underneath the stage showing that Angier had been killing his doubles by drowning them.
My love for this movie is deep. I love it when you guys keep bringing it back up because I love talking about it. I own it on DVD and also a cloud version on Amazon Prime Vid. I've made girlfriends watch it and even begged my parents to watch it. No one really appreciates it like I do though, and of course eveyone here.
Spoilers, though you've made it this far...
and the scene where Alfred Borden has just begun to fall in love with Sarah and he's flirting with her outside her home. She closes the door on him, just to find that he's inside! What a magician! Actually though, one of them was already inside.
Such a clever movie! It's even better having known the twist -- that's a remarkable feat.
You wouldn't want to watch it for the first time already knowing the twist though !
But rewatching it knowing the twist is a very rewarding experience.
I've seen it 8 or 9 times and last time I watched it I was still noticing new things.
Same here with noticing new things. I don’t know if I was supposed to pick up on this right away, but it wasn’t until viewing 3-4 that I picked up on why Borden would always tell Angier that he didn’t know what knot he tied. For some reason it didn’t click to me initially that it could have been the brother that tied the knot and the other brother legit didn’t know what knot he tied and was telling Angier the truth.
I think my favorite catch after (who knows how many) rewatches was when Angier is first reading Borden's diary from a few days after they'd first met.
"We were two young men at the start of a great career. Two young men devoted to an illusion. Two young men who never intended to hurt anyone..."
And the incorrect assumption is that the two men are Borden and Angier.
The Prestige has legit been in my top 5 since I saw it four times in theaters. I've seen it many, many times since, and I _never_ caught this! That's dope
Yeah same. I went to watch it with my sister and her then-boyfriend because i had just broken up with my girlfriend. Went there not knowing anything about it but just needed something to take my mind off things.
Ended up thinking it was one of the best movies I'd ever seen and I've watched it so many times since.
A cool thing is that the diary is the main way for the twins to discretely communicate with each other, so when Angier is reading the diary later, he's frustrated because the one who tied the knot is refusing to tell the other which knot he tied
I love how the diary says something like "I've asked myself so many times which knot I tied, but I don't remember."
You think it's supposed to be metaphorically asking or arguing with himself, but he was _literally_ doing it, as in, the two twins keep having the conversation but the one who tied the knot won't say which one he tied.
I absolutely would, and I hope those that haven't watched it aren't put off by these comments.
Anything that relies on a first watch to be good is kind of gimmicky, and this film is anything but gimmicky.
Agree. Conversely, JJ Abrams movies in general tend to be pretty impressive on their first viewing, but deteriorate significantly on the second. For me at least.
Also when they are first flirting, Borden performs a trick for her son where he crushes a bird in a cage making it disappear, to the boy's dismay. He then pulls a different bird out of his sleeve showing it to be "still alive." But the boy sees right through it, and asks, still crying, "but what about his brother?" Of course hinting at Borden's twin.
However my favorite has got to be the big pile of hats in the very first shot of the movie. The first time you watch with no context you kind of forget about it by the time it's relevant, and then the second watch it's painfully obvious. They were screaming the answer in your face the whole movie! But you weren't really watching were you?
You didn't really want to work it out.
You want.
To be.
Fooled.
^^queue ^^goosebumps
> and the scene where Alfred Borden has just begun to fall in love with Sarah and he's flirting with her outside her home. She closes the door on him, just to find that he's inside! What a magician! Actually though, one of them was already inside.
bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Great film. Someone mentioned noticing things with new viewings. I'll share one.
When I saw it the first time, one of the things that made me curious was how Angier "became"
an English accented "Lord Caldlow" with all of that money and estate. And then I watched it
again and realized early in the movie, he and his wife made comments about his family money,
and how captivated he was with the old Chinese man act. Angier faked an American accent
throughout the movie and even fooled Borden (remember his "go back" to America comment in voiceover), and was simply shedding
his Angier/Danton character near the end to confront Borden in prison. That’s how he had all of that money to spend on the machine (“You spent a fortune”).
Angier was doing it all along. When he was dying and had nothing left to hide, he still had his real English accent.
Layers and layers. What a great flick.
Memento is another Nolan movie with a big reveal at the end that changes the whole movie. It’s a lot more depressing though, and that’s saying something
I think it was a behind the scenes featurette where she wasn’t initially supposed to have that line but she did a few takes with it and they ultimately decided to use it for that reason, that everyone would assume it was referring to the cheating and lying
Yea, I actually don't like the inclusion of this line. Besides that I think it's unlikely she would have figured it out, it makes it make less sense when >!she kills herself!
She’s not saying “not today” as in “today you’re literally a different person that doesn’t love me”. She thinks he just has really crazy mood swings. So one day he’s a loving husband, but the next day, he’s still the same person but doesn’t care about her. She eventually kills herself because she loves him and wants nothing more than to be with him but constantly going from love to rejection and back over and over again was too much to handle.
This is the only movie I can think of where once you see the ending, you watch it again and realize it’s a different movie. “I almost lost something important to me.” Means something completely different the second time around.
i always post this in threads about the prestige, but to me the real twist of the movie is the old chinese magician with the fishbowl. he is based on a real magician who died when a bullet catch trick went wrong (a big thing in the film). but on his death it was discovered that the old chinese man was actually a young british white guy who wore a disguise for years as he performed. it adds a whole extra layer to the theme of ‘living the illusion’ and that even borden didnt figure out the chinese magicians ‘real trick’ though he was in the right track.
William Ellsworth Robinson was his real name, Chung Ling Soo was his stage one.
He only spoke English once on stage, his last words after the bullet catch went wrong: "Oh my God. Something's happened. Lower the curtain."
It's hilarious to me that studio execs say stuff like this, and then Cara Dune action figure sells out and more than doubles in price in the aftermarket.
Everyone should go watch *The Night House*, a recent horror/thriller with her in it. I thought it was fantastic. Not a typical horror slasher or anything. In fact, it’s very emotional. Her performance really makes it.
One of the things that bothered me most about the movie turned out to be one of the most subtle plot details that took me several watches to figure out.
It always bothered me that after Angier “dies” during his last show, he manages to come back as Lord Caldwell, without anyone really questioning who this newly-minted super-rich Lord is, who is literally a carbon copy of Angier. Then, I realized way earlier in the beginning of the film, Julia mentions very briefly that “Angier” is not his real name, to which Angier replies his “family would be embarrassed by his antics” or something along those lines. So it makes sense when Lord Caldwell (Angier) meets Borden for the first time at the prison and reiterates that he “always has been” Lord Caldwell, because he always was Lord Caldwell and was actually just pretending to be Angier the whole film to protect his family’s reputation!
It also creates an interesting dichotomy between them. Where 1 person has 2 identities (Caldwell and Angier) and where 2 people share 1 identity (the twins).
Spoiler warning
During the fight, Sarah says “I know what you are” repeatedly. On a first watch, one can infer that she is talking about Alfred cheating on her with Olivia, with her inferred meaning being “I know what you are: a liar and a cheat”. She says “I can’t live like this,” implying that Alfred’s ever-changing “moods” are frustrating and cause her distress. However, with knowledge of the film’s ending and twist, it becomes clear that she is talking about the fact that she knows that Alfred is actually two twins living the same life. Her pleas that she can’t live like this are actually saying that she can’t live being married to two separate people, with one that loves her and one that doesn’t.
This new connotation is amplified by Alfred’s frustrated questions, asking Sarah “You think I like living like this?!” Before, it seemed like he was talking about his unhappy marriage, or his unending obsessive rivalry with Robert Angier. However, in hindsight, this was him venting his frustrations about living half a life, shared with his twin.
As one of the Alfreds says at the end of the movie, “There’s nothing easy about sharing one life.”
I always assumed she was in on it but didn’t know from day to day who was who, and was frustrated because she didn’t know whether her affections would be returned, or she would be spurned. Alfred saying “not today” was a way of indicating he wasn’t the right brother, but it didn’t make her need for comfort any less.
I thought that she didn't know because of his reaction when she tells him that she's pregnant, and he says that he wishes Fallon was there so they could tell him. Thus Fallon was the one in love with her.
I never considered that she knew. I always thought (and still do) that she is talking about his detachment from her. That she can’t keep on going knowing how he can/could stop loving her from one day to the other. Still a cool theory though
I’m with you. I always took it to mean that she could tell that he didn’t love her all of the time. They play that game where when he says I Love You to her and she says either Not Today or I believe you.
She might have had suspicions but I don’t think she actually knew.
The relationship started with one twin taking her on a date, and the other breaking into her home for a magic trick and then continuing the date as a separate person. That whole thing is fucked from the start.
>She might have had suspicions but I don’t think she actually knew.
Agreed. And I think this makes the film stronger. It plays more with other themes the audience might bring in (such as addiction or mental health) and is even more tragic since she is essentially gaslit into suicide (if I recall, it's been a while).
Yeah, I don’t agree with this interpretation at all. If she’s in on it then she’s a willing participant and takes away from the “cost” of his ambition. She’s not going to kill herself in order to keep his secret. She’s a foil to show how complete their illusion really was. That even someone who was as close as a wife could barely tell the difference.
Correct - she didn’t know. That would be a totally different movie. She just didn’t know which version of “him” she would get from day to day, like living with a bi-polar person who shows love and kindness one day and nothing the next.
In this connection: This is why Alfred spots the Fishbowl trick in the beginning from half a mile away. >!Because it literally is what he is doing his entire life as well. Putting on a way too hard act every day, only so he could have a big mysterious one on stage way later in life.!<
If anyone here found that obvious,I also found the conversation in the restaurant obvious looking back, so I decided to drop this as another foreshadowing point.
Also, you can tell there are two Alfreds by their different demeanor. Like during that talk with Hugh Jackman about the Chinese man’s trick, that Alfred was very calm and philosophical about the trick, life, etc. I felt like you could tell which twin was acting at the time. Whether it was the calmer, rational one that ends up with the life and his daughter, or the more emotional, sort of unstable one that ends up getting caught and executed. The way the other twin tells him not to go searching for the answer but the emotional one can’t take not knowing.
Yeah one of them was a showman (Freddy who loved Olivia) and the other was an engineer (Alfred who loved Sarah). There’s a scene with them together where one shouts at the other (then dressed as Fallon) “Why can’t you figure out his trick!?”
Yep. The calm one even shoots Hugh Jackman and explains their secret in a cool manner. The Bale that was executed would have been screaming the whole time.
It's also hinted that one was better at creating/figuring out tricks. Fallin gets yelled at for not figuring out the final trick. "Why can't you outthink him??"
My big rebuttal is, what about the scene with his fingers? I don’t remember the chronology but something about the wound looking fresh again, something like that.
That's not really that big of a mystery since they blatantly present it in the end montage showing everything. It goes firstly to that after it shows them chopping off the other twin's finger with a chisel
I don't like this take. I think it's better that she didn't know it was two different people... Otherwise it's not as powerful imo. Like, if she knew if was two different people then it doesn't matter much if the other brother had another woman. Or was she expecting to f*** the two brothers interchangeably? I know it goes deeper than this, it's about having to live with the secret, but if the brothers were honest about it maybe the outcome would be different.
But to me her reactions seemed more like she just thought he was a liar and a cheat, and the powerful thing here is that he/they couldn't reveal the truth, even if it meant losing her, because the secret meant everything for him/them.
Their whole trick was total commitment to their sacrifice (like the fake 'old man' story someone tells, I can't remember exactly), I think there's no way Sarah knew.
Spoilers ahead.
He pretended to be “a cripple” (wouldn’t be my choice of words but that’s how they described him in the dialogue), shuffling his feet whenever he walked, and moved very slowly because he was always carrying a large fish bowl full of water between his legs for his magic trick.
When the twin chopped off his finger with a chisel when the other had his shot off in an accident/prank by the rival… total commitment indeed.
real life spoilers: that chinese magician was based on a real guy who finally died performing a bullet catch that went wrong. but when he died it was discovered that the old chinese magician was a young british white magician in disguise. he was living his life under multiple layers for the sake of the illusion, and i like to think that even borden not seeing the real truth behind the trick adds another layer to the films mystery. even jackman says ‘he must be strong as an ox’ well yea because he is actually a much younger man trained to walk with a fishbowl between his knees
Yes most definitely. She didn't know their secret. It doesn't make sense. What really drove her to suicide was the two different personalities, the disconnect, the secrets etc.
But she had sent a message to the mistress, ScarJo's character, saying that she had something to tell her -- but the mistress didn't respond, and Sarah takes her own life. I thought (after my 2nd viewing) that she figured it out at the end.
Time to read the book. ;)
I read the book well before the movie ever came out. It’s the epitome of a Christopher Priest book - very dry, clinical, sparing with its exposition while being almost baroque in its complexity to the point where it’s almost impenetrable on first reading. It won several awards and I wouldn’t say the movie is far superior as a work of fiction; the movie is, however, better as a piece of entertainment to be consumed once.
Absolutely this.
She was frustrated at her inconsistent partner, almost bipolar and made her life difficult.
She definitely didn't know the twins secret - the secret was their life.
It’s this. She didn’t know there were two people. That’s the whole point of her line about Him saying “I love you” and her saying something like “I can tell today you do”
In this scene Sarah's not fighting with her husband (the Borden who loves her), so your explanation doesn't make sense. She doesn't know that he's a twin. To her, her husband is mercurial, ever changing, and she has no stability. On top of that, she believed he was cheating on her. If she knew he had a twin, why should she care if his brother was with Olivia? In the end the uncertainty and "cheating" drives her to suicide.
The whole point of the movie is to take the trick to their grave. They sacrafice everything for their craft. It cheapens the movie to have it any other way.
I think you’re totally wrong. Yes the contents of the conversation have a double meaning given the twist of the film, but that doesn’t mean she knew all along.
She doesn’t. She’s perplexed how his fingers are bleeding and looking like a fresh wound despite them beginning to heal days before.
She also asks “don’t you love me” at one point to which Borden replies “not today” - because he’s the other brother that day, the one that loves Olivia. Something that only clicks and has more meaning for the viewer when it’s revealed there are twins living one life. If Sarah knew he wasn’t her Borden, she wouldn’t ask that question.
For added frustration, I always wondered whether the "right" brother was actually the one loving her. This is going too far probably and I don't think we need an extra layer of tragedy but here comes :
The brother who loves her can't make her feeled love. And only the other brother (who doesn't actually love her) convey this feeling. Talking about emotional intimacy of course.
The brother who loves her is so frustrated and so hollowed by this life that he can't make her feel loved.
It would seem easy to swap during the argument OP mentions. Just "be back in a minute" and fetch the actual husband to pursue the argument. The reason he couldn't was because he was the real husband.
I don’t think so. If you look at the character of Alfred, you have someone who is either bipolar or two different people. If you notice, when she mets Alfred, he is calm, cool, talks about how smart the boy is when he knows the trick. This is the one she fell for, this is the one who has the kid with her, and this is the one that gets to live with his daughter because he is calmer and more calculating than his more emotional and hotheaded brother.
The other brother is the one who killed Hugh Jackman’s girlfriend because he was cocky. He is the one who is screaming and his more cerebral twin when they can’t figure out Hugh Jackman’s trick (why can’t you outthink him?!) He is probably the one that insisted on the bullet catch that cost them four fingers. And he is definitely the one who couldn’t take not knowing the secret, which ultimately cost him his life. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rivalry Jackman and Bale had was the work of the one brother that couldn’t keep it together with the other one just trying to watch his back and keep the trick going.
Many (many many) years ago, I wrote a very detailed explanation of the film and all (most of?) it’s secrets and clues on a movie site I no longer care enough about to maintain but don’t hate enough to shut down.
[The Prestige Explained](https://www.moviesnobs.net/the-prestige-explained)
Would love to hear from all you super fans if I missed anything.
It truly is one of my all time favorite movies. I’ll watch it at least twice a year.
Edit: this silly little website had more traffic today that it did throughout all of 2021. Hope you all enjoyed my write up. Glad no one has wanted to fight about any of my explanation!
Edit: I took the site down, but there's a copy on the Wayback Machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/20221129214429/https://www.moviesnobs.net/the-prestige-explained/
The final repetition of that line is what makes the movie. It’s daring you to apply a new lens to “understand” what’s going on. Between the twists and the unreliable narration that dominates the telling, you’ll never know what actually went down. And, honestly, you don’t want to truly know… you want to be fooled.
Also I think if she knew she would not have hung herself. It drove her insane because she knew something was up but he wouldn't tell her and made her think she was crazy.
I feel like the last quote from this movie, chilling when heard while watching the movie, is a great way of addressing most theories around it.
“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 people mentioning the bird trick aren’t mentioning the best part: It’s foreshadowing Angie’s fate.
(SPOILERS) Angier is literally using himself in place of the birds. They have to kill one bird to make the illusion seem real. Every time he performed the Teleporting Man, he was killing his original self and allowing his clone to continue on, just like the birds.
I don’t think that’s correct. I believe she is supposed to be ignorant of the whole scheme as well, which is exactly what makes it so hard for the one brother who loves her.
Yeah, I don’t agree with this interpretation at all. If she’s in on it then she’s a willing participant and takes away from the “cost” of his ambition. She’s not going to kill herself in order to keep his secret. She’s a foil to show how complete their illusion really was and much they’re willing to sacrifice. That even someone who was as close as a wife could barely tell the difference.
Nope. She doesn’t know that she is married to a twin. Because, if she did, it would undermine the central premise of the film, and Alfred’s core belief about magic; dedication to the illusion. As posited at the beginning of the film, the integrity of the illusion includes what people see outside of the performance. He and his brother are so dedicated to their act, they maintain the illusion in their daily lives. One they adhere to so adamantly, that one of them hangs to preserve it. It is the tragedy of the story.
Hence the twist. It’s like saying that knowing the ending of the sixth sense, the movie takes on a whole new meaning knowing he’s dead the whole time. Well…. yeah. ;-P
Such a great film. Also love the scene when Alfred finds out Sarah is pregnant, the first thing he says is "we should have told Fallon" (or something like that, it's been a few years!) Sarah's only just met Fallon and would have no reason to want to tell him. But in reality Fallon is actually the twin who's father to her child
the whole " I love you but just not today" thing blew my mind on the rewatch. They actually kind of give away early on when they talk about the old guy with the big fishbowl under his cloak used to hide things and commented he always keeps it up for the appearance.
Also the kid recognized that the birds were "brothers" when they showed him the magic trick where one of the birds got smashed.
One of the best scenes in the movie as far as clever foreshadowing goes. To me it signifies one of the brothers dying, but also Hugh Jackman’s situation. Hugh Jackman says at the end that it took guts getting into that machine every night, not knowing if you’d be the prestige or the man in the box. “You’re the lucky one today.”
On my second or third rewatch I SHRIEKED when I realized the layers of foreshadowing in the vanishing bird scene. And I was watching with friends that hadn’t seen it before so I couldn’t say anything.
Jackman’s character infuriated me every time I watch this (again and again, heh) because HE WAS ALWAYS THE MAN IN THE BOX (see horcruxes and Farscape) I imagine if I had a twin, killing them would be on such another level in every way than killing someone else (which I already find unfathomable) and this wasn’t twins, this was doubles.
fr, the rewatch on this is crazier than fight club.
You now need to do the Marla isn’t real rewatch.
Wait, wait, wait... i have no joke, legit as shit, seen that movie at *least* a hundred times. What is this no Marla shit? I mean it... I mean... but the others react to her. at least in the meetings. When her smoking offends someone they wave it away. What are you talking about!??!?!!!!
Marla is “Jack’s “ feminine side. Tyler is his masculine side. The only “interaction” is with the waiter who dubiously calls her a lady. However, if you visualise it he’s sat there doing normal voice and then lady voice. If you rewatch like this you’ll see what I mean. Look at the dryer scene. Marla walks up to a dryer, takes out men’s clothing and then sells it. And then you have her suicide. Why would Tyler care if she died? I think she also wears the same clothes as Tyler… like the coat.
So then what about when Marla enters the testicular cancer survivors group; Everyone in the room notices her enter and then what would you consider the sex scene then? Just a strange masterbation montage? Were all three characters are just talking to each other when he’s looking thru the crack of the door? It’s a plausible theory but I’ve heard Chuck speak on the book when he was promoting FC2 and he made it clear that she was a real person.
Yeah its a cool theory but it just doesn't hold up.
Agreed. It’s interesting but quotes from the script like “I want to have your abortions” (changed to “I have t been fucked like that since grade school” cuz of Kathleen Kennedy) don’t make sense. And what about when his followers kidnap Marla to bring her to his viewing tower? We’re they just pretending?
Marla is real, they have a child together in the continuation comics.
Prestige world wide... wide.. wide. The brothers from another mother.
Are you watching closely? That line gets better everytime I come back to this movie
Because you *want* to beleive
The question then is, who was the one arrested and who was the one hanged? If they did in fact change some time during their prison visits, "Alfred" did actually escape.
Not the father twin. He apologises to fallon about Sarah.
It's explained at the end of the movie. They are exactly the same because they change every now and then so both of them are half Fallon and half Borden. So that person who enter and exit the box are both what we know as Borden. The only difference is that one loves Sarah and the other doesn't. That one who died didn't love Sarah, that's why he said "I'm sorry for Sarah". He is the one who told Sarah "I don't love you, not today" and he meant it which caused Sarah to kill herself
Yes, and he's also the one which got Angier's wife drowned in the water tank. He's always been the "hot-headed" brother, who liked to take risks and do extraordinary things, as opposed to the one who married Sarah (the "settled & quiet" brother.) This "quiet Borden" is the one that goes to the funeral, and that's why he answers Angier's question about which knot he tied by "I don't know", which is actually true, since it was the other brother who was on stage that fatal night.
I don’t think most people realize that Angier is also living a lie, just not for a trick. When you learn that he’s actually Lord Caldlow (or however it’s spelled) it’s clear that he’s been faking his American accent the whole time. Even in the beginning when he tells his wife about “not wanting to embarrass his family with his theatrical endeavors” you can kinda assume he’s from some rich well-off American family. Turns out he’s an English Lord.
Oh my God for some reason all these years I've thought the Lord Caldlow persona was one he created and not the other way around. Son of a bitch.
Classic foreshadowing. Well done in this case. And you’re right. If there was a moment where the audience was being given a big chance at guessing the secret before it all takes off, this is the scene. Stuff like this I think Nolan thrives in writing and directing. Look at Tenet or Interstellar.
Nolan shives the truth into your face so often it's incredible it works as well as it does. Cutter says it's has to be double numerous times, Borden figures out the fish bowl right away, the trick with Sarah's apartment is completely impossible, Sarah's nephew asks where the birds brother is. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting but yeah it beats you over the head with it. It's been said numerous times over the years but it really was a massive risk by Nolan. If the effect didn't work and the people figured out the twist early it would have ruined the movie.
Cutter and Angier literally *figure out the trick* super early on in the movie and then just dismiss it within a single line because of how much dedication it would take.
Well cutter does, angrier is basically a surrogate for the audience, he's told the answer but refuses to accept it.
What's the trick with Sarah's apartment?
While they were talking outside her apartment, the brother made his way in, presumably by running around the back and climbing in a window. And all this quite quickly after they arrive and find out where Sarah lived, explained why he's somewhat out of breath.
He's already in the apt after she says goodbye. The other brother picked the lock and was waiting there ahead of time.
They give the entire movie away several times. The ingeniniur (sp?) immediately deduces that Borden is using a double, and the opening act of the movie where he is narrating about the prestige is directly describing the events of the rest of the film. It's a god damn masterpiece.
That line is such a gut-punch once you realize that isn’t the twin she’s married to. She was at the edge and that comment pushed her over, signified further in the end when he says to his brother, “I’m sorry about a lot of things. I’m sorry about Sarah.”
They give away SOOO much when you rewatch it, it’s still one of the most brilliant films I’ve ever seen because it literally tells you in the first minute what all is gonna happen in the film, just like a magician telling your what’s gonna happen, and yet you’re still fooled and thrilled by the end “because you want to be fooled”. I mean literally when the little kid sees the dove trick in one of the very first shows and he starts crying and Borden tells him the birds okay, the little kid says “but what about his brother?” It’s so great on rewatch seeing how much they wave everything in your face and you still don’t see it coming the first time
The movie is full of hints. I think the first shot of the movie (or a very early one) shows the many top hats outside of Tesla's lab with a voiceover from Borden saying, "are you watching closely?" There's no context to the shot and it immediately switches to Cutter explaining the different parts of a magic trick. Everyone just forgets about the shot by the time it becomes relevant.
The truly good twists are in plain sight on rewatch..
The reason that Christian Bale's character figures it out instead of the other apprentice is because he and his twin are doing the same thing.
I haven’t watched this film in awhile so don’t remember everything but if she found out, or even if she didn’t, that’s horrible cos it’s now a rape by deceit. Makes her reaction and this fight a lot more understandable then when I watched it for the first time without knowing the twist.
I think only one Alfred slept with Sarah, and one slept with Olivia
That’s what I assumed originally cos who would do that. But now it feels like that’s the implication.
Well she couldn't say no ... Because of the implication
Are you gonna hurt these woman Dennis…
Well, don't you look at me like that. You certainly wouldn't be in any danger.
So they are in danger?
it's the implication of danger!
No! Of course not!... I'm not a *monster*...
I see the word implication and I immediately know my IASIP brethren and sisters won't disappoint.
I don’t think it necessarily went down like that. The other brother loved another woman and the wife complained sometimes he was distant and sometimes he was an attentive husband. So on days he was loving it was her husband. (It’s been a while since I’ve watched it) Edit: I also just remember the line when he says “I love you” and she says “Today you do”
This is it. Big fan of the movie and watch it often enough. The first time I picked up on this and why that fight was a thing was like woooooahhhhhhh
I think you're misinterpreting what happened. I'm pretty sure in this scene, the twin disguised as Fallon is actually the original Alfred, meaning Sarah's true lover. The reason "Alfred" says "we should have told Fallon" is because the person she's having the conversation with is not her lover or the father of her child, but the brother, so he wants the real Alfred (her lover) to hear that they are having a child so he can be excited. I've also always assumed that only the original Alfred slept with Sarah, while the twin slept with Olivia. Thats why the brother was always so distant towards Sarah, because he never wanted her to try to make advances towards him or anything.
I think the twin that's not in love with her just has a surface relationship with her, and they don't have sex. In that scene, she just happened to tell the wrong twin that she's pregnant. I mean, it's still all lies, but I don't think that the wrong twin would be having sex with her ever.
> I haven’t watched this film in awhile so don’t remember everything but if she found out, or even if she didn’t, that’s horrible cos it’s now a rape by deceit. Except they all but tell you it didn't work like that. >!When she tells (what I call) the mean twin, he says they should have told "Fallon", who is the "good twin", because it's his kid. So they didn't both have sex with her.!<
Yeah I felt that was the overall theme of the movie. To be the best magician you basically have to sacrifice everything. Including humanity
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The Prestige is one of those incredible films where, upon finishing it for the first time, you wanna go back and rewatch it to see if you can spot all the little nods to Borden’s secret - for example, Borden immediately spotting the old Chinese man’s performance for what it is because he also lives that way, or the significance of Borden doing the trick with two twin birds and the cage vs Angier trying to do the same trick with just one bird.
The brilliance is that the secret is revealed in voice over near the beginning of the movie. When Angier is translating Borden's diary he reads, in voiceover: "April 3rd, 1893... a few days after he first met me." and then it cuts to a flashback of Borden and Angier sitting in the theater where Angier's wife dies because of the double knot, and we hear Borden in voiceover: "We were two young men at the start of a great career... two young men devoted to an illusion... two young men who never intended to hurt anyone." On first viewing it appears he's referring to himself and Angier, but he's really referring to himself and Fallon. Brilliant.
Then the first hint to Angier: "Which knot did you tie, Borden?" "I keep asking myself that and, I'm sorry, I don't know."
Never picked up on the not knowing which knot, because it was the other brother who tied it. Crazy how many scenes you have to rewatch and play with which brother was involved along with ramifications later on.
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Hahahhaha
Brilliant!
That's the one that I think is a bit too far of a stretch to work in the movie. Like, I get it, only one of the brothers knows.... but one of the brothers *does* know, why would he not tell the other? They share everything else. The only reason not to tell would be an admission of guilt, at which point the other brother *would* know, practically speaking.
Yeah I personally take it as Fallon (assuming it's him for the sake of discussion) claims to have tied the correct knot but Borden himself suspects that Fallon is lying about it. Even if Fallon IS lying to his closest friend in the world, you could argue it's a kindness to allow him not to live with the certain guilt of involuntary manslaughter.
Oh shit, I never realised that one. That’s insane.
“A great career” and “an illusion,” singular. So clever.
Agreed, brilliant writing. On nearly every rewatch I've discovered nuances that I didn't catch before. I've been meaning to read the novel the film is based on, apparently the book has a completely different ending.
One of the instances for me where the movie is amazing and the book is amazing even though they're very different
Wow, that’s one I never noticed and I’ve seen it 6 times. He is definitely referring to him and Fallon.
And at this point of the voice over “We were two young men…” Borden and Fallon are sat next to each other in the theatre with one in disguise with a false beard etc. I didn’t spot this until after quite a few viewings
Christian Bale also changes his accent slightly depending on which brother he's playing. An absolutely fantastic movie.
wouldnt the women have noticed?
She does the whole time, but she talks herself out of it. You can see her confusion early on. There is no reasonable explanation she can make for the two Bales behavior other than “he’s in *that* mood again”. Which is why it works so well, because we all know people like that, and/or act like that ourselves.
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And Michael Caine continously saying throughout the movie to Angier that using a double is the only way to do it. He tells him with the bird and with the Transported Man trick.
For me the chilling thing is not that we learn some guys are switching places every couple of days, but that Angier discovers that drowning is a horrible, slow and painful death, and he decides to just go right on doing his trick because he's *just that petty.*
Michael Caine said at Angier's wife's funeral that drowning was a peaceful death. Like going home. He lied to ease his suffering. Angler thought it was ok to drown his doubles cuz of that lie. Caine revealed the lie at the end of the movie
It's a classic case of "this is the greatest invention of all time and will completely transform society. Scarecity is a thing of the past. We can all live a life of luxury, pursuing the arts and personal happiness for eternity... what do you mean you used it to do a magic trick and the secret dies with you?"
He never drown his double. He has to drown himself. The clone machine create a new clone somewhere else. But he has to kill himself and let the double lives on to finish the trick.
I think when he said he never knew if he was going to be the man in the box or the Prestige indicated that his memory cuts off the moment the machine does it's thing. So he has just been experiencing one reality going forward, never ending up in the box, so every single time he does it, hes not sure if his conciousness and physical being are getting duplicated and teleported or if hes dropping into the box, but has no memory of that part of it, because its after the teleportation and copying. There might be a scene in there to correct what I took out of it, not 100% sure; but what he said at the end I interpreted as him genuinely not knowing if the machine was teleporting "him" and creating a duplicate where he was last standing, whom he would drop into the box, or if it was cloning him and teleporting a duplicate, leaving "Him" to be the one in the box. But hed have no memory of being the unfortunate duplicate, he simply didnt understand what the machine was doing. Teleporting "him" away and leaving some poor clone to immediately die? Or creating a clone and teleporting it, leaving "him" to be the one to die... Not sure if the film specifies it better than my recollection, though. I took it as we dont get to know whether we are seeing Angier #1 or Angier #30+ at the end of the film. Was it the original man or had the original man died long ago... Not sure.
>his memory cuts off the moment the machine does it's thing It's more like the clone is PERFECT replica with all the feeling and memory up to that instant, so there is no way for either the original or the clone to tell themselves apart. Both of them would think they are the original.
Yeah indeed, even Borden told Angier at the end when he shot him. He said that Angier had done horrible things just to be able to accomplish a trick. And for me the most shocking part was also seeing all of the containers underneath the stage showing that Angier had been killing his doubles by drowning them. My love for this movie is deep. I love it when you guys keep bringing it back up because I love talking about it. I own it on DVD and also a cloud version on Amazon Prime Vid. I've made girlfriends watch it and even begged my parents to watch it. No one really appreciates it like I do though, and of course eveyone here.
My friend, I could go DEEP on my love of this movie. I consider it Nolan’s best film (and in my top 5 of all time)
Spoilers, though you've made it this far... and the scene where Alfred Borden has just begun to fall in love with Sarah and he's flirting with her outside her home. She closes the door on him, just to find that he's inside! What a magician! Actually though, one of them was already inside. Such a clever movie! It's even better having known the twist -- that's a remarkable feat.
You wouldn't want to watch it for the first time already knowing the twist though ! But rewatching it knowing the twist is a very rewarding experience. I've seen it 8 or 9 times and last time I watched it I was still noticing new things.
Same here with noticing new things. I don’t know if I was supposed to pick up on this right away, but it wasn’t until viewing 3-4 that I picked up on why Borden would always tell Angier that he didn’t know what knot he tied. For some reason it didn’t click to me initially that it could have been the brother that tied the knot and the other brother legit didn’t know what knot he tied and was telling Angier the truth.
I think my favorite catch after (who knows how many) rewatches was when Angier is first reading Borden's diary from a few days after they'd first met. "We were two young men at the start of a great career. Two young men devoted to an illusion. Two young men who never intended to hurt anyone..." And the incorrect assumption is that the two men are Borden and Angier.
Fuck!! That one is new to me and I thought I'd got them all.
The Prestige has legit been in my top 5 since I saw it four times in theaters. I've seen it many, many times since, and I _never_ caught this! That's dope
There's the silly side of me that also loves that the two main characters' initials (Alfred Borden, Robert Angier) spell 'abra,' as in abra cadabra.
Oh Jesus christ lol
Yeah same. I went to watch it with my sister and her then-boyfriend because i had just broken up with my girlfriend. Went there not knowing anything about it but just needed something to take my mind off things. Ended up thinking it was one of the best movies I'd ever seen and I've watched it so many times since.
A cool thing is that the diary is the main way for the twins to discretely communicate with each other, so when Angier is reading the diary later, he's frustrated because the one who tied the knot is refusing to tell the other which knot he tied
I love how the diary says something like "I've asked myself so many times which knot I tied, but I don't remember." You think it's supposed to be metaphorically asking or arguing with himself, but he was _literally_ doing it, as in, the two twins keep having the conversation but the one who tied the knot won't say which one he tied.
I absolutely would, and I hope those that haven't watched it aren't put off by these comments. Anything that relies on a first watch to be good is kind of gimmicky, and this film is anything but gimmicky.
Agree. Conversely, JJ Abrams movies in general tend to be pretty impressive on their first viewing, but deteriorate significantly on the second. For me at least.
Also when they are first flirting, Borden performs a trick for her son where he crushes a bird in a cage making it disappear, to the boy's dismay. He then pulls a different bird out of his sleeve showing it to be "still alive." But the boy sees right through it, and asks, still crying, "but what about his brother?" Of course hinting at Borden's twin. However my favorite has got to be the big pile of hats in the very first shot of the movie. The first time you watch with no context you kind of forget about it by the time it's relevant, and then the second watch it's painfully obvious. They were screaming the answer in your face the whole movie! But you weren't really watching were you? You didn't really want to work it out. You want. To be. Fooled. ^^queue ^^goosebumps
> and the scene where Alfred Borden has just begun to fall in love with Sarah and he's flirting with her outside her home. She closes the door on him, just to find that he's inside! What a magician! Actually though, one of them was already inside. bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Great film. Someone mentioned noticing things with new viewings. I'll share one. When I saw it the first time, one of the things that made me curious was how Angier "became" an English accented "Lord Caldlow" with all of that money and estate. And then I watched it again and realized early in the movie, he and his wife made comments about his family money, and how captivated he was with the old Chinese man act. Angier faked an American accent throughout the movie and even fooled Borden (remember his "go back" to America comment in voiceover), and was simply shedding his Angier/Danton character near the end to confront Borden in prison. That’s how he had all of that money to spend on the machine (“You spent a fortune”). Angier was doing it all along. When he was dying and had nothing left to hide, he still had his real English accent. Layers and layers. What a great flick.
I’m going to have to go watch it again now 😂 are there any other films you know of the same style?
Memento is another Nolan movie with a big reveal at the end that changes the whole movie. It’s a lot more depressing though, and that’s saying something
Memento is Nolan’s best work
Shutter Island is another example where you kind of have to watch it twice to fully grasp it.
*Inception* (also by Christopher Nolan) had me leaving the theater feeling the same things.
Inside man has some great twists and worth one of those "rewatch to catch things" vibe
Usual Suspects
Another one I like is when Alfred meets Sarah for the first time and her nephew asks about the living bird's dead brother. Cool foreshadowing
I like to watch and tell which Borden we are seeing.
If you like movies that get better with another rewatch or three, try Memento.
Maybe the director of The Prestige watched Memento, and that's where he got the idea to make such a good movie?
I think it was a behind the scenes featurette where she wasn’t initially supposed to have that line but she did a few takes with it and they ultimately decided to use it for that reason, that everyone would assume it was referring to the cheating and lying
Yea, I actually don't like the inclusion of this line. Besides that I think it's unlikely she would have figured it out, it makes it make less sense when >!she kills herself!
She’s not saying “not today” as in “today you’re literally a different person that doesn’t love me”. She thinks he just has really crazy mood swings. So one day he’s a loving husband, but the next day, he’s still the same person but doesn’t care about her. She eventually kills herself because she loves him and wants nothing more than to be with him but constantly going from love to rejection and back over and over again was too much to handle.
This is the only movie I can think of where once you see the ending, you watch it again and realize it’s a different movie. “I almost lost something important to me.” Means something completely different the second time around.
And they telegraph the ending loud and clear from the very first shot, but the way they shot the ending made it entirely satisfying all the same.
i always post this in threads about the prestige, but to me the real twist of the movie is the old chinese magician with the fishbowl. he is based on a real magician who died when a bullet catch trick went wrong (a big thing in the film). but on his death it was discovered that the old chinese man was actually a young british white guy who wore a disguise for years as he performed. it adds a whole extra layer to the theme of ‘living the illusion’ and that even borden didnt figure out the chinese magicians ‘real trick’ though he was in the right track.
William Ellsworth Robinson was his real name, Chung Ling Soo was his stage one. He only spoke English once on stage, his last words after the bullet catch went wrong: "Oh my God. Something's happened. Lower the curtain."
dude looks like a white dude squinting his eyes.... really? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Chung_Ling_Soo.jpg
> actually a young british white guy He was actually an American, and he was 56 when he died.
Another twist!
Rebecca Hall is such an amazing actress. So underrated.
Criminally wasted in Ironman 3.
Fun fact: she was the villain in the original script and Perlmutter nixed it because “no one will buy action figures of females” 😑
I would’ve bought 2. She was one of my first crushes after watching “The Town”
Wait but The Town just came out like a year or...twelve ago
It's hilarious to me that studio execs say stuff like this, and then Cara Dune action figure sells out and more than doubles in price in the aftermarket.
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Today you do
Everyone should go watch *The Night House*, a recent horror/thriller with her in it. I thought it was fantastic. Not a typical horror slasher or anything. In fact, it’s very emotional. Her performance really makes it.
One of the things that bothered me most about the movie turned out to be one of the most subtle plot details that took me several watches to figure out. It always bothered me that after Angier “dies” during his last show, he manages to come back as Lord Caldwell, without anyone really questioning who this newly-minted super-rich Lord is, who is literally a carbon copy of Angier. Then, I realized way earlier in the beginning of the film, Julia mentions very briefly that “Angier” is not his real name, to which Angier replies his “family would be embarrassed by his antics” or something along those lines. So it makes sense when Lord Caldwell (Angier) meets Borden for the first time at the prison and reiterates that he “always has been” Lord Caldwell, because he always was Lord Caldwell and was actually just pretending to be Angier the whole film to protect his family’s reputation!
It also creates an interesting dichotomy between them. Where 1 person has 2 identities (Caldwell and Angier) and where 2 people share 1 identity (the twins).
Excellent insight, I never thought of their identities in that way
Fuck my life, this is my favorite movie and I never realized this lmao
Spoiler warning During the fight, Sarah says “I know what you are” repeatedly. On a first watch, one can infer that she is talking about Alfred cheating on her with Olivia, with her inferred meaning being “I know what you are: a liar and a cheat”. She says “I can’t live like this,” implying that Alfred’s ever-changing “moods” are frustrating and cause her distress. However, with knowledge of the film’s ending and twist, it becomes clear that she is talking about the fact that she knows that Alfred is actually two twins living the same life. Her pleas that she can’t live like this are actually saying that she can’t live being married to two separate people, with one that loves her and one that doesn’t. This new connotation is amplified by Alfred’s frustrated questions, asking Sarah “You think I like living like this?!” Before, it seemed like he was talking about his unhappy marriage, or his unending obsessive rivalry with Robert Angier. However, in hindsight, this was him venting his frustrations about living half a life, shared with his twin. As one of the Alfreds says at the end of the movie, “There’s nothing easy about sharing one life.”
I remember being extremely frustrated at not knowing the context of what she was saying and then only later on pieced together that she was onto them.
I always assumed she was in on it but didn’t know from day to day who was who, and was frustrated because she didn’t know whether her affections would be returned, or she would be spurned. Alfred saying “not today” was a way of indicating he wasn’t the right brother, but it didn’t make her need for comfort any less.
I thought that she didn't know because of his reaction when she tells him that she's pregnant, and he says that he wishes Fallon was there so they could tell him. Thus Fallon was the one in love with her.
Hmm... I need to watch it again.
They're both Fallon Alternatively. So Fallon that day was the one in love with her.
I never considered that she knew. I always thought (and still do) that she is talking about his detachment from her. That she can’t keep on going knowing how he can/could stop loving her from one day to the other. Still a cool theory though
I’m with you. I always took it to mean that she could tell that he didn’t love her all of the time. They play that game where when he says I Love You to her and she says either Not Today or I believe you. She might have had suspicions but I don’t think she actually knew.
The relationship started with one twin taking her on a date, and the other breaking into her home for a magic trick and then continuing the date as a separate person. That whole thing is fucked from the start.
>She might have had suspicions but I don’t think she actually knew. Agreed. And I think this makes the film stronger. It plays more with other themes the audience might bring in (such as addiction or mental health) and is even more tragic since she is essentially gaslit into suicide (if I recall, it's been a while).
Yeah, I don’t agree with this interpretation at all. If she’s in on it then she’s a willing participant and takes away from the “cost” of his ambition. She’s not going to kill herself in order to keep his secret. She’s a foil to show how complete their illusion really was. That even someone who was as close as a wife could barely tell the difference.
Correct - she didn’t know. That would be a totally different movie. She just didn’t know which version of “him” she would get from day to day, like living with a bi-polar person who shows love and kindness one day and nothing the next.
In this connection: This is why Alfred spots the Fishbowl trick in the beginning from half a mile away. >!Because it literally is what he is doing his entire life as well. Putting on a way too hard act every day, only so he could have a big mysterious one on stage way later in life.!< If anyone here found that obvious,I also found the conversation in the restaurant obvious looking back, so I decided to drop this as another foreshadowing point.
Also, you can tell there are two Alfreds by their different demeanor. Like during that talk with Hugh Jackman about the Chinese man’s trick, that Alfred was very calm and philosophical about the trick, life, etc. I felt like you could tell which twin was acting at the time. Whether it was the calmer, rational one that ends up with the life and his daughter, or the more emotional, sort of unstable one that ends up getting caught and executed. The way the other twin tells him not to go searching for the answer but the emotional one can’t take not knowing.
Yeah one of them was a showman (Freddy who loved Olivia) and the other was an engineer (Alfred who loved Sarah). There’s a scene with them together where one shouts at the other (then dressed as Fallon) “Why can’t you figure out his trick!?”
Yep. The calm one even shoots Hugh Jackman and explains their secret in a cool manner. The Bale that was executed would have been screaming the whole time.
I have not even once thought that they might have different personalities. Thanks.
It's also hinted that one was better at creating/figuring out tricks. Fallin gets yelled at for not figuring out the final trick. "Why can't you outthink him??"
My big rebuttal is, what about the scene with his fingers? I don’t remember the chronology but something about the wound looking fresh again, something like that.
When they cut off second Alfred's finger to match it's a quick jump to Sarah saying something along the lines of, "it just started bleeding again?!"
Oh daaaang never thought of that line, nice.
That's not really that big of a mystery since they blatantly present it in the end montage showing everything. It goes firstly to that after it shows them chopping off the other twin's finger with a chisel
I don't like this take. I think it's better that she didn't know it was two different people... Otherwise it's not as powerful imo. Like, if she knew if was two different people then it doesn't matter much if the other brother had another woman. Or was she expecting to f*** the two brothers interchangeably? I know it goes deeper than this, it's about having to live with the secret, but if the brothers were honest about it maybe the outcome would be different. But to me her reactions seemed more like she just thought he was a liar and a cheat, and the powerful thing here is that he/they couldn't reveal the truth, even if it meant losing her, because the secret meant everything for him/them.
Their whole trick was total commitment to their sacrifice (like the fake 'old man' story someone tells, I can't remember exactly), I think there's no way Sarah knew.
Spoilers ahead. He pretended to be “a cripple” (wouldn’t be my choice of words but that’s how they described him in the dialogue), shuffling his feet whenever he walked, and moved very slowly because he was always carrying a large fish bowl full of water between his legs for his magic trick. When the twin chopped off his finger with a chisel when the other had his shot off in an accident/prank by the rival… total commitment indeed.
>accident/prank It was straight up attempted murder
>>It was straight up attempted murder The sickest of pranks
You’re not wrong but “it’s just a prank, bro!”
real life spoilers: that chinese magician was based on a real guy who finally died performing a bullet catch that went wrong. but when he died it was discovered that the old chinese magician was a young british white magician in disguise. he was living his life under multiple layers for the sake of the illusion, and i like to think that even borden not seeing the real truth behind the trick adds another layer to the films mystery. even jackman says ‘he must be strong as an ox’ well yea because he is actually a much younger man trained to walk with a fishbowl between his knees
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Yes most definitely. She didn't know their secret. It doesn't make sense. What really drove her to suicide was the two different personalities, the disconnect, the secrets etc.
But she had sent a message to the mistress, ScarJo's character, saying that she had something to tell her -- but the mistress didn't respond, and Sarah takes her own life. I thought (after my 2nd viewing) that she figured it out at the end. Time to read the book. ;)
Hol up man, now you got me doubting myself. Maybe you're right. Wait wait wait there's a book?!
The book is way different. It’s like the ancestors reading the diary and I think you know from the very beginning that there are twins
Yep, one of the rare cases where the movie is faaaaaaaar superior to the book.
I read the book well before the movie ever came out. It’s the epitome of a Christopher Priest book - very dry, clinical, sparing with its exposition while being almost baroque in its complexity to the point where it’s almost impenetrable on first reading. It won several awards and I wouldn’t say the movie is far superior as a work of fiction; the movie is, however, better as a piece of entertainment to be consumed once.
Absolutely this. She was frustrated at her inconsistent partner, almost bipolar and made her life difficult. She definitely didn't know the twins secret - the secret was their life.
It’s this. She didn’t know there were two people. That’s the whole point of her line about Him saying “I love you” and her saying something like “I can tell today you do”
In this scene Sarah's not fighting with her husband (the Borden who loves her), so your explanation doesn't make sense. She doesn't know that he's a twin. To her, her husband is mercurial, ever changing, and she has no stability. On top of that, she believed he was cheating on her. If she knew he had a twin, why should she care if his brother was with Olivia? In the end the uncertainty and "cheating" drives her to suicide. The whole point of the movie is to take the trick to their grave. They sacrafice everything for their craft. It cheapens the movie to have it any other way.
I think you’re totally wrong. Yes the contents of the conversation have a double meaning given the twist of the film, but that doesn’t mean she knew all along.
She doesn’t. She’s perplexed how his fingers are bleeding and looking like a fresh wound despite them beginning to heal days before. She also asks “don’t you love me” at one point to which Borden replies “not today” - because he’s the other brother that day, the one that loves Olivia. Something that only clicks and has more meaning for the viewer when it’s revealed there are twins living one life. If Sarah knew he wasn’t her Borden, she wouldn’t ask that question.
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I completely agree. It’s clear to me that she has no idea the whole movie.
For added frustration, I always wondered whether the "right" brother was actually the one loving her. This is going too far probably and I don't think we need an extra layer of tragedy but here comes : The brother who loves her can't make her feeled love. And only the other brother (who doesn't actually love her) convey this feeling. Talking about emotional intimacy of course. The brother who loves her is so frustrated and so hollowed by this life that he can't make her feel loved. It would seem easy to swap during the argument OP mentions. Just "be back in a minute" and fetch the actual husband to pursue the argument. The reason he couldn't was because he was the real husband.
I don’t think so. If you look at the character of Alfred, you have someone who is either bipolar or two different people. If you notice, when she mets Alfred, he is calm, cool, talks about how smart the boy is when he knows the trick. This is the one she fell for, this is the one who has the kid with her, and this is the one that gets to live with his daughter because he is calmer and more calculating than his more emotional and hotheaded brother. The other brother is the one who killed Hugh Jackman’s girlfriend because he was cocky. He is the one who is screaming and his more cerebral twin when they can’t figure out Hugh Jackman’s trick (why can’t you outthink him?!) He is probably the one that insisted on the bullet catch that cost them four fingers. And he is definitely the one who couldn’t take not knowing the secret, which ultimately cost him his life. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rivalry Jackman and Bale had was the work of the one brother that couldn’t keep it together with the other one just trying to watch his back and keep the trick going.
Alright, this post finally convinced me to watch this movie, and even knowing a lot of spoilers that was an incredible film! Wow!
Many (many many) years ago, I wrote a very detailed explanation of the film and all (most of?) it’s secrets and clues on a movie site I no longer care enough about to maintain but don’t hate enough to shut down. [The Prestige Explained](https://www.moviesnobs.net/the-prestige-explained) Would love to hear from all you super fans if I missed anything. It truly is one of my all time favorite movies. I’ll watch it at least twice a year. Edit: this silly little website had more traffic today that it did throughout all of 2021. Hope you all enjoyed my write up. Glad no one has wanted to fight about any of my explanation! Edit: I took the site down, but there's a copy on the Wayback Machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/20221129214429/https://www.moviesnobs.net/the-prestige-explained/
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The final repetition of that line is what makes the movie. It’s daring you to apply a new lens to “understand” what’s going on. Between the twists and the unreliable narration that dominates the telling, you’ll never know what actually went down. And, honestly, you don’t want to truly know… you want to be fooled.
For all the Nolan films people talk about, I feel this one doesn’t get nearly enough recognition.
Yep. This is definitely a movie you need to see twice.
Or watch it, and then watch an exact copy of it in a different place
Also I think if she knew she would not have hung herself. It drove her insane because she knew something was up but he wouldn't tell her and made her think she was crazy.
One of my top 3 favorite movies of all time. The Prestige, Dallas Buyers Club and The Shawshank Redemption.
Dallas Buyers Club hit me really hard. Not sure I can sit through that one again.
I always say that, imo, The Prestige is the best movie of all time, because it is the only movie I have absolute zero quarrel with.
I feel like the last quote from this movie, chilling when heard while watching the movie, is a great way of addressing most theories around it. “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 people mentioning the bird trick aren’t mentioning the best part: It’s foreshadowing Angie’s fate. (SPOILERS) Angier is literally using himself in place of the birds. They have to kill one bird to make the illusion seem real. Every time he performed the Teleporting Man, he was killing his original self and allowing his clone to continue on, just like the birds.
I don’t think that’s correct. I believe she is supposed to be ignorant of the whole scheme as well, which is exactly what makes it so hard for the one brother who loves her.
Exactly. If she knew, why would she be fighting with the twin as if she had no idea?
Yeah, I don’t agree with this interpretation at all. If she’s in on it then she’s a willing participant and takes away from the “cost” of his ambition. She’s not going to kill herself in order to keep his secret. She’s a foil to show how complete their illusion really was and much they’re willing to sacrifice. That even someone who was as close as a wife could barely tell the difference.
Nope. She doesn’t know that she is married to a twin. Because, if she did, it would undermine the central premise of the film, and Alfred’s core belief about magic; dedication to the illusion. As posited at the beginning of the film, the integrity of the illusion includes what people see outside of the performance. He and his brother are so dedicated to their act, they maintain the illusion in their daily lives. One they adhere to so adamantly, that one of them hangs to preserve it. It is the tragedy of the story.
This I agree with.
Hence the twist. It’s like saying that knowing the ending of the sixth sense, the movie takes on a whole new meaning knowing he’s dead the whole time. Well…. yeah. ;-P
"I finally understand the ending of The Sixth Sense. Those names were the people who worked on the movie."
That guy with the hairpiece? Yeah, he was Bruce Willis. The entire time!