the prestige proved even further that Christopher Nolan wasn't a director to ignore years later we still can't get over the film's central twists which like a true magician no than hid in plain sight he is how he pulled off the trick everything in the prestige plays fairly with the audience regarding the central trick the ending is telegraphed repeatedly through nearly every character and every line making it one of the most surprising and paradoxically most foreshadowed twists and movie history it's all summed up in the opening narration by John cutter where he breaks down the trick
into three acts the pledge the turn and the prestige you're looking for the senior but you won't find because your cooks [Music] as cutting the rates the camera pans over a series of identical birds one of whom he chooses to meet disappear and then reappear as a prestige part of the trick we'll see this bird trick later when Sara brings her nephew to a magic show which causes him to burst into tears at the thought of the birds death surprise is Alfred Borden to hear the question about the birds brother not just because a child
can see through the trick because it's his trick the central twist of the movie Borden is fellin each a twin living half of a life sharing the spotlight at the beginning of the film and gia reads a passage from Borden's diary and the audience is given its first glimpse into what triggered the pair's long-standing feud Borden's narration here is easily able to trick the audience we were two young men at the star of a crow Korea two young men devoted to an illusion two young men never intended to hurt anyone the audience is prone to
think that this narration refers to Borden and an gia based on the premise of the movie but that's not right Borden and an Gia never devote themselves to an illusion Borden and Fallon do they've devoted themselves to the illusion that has only one Borden and that they never intended to hurt anyone is true and Gia's first move against Borden involves a loaded pistol so the implication that the two young men who never intended harm are Borden and Anne gia is dismissed within the next thirty minutes of screen time the movie wastes no time in telling
you exactly what's happening but it's so obvious you can't help but be swept along if you're not paying attention after angeas wife escapes the water tank Borden and gia and cutter discuss their different philosophies on magic a real magician tries to invent something new that other magicians are gonna scratch their heads over you know when cutter asks him if he has such a trick Borden says he does but he refused to sell it as no one else can do it this scene serves a variety of purposes firstly it shows how cutter knows a business well
enough to shoot down Borden's every idea for being reckless but it also shows how desperate Borden is to create a trick that specifically confuses other magicians as the two men discuss money and selling tricks and gia doesn't say much content to just watch cutter and Borden are working-class people whose jobs depend on their own but Angie egg comes from money and doesn't feel the need to engage tellingly the audience doesn't figure into that conversation Kota keeps mentioning money or borden pushes for the act of creation performance and magic is a highest ideal something only other
magicians can understand to confuse another practitioner is the highest praise and an Jia will spend the rest of the film suitably scratching his head over Borden's transported mantric cutter sells Angie Erin Borden that if they want to see what it takes to do real magic they need to go see Chung Ling soo who can make a full fish tank appear on stage Borden and Angie ago and afterwards the pair watched the old man daughter into a cab this is the truth this is a performance why this is why Noah came to take this movie as
he speaks the camera zooms into borden's face to underscore the seriousness of what he's saying we're watching a confession Borden recognizing a fellow practitioner willing to shape his entire life around the performance of magic once again he never mentions the audience only the art the sacrifice is empowering for him to see that his trick can work later on gia will show off the trick for his wife Julia but he does it half mockingly in disbelief that anyone could or would want to do it something Wharton sort of wants me I couldn't fathom him live my
whole life pretending to be someone else it's a key foreshadowing of why an Jia would be the only one who can't believe Portland uses a double a self-sacrifice they're pretending he emits right there that it's unthinkable to him when Julia drowns in the water tank and gia becomes obsessed with finding out the truth behind which not Borden used to tie her wrists and able to accept that bored and cannot remember it's a question that hangs over the men throughout the film with bored and confessing finally that even he would never know I have fought with
myself over that night when alpha me swam blind I tried a simple Slipknot the other half convinced that I tied the Langford double board and can give angira simple answer about which knotty tied because the twins trade off on different days one twin would have tied the simple nuts the other would have tied the Langford double but bored and can't say whether he knows whether it's aboard and who tied the knots or the board and who truly doesn't know which knotty tied the illusion requires self-sacrifice of all the characters and the prestige Sara comes the
closest to realizing Borden as two people she tells bored and early in the film that she can tell he doesn't always mean it when he says he loves her more in love with magic than me I like being able to tell the difference it makes the the day's it is true means something the surviving boarder and the one who confesses to nga the secret is the one who loves Sarah the other board and it's the one who falls in love with Olivia but at this point in the film he's not with anyone else so Sarah
guesses that he's in love with magic instead this is also when Fallon enters a picture prompting concern from Sarah that they don't have enough to pay him a clever reference to Fallon sharing half of everything with Borden immediately before Sarah tells him that they're going to have a baby we should tell Fallon that it's great we're having a baby the way in that sentence is deceptive since it seems like he's talking about himself and Sarah but he's really referencing Fallon / other Borden - they're all having a baby together since they shared everything each living
half a life which includes Sarah and their daughter when Borden begin sharing his transported man and gia becomes obsessed with her although cutter insists it's done with a double and gia is convinced otherwise the audience should believe cutter since he's consistently shown to be wise and knowledgeable later after Olivia and Borden begin their affair she tells on gia that she found disguised materials not used for the show at times boring couldn't possibly be watching we should be listening to these characters but we're too caught up in angeas passion his attempt to duplicate the trick involves
him hiring a double of his own Jerald roots also played by Jackman in a slight nod to Borden's true secret route as sleazy and alcoholic with too much pride and not enough to live for a disturbing mirror - the vices are an Gaea dabbles with throughout the film though root is played by Jackman he can't possibly live like Borden does with his trick it rankles an Jia to spend his prestige huddled underneath the stage while his double takes a bow he's jealous of himself in a way Borden can never be a self-sacrifice demanded of real
magic too much for him it pushes him to send Olivia to him for trade Borden's trusts leading to disaster for everyone until one of the Borden twins falls in love with Olivia they united in their desires they achieve success a family and the art they dreamed of but once they fracture it leads to strife and Gia kidnaps Fallon and buries him to get the cipher for a fake notebook of thinking this will lead him to the secret behind the transported man it won't of course but the point of the scene is our Fallon's near-death encounter
leads one of the Borden twins to arrive to a dinner date with Sarah stinking drunk with Olivia along for the ride today I thought that something very precious I've been lost this line is in reference to the other board and twins near-death experience but regardless the platens appearance of Olivia pushes Sarah towards alcoholism and eventually ends with her taking her own life when she can't stand the Borden's lies anymore the openness with which boarding conducts his affair with Olivia brings to the fore all the repressed feelings Sarah was able to push down forcing her to
kill herself rather than fully betray Borden and reveal his secret of all of the plot points in the film otezla and his cloning machine received the most to region while it's true that the science fiction Edition is a surprise it serves a few important points first Tesla and Edison rivalry mirrors and year importance continuing the motif of reflections and doubles that pervades the movie seconds it's symbolic of the corruption of an GA as a magician he's not disappearing and bringing himself back the way to turn in the prestige require he's just copying himself over and
over killing himself in a sickening penance for the death of his wife in the same manner finally in his own way and Jerris ultimately proven right in his assertion that every trick can be duplicated by cloning himself he's able to duplicate the ultimate trick of poor Dan's act the use of an identical twin the difference between them is that he'd rather kill his twin that live his life pretending to be someone he's not Angie arrives aboard and cell to gloat and tear apart the secret to the transported man that it's so obsessed over throughout the
entire movie boarding gives Fallon a tearful goodbye admitting that he was right they should have left Angie alone it's the closest the two brothers get to openly speaking to each other with Borden apologizing for the way his affair with Olivia led to Sarah's death Borden's escorted to the hangman's noose Maryse asked about his final words he disappears but that's not magic you can't just make something disappear you have to bring it back Borden Xu Sanjaya standing alone in a hole of his drowned clones and lays out the truth he was Fallon and Fallon's was Borden
the two men sharing one life he reiterate that that's what magic curse of the art requires devotion and sacrifice a sacrifice an Jia could never match all this he tells him was for nothing and Jia tells Borden that he never understood why they did this knows that an Jia goes on to explain that if you have the ability to make an audience wonder in spite of this then you got to see something very special it's a direct plea to the audience straight from writers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan but the ability to trick the audience to
make them imagine a world like their own but difference that exists right at their fingertips Borden says earlier in the film that a secret impresses no one but we're not so sure some tricks are even more impressive when you see the self sacrifice a total devotion to the art check out one of our newest videos right here plus even more looper videos about your favorite films are coming soon subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the bell so you don't miss a single one [Music]
