The Prestige. Are You Watching Closely?
Mar. 10th, 2019 04:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pigtailed_goddess I love this movie so much.
For various reasons been rethinking on it and have some random thoughts.
1. Cutter is a great heel turn. I love that he turns on Angier at the end and truly I think it's not because he cares whether Angier would murder Borden. I think it's because Angier used him. Cutter who has been the backbone of devising tricks, used in a trick of this fake murder and trial and not told by Angier.
2. Olivia knew about the twins? I think with as smart as she appears she figured that out, but was disgusted with herself and Borden by the end because Sarah's death confirms that there is no lengths the twins will not go to put the secret first, just like Angier.
3. Angier is still about revenge and his lost wife. I think people put too much weight on his convo with Olivia and "I don't care about my wife, I care about his secret". Yes, his obsession and their rivalry in magic is overwhelming but he immediately undercuts this line with remorse and telling Olivia he accepts her love of Borden and will cover for her. He's still profoundly upset over Borden's not revealing/knowing which knot was tied. He's drowning himself in effigy to his wife. The truth of Borden's trick and Borden's inability to be honest about Julia's death is linked for Angier. If you refuse to tell me the truth, I will rob you of your greatest hidden lie. In the end he doesn't even take Borden's secret at the jailhouse because he hurts him more by up-staging Borden's lie with what he thinks a better more truthful trick.
4. I love that their rivalry is also about the nature of a magician and performer's part in their acts. One gets off on the belief of the audience. The Prestige. One on the mastery of the skill of tricking the audience. The Turn. These are both the parts where they self-destruct themselves and ironically outdo each other in the opposites as Angier's true Transported Man unnerves Borden in it it's true reality. The Turn being taking the ordinary and making it extra-ordinary. While Borden performs the final Prestige to bring himself back to his daughter, Jess. Giving true wonder to his audience by bringing her father back, and of course having no pleasure in the skill used tricking her with the reality that his brother truly died.
For various reasons been rethinking on it and have some random thoughts.
1. Cutter is a great heel turn. I love that he turns on Angier at the end and truly I think it's not because he cares whether Angier would murder Borden. I think it's because Angier used him. Cutter who has been the backbone of devising tricks, used in a trick of this fake murder and trial and not told by Angier.
2. Olivia knew about the twins? I think with as smart as she appears she figured that out, but was disgusted with herself and Borden by the end because Sarah's death confirms that there is no lengths the twins will not go to put the secret first, just like Angier.
3. Angier is still about revenge and his lost wife. I think people put too much weight on his convo with Olivia and "I don't care about my wife, I care about his secret". Yes, his obsession and their rivalry in magic is overwhelming but he immediately undercuts this line with remorse and telling Olivia he accepts her love of Borden and will cover for her. He's still profoundly upset over Borden's not revealing/knowing which knot was tied. He's drowning himself in effigy to his wife. The truth of Borden's trick and Borden's inability to be honest about Julia's death is linked for Angier. If you refuse to tell me the truth, I will rob you of your greatest hidden lie. In the end he doesn't even take Borden's secret at the jailhouse because he hurts him more by up-staging Borden's lie with what he thinks a better more truthful trick.
4. I love that their rivalry is also about the nature of a magician and performer's part in their acts. One gets off on the belief of the audience. The Prestige. One on the mastery of the skill of tricking the audience. The Turn. These are both the parts where they self-destruct themselves and ironically outdo each other in the opposites as Angier's true Transported Man unnerves Borden in it it's true reality. The Turn being taking the ordinary and making it extra-ordinary. While Borden performs the final Prestige to bring himself back to his daughter, Jess. Giving true wonder to his audience by bringing her father back, and of course having no pleasure in the skill used tricking her with the reality that his brother truly died.
