Actors in The Prestige

Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige has an impressive cast, including Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as the rival magicians, Angier and Borden.

This post, however, concentrates on three members of the supporting cast.

The first of these is Michael Caine, who appears as John Cutter. Cutter is Angier’s manager and trick designer. Caine is, in many ways, playing himself in this role. He uses his natural speaking voice and Cockney accent, which would be appropriate. Caine is capable of many other types of performance, but he made his reputation as Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File. Palmer was also a Cockney, portrayed as living in a working class London neighborhood. In The Prestige, Caine is a wildcard character actor, but it must be remembered that the character he is playing is Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, which is Caine’s real name (Caine, 2000).

[Michael Caine as John Cutter in The Prestige]

The second is David Bowie, who portrays inventor and scientist, Nikola Tesla. Technically, Bowie is impersonating Tesla. Even though Bowie does not resemble, period clothing, a fake moustache, and a hairstyle resembling Tesla’s go a long way. Bowie uses an indeterminate “foreign” accent, even though it is reported that Tesla spoke very good English. Bowie, primarily known as a singer, has had an eclectic acting career, appearing as an alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986), and himself in Zoolander (2001). He is easily recognized, and his association with numerous innovative musicians, most notably Robert Fripp, made him a good choice for this role. Even though the role itself is small, it is of paramount importance. Without the machine he constructs for Angier, there, is simply, no film.

[The “real” Nikola Tesla (r) and David Bowie as Tesla in The Prestige (l)]

The last of these is Scarlett Johansson, who appears as Olivia Wenscombe. Initially, she is hired by Angier as his stage assistant. They become lovers, and Angier tries to use her to gain the secret of Borden’s trick. This backfires, and she becomes involved with one of the Borden “twins,” who uses her to “plant” his fake “Tesla” diary with Angier in an attempt to waste his time.

In this role, Johansson relies primarily on her appearance. She wears several skimpy costumes, appropriate for the role, and she wears them well. Her English accent is far from perfect, but she has little, if any, meaningful dialogue. In this role, Johansson is a wildcard actor. Her role is difficult to classify, and there is no particular reason why she, as opposed to many other attractive actresses (some with authentic English accents) was chosen for the role.

[Scarlett Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe in The Prestige]

Johansson’s role is, however, key to the film. She is indirectly responsible for introducing Angier to Tesla, and the fact that she had been involved with both Angier and Borden reinforces one of the film’s persistent themes, that of duality (the Borden twins, the fact that Tesla’s machine is a duplicating machine, the fact that Angier was living a dual life as the magician Angier and Lord Caldlow).

Johansson is, however, by no means confined to this type of role. In movies based on Marvel Comics (e.g., Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers), she plays Agent Romanoff, also known as the Black Widow. These action movies, and Johansson’s character is very much an “action hero” type of role. Even though Johansson is still very much a wildcard actress in these films, she is a “star” wildcard actress, as her name appears with other prominent cast members such as Robert L. Downey, Jr. (Iron Man) and Samuel L. Jackson (Agent Nick Fury).

This situation is a reflection on Johansson’s versatility as an actress (she is convincing in both roles, although it seems her spoken Russian as Agent Romanoff is all but incomprehensible), with some assistance from the wardrobe department. This also reflects on the breadth of the wildcard category, showing how it can encompass a wide variety of roles.

[Scarlett Johansson as Agent Romanoff in Iron Man 2]

Broackes, Victoria and Marsh, Geoffrey (2013). David Bowie Is… Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art.

Caine, Michael (2000). Acting in Film. New York: Applause Cinema Books.

Vagianos, Alanna (2015). “Mark Ruffalo Answered the Sexist Questions Scarlett Johansson Typically Gets During Press Interviews.” The Huffington Post. April 27, 2015.

The Use of Sound in The Prestige

Films, despite being a visual medium, often make extensive use of sound. Dialogue is the verbal communication between the actors. Sound effects replicate the sounds that would be heard if the film were “real”-doors slamming, footsteps, raindrops, etc. Music has a long tradition in cinema. The earliest films were silent, and a pianist or organist often played background music to help set the mood of the film. In some current films, the score often assumes a life of its own. One well known example would be Jan Hammer’s soundtrack for the television program Miami Vice.

(Keyboardist/composer Jan Hammer [center] with Miami Vice cast members Don Johnson [“Crockett”; l] and Philip Michael Thomas [“Tubbs”; r])

The Prestige contains dialogue, sound effects, and music. The film makes extensive use of dialogue, and Christopher Nolan paid special attention to the use of appropriate British accents. The judge at Borden’s trial and the solicitor, Owen, speak with upper class accents. Cutter, Angier’s business manager, speaks with a working class London accent. The actor playing Cutter, Michael Caine, is known for this accent, which is his own, and his performances have helped define it, especially for performers who must learn the dialect.

The Prestige contains a wide variety of sound effects. Many help to establish the film as a period piece. An example of this would be the sound of the steam train that takes Angier to Colorado Springs. Other sounds, however, are associated with Tesla and his various machines. These can best be described as “electrical crackling” and are, of course, sounds that would have only been heard under specialized circumstances (such as Tesla’s actual experiments) at the time.

The Prestige contains some music. In some cases, the music serves as something of a sound effect. One example of this would be the vaguely “Chinese” music in the scene where Cutter has sent Angier and Borden to try to discover the secret of a Chinese magician. The “music” consists of some kind of plucked string sound (most likely generated on a synthesizer) and uses a pentatonic scale. It does not need to be actual Chinese music, as its purpose is to help set the mood-the music is, in fact, the “stage music” accompanying the Chinese magician’s performance.

(Chung Ling Soo Produces a Drum from Nowhere)

Subtle music serves as a backdrop for Angier’s arrival in Colorado Springs. The music is quite pronounced when Angier, climbing aboard the stagecoach that has been sent to collect him, notices that the entire town of Colorado Springs has electricity.

(Angier [Hugh Jackman] Notices that Colorado Springs is Electrified)

The use of sound is quite pronounced in the scene where Angier finally gets to meet Tesla. As Angier makes his way up the stairs to Tesla’s laboratory, a mechanical grinding sound is heard. When Angier enters the laboratory, electrical crackling is heard. Tesla makes a dramatic entrance from behind a device producing not only the cracking sound but also a massive shower of electrical sparks. Alley, Tesla’s assistant, turns the machine off. The sparks and noise cease. The resulting silence and focus on Tesla’s face provide a quiet conclusion to the otherwise bombastic entrance.

This dramatic entrance was needed, in part, to underscore the importance of Tesla’s technology to the film. If Alley had simply escorted Angier to meet Tesla on the balcony where they eventually have lunch, the result would not have been the same; it would have been two men meeting for lunch. The “sound and fury” followed by silence is a clear signal to the viewer that Tesla’s work is both important and real, unlike many of the “tricks” seen in the film.

Week 1: The Prestige

(Angier sees one of Tesla’s inventions: the wireless transmission of electric power)

Title: The Prestige

Writers: 

Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan; Christopher Priest (author of novel on which the film is based.

Director: 

Christopher Nolan

Year: 2006

Actors:

Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier

Christian Bale as Alfred Borden

Michael Caine as Cutter

Piper Perabo as Julia McCullough

Rebecca Hall as Sarah Borden

Scarlett Johansson and Olivia Wenscombe

David Bowie as Nikola Tesla

Andy Serkis as Alley

Story:

A friendship between to magicians in Victorian London turns into a bitter rivalry after a stage accident results in the death of Robert Angier’s wife. Alfred Borden captivates London with “The Transported Man”-a trick whose secret Angier is desperate to learn. The secret of “The Transported Man” is far from the only secret in the film. Other characters include Cutter, Angier’s trick designer and business manager, the real scientist Nikola Tesla, and Tesla’s assistant, Alley.

Plot: 

When a stage accident involving a knot and a water escape results in the death of Robert Angier’s wife. Angier blames Borden, claiming he had used the wrong knot, making his wife’s escape from a tank of water impossible. Hhe and fellow magician, Alfred Borden, become bitter rivals. They rise through the ranks of London’s magic performers with progressively more spectacular  tricks.

Borden develops a trick called “The Transported Man” in which he enters a door on one side of the stage and immediately exits a door on the other side of the stage. Angier asks Cutter to duplicate the trick for him. Cutter says it is done with a double. Angier disagrees, but relents, and tells Cutter to find a double. Cutter finds Angier’s double in the form of Root, a drunken actor. Root, however, is, with Cutter’s assistance, transformed into Angier’s double. As a result, Angier is able to stage an even more spectacular version of Borden’s trick.

Borden, however, takes advantage of Root’s drunkenness, and sabotages one of Angier’s performances, humiliating him. Angier retaliates, having his assistant, Olivia, pretend to defect to Borden. Borden detects the deception, and has Olivia give Angier a book believed to be Borden’s diary, written in code.

Angier kidnaps Borden’s assistant, Fallon, and offers to return him in exchange for the key to the diary’s code. The key is a single word, the name of the scientist and inventor, Nikola Tesla. Angier travels to America to meet Tesla, who has set up a laboratory at Colorado Springs. Angier advises Tesla that money is no object, and that he must build him the same machine he built for Borden.

Tesla agrees. The machine he builds for Angier, however, is not a transporting machine, but a duplicating machine. It creates a duplicate of anything (even a living organism; they experiment on Alley’s cat) and moves it some distance away. Tesla is eventually discovered by agents working for Thomas Edison, with whom Tesla had a real life rivalry (Cheney, 2001 pp. 202-204). The agents destroy Tesla’s laboratory, but Tesla had Alley deliver the machine, and instructions for using it, to Angier’s hotel.

Angier develops a trick where he enters the machine, and falls through a trap door. Under the trap door is a water tank where he is drowned. He does not die, however, as his duplicate is created and projected some distance away. The trick, accompanied by the spectacular electrical discharges typical of Tesla’s devices and Angier’s first rate showmanship, captivates London.

Borden sneaks backstage to learn Angier’s secret. Borden is captured with a dead Angier in the tank of water. Borden is put on trial for Angier’s murder. Since Borden did not know what  Tesla’s machine did, he cannot mount a satisfactory defense, and he is sentenced to death.

It develops that Cutter had been right about how Borden did the trick. Borden has a twin brother. The brothers had been alternating the roles of Borden, the magician, and Fallon, Borden’s assistant. This had caused many problems. When one of the Borden twins loses two fingers in a sabotaged trick, the other Borden twin cuts off the same fingers so that they will still be identical twins. Eventually, the well kept existence of the twins leadto the suicide of Borden’s wife, who knew something was wrong, but she had no idea what it was. Borden is hanged for the murder of Robert Angier. Since “Fallon” really does not exist, he cannot be the daughter’s guardian.

It also develops that Angier was actually Lord Caldlow, a wealthy aristocrat. He pursued magic as a hobby, using the assumed name “Angier” to avoid embarrassing his family. Angier, in a final piece of revenge, attempts to gain custody of Borden’s daughter, now believed to be an orphan.

Borden’s double confronts Angier at an abandoned theater where the tanks of water containing the dead “Angier duplicates” have been kept hidden. These tanks are, incidentally, the same kind of tank where Angier’s wife had died. Borden kills Angier (and this death is final, as there no surviving duplicates), and regains custody of his daughter.

Chronology:

The film is told in a highly nonlinear style. It opens with a shot of a field full of hats; the results of Tesla’s experiments. It turns to Cutter explaining three parts of a magic trick: the pledge (where something ordinary is shown), the turn (where something ordinary does something extraordinary), and, finally, the prestige (the “secret” of the trick, where the mystery is resolved). Cutter’s explanation is interspersed with shots of Angier’s final performance (using Tesla’s machine) and Borden’s discovery with the body of an Angier “duplicate” in a tank of water.

This approach is used throughout the film. Different aspects of the magicians’ secrets are shown, but never completely revealed. The truth is foreshadowed, but not immediately revealed. It is not until well into the film that the workings of Tesla’s machine are explained, as is the existence of the Borden twins.

The use of a linear presentation style would not have been effective. “Two magicians, one with a twin, one with a duplicating machine; they hate each other.” That statement could, more or less, sum up the film. That approach would not have been able to convey the mystery of the tricks and relationships, and those are what make the film what it is.

Resources:

Cheney, Margaret (2001). Tesla, Man Out of Time. New York: Touchstone.