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that's a really, really cool concept.

becs wrote:

swipe:

So.. if you read the book you would know, AND if you paid close attention to the movie hints regarding Tesla's CAT. The original never goes anywhere, the machine just makes a copy in a specific location which is set through very complicated calculations. This is why the cat never disappeared, but dozens of copies are wandering where they pointed the machine to.

If you pay attention to the subtle hints you will recognize that Hugh jackman's charater was killing himself every night on stage, and (only found in the book) the copies of himself were each essentially a slice of his soul - so by then end he find himself thin and worn and soulless. This is how/why the copy knows what to do, because although they aren't sentient of the fact that there is an original and a copy (he writes his double instructions for this) as BOTH think they are the original, they are basically aware of who they are and what is happening.

So that is something that i strongly dislike about the movie, it is exremely vague, and never really reveals the point of it all. The book was far superior and a lot more mentally challenging.

i DID notice that, but i wasn't sure what to make of it when angier said something about not knowing whether he'd be the man in the box or the prestige....to me that sounded like the original could either be translocated or a copy formed, so i wasn't sure anymore....

and thanks for mentioning that there is a book, i had no idea, now i HAVE to get my hands on it....i'll be back once i've read it....

i DID notice that, but i wasn't sure what to make of it when angier said something about not knowing whether he'd be the man in the box or the prestige....to me that sounded like the original could either be translocated or a copy formed, so i wasn't sure anymore....

I had interpreted it much the same way, ashkul, and I have to say, that's just about the creepiest damn concept in film, this or any other. (Shane Carruth's brilliantly inventive -- not to mention, economic -- Primer explores similar territory... have you seen that film, becs, ashkul? I'd love to hear your take on it...)

I even did up this flowchart trying to figure out the transfer of Angier's consciousness... I'm summarizing and, using becs' information, revising it here, like so:

I. First iteration (at the dilapidated theater)

Angier becomes Angier^Prime and Angier^Copy (#1), Angier^Prime kills Angier^Copy.

II. Second iteration (First performance)

Here's where it gets really screwed-up, folks...

Angier^Prime is supplemented by Angier^Copy (#2); Angier^Prime drowns beneath the stage each, while Angier^Copy (#2) is spatially dislocated and basks in the audience's applause. Angier / Angier^Prime, the original, the "real" Robert Angier, has been destroyed. Every iteration of Angier from here on out will be, as becs pointed out, a copy of a copy (...of a copy, etc.).

III. Third, etc., iterations, through the next-to-last iteration (Second through up the 99th performance, potentially)

There is no moreAngier^Prime, only rapidly increasing generations / iterations of Angier^Copies (#3-100), up to the 100th clone, or 101st total "incarnation" of Robert Angier; each performance, the lowest-numbered Angier^Copy drowns beneath the stage each, while the succeeding iteration of Angier, being a higher-numbered and more recent Copy, is spatially dislocated and saved from self-murder. According to becs, each successive Angier is more separated from the original, from humanity altogether; one can only imagine the madness such physical and mental torment would inflict on even (perhaps, especially) the most willing soul. Each Angier^Clone has, at best, a few days to live; could you step into the machine, night after night after night, knowing that each time, you were condemning yourself to not just oblivion, but an exceedingly painful death, all for the promise, the chance that another you would fulfill the revenge sworn by, not even you, but an ancestor of you? (Remember, the original Robert Angier has been floating, unavenged, in a watery coffin for quite some time, now, slowly being pickled by untreated 19th-Century London tap water. Charming.) Forget the Hatfields and McCoys, this is the ultimate tormented soul. He'd have to be, if he even has a soul left to torment, which I think was becs' point. Criminy.

IV. The last iteration of what once was Robert Angier (The 100th performance, potentially, the 102nd Angier)

Angier^Copy (lower number) drowns in front of Borden^Reckless and Self-Destructive. Interesting that Angier^Copy (low), knowing full well the meaning of everything, still beats at the glass and tries to scream for help. You would think, after all this time, all this sacrifice, that he'd just grin and inhale as much as he could, speeding death so that Borden cannot possibly help him, so that the plan may be carried out, Angier^Prime's sick, costly (in so many, many ways) fantasy of revenge, fulfilled. No. Even THIS penultimate Robert Angier wants to LIVE. F@%#ing Hell.

Meanwhile, Angier^Copy (higher number / final), materializing above the crowd, dissolves into the night, reclaiming the title of Lord Caldlow, which his original predecessor was, once, long ago. This last Angier / Caldlow meets his doom at the end of Borden^Married and Loving's pistol, tipped off by Cutter. Caldlow expires amongst "the prestige materials," his dark materials, his ancestors, his doubles, his flesh, himself.

Becs was right... this is even colder and more cruel than I had imagined. I'm going to search online for The Prestige right after I'm done here. Damn.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet, but another thing I love about the film is how seamlessly it transitions, from being Angier's story, to Borden's, and how subtlely the audience, manipulated from the first frame into empathy and affection for Angier, is brought to identify with Borden, by the final fade to black. Not too many films set up a sucker-punch like that, making you spend an hour and a half getting inside the head of and cheering on one character, then hitting you with the realization that you've been backing the wrong horse, and that the "hero" is really the Devil himself. And NONE, that I know, manage to pull such an emotional switcheroo without pissing the audience off completely, without making them feel like fools. Excepting, naturally, this one. The more I think about The Prestige, the more I love it, and the more grateful I am that I didn't read the book first. The Prestige may not be a perfect adaptation, but for me at least, it's a perfect film. Its vagueness is an asset, too; a good magician never shows you his mechanics, never offers proof, never totally dispells doubt. See, I live for the moments just before the prestige, myself.

I remain, as always...

Nico.

P.S. I've given up swiping on this thread. If you're reading this and haven't seen The Prestige, well, first, Stop reading it now or you'll go blind, and second, Shame on you. Mendicant. Third, Go watch The Prestige, then Come back here directly when you've had an Open Your Eyes-esque, er, eye-opening.

holy hell!!!! nico, have i mentioned 98times that you crack me up??

well, if not, here goes time 98 (otherwise 99):

DUDE, YOU EFFING CRACK ME UP!!!!

lol, though i have to point out that the part about the emotional switch is not quite true....possibly one of my all-time faves - the usual suspects pulls the same kind of switcheroo on the viewer in the end....

re: ashkul^Complimenting Nico (#99)...

DUDE, YOU EFFING CRACK ME UP!!!!

[Grin] Cheers. (Or, for our international friends: Skål, slàinte, salud, proost, gesondheid, l'chaim, or as they say in Klingon, reH nay'meylIjyIn Dujablu'jaj! [Translation: May your dishes always be served alive!])

(Oddly enough, that last toast appears to have also been inscribed in Jeffrey Dahmer's high school yearbook. Clearly, love, mathematics and music aren't the only universal languages. However, I digress.)

I hear what you're saying about The Usual Suspects -- that film's on my personal Top Ten All-Time Favorites List -- but, for me, The Prestige's bait-and-switch was more powerful, though not as intellectually compelling. Perhaps it's because I never really identified with Verbal Kint as a hero, victim or an empathetic character... Certainly, not nearly as much as I did Robert Angier. Kint never really suffered; for the first two-thirds of The Prestige, all Angier does, seemingly, is to suffer.

That's probably just personal preference / situational perspective, however, and neither here nor there.

I remain, as always...

Nico.

true, i see what you mean, i felt more sorry for angier than kint, but then again, the cripple card manipulated some sympathy towards kint....i do agree that the prestige carries it out more powerfully though....

So here's my question: What tips off Angier, hanging out in the balcony after being copied across the theatre, that tonight is the night that Borden has gone below the stage? Do we have to assume that Angier recognized Borden while the latter was on stage checking out the machine? Otherwise I don't know how he knows not to step out of the shadows on the balcony. Cutter's not in on it, his other stangehands are blind...

As we saw when Angier demonstrated The Real Transported Man to the promoter in Lord Caldlow's run-down theater, and on opening night, there's a few seconds' pause between the time Angier^Prime "disappears" onstage, and the moment Angier^New's presence is revealed by hobbling down -- without his cane -- from the upper balcony, into the light and the audience's awareness. After the trap door opens on that fateful night and the lock snaps shut on a drowning Angier^Prime, there's a quick cut to show the stage -- and a crowded theater -- from the balcony's perspective, when Borden^Foolish, Self-Destructive Egoist is pounding on the reinforced glass and shouting for someone to come and help him unlock the deathtrap. I assume that these are the panicked, distraught, desperate sounds Angier^Any has been waiting to hear all these nights. As the balcony is clearly not being used, he can withdraw into the shadows and make his way out of the theater, slipping past blind stagehands en route to, one assumes, the street and a carriage waiting for a summons from, not Angier, but Lord Caldlow.

But, I haven't had a chance to read it yet. becs is, I must say, our resident authority on all things Prestige. becs, are you watching closely?

I remain, as always...

Nico.

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