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Kevin Gao

03/01/2016

Nguyen, Lena

ENGL 1147

Its not your Lifes Work, its your Life

In the movie The Prestige, Christopher Nolan tries to show the viewer that in order to

create true illusion, people must make sacrifices in order create a lasting impact on others, yet

though the path to success offers many gains, it comes with a steep price. The long-standing

rivalry between Alfred Borden and Robert Angier pushes both of them to take revenge on each

other, repeatedly, and the conflict escalates into a whos the better magician contest.

Throughout the movie, we see that both of their obsessions to out-perform the other in grand

feats of magic leads to a lot of sacrificial choices, and this leads to the untimely death of Angier

(as well as the other Borden twin). To quote the movie, obsession is a young mans game; at a

certain point, passion or devotion to mastering the craft becomes over-time commitment, and its

at this point where people deviate from their original purpose to chase lofty, unrealistic goals.

Understanding these fundamental human behavioral concepts, we can see how Nolan is trying to

convey to us, the viewers, that putting hard work into achieving goals is an honest task that is

hard to accomplish, and thus, people are likely to turn to making sacrifices, but doing something

for the wrong reasons can turn acts of integrity into acts of getting your hands dirty, which

crosses illegal and moral lines. Nolans implementation of self sacrificial characters cleverly

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demonstrates how far a few individuals can take one idea and push it into such a horrible, twisted

game where they lose so much just to try to prove a point of conflict, and thereby providing

insight into how critical and important hard work and determination is for achieving ones goals,

while remembering not to pursue motives out of revenge, hatred, or jealousy, but rather, because

of the devotion that one puts into the love of their craft.

Alfred Borden is clearly the one who understands a lot more about self sacrifice. This

becomes apparent when we see him break down the method behind Chinese magician Chung

Ling Soos appearing objects act. Just like Chung Ling Soo, Bordens method cannot be detected

by most people because even off stage, he continues living his act. We that Chung Ling Soo has

been pretending to be a cripple for years, in order to condition people into thinking that this is his

normal style of walking and general movement, enabling him to create a very convincing and

deceptive magic act; on the other hand, Borden uses a double, and his way of conditioning

people to treat the two twins as indistinguishable involves them switching roles out of sight,

constantly. At all times, he has to keep his twin brother a secret from the general public, or else

the majority of his illusions would lose their mystery by having the prestige exposed. This

method, though ingenious and unimaginable to most people, costs the twins a lot in terms of

social and domestic life, especially Alfred Borden. Borden knows that he cant love two different

women, Sarah and Olivia, at the same time, so the two twins take turns being each other, which

in theory seems like a good plan, but eventually, this creates complications that lead to their

relationships becoming seriously endangered. Aside from having to lie a lot about their lives, or

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keeping secrets (as quoted from the movie: secrets are my trade and stock), the worst part is

that they could never explain themselves, why they acted differently, why there was this unusual
reliance on Fallon, or whether the one twin is the one that truly loves Sarah or Olivia on any

given day. There was so much sacrifice just for the sake of maintaining their deception and the

secret of their act. Ultimately, Borden (and Borden) couldnt maintain their off-stage lives; the

untimely death of Sarah, the loss of Olivia, and Bordens daughter being orphaned, this comes as

a tragic and impactful series of blows to his state-of-being.

Angiers form of self sacrifice is a bit more futuristic, yet still very extreme. He spent a

long time trying to track down Tesla to build him the best method, in his mind, for performing

The Transported Man. When he finally possesses the machine and learns of the secret, he

immediately realizes that his version of the illusion would require a lot of sacrifice: each time he

activates the machine, one copy of Angier would be forced to die, leaving the other one to carry

out the next act. The idea of having two Angiers was very disturbing to him, and of course, it

would require a lot of work to hide look alikes of Angier from the general audience.

In a way, Angier sacrificed a lot more to perform the illusion, because his trick involved

killing off one copy of Angier, while the other continued on the act. Bordens version only used

the two twins, and so technically, less was required of him in order to perform the illusion.

However, on a deeper level, Angiers method is very impersonal, like a throw away concept,

where he takes for granted the fact that the machine would make the duplicate work just as he

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wanted it to work, whereas for the twins, they had to match up so perfectly just to conceal the

secret, and the attention to detail was very fine right down to having to chop off the other twins

fingers just so that their hands could match up. Yet, the extent to which each magicians success

is not so much characterized by the technicalities or the practice put into the illusions but rather
by their own separate takes on magic and illusions. Bordens philosophy of magic performance

far exceeds Angiers because of his (and his twins) desire to perform great and convincing

illusions out of passion, so having a double for the prestige was a sufficient enough method for

them. Angier, however, wasnt satisfied with having a double take the credit for the illusion, and

so, out of greed and jealousy, he sought out a greater method that would let him receive the

glory; ironically, because of his repeated deaths, the real Angier ends up receiving none of the

credit anyways.

Such consequences can be seen as the result of ones desire to show off, the

unquenchable thirst to do better than your peers; yet, pride comes before the fall, and Angiers

arrogance plays a part in him ending up being shot by Borden, who seeks revenge for the unjust

execution of hi twin. Perhaps Angiers attempt to cut corners led to his demise as well. The trick

took much more work for the twins, but in practicing, they ended up with the better result that

even fooled Angier. Such an illusion as Angiers, which didnt require lots of practice or hard

technical work, helped boost his name as a magician rather unfairly. His use of the machine

correlates to his use of dirty techniques, like trying to sabotage Bordens shows or using Olivia to

spy on him, and these all stem from the fact that Angier has simply lost his true purpose as a

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performer and magician: to do great magic and entertain. As quoted from Ed Sheeran, if you

dont work really hard and dedicate yourself to being better every single day, youll never be able

to communicate with people with your artistry. This is such a strong statement, as it indicates

that an artist who doesnt work hard not only suffers in production value or poor skill level, but

also that the artist is no longer capable of sharing his/her art with other people, which is

essentially what all artforms are designed to be used for. Death doesnt have to be the final end
for an artist, but Christopher Nolan offers the idea that an artist who doesnt perform his art out

of passion or respect is basically dead, one without true purpose.

The Prestige story represents how people are meant to work hard, and not take

shortcuts, so that their hard work may one day pay off and that those people understand that to

achieve their goals and return fruitful results, sacrifice is something that is necessary to reach

those goals. Christopher Nolan reminds us, through The Prestige, that all people, not just

artists, need to understand what drives them to do the things they do. It is vital that we do things

because we enjoy them, because we show an invested interest in them, and that there is a real

passion deep within ourselves. More importantly, Nolan warns against losing ones sight on the

real motivations, and turning to other, less respectable desires. For each one of us, its crucial not

to stray away from the main goal towards petty desires, because, at the most personal level, its

not just your lifes work-- its your life.

Sources:

Sheeran, Ed. No Shortcut to Success but Hard Work. Patrice Peris Voice Studios, 2015.

Web. 14 Mar. 2016.