Are you watching closely? Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because, of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.
If these lines don’t give you goosebumps, I don’t know what will! The Prestige is one of Nolan’s best works, and the film is indeed magical. Although it’s the characters playing the tricks, it’s us who are dumbfounded by the sheer brilliance of the master storyteller Christopher Nolan.
I know I’m fanboying, but the least I can do is that. I mean, it’s a film that we don’t deserve but a film that we all need.
If you’ve just finished watching this epic tale, you must be having a lot of questions about the three main characters or, should I say, four – Fallon, Borden (Christian Bale), Angier (Hugh Jackman), and Cutter (Michael Caine).
One of the biggest questions that kept bugging me when I first watched this film was why Cutter betrayed Angier?
After Googling stuff, rewatching the film two more times, going down the Reddit rabbit hole, I had my answer.
Cutter was shocked and disappointed that Angier would go on to kill his clones every night for a mere magic trick and frame Borden for the murders Angier himself committed. Cutter couldn’t stand the idea of Borden being separated from his daughter and being adopted by Angier, so he decided to tip off Borden and help him reunite with his daughter.
Cutter has mentored both Angier and Borden to become the great magicians that they were. After the fallout between the two, due to the accidental death of Angier’s love interest and wife, Cutter decided to stay with Angier.
This decision came from a very simple place. Borden was the one who tied the knot on Piper Perabo, and she couldn’t untie it, resulting in her death. Now though this was an accident, Angier blamed Borden, and Cutter sympathized with Angier. Whether Borden was at fault or not seemed inconsequential, and what mattered was Angier had suffered a loss. So Cutter stayed with him.
We all know how the story progressed and how both these men challenged and outdid each other at every step, but things would take a dark turn when Angier would become obsessed with coming out on top.
Cutter did not like what followed next. He did not like that a clone of Angier got killed every night he performed the trick. But he kept quiet. However, when Angier framed Borden and was about to steal his daughter from him, Cutter couldn’t just stand by and watch.
So Cutter tipped off Borden about the whereabouts of where the bodies go every night, and that’s where Borden, or rather Fallon, shoots off Angier and reunites with his daughter.
However, the film has operated in a pretty grey area with both the characters. If Angier hadn’t lost his wife, would he be the guy that killed a person or rather people mercilessly? On the other hand, Borden sacrificed a whole lot to keep the secret for the sake of magic. He let his wife suicide who thought Borden was having an affair. He lost his own life and couldn’t be there for his daughter.
So is Angier truly the villain?
Read More: Did The Original Angier Die? How Many Times Did He Kill Himself (Link To Be Added Once Article Is Uploaded
Who Is The True Villain In The Prestige?
Perhaps this was the masterstroke from Nolan. Not the magic tricks, not the suspense, but showing us that no one was innocent and everyone was guilty with blood on their hands. Let’s start with the twins.
The twins were fine people, but the more they got obsessed with beating Angier, the more they lost sight of what was happening to Borden’s personal life. As a result, Borden’s wife committed suicide. What bothers me is how much she had to endure before she died.
All the questions, the doubts, the suspicion, and everything else led to her being unhappy and devoid of peace. Piper’s death might have been an accident, but this was on Borden, and he was guilty of his wife’s suicide.
Furthermore, Borden dragged his daughter into this all and lost his own life. His daughter will perhaps never know, but he let her down and didn’t deserve to be a father or a husband.
I don’t think I have to reiterate what Angier did. After the fallout, he was a hundred percent guilty of murdering so many of his own clones. But that still seems fine because it is impersonal. What doesn’t seem okay is framing Borden over it. He did it purposely and derived the ultimate satisfaction from it more than when his magic trick succeeded. That just shows jealousy and sadism.
Hence, to me, both of them or rather all three of them were bad as people. They’d failed the ones who loved them the most and in the end, it’s not a tale of good vs bad but merely a tale of two evils that ends with the lesser evil winning.
About The Prestige
The Prestige is a 2006 science fiction psychological thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Christopher Priest. It follows Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in London at the end of the 19th century. Obsessed with creating the best stage illusion, they engage in competitive one-upmanship, with fatal results.
The film stars Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier and Christian Bale as Alfred Borden. It also stars Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, Piper Perabo, Andy Serkis, Rebecca Hall, and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. The Prestige was released on October 20, 2006, to positive reviews and moderate box-office returns, grossing $109 million worldwide against a production budget of $40 million. It garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography.
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