The Pestle

Podcast,
66 MINS

Ep 86: “The Prestige” (2006)

August 03, 2019

We jazz-hands our way through Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige” and discuss:

  • writing tricks;
  • story;
  • the film’s real “prestige”;
  • and other such stuff and things and stuff.

What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes. – Harry Houdini

Short Spotlight:

Todd’s sweet sweet microphone

This Week’s Recommendations:

One comment

  1. Marc Israel says:

    Hey Wes and Todd. Enjoy your well earned hiatus, but before you go…. thanks for giving The Pestles’ take on The Prestige and, specifically, addressing the misdirection storytelling that makes for my favorite movie genre. The rewatch-ability factor is huge on these when well done. [redacted] You believe what you are seeing until proof otherwise. It’s sets up great acting, clever directing and overall fantastic storytelling. While we are not stupid, we DO like being tricked!

    That being said, I never saw that POV dual approach trickery if the audience here and, honestly, have not considered that we were intentionally tricked but that the literary device of the dual journals was written for the other magician duping and not for the audience to have that “aha” moment as is the case in the above examples.

    It all came down to Wes believing that the machine was simply misdirection but I believe the machine did work and here is why:

    Angrier went to Colorado based on Bordons’ journal entries, yes, but there was no mention of the machine.

    If Angiers’’ account of his time there was strictly to trick Bordon, why the elongated process before discovering the machine worked and David Bowie’s great line, “They’re all your hat”. I believe that Wes was driving home the point that this was the trick of the movie, misdirection. But I took that all literally and saw the back and forth one upmanship as tricky completion and not a point of view (POV) misdirection.

    Anyway, the fun in rewatching the movie for me lies in guessing who is Fallon and who is Bordon throughout. Not that tough after a few viewings, but so intriguing!

    Thanks again and see you all in a few months!

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