The greatest magician in Deadly Magic is obviously not Angier or Borden, but director Christopher Nolan.
To this day, Christopher Nolan's films repeat the same motif: revenge, which is often associated with paranoia, loneliness, and unusual characteristics. Just like the revenge of the protagonist with short-term memory loss in "Amnesia", the revenge of the protagonist with insomnia in "Insomnia", and the revenge of the protagonist of the dual identity in "Batman". In "Deadly Magic", revenge is transformed into a tit-for-tat confrontation between the two protagonists, and the introduction of this tit-for-tat confrontation is also Angel's revenge on Borden.
In Deadly Magic, Christopher Nolan once again shows his subtle manipulation of the film's narrative structure. The beginning of the film uses an analogy montage, linking the old prop master Cutter's explanation of birdcage magic for the girl with the last performance of the more postponed Angier on the timeline, completing the flashback opening, which is more mellow and free than the bombing flashback in "Amnesia", and by Cutter's word "prestige", echoing the theme and completing the transition, the film naturally transitions to the court part. Borden was arrested after being witnessed by a water tank watching Angier drown, suspected of major homicide. In prison, Borden obtains Angier's diary, which leads to the part of Angier's trip to Colorado that is more forward than the final performance, and the structure enters the flashback again, and more cleverly: Angier's diary records the process of deciphering Borden's diary, and from Borden's diary, the words begin the whole story. It may seem a bit obscure to say, so I tried to make the following diagram:
1. Borden's diary records the history of the two men's growth and feud in the timeline at the top of the timeline, defined as A paragraph, and finally to Borden wrote to the Angier keyword Tesla.
2. Angier's diary begins with a trip to Colorado, recording his trip to Colorado in search of Tesla, while deciphering Bolten's diary, and the first experiment with the Angier version of teleportation magic, which is immediately followed by A and defined as B.
3. After the beginning of Angier's trip to Colorado, Borden's life continued in the first experimental teleportation, that is, the B segment, mainly talking about the problems between him and his wife Sarah and his lover Olivia, defined as the B' segment.
4. Angier returns to London and begins until he disappears from the stage during his last performance, defined as C-section.
5 Borden's wife commits suicide after an argument, and goes to Borden to watch Angier perform teleportation many times, until the last one, which is a parallel Borden part of the C segment, defined as the C' section.
6, D segment for Borden in the background to see Angier drowned, put on trial, meet Sir Caldlow's lawyer, read Angier's diary, hanged.
7, E stage is the final climactic scene, angier's death. There are many flashbacks and important plots, but they are not broken down in detail.
8. The F segment explains the birdcage magic for Cutter to the little girl until the end of the movie.
The above is the plot in chronological order, and in the movie, it is roughly structured as follows:
|. F1.||. C2.||. D1.||. B1.||. A.||. B2.||. B'.||. C1.||. C'.||. D2.||. E.||. F2.|
From this structural axis, we can see how complex the narrative structure of the film is, in fact, the three parts A, B, and D are intersected with each other, more complex than the above figure, and the E part also flashes back to the A, B, B' and other parts many times, without detailed decomposition.
Under the theme of "Revenge", the film also explores the obsession of "Obsession " & Sacrifice " , which makes Angier and Borden constantly pursue improvement and reach their personal limits, for which they both make extraordinary sacrifices. After the two watched the Chinese magician perform, Borden's words already hinted at this idea: "Total dedication to his art, great self-sacrifice." And then Angier's words with his wife at home contain hints. He said: Borden saw it right away (the secret of the Chinese magician), but I couldn't. Let me pretend to be another person for the rest of my life (I can't stand it). Borden could see it because he was ready to make such a sacrifice, and in fact he was pretending to be someone else until his death.
Jonathan Nolan's script is equally brilliant compared to Nolan's superb structural operations. In addition to carefully constructing surprising story content, similar hints mentioned above abound in the film, waiting for the attentive audience to discover one by one.
First, at the beginning of the film, Cutter shows the little girl the birdcage magic, which is the most important magic in the whole movie. Borden and Angier's teleportation is essentially no different from the birdcage magic, except that the cage is turned into a box, one disappears and the other jumps out. In the prison section that follows, Borden says that Fallon will take care of his daughter, and the lawyer goes on to say: Fallon, A man with a past as obscure as you own, obscure and ambiguous, hinting at the secret between the two.
When Cutter explains the secrets of Angier's magic at the request of the judge, Cutter utters the following sentence: Jugglers, who make a living by covering up simple, and sometimes cruel, facts. This sentence hints at the main plot. Both Angier and Borden have achieved career success by covering up some simple, but brutal facts.
In the reminiscences section, Borden said backstage: "A real magician will create new tricks that his peers racked their brains and couldn't think of." This sentence then became Borden and Angier's biggest demons. Later, Cutter laughed at him and said, "You must have such a great magic, can you sell it to me?" Borden said: "Of course I have. But others can't change my magic. This sentence hinted at Borden's greatest secret and hinted at the apprenticeship that he had already done so.
After Borden left first, Angier asked Cutter about where Borden had come from. Cutter asked rhetorically: Where are you from? Combined with the words of the wife who asked Angier later: Aren't you also pretending to be someone else? Angier replied: I don't think a name change is a disguise. And the final Sir Caldlow plot. It shows that Angier also disguised his past when he apprenticed, and he was born into the nobility. It was the initial sacrifice the two men made for magic.
Borden and Sarah met after the birdcage magic, and this segment shows the audience the real birdcage magic, which is actually two identical birds, one of which was killed during the magic. This magic trick is almost exactly the same as the last Angier's teleportation.
When Borden sends Sarah home, Borden is unable to visit Sarah's house and leaves, and Sarah closes the door to find Borden already in the house. This plot is actually the teleportation magic of Borden behind. It's almost exactly the same.
The above is only a metaphorical plot that appears in the first 20 minutes of the movie, which basically hints at the content of the entire movie. After that, Angier's wife was killed in a magic accident, and the story of their feud officially began.
In addition, the director deliberately placed easter eggs in the film, and when Angier returned to London from Colorado, Cutter followed his prompts and went to his rehearsal hall to find him. As soon as Cutter entered the house, the blind guard heard the movement and asked, "Who is it?" In the two short shots that follow, you'll see two identical blind guards, one sitting on a clutter, and one bending over a teleporting box.
This movie also has some controversies due to the plot. For example: which Angier is the real question. During the first experiment, he shot Angier, who appeared in the distance, but in later performances, he was killed inside the props each time. Maybe there is no distinction between true and false, in short, it is difficult to explain, Tesla did not say that science has randomness.
Tesla in the film is a historical figure, a colleague of Edison's in his early years, who was in charge of developing a direct current generator at Edison, but he later invented alternating current with the financial support of Westwood. This ensued in a direct-current and alternating current dispute, and Tesla and Edison broke up. This historical event hidden behind the plot is somewhat similar to the plot. God knows how many secrets there are in the script.
The Greatest Magic: The Prestige (2006)
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