THE PRESTIGE: Discussion

I went into THE PRESTIGE with very high expectations. I love Christopher Nolan's stuff and will hands down go see anything he ever makes. MEMENTO is one of my all time favorite movies, and BATMAN BEGINS is pretty high up on my list as well. But I've got to say, I walked out of THE PRESTIGE with really mixed feelings.

First the good... and there was a lot of it. In my last post on THE DEPARTED, I talked about how well made movies give you all the information you need to know right at the very beginning of the film. Well, THE PRESTIGE is an another perfect example of this. The first two minutes of this movie are chock full of info, even if we don't quite have the means to understand it yet.

The first shot depicts all those top-hats in the woods; Tesla's machine hard at work. It's the first image we see, and it's actually the answer to one of the biggest questions posed in this movie... "How does that trick work?" It's the question that drives both Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale into the realm of obsession, and holds the key to defeating the other man.

The next thing we see is that great scene where Michael Caine explains the "Pledge, Turn and Prestige" with the canaries to Christian Bale's daughter. I thought this was fantastic. Not only does it introduce us to the world of nineteenth century magic, but it also sets up Christian Bale's character, who ultimately is "the canary." This may in fact be my favorite thing about this movie.... the way each man can be boiled down to one image. With Bale it's the crushed canary; the sacrificed brother for the sake of the trick. And for Jackman it's his wife drowning. It's what defines his motivation, his relationship with Bale, and the actions he ultimately takes to pull off the trick... drowning himself over and over again... suffering as she suffered every time he performs.

But while this film presents us with such rich and intriguing information, the FLOW of this information throughout the story is not quite right. I found myself figuring out all the major plot points way before I was supposed to, and then waiting for the movie to catch up with me. It was all too predictable. As soon as Michael Caine chides Christian Bale about tying his knots, you know he's going to make a mistake and Jackman's wife will die. As soon as we see Tesla's cat get duplicated, we know Jackman's going to work it into his trick, and then it's just a short logical jump for us to figure out that he'll be killing himself every time he does it. Plus we've already seen the footage of him falling into the water tank and drowning...

And as soon as Hugh Jackman hires a double for his act, who shows up at Christian Bale's workshop but... "Fallon." The placement of this introduction (if you can call it that), combined with the earlier scene in which Bale watches the chinese magician fully "commit" to his act, led me to IMMEDIATELY figure out that Fallon was Christian Bale.

Personally, I thought the handling of Christian Bale's brother was wrong, wrong, wrong! We never get a proper introduction to Fallon, and the camera constantly avoids his face while he's onscreen. I know Nolan was trying to make this guy a peripheral character who just sort of sneaks into the story... but it completely backfired on him! I was more confused by this handling than anything else, and as a result I started watching Fallon MORE closely than I would have had he been treated in a normal fashion.

I also wasn't crazy about the fact that Fallon turned out to be Christian Bale's brother and not a clone. In particular, this bothered me because if Bale wasn't using clones, then how could he know about TESLA? He uses Tesla's name as the "key to his trick," thus sending Hugh Jackman on a wild goose chase all the way around the world... but then that name actually turns out to be the real deal!!! That, in my mind, is either a really big coincidence or a really big plot hole. Either way, it simply doesn't work.

But If Fallon had turned out to be a clone, on the other hand, I think everything might have panned out much more neatly. It would have meant that Bale had one of Tesla's machines all along (explaining that he DID know about Tesla and his work), and he was simply messing with Jackman's head by writing in his journal that Tesla was a hoax. Also, there would have been potential to do something interesting with the hangings of both Bale and his wife. Because they both died in the same fashion, I thought for sure that they had both cloned themselves and would resurface alive at the end of the film.

Another odd choice I noticed at the end of the film was the way Nolan reprised Michael Caine's "Pledge, Turn and Prestige" demonstration from the beginning. Don't get me wrong... I loved the way he brought it back... but here's the thing: When Caine describes the "Turn," Nolan cuts to an image of Jackman dying on the floor. This suggests that Jackman's death isn't the end, it's the part of the trick where he "disappears"... and as Caine explains, the audience won't applaud until the "Prestige," where he "reappears". Following this train of thought, I think it would have been a much more solid ending if Jackman had made one last clone, and as Christian Bale stands triumphantly over one of the Jackmans, another one pops up behind him and.... BANG!!!!


What do you guys think?

THE DEPARTED: Discussion

“When I was your age they would say, 'You could become cops or criminals.' But when you’re facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?” - Jack Nicholson as FRANK COSTELLO

This quote at the beginning of THE DEPARTED sets everything up so perfectly. Right away it establishes a sense of moral ambiguity within the film, and it parallels Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) directly to Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). And that's really what this whole movie is all about in my opinion... that these characters are essentially two different sides of the same coin. Costigan and Sullivan are almost exactly the same person, they're just coming at things from opposite angles.

The way Costigan gets introduced is a really great example of this parallel between characters: We first meet him via a montage sequence of Costigan and Sullivan going through training at the Police Academy. Possibly together... possibly not. Personally, I thought this sequence was very confusing as I was watching it. Sullivan is introduced talking with Frank Costello (Nicholson), but now he's a cop... Does that mean he's a good guy now? What's the relationship between Sullivan and Costigan? Do they know each other? Are they in cahoots? Are they even aware of each other's existense? Nothing is clear about this sequence except for one piece of information... both these men are going through the same experience.

Another scene that does a really good job of subtly hinting towards a connection between the two main characters is the scene where Costigan receives his undercover orders from Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Lt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). Everything Dignam says to Costigan during that meeting; every quality he mentions... about how he's a chameleon... How he grew up on both sides of the tracks and played multiple roles. How he used different accents. How he doesn't want to be a cop, he just wants to look like one... All of those things are also true about Sullivan and they come out within his character as the movie progresses.

Visually, I think the most striking sequence that illustrates a parallel between these two characters is where Costigan tails Sullivan through the streets after meeting with Costello. There's so much great stuff going on in this sequence! I love that shot where Costigan looks through the store window with all those mirrors inside, and among his many reflections he spots Sullivan's eyes staring back at him. Also, all those great shadows and smoke-filled alleyways! That neat shot of Costigan's silhouette being superimposed over a billowy cloud of smoke! And the fact that both characters physically looked the same as well; both wearing black with hats. It became hard to tell who was tailing who!

But there is one major difference I noticed between the presentation of Costigan and Sullivan in THE DEPARTED, and that's pertaining to the concept of virility. Scorsese definitely suggests that both Sullivan and Costello are impotent in this film... After Sullivan and Madolyn (Vera Farmiga) have sex (we never actually do see their sex scenes) she says something to him like, "Don't worry about it. It's actually very common among men." And then we see him going into a porno theater, and I know I was thinking, "Man! That poor guy really is having trouble down there!" But Sullivan isn't going into that theater for the reason we think. He's actually there to rendezvous with Costello, our other impotent character in the film, who assaults him with a giant rubber phallus! What do you think that's saying???

And there seems to be a correlation between these characters' impotence and the violence that they create. Right before Costello and Sullivan try to blow each other's heads off, Costello says to Sullivan, "I always thought of you as my son." To which Sullivan replies, "Is that what this is all about? All those years of p***y and you never got an heir?" BLAM!

Costigan, on the other hand, is verile. He gets the only sex scene in the movie, and it appears as though Madolyn's pregnancy is because of him, not Sullivan. Meanwhile, Costigan never kills a single person throughout the duration of this film. Even when he can and should kill Sullivan, he doesn't... and he pays the ultimate price as a result.

That seems to be the key difference between these characters... Everyone's living in a murky world of moral ambiguity, but Sullivan and Costello are destructive men by nature, while Costigan is constructive. Costigan and Costello kill people for no reason and don't ever think twice about doing so. They face the loaded gun for personal gain and power, while Costigan faces it somewhat selflessly in an attempt to better society.


What do you guys think? Feel free to comment on this particular topic, or write about anything else you may have found interesting about THE DEPARTED!