The Sacrifice of Performance: The Prestige as Metacinema

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006) took the stage in the fall of 2006 with the tag-line “Are you watching closely?” With a premise centering around an inexplicable magic trick and rivalry between two – no, three – magicians, The Prestige's tag-line question begs the ultimate question of any movie of intrigue. The viewer follows the story of two struggling magicians, Angiers (Hugh Jackman) and Borden (Christian Bale) as they compete to achieve the ultimate magic trick: The Transported Man. Their heated rivalry is barely held in check by their once mutual stage engineer, Cutter (Michael Caine). Finally, while Borden perfects the Transported Man trick by using a twist-ending secret twin brother, Angiers accomplishes it through the miracle of science, cloning himself and then murdering his clone as the sacrifice for the trick.

This particular analysis will specifically look at what Christopher Nolan, through The Prestige, has to say about the sacrifice of performance – especially in its constant relation of performance to death. This relation is poignantly stated early on, when Angiers' wife dies in a water tank while performing on stage. Although this sets the motivation for the rest of the plot, it also sets the thematic mood of the film, posing the questions “What is the cost of performance?” and “How far can one go in performing until it becomes the death of them?” Further, though these questions seem initially directed at the actors – the performers – The Prestige indicates that the danger of performance is not limited to those on stage, but is equally as destructive to those surrounding the performance.

The Prestige presupposes a heavy and opaque curtain between the rows of the audience and the inner workings of the backstage, and implies further that if the real workings of performance were to be brought out into the light, they would no longer be entertaining, or interesting, or even worthwhile. It is the performance people go to see. Cutter, acting as a diagetic narrator throughout the film, points this out when he states, “A pretty assistant is the best form of distraction.” In a film sporting the names of Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Scarlett Johansson, this seems very relevant; filmgoers go to the film to be distracted by pretty faces. The obsession with celebrity life, as evidenced by countless magazines and media devoted to following the lifestyles of the rich and famous, is and may always will be a social fixation. People go to films for the mere sake of viewing a favorite actor or actress, and erect websites devoted to these people they have never met. The fascination with divining the true life of an actor or actress is as mixed up in society as any other form of vicarious voyeurism – What do they eat? Where do they go? What do they do all day long? Certainly, by attending an actor's films, one might learn a little bit more about the real person. But, as Cutter replies dryly, speaking to an ambiguous second person, “You're not really looking... You want to be fooled.”

With this, Nolan indicates that in order to keep up the excitement and keep the box offices full, those on stage must keep up their intrigue and magnetism even offstage. This is exemplified in the film by the character(s) Borden, who, while initially introduced as one man, is in fact two – identical twin brothers, Alfred and Freddie. In order to maintain their Transported Man trick, which relies on the fact that everyone believes there is only one Bordon, they must continue to perform even offstage. This performance rules their lives; they refuse to give up their secret even when it comes between Alfred and his wife, and later drives her to commit suicide. The Borden twins' unstoppable commitment to performance is the sole reason for the remarkable success of their act; a success which they pay for by yielding any opportunity to lead individual lives, or even a shared “real life.” The heavy sacrifice of keeping this secret and sustaining their performance is still not enough for them to concede it; as Angiers outlines succinctly, “He lives his act.” To provide a view as to just how distasteful this concept is portrayed as in the film, Olivia (Johansson) later describes the Borden's marriage to their act “inhuman.”

While the Borden's sacrifice of living their act results in an inability to lead a private, secret-less life, Angiers makes a separate sacrifice with just as troublesome consequences. In order to perform the Transported Man trick, Angiers takes a mystical journey to America and spends vast amounts of money on a machine that clones him. The downside, of course, is that every time the machine operates, one of the clones must be killed in order to preserve the secret of the performance. While Borden lives his act, Angiers dies for it, killing himself over and over for the sake of a technologically enhanced performance.

What do both of these sacrifices have say about the sacrifice of performance? Nolan's message is that true performance requires the full sacrifice of identity and will inevitably lead to death. It bluntly predicts that any performer who wishes to succeed on stage (or on the set) must either forfeit any chance he has at leading a normal life, or he must sell his proverbial soul to the devil of technologically assisted performing. These two alternatives seemed governed by the two performing qualities that the Bordens and Angiers embody; the Bordens represents raw skill, while Angiers has a flare and finesse for showmanship. While the Bordens' presentation may fall flat, their ability to perform their trick – on the stage and off – is a brute advantage which they wields with precision and confidence. It is the Bordens who take the sacrifice of self, burying their own identities in order to maintain a constant performance which leads to their great success. On the other hand, Angiers lacks skill but is monetarily endowed and charismatic when it comes to presentation; his shows may not be unique, but they are beautiful and enthralling to watch. He leads himself down the path of technological enhancement, using his money and ambition to produce an unparalleled level of “magic” despite relying on a technological crutch.

In the first case, the claim is that the personal lives (if they exist) of actors and actresses will never be truly personal; under the constant scrutiny of the press, other media, and fans, any part of their true, underlying nature is merely the boring revealing of a magic trick – which, as Cutter reminds us, “impresses no one.” Although spectators may allegedly want to know the real inside scoop on the lives of the people they see on the silver screen, even these so-called lives are fabricated for the perpetuation of the media infatuation.

As for the second case, Nolan poses a somewhat grim prophecy in a cinematic world full of blue screens, computer graphics, and other digital effects that would have been considered “real magic” many years ago. Implementing these seemingly miraculous tools in order to accomplish cinematic feats never before possible may be a great advantage to contemporary film makers, allowing them to create sets, props, effects, and even people completely through digital rendering. Thanks to digital cinema, viewers can enjoy a film that is smooth and seamless, tweaked until it is perfect. However, for Angiers, the price for this is high – he dies every time he performs the trick, losing his own personal identity bit by bit, until all that is left of him are rows of corpses floating in septic tanks beneath a burning theater. Is this what is at stake for those in the film business who augment their works with modern technology? Dozens of dead actors wasting away in the basement of a crumbling cinema? In a way, directors who take advantage of cinematic technology have the opportunity to play God, brandishing a power that can go so far even as to clone an entire actor. Is this selling out? Will technology prove the death of the actor, as well as the filmmakers who use it? The Prestige suggests it may.

However, despite the personal sacrifice of the performer in order to provide a convincing performance, Nolan indicates that the real danger is not necessarily the damage done to a particular performer. Performing, no matter the cost – be it life or death – is not the threat that we should be worried about. Both the Bordens and Angiers must keep their secrets, yes, but when one performer steps off the stage forever, there will always be another to replace him. The true danger is, in fact, the death of the thing both Angiers and the Bordens are sacrificing their lives to protect – and that thing is performance itself. They commit their lives to the stage; they place it above all else, and it is in order to support this institution that they give up their lives. For, as rhythmically echoed throughout the film, once you give up the secret to your magic trick, “you're useless to them.” In order to achieve the magic that is the cinema, the participation of all performers is required – the curtain may come up between the lit stage and the darkened audience, but the curtain between the lit stage and the darkened backstage must never be drawn, lest the theater become useless to the people it exists for. Should these sacrifices made by performers – evidence of their mortality, and the blueprints for their magic tricks – become well known, the thrill of intrigue is instantly lost. Going to a film in order to pick it apart, ciphering each and every shot, and trying to unravel its secrets removes the fantastical haze and deposits us back in the real world, the place we visit cinema to escape. Just as Borden and Angiers do not enjoy the magic show they attend when trying to figure out Chung Ling Soo's fishbowl trick, viewers who are focused on figuring out the mysteries of film miss the real magic; they miss the entertainment that is the pure pleasure of not understanding – the enjoyment of being fooled.

What would happen if all the secrets of the stage were to be offered up? Even though special interviews, press releases, and the internet allow us to understand exactly how certain visual effects were achieved, knowing these things detract from the mystification felt when simply experiencing these things as if they were, in fact, real. The cinema is for escapism, for voyeurism, and for the dislocation of self. Investing one's self in a film involves the acceptance of what one sees and hears in the theater as real; admitting that it is not, and going so far as to pick apart the method used to create such an effect dissolves the fantasy. Dissolution of the fantasy is the destruction of the entertainment, and that is very tautologically the destruction of the cinema, for what reason do we have to attend films if we are not entertained by them.

The Prestige offers a rather grim, yet honorary, view of the stage and the performers who grace it. It acknowledges the sacrifice taken on a daily, show-by-show, and life-by-life basis – to truly perform is to give up one's self, offering one's own identity and wellbeing to the commitment of a wonderful performance. Though this process may be torture, and it will, if one reads directly from the film itself, inevitably lead to death. Performance is destructive to those who take it up, and destructive to those who are around it; any man who submits himself fully to the stage could, Nolan predicts, die alone in the dark at the end of their show.

However, in acknowledging this sacrifice, The Prestige applauds the efforts of the performer. One of the Bordens is, in fact, rewarded when he gives up his performance, coming home to his daughter. Nolan also takes it upon himself to do what the film swears should never be done, in its final establishing shot of Angier's drowned clones – making painfully and somewhat jarringly obvious how a trick had been done. I don't believe this is a flaw in the film; Nolan has kept his secrets faithfully and subtly until then. This glaringly expositional shot reveals the secret, showing just how flat and sour such an unveiling can be. The film would have remained something of a mystery without it; we all assumed that Angiers was killing his clones, one by one, but without that show we couldn't be sure. But we are unable to escape it, and his trick is ruined for us, leaving us to wish we had been kept in the dark forever. For, as Angier's final lines softly state, “The audience knows the truth: The world is simple, solid all the way through.” And so it is with the end of The Prestige; we must cope with what we desired but did not truly want to grasp – the distasteful bitterness of the truth revealed.