18 Years Later, I Finally Understand The Prestige 

I always saw The Prestige as a story about self destructive obsession with competition and success, how far that can drive you, and how it can prevent you from seeing the forest for the trees. These are two men who destroyed their lives, because they couldn't stop trying to one-up each other. They were willing to pay anything to win. They had so much talent and potential, and they squandered it on an obsessive and brutal rivalry, in spite of having every opportunity to just.... not.

A bit off topic but Bowie as Tesla is the best cameo in cinema history imho.

It's not about the destination, it's about the top hats we made a long the way

Did you catch the twist that Lord Caldlow isn't Robert Angier's alias. Robert Angier is Lord Caldlow's alias. Angier's wife stated to Robert that he was playing someone else, where he replied that he would not embarrass his family with his theatrical endeavours. He is also independently wealthy, and stated to Tesla for making his machine that "Price is not an object." At the end of the film, Robert Angier revealed his true identity with his true accent. An English lord from the prestigious Caldlow family. BORDEN: "You must be Lord Cal..." ANGIER: "'Caldlow.' Yes, I am. I always have been."

Michael Caine's character tells you the truth all the way through. One of the best films ever.

I think The Prestige is Nolan's finest work

I like how the movie itself foreshadows Tesla as a real wizard, indicating that science is the real magic of the story.

Batman Vs Wolverine: The Clone Wars

I just realized that Angier can literally just do what the Borden twins does for their magic trick the first time he clone himself

Ironic how the bird trick at the very start is a foreshadowing of Angier's teleportation trick later in the film. They both rely on killing the original, hiding the body and then replacing it with a double.

One thing that I finally cottoned on to after years of watching this movie is the opening monologue. "We were two young men at the start of a promising career..." We're meant to think this means Borden and Angier. But since it's Borden narrating it, it actually refers to... Borden and Fallon.

This movie has the greatest cameo role entrance I've ever seen.

Such a great idea, i personally think the Prestige is so underrated.

Just take a moment to remember Christopher Priest, the author of the novel this was built from. RIP.

One of a few movies where multiple rewatches are *required*

One crazy trick this movie is still pulling on its viewers, is the illusion that this story was between two magicians, Borden and Angier. This movie was about 3 magicians, Borden 1, Borden 2, and Angier. I love rewatching this movie and being able to pick out when we're watching the aggressive, obsessive, competitive Borden who loved Olivia, and the much more compassionate Borden who fell in love with Sarah.

"Abracadabra" *breaks neck*

The absolute best touch is the show promoters and trick creators who see the trick and become terrified and talk about how they don’t often see real magic. Because they know full well what misdirection and illusion can and can’t accomplish

I think something everyone glosses over here is that if Huge Jacked Man used that machine just once to create a clone, then he could've done the trick that American Psycho twinsies were pulling off the whole time, but instead he opted for mass murdering himself.

I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's quote; "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Re: Wanting to be fooled, I find that most people don't want to know, but rather, to THINK they know.

Now I gotta watch this again. A great movie

This is my favorite Nolan movie and one of my all-time favorites. There is SO much packed into this movie. The theme of duality is peppered throughout in so many different ways in addition to the characters' obsessions. I guessed the "twin" reveal on my first watch based on Borden's reaction to Fallon's burial as Fallon had to be someone very dear to him, then connecting to Borden's comments about sacrifice, Cutter's insistence that Borden uses a double, and finally, Sarah's description of Borden's radical changes in behavior. To me, I was actually more fascinated by Borden's reveal than Angier's scientific discoveries.

Both main characters were willing to kill their souls bit by bit to be the top of their field. Thank goodness that one of the Borden twins, the twin who actually loved his family knew when it had to stop. Imagine putting your trust in your identical twin brother to treat the wife well. And he drives her to such a low she can’t live with herself anymore. Between the two twins, who was the dominate one and who was the subservient one? Was the twin who fell in love and got married to Sarah the dominant twin, and his brother was lashing out being so open about his relationship with Olivia. Or was the twin who married Sarah subservient and the dominant twin let him have the relationship to keep him happy and on side for their career. That is until Olivia came along and the dominant twin could use her. Poor Sarah being gaslight, and driven to despair. She didn’t figure it out herself in time. But she knew when she was told ‘I love you’ when it was true and when it wasn’t.

I unsubscribed from that other channel you used to be on because I didn't like that dude who took over after you. I'm very happy to have stumbled back into your work. Subbed and happy to hear your thoughts once more!

I finally found you! You were the reason I subscribed to Wisecrack, and without you I haven't been enjoying that at all. Good to find your channel!

So wild that this was uploaded today as I've been on a prestige youtube binge rabbit hole all morning now this pops in my feed 😂❤🎉

As someone who is a big movie fan with a social sciences degree, I've been loving watching your channel of late, and how you weave the two together in a very thought-provoking and theoretically-backed exploration. Great job, my man!

My favorite Nolan film by far

This movie was underated

The reference to the "greatest trick the devil ever pulled" as coming from the Usual Suspect is incorrect. This was first coined over a hundred years earlier by Charles Baudelaire, a French novelist. Movies are rarely very original, anymore, and it's a safe bet that if you heard it in a movie, they're quoting someone else who, unfortunately, never gets the credit after the movie was made. The phrase is found in Baudelaire's book, Le Joueur Généreux (The Generous Gambler) published in 1864. Fifty years before Baudelaire, John Wilkenson wrote, "One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist." I hope you'll pardon my pedanticism, but as an author myself, I lament whenever another author is forgotten for their contributions, and a movie (however good) is cited instead.

I think that CS Lewis said that science was the magician's twin.

Hugh Jackman's character, what an idiot! Not only does he squander the greatest technological invention mankind has ever seen, but getting back to the petty magic and rivalry bullsh!t, just keeping one double of himself alive would have been enough to do tricks repeatedly without continually creating and murdering a double of himself and risking his life every time he performed it like he has been doing. Having his secret double probably would have made _himselves_ realise that his nemesis must be using a secret twin too.

great video...i always find it hard to have conversations about philosophical topics, but this always gives me new ideas to evaluate

The titles of the characters support your thesis: Virgil, Milton, The Great Danton (Dante) are all the names of poets who visit Hell in their epics. The Professor is arguably Faust, but it's not as clear a reference as the first three. I love this movie. I love Michael Caine, and angry, emotional Michael Caine is the best Michael Caine. "I saw you on a bloody slab!" "She was sixteen years old -- you were only supposed to blow the bloody door!" "I am aware that I am acting badly; I have every intention of acting badly. In fact, one would argue that this is precisely the situation where one should act badly!" before breaking down in tears. Everytime this movie is on, I watch it all the way to the end.

Wasn't Borden brought up in a workhouse? I think Borden's secret is one he's been keeping since the workhouse. Borden understood the Chinese magician's act because he was doing something one level beyond. Angier was just as fooled by the trick as any audience member would be because of those details to which attention was paid. Angier had to go to the extreme of using his fortune to finance the research and equipment. Edit: my point is that Borden's secret was so simple and perfect, in performance. Off stage it created such strife in his own lives.

I love this take. We do often demystify very wonderous things because our desire to feel we know.

One of my favorite movies. It just never ceases to amaze me

“Sometimes, exact science is not an exact science. That’s how I got my weird eye.” - David Bowie, probably

I like to think of the Mysteries of Reality like a "Knot" and no matter how much of the mysteries we unravel & solve there's always even more left unraveled in the Knot. If Not because we only scratched the surface, or because with each new solution we create new issues that we are or aren't aware of. So this fear of solving the world & making it a mundane, 2-Dimensional existence devoid of wonder is really an unfounded one. I've been alive a lil while and the more I think I know, the more I get reminded that there's so much more that I Don't.

The film is actually a warning about Bacon’s worldview, which sets up a vision of reality in which nature is the enslaver of humanity (which is what Bacon is suggesting when he famously declares that ‘knowledge is power’ (over nature). This invites the obvious question: is every natural restraint actually disempowering for humanity, or are there limits we shouldn’t go beyond because they will diminish, rather then empower, humanity? And, if there are limits, where should we seek the moral guidance to know and enact those limits on scientific prowess? The movie directly parallels C.S. Lewis’ warning about science without moral restraint, and he even called science ‘the magicians twin’, because, just like a magician, a scientist can do powerful things. But unlike a magician, where the so-called ‘magic’ is actually just an illusion, science actually has the ability to do extremely powerful things in the world, and Lewis warned that this makes it all the more imperative that the power of science is kept in check by moral restraint.

This movie blew me away

just scrolling through my recommendations and damn this is a really good video, instant sub

The discussion of ideas presented in The Prestige is great! Tying it to modern presentations of data and business is mind blowing because it’s so true! Great video 🥰

Wtf? I swear I've watched this movie twice and I don't recall half this shit.

When I last saw the movie I kept thinking about carl jung's shadow. There are a bunch of dualities in the movie -- the obvious one being Borden and his twin, one the ambitious obsessive one, the other the family man. but the same duality seems to exist in Angier, with his love for his deceased wife, but later obsession and admittance that 'I don't care about my wife'. And the fact that the teleporter duplicates, not teleports. I feel like it's partly about how in every person there is multiples of selves, and that on a given day one may express itself more so than the other

Jared this is brilliant. Thank you for sharing this

Very wise insights at the end. You took it beyond the text. Great video.

Something I hadn’t noticed until my umpteenth watch is that because of the way the Tesla machine seems to work, the original copy stays in the machine, while the copy is the one that is ‘transported.’ (In fact, this makes sense, otherwise the machine would be doing two things at one, both cloning the original and teleporting the original, rather than just creating the clone at some distance away.) But … I don’t think Angier ever really understood how the machine worked. The man frustrated by being under the stage for the applause at the end of his trick ends up killing himself upon the very first night of performing the trick (not the demo, the clone is killed that time). Now there’s an argument to be made that if they have the same memories, maybe it doesn’t matter, but the reality is that the original Angier is gone long before the end of the film, clones continuing the feud because it’s just what they do at this point.

I'm looking forward to the Jared Bauer video on the analysis of "Wisecrack".

I can re-watch this anytime its on. Great film

I think that, usually, whatever we DON'T think is real or normal seems wonderous. When radio was first used to remote control things it seemed wondorous, and now nobody gives a shit, that's just a lart of the world. Once we establish a feat as readily doable, it no longer feels magical, creating a treadmill of mysticism.

It's insane It's been 18 years. I'd have thought 10 maybe

four things are certain in this world. Death, Taxes, and Nolan-Caine duo

The greatest trick the youtube algorithm ever pulled, was convincing most of it's potential viewerbase that the Presitge it didn't exist

Me and a buddy once got stoned, watched the prestige, discussed it afterwards. Got so heated and annoyed at the others lack of understanding. That we had to rewatch the entire movie.

I get it, it took me fifteen years or so to understand The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai completely. But it is a more complicated film than The Prestige.

This movie was so mysterious. Kept you wondering the whole time. It did for me. Everyone should watch this movie.

Crazy thing is, I can imagine Tesla really making something like that back in the day, man was a underrated genius. The Tesla plot was my favorite part of the movie. Great movie.

It's unforgivable that many fans and interviewers don't remember this great movie. I loved Oppenheimer BUT The Prestige is my favourite Nolan movie

Quite impressive how Nolan dropped two smash hits back to back only one year apart Batman Begins 2005 // The Prestige 2006

This is one of the very few films where the movie is as least as good as the book it's based on... mostly. I actually like the story in the book better, the characters are fleshed out and their motives explored far better, but the film tells the basics of the story quite well without ruining the premise.

You know it's a great movie when no one even mentions how hot Scarlett Johansson is in it in the comments...until now.

i judge a movie on how it changes the minds and the world. The Prestige shows us the dark side of humans living in a modern tech world. if no most people did not learn about our folly then they are doomed to repeated it.

An excellent analysis of an excellent movie. The Prestige is one of the few movies I use to judge the quality of new movies that I watch.

Excellent, keep doing these.

Jared you are so wise and I’m absolutely hooked on your content so glad you’re making it!

Your video is excellent. I love your observations and the commentary. You got me thinking harder about the movie but even more, about the relationship between science, magic, and human perception. Awesome job. Thank you!

"We were two young men at the start of a great career. Two Young men who did not intend to hurt anyone" As this is narrated we see Borden and Angier. But the notebook really speaks of Borden and his Brother.

What struck me most recently about the prestige was that the first transported man makes it clear that he didn't need to kill his copy every night in the new transported man. He could have just made 1 copy and done the trick in the more traditional way.

Really enjoyed this one

The Prestige has always been my favorite Nolan movie and yes I think Nolan's BEST work and contribution; each of our many interpretations of the same film reflects and reveals ourselves mostly, and that is whyThe Prestige epitomizes movie magic

Nolan is a master of using time as a storytelling!

Objects are hung, people are hanged.

After watching this tens of times; the prestige of this film is how good an actor Bale is. The twins are vastly different characters throughout the film. You know who loves who and how their personalities match that of their chosen partner, you know which dies and how desperately more sad it is. This film was and is a masterpiece.

Showing this movie and the Sixth Sense to my teenage son recently were very rewarding experiences.

For a minute I thought this was classic Wisecrack. Good to see you again!

I always called this movie: Batman vs Wolverine. Batman wins, but loses half of what he has in the process

I thought the message was twins are better than clones.

"It's the thought that counts."

I love you and the scope through which you look at things. You are probably one of the few RU-vidrs I actually click on. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with is.

the wolverine and the batman

You're smart! And I enjoyed this video.

not sure why i didnt check for your channel earlier, bc thats what i was missing. never stop dropping! hope youre doing well!!!

I am pleasantly surprised to see Latour being referenced in a seemingly generic essay about a film.

The book by Christopher Priest that was adapted into the movie is very good too, & very worth reading, even after you've seen the movie. BTW, Edison wasn't a scientist, he was a tinkerer, whereas Tesla really was a scientist, which is why he was right about AC being scientifically superior to DC, which is why the whole world still uses AC, not DC for large scale power transmission.

You probably won't see this for several days, if at all, because RU-vid keeps suppressing my comments, but I have a different interpretation of the movie than it would seem everyone else. My interpretation is not that the journal is fake, but rather that Borden had used Tesla's machine once and realized the implications of such a machine after which he destroyed his copy of it and vowed never to use such a machine ever again. But if I missed anything or are misremembering because it has been so many years since I saw it, I'm sure someone will see my post and comment to correct me, because that's always how it works.

Literally just finished reading the ePub while listening to the audiobook today on my android device, and somehow this appears in my YT recommendations... hrm.

I miss your take on things Jared. Happy to watch this drinking and smoking.

People: "Science is demystifying and disenchanting the world!" Quantum Mechanics: *objects that are both particles and waves, which can _actually_ teleport for real... *

The twins were just as evil and ate up by their own obsessive pursuit.

Easily Nolan’s best movie. Great video and analysis.

I always figured that Borden visited Tesla, cloned himself and realized that he could do the canary disappearing trick without killing the canary. This is why he knew there had to be something wrong with Angier's performance.

What an excellent insight. I can't say I've been this engaged by a piece of film analysis for a long time.

Still one of my favorite movies destroyed my brain when i first watched it

I was going to say the Prestige shows the eventual downfall that comes with obsession, and the extent, even viciousness, that those with obsession will go to to achieve the objective. Much like drug users or alcoholics.

It's about the Hollywood battle between practical special effects that people are bored by and high tech visual effects that impress initially but have hidden costs.

I always thought that they both had the teleporter/duplicator but the one used his duplicate to do the tricks and the other killed his duplicates.

8:16 to 8:18. The best magic trick, where the narrator of this video reveals he is actually Francis Bacon in a stunning side by side

RIP David Bowie.😢❤

The prestige, in my opinion, is one of the best movies ever made.