The Prestige Christopher Nolan's first sci-fi movie is The Prestige (2006), a psychological thriller set in Victorian London about two rival stage magicians who use a
real-life historical scientist, Nikola Tesla, to build a machine that creates a genuine sci-fi teleportation effect
Following is a 1998 British independent neo-noir crime thriller film written, produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Christopher Nolan in his feature film directorial debut. Using a non-linear narrative, it tells the story of a young man who follows strangers around the streets of London and is drawn into a criminal underworld when he fails to keep his distance.
The film was designed to be as inexpensive as possible to make. Scenes were heavily rehearsed so just one or two takes were needed to economise on 16 mm film stock, the production's greatest expense, and for which Nolan was paying from his salary. Unable to afford expensive professional lighting equipment, Nolan mostly used available light. Along with writing, directing, and photographing the film, Nolan helped in editing and production.
Plot
Note: Though the movie contains multiple flash-forwards and flash-backs throughout, the story is told here in chronological order. In 1890s London, Robert Angier, Alfred Borden, and Angier's wife, Julia, work as magician's assistants under the mentorship of John Cutter. During a water tank trick, Julia drowns after Borden incorrectly ties her wrists. Angier blames Borden, and the two men become bitter rivals. Both men pursue separate careers in magic. Borden, a gifted inventor of illusions, marries a woman named Sarah, with whom he has a daughter named Jess, and hires an enigmatic assistant, Fallon. Angier, whose strength lies more in showmanship, continues working with Cutter and takes on a new assistant, Olivia. The feud escalates as Angier and Borden visit and sabotage each other's acts. Borden loses two fingers after being shot by Angier during a pistol trick, and Borden violently thwarts Angier's bird act in front of a live audience, harming an attendee. Borden next debuts a spectacular illusion, The Transported Man, in which he appears to teleport from one side of the stage to the other almost instantly. Angier becomes obsessed with discovering the trick's secret and, with Cutter's help, roughly recreates the act using a lookalike named Root, a failed actor. Though Angier's version is successful, he resents remaining hidden beneath the stage while Root takes the applause. Desperate to outdo Borden, he sends Olivia to spy on him, but she falls in love with Borden and defects, and passes Borden's coded diary to Angier. Borden reveals to Angier that the key word, TESLA, supposedly decrypts the diary and reveals his method. Seeking answers, Angier travels to Colorado Springs to meet the inventor Nikola Tesla. Believing Tesla built a teleportation device for Borden, Angier commissions Tesla to make one. Tesla eventually delivers a working machine but warns that it will bring only misery. When used, the device creates a duplicate of its subject while leaving the original person intact. In London, Angier uses the machine in a new illusion, The Real Transported Man, which earns him acclaim. Sarah, suspicious of Borden's secrecy and affair with Olivia, hangs herself. Determined to uncover Angier's method, Borden sneaks backstage during a performance of The Real Transported Man and witnesses Angier fall into a water tank and drown. He attempts to open the tank and save Angier, but is arrested for Angier's murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, Borden is approached by a solicitor for a wealthy Lord Caldlow, who offers to care for Borden's daughter Jess in exchange for the secret behind the original Transported Man. When Caldlow visits the prison, Borden is horrified to discover that he is actually Angier. Borden passes Angier a note revealing the secret, but Angier tears it up, leaving him to hang. Cutter helps dispose of Tesla's teleportation machine, but is dismayed by Angier's intention of allowing Borden to die. As Borden is hung, a disguised visitor shoots Angier in the basement of his theater, revealing himself as Borden. The mortally wounded Angier learns the truth: "Borden" is in fact a pair of identical twins sharing one identity. One twin loved Sarah, the other Olivia; one lost two fingers, and amputated the twin's same two fingers to match; one has survived, while the other was executed. Together, they performed The Transported Man by switching places undetected, and whenever one twin was performing, the other hid using prosthetics and makeup under the identity "Fallon". Dying, Angier confesses that each time he used Tesla's machine, it created a clone, one of whom drowned beneath the stage each night, and that he is no longer sure of his own identity. The surviving Borden brother reclaims his daughter, as Cutter narrates that the final act of any magic trick—the "prestige"—is the return of what was thought lost. Angier's death knocks over a kerosene lamp that sends his theater up in flames, revealing rows of water tanks holding the corpses of his many duplicates.