What is film? (According to Christopher Nolan)

            There were two major forms of storytelling found in the beginning years of film – the actualities of the Lumiere brothers, and the trick films of Melies. The Lumiere brothers attempted to recreate the world around them; to record the world as it is. Melies, on the other hand, saw film as having the potential to both trick and entertain audiences; his prior career as a magician obviously played a large factor in determining this point of view. The Prestige is a film that deals with two magicians right around the time Melies was doing his own stage magic and transitioning in to his film work. After understanding this connection, it seems logical that The Prestige follows the paradigm of what film should do as established by George Melies. But while director Christopher Nolan seems to follow in this path first laid down by Melies, he has certain sensibilities that lean more towards the Lumiere brothers’ work that he adheres to while performing these tricks in his films. By looking at a specific line of dialogue and the greatest trick of The Prestige, it is possible to better understand Nolan’s views on what film should be.

            In the film, the characters of Angier and Borden are both magicians and perform a similar trick known as “The Transported Man.” Borden’s version works because there are twin brothers performing the trick; Angier’s first version relies on his use of a double, and then relies on actual cloning from a machine created by Nikola Tesla. If thought of in modern filmmaking terms, Borden represents practical effects, while Angier represents CGI and digital effects. Borden’s trick hinges on something real, something that is concrete and real (albeit altered for illusion); to analogize to another Nolan film, this would be an actual semi-truck being flipped over in The Dark Knight.  Angier’s trick is performed because of technology and because something entirely new is being created; to compare to another modern film, this would be the robots found in the Transformers film franchise. Nolan’s choice of which type of effect he prefers is evidenced in his own filmmaking career, but is also confirmed when Angier admits in the film to Borden that “You always were the better magician.” Nolan seems to be saying that he values more the practical creativity of a filmmaker on set than the creativity of digital artists in post-production.

            Nolan performs his own trick in the film by always hiding one of the twin Borden brothers as Fallon. The camera never lingers too long on Fallon, most likely as Nolan’s way of not giving away his secret. However, when Fallon says goodbye to Borden in the jail cell, there is a close up of him that does not instantly cut away; Nolan is giving the audience a chance to figure out the trick for themselves before it is revealed in the final scene. What is fascinating is that for a film that deals with wild tricks and magical illusions, this is Nolan’s greatest trick of the film - he hides Christian Bale under some make-up and a wig and the audience can’t figure out it is a twin. If a film is meant to trick the audience, Nolan finds it uncouth to create something with no basis in reality; it is the repurposing of reality that he finds to be an essential element of film. He does not see the ideals of the Lumiere brothers and Melies to be dialectical oppositions, but two forms that should come together for the fullest potential of film.