Eric Allen
Mr. Gary Pethe
HUM-160
11-13-2013
“The Prestige”/”Rear Window”
The movie “The Prestige” starts out with a magician explaining the three parts of a trick; the pledge, where the audience is presented with an ordinary object; the turn, where the object is turned into something extraordinary; and the prestige, where the object is brought back. Magician Alfred Borden is sentenced to death for the murder of rival Robert Angier by drowning him in a water tank during one of Angier's performances. Both began their careers as shills for "Milton the Magician" with John Cutter and Angier's wife Julia as his assistant. The pair observe an elderly Asian magician who is able to make a large fishbowl appear seemingly from nothing. Borden realizes that the man's frailty is in fact the act and comments that true magic requires commitment and sacrifice.
Julia drowns during a performance of a water escape (in the same tank from the opening of the film). Angier blames Borden, who professes not to remember if he had tied her with a standard knot or an alternate which he had proposed. The two go on to become magicians in their own right. Borden becomes "The Professor" with the enigmatic Bernard Fallon as his engineer, while Angier becomes "The Great Danton" with Cutter and assisted by the lovely Olivia Wenscombe. Borden meets and marries Sarah and they have a daughter, Jess, inspiring Angier's jealousy and anger. Angier sabotages Borden's bullet catch, costing Borden two fingers. Borden then ruins Angier's victimless bird cage act, maiming an audience member, killing the dove, and damaging Angier's reputation.
Borden soon begins performing an impressive trick called The Transported Man, where he enters one cabinet and exits another across the stage a moment later. Cutter insists that Borden is using a double, an answer which Angier refuses to accept. Nevertheless, Angier begins performing The New Transported Man using a double but becomes increasingly frustrated at...