By: Jay Dyer
The Pledge
For most viewers, The Prestige was a film about rival stage magicians in the Victorian Era, alternately seeking to top one another in the dank climate of emerging industrial revolution and technological wonder. Lord Caldlow/Angiers (Hugh Jackman) is the secret nobleman who has a flair for the art of illusion, while Robert Borden and his twin (Christian Bale) are the working class stage hands who have devoted their lives to their art. In the midst of this rivalry, the curious figure of Nikola Tesla enters (played by David Bowie) to interject the element of real magic, titled in the film, “wizardry.” Both magicians are on a quest to sabotage the other, while seeking to perfect the greatest trick of all – the transported man.
Stage rivalry and obsession is what The Prestige is about, but it is also about much more. After several viewings (as is my normal habit), my thesis began to congeal: The Prestige is about Hollywood and film-making itself. And not only that, it is an industry that is an art of deception and illusion. The director and the actors are in effect illusion artists, or con men, if you will. The successful director is able to fool the audience into accepting that what is presented on the screen is real, even if it is evidently fantastical. The magicians’ ingenieure, Mr. Cutter (Michael Caine), explains this principle of film as illusion at the beginning, which is to be applied to the film itself. Cutter states:
“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.”
Director Christopher Nolan explains in “The Making of The Prestige” this is to be applied to both directing and the film itself as theatrical illusion: “For me, The Prestige is very much about film-making. It’s very much about what I do. It is also intended to suggest to the audience some of those ideas about how the film itself is spooling its narrative out to the audience. You want people to be aware of the effect the film is having as it’s unfolding before their eyes.” The Prestige follows this same tripartite structure, as it draws you into an ordinary story of human rivalry and obsession, the “Turn,” where the audience is looking for the secret of Angier and the Borden’s trick, but not truly looking, because like film, stage magic operates under the audience’s suspension of disbelief. The audience “wants to be fooled.” And in the end, the transported man must come back – reemerge or resurrect, as the final climax of the show.
The Turn
In order to properly understand Nolan’s film, we must consider the same principle elucidated concerning David Lynch films – twilight language. Researcher Michael Hoffman defines “twilight language” as follows in his Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare: “The path to unlocking this gnosis was centered in “twilight language,” a once nearly universal subliminal communication system used in Egypt, Babylon, the Indian subcontinent and among the Aztecs, consisting of a combination of numbers, archetypal words and symbols, which in our time are sometimes embedded in modern advertising, and in certain modern films and music…. In Oriental Tantra, the mantra (including dharani, kavaca, yamala, etc.) is sonically calculated to induce a particular action. It forms part of the original sanskrit concept of sandhyabhasa(twilight language). In Tantra, ‘Sandhyabhasa…is a language of light and darkness…in this higher type of discourse, words have another, a different meaning: this is not to be openly discussed.” (pg. 207)
Like Kubrick, Lynch and Hitchcock, Nolan utilizes this same pattern, where certain words, images and phrases will stand out as ciphers to the film on the deeper level. This is a tricky process, as it is not always a simple science of picking out which clues and words are key, but it can be done with experience. This is one of the more controversial aspects dealt with at JaysAnalysis, so I intend on providing other examples of the same in other arenas to help convince skeptics. Hoffman continues:
“Ritual is obsession in motion. Obsessive people are walking rituals and they attract “coincidentally,” aids to their obsessions. If this is done consciously and the obsession happens to coordinate with the trend and tendency of the time, a lot more “coincidental” magnification will be forthcoming. Coincidence can be summoned. It is a matter of attention and timing. First you must be aware of – believing in and observing – the mechanism of coincidence when it agrees with your work, then you coordinate what you’re working on with what you were predestined to do. When you start to see the pattern of coincidence and it becomes a language for you, you have either become an initiate or a schizophrenic, take your pick, because you lose the protection of materialism – our own protection against the disordering of the arrangement we’ve given to the world to make it manageable.” (Ibid., 130)
Nolan’s films are replete with uses of Jungian archetypes and synchronicity – another Jungian concept. In my Inception analysis, I wrote:
“The other crucial element is that the story is not a linear story, just like a dream is often non-linear. The film concerns essentially the “architecture of the mind,” as director Christopher Nolan described it. Jung’s theories involve the idea that the individual is a disparate instantiation of the collective unconscious, and thus fragmented from the collective. The collective conscious manifests itself in images and archetypes in our deepest selves – the lowest of the subconscious. It is here that we hide out most intimate failures, sins and fears. We guard this sensitive part of our selves, and have defense mechanisms by which we hide and guard these deeper, more elemental ethereal truths about who we really are. For Jung, being the gnostic he was, the goal is to overcome all purported fragmentation, work through the so-called self-realization/individuation process, and thus escape dualities. The masculine “side” must reconcile with the feminine. One notices here familiar themes found throughout the history of alchemy, and Jung was known for his penchant in such arcane studies.”
The above quotes thus solidify a central concept in my analysis of The Prestige – the film is not just about Hollywood illusion and twilight language, but the usage of that power through the illusion of the stage/screen to produce an effect in the consciousness of the viewer. In my Eyes Wide Shut analysis, I claimed the film was an attempt to initiate the reader, whereas with The Prestige, the film seems to delight in fooling the audience. It is an exaltation of the fact that most of the viewing audience will not understand the connotations, thinking the film was only about rival magicians, while being unable to place the usage of Nikola Tesla.
Recall as well that Nolan’s 2005 Batman Begins was entirely a conspiracy-themed plot, lending credence to my thesis that all of his films may legitimately be assumed to be “written” twilight language. On Batman Begins, I explained about the League of Shadows, the dark eastern cult that had become Batman’s nemesis:
“It is also relevant to consider that the drugging of the water supply, an old Soviet and Nazi tactic, is, in fact, still practiced today, as much of the United States’ water supply is purposefully drugged in order to chemically attack the masses, reducing Iqs and causing sterilization. See this video. Psychoactive drugs have also been proposed for addition to water supplies, as well as actual antidepressants, rocket fuel and radiation, turning up in samples. Drugs are also being sprayed in geo-engineering and “chemtrail” programs. For the League of Shadows, the purpose is mass insanity directed towards an engineered social collapse. Again, art mirrors reality. The hallucinogen mind control chemical is developed by “Scarecrow” (Cillian Murphy), who is a doctor specializing in mental health and brainwashing. Scarecrow represents the pharmaceutical complex which works in tandem with the military industrial complex to engineer and control society. The Scarecrow character brings to mind the famed MKULTRA program which did experiment with various methods, including drugs, to solve and control the human mind.”
In The Prestige, dualities play a tremendous role. Borden has a double, his twin brother, who shares his life as the family man, as well as Angier having his initial double, Mr. Root, the drunken failed actor. As the rivalry intensifies, Borden and Angier become doubles in a way, each seeking to top the other and obsessing over the other. Both Borden and Angier live double lives, not being who they appear to be. This duality is a common theme in Hitchcock and Nolan is clearly utilizing it. Dialectical dualism is one of the oldest religious principles, operating as a dialectic in both eastern and western religion and occultism. Our temporal life in that perspective is seen as one of constant struggle with duality and opposition, with alchemical fusion or other-worldly transcendence seen as the usual escape. Oriental religions are especially taken up with dualities and dualism and this becomes a symbolic indicator with the old Chinese magician. Cutter tells Borden and Angier they can have ten minutes of audition time if they can solve the old man’s act. After viewing it, Borden tells Angier the secret to the routine was that he always played the character of the old magician. It was all an act, because that is true devotion to the art, and true devotion to the art is the only way to “escape all this” (as he pounds on a rock wall). On one level, Borden was referring to his life of poverty, but on a deeper level, it is a reference to the film’s continual usage of bird cages, water tanks and boxes.
The bird-cage is explained by Nolan as an image of being trapped. The magicians use of the tank and Angier’s use of “Tesla’s box” exemplify this, too, and the meaning is twofold. On the one hand, the characters are trapped in their own mental prisons of obsession over both women and their stagecraft. The obsession leads to the death of one of the Borden’s and his wife, as well as countless clones of Angier from the Tesla machine. As I will explain later, the amazing technology of Tesla is presented in The Prestige as something wholly other – something no one at that time was able to accept and could only be slowly introduced. The film presents Tesla as working covertly in Colorado to power a whole town while also conducting secret experiments involving cloning. I have written elsewhere about the truth behind this idea, that Tesla did do many of the seemingly miraculous things attributed to him, but that his work was confiscated by officials of various intelligence agencies, which is even referenced in passing in the film. Tesla did work on secret projects in Colorado, and this is significant in terms of twilight language in regard to another famous novel, Atlas Shrugged.
In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt’s rebellion of business leaders against government is centered around a hidden “Atlantis” community in Colorado. This secret community was based around the philosophy of Galt and was hidden using directed energy beams, or “defractor rays.” Galt’s idea was a “quantum propulsion engine” that would revolutionize energy markets by pulling energy from the environment – both of which are Tesla-related ideas. I have written elsewhere about the connection between Tesla’s work and an alternate, hidden metaphysics the establishment is aware of, yet suppresses from the masses, based largely around notions like the aether and quantum technology. While I am not necessarily saying Nolan had Atlas Shrugged in mind, what is clear is that both stories focus on hidden technology in relation to Colorado, and Colorado just happens to be a recent home to the CIA, as opposed to the more public and historic Langley, Virginia.
The Prestige
But what might be the use of Tesla in the film? Why Tesla? A host of scientists could have been used, but Tesla was chosen for a reason. As the film correctly notes, Tesla is the father of the modern world. Unfortunately, Tesla’s rather benevolent intention was not what his inventions were used for. As I have shown by uploading the declassified documents relating to his work, the confiscation of Tesla’s work was done with the full intent of technocratic enslavement. Back in 1973, longtime Washington geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski described the usage of Tesla technology for the dystopian control of large masses of populations in his Between Two Ages:
“In addition… future developments may well include automated or manned space warships, deep-sea installations, chemical and biological weapons, death rays, and still other forms of warfare–even the weather may be tampered with.
In addition, it may be possible–and tempting–to exploit for strategic-political purposes the fruits of research on the brain and on human behavior. Gordon J. F. MacDonald, a geophysicist specializing in problems of warfare, has written that timed artificially excited electronic strokes could lead to a pattern of oscillations that produce relatively high power levels over certain regions of the earth…. In this way, one could develop a system that would seriously impair the brain performance of very large populations in selected regions over an extended period…. No matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades.
As one specialist noted, ‘By the year 2018, technology will make available to the leaders of the major nations, a variety of techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised. One nation may attack a competitor covertly by bacteriological means, thoroughly weakening the population (though with a minimum of fatalities) before taking over with its own armed forces. Alternatively, techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm….(Gordon J. F. MacDonald, “Space,” in Toward the year 2018, p.34).” (pg. 57 with fn)
To bring this back home to The Prestige, the wireless transmission of television and Internet onto magical mirror boxes in most households was long foreseen as a means to “pledge,” “turn” and “prestige” the duped masses of Amerika and the world. It is my thesis that the film includes Tesla because not only was he the father of the modern world’s technology, his technology would in turn be used by the cryptocracy as the greatest means of propagandizing and tricking the populace through millions of screens broadcasting illusion. From fake news to fake lives, television and the invasion of the screens has erected an entirely synthetic alternate reality in which people’s minds inhabit, like the birds in cages or Angier in the tanks, in the film. The meaning of the cloning of Angier to top Borden symbolizes what Tesla says to Angier:
“Man’s reach exceeds his grasp”? It’s a lie. Man’s grasp exceeds his nerve. The only limits on scientific progress are those imposed by society. The first time I changed the world, I was hailed as a visionary. The second time I was asked politely to retire. The world only tolerates one change at a time. And so here I am. Enjoying my “retirement.” Tesla means that what man attempts, when he overcomes his fear, can exceed what seems possible. With Angier’s funding, Tesla creates a “box” that results in cloning. The greatest mystery of western religion – bodily resurrection, is presented as within the possibility of science, but Tesla in the film issues a warning that all of this obsession comes at a price. Modern scientism is something I have written about at length, and one of the greatest dark secrets is revealed precisely in the figure of Tesla. Like the Brzezinski quote above, not only has Tesla tech been used for weather warfare, Army psychological warfare expert and founder of the Satanic Temple of Set, Col. Michael Aquino describes the actual usage of Tesla’s ELF/VLF radio frequency attacks upon mass populations. In his “From PsyOp to Mindwar: The Psychology of Victory,” Aquino writes in the footnotes towards the end:
“Atmospheric electromagnetic (EM) activity: The Human body communicates internally by EM and electrochemical impulses. The EM field displayed in Kirlian photographs, the effectiveness of acupuncture, and the body’s physical responses to various types of EM radiation (X-rays, infrared radiation, visible light spectra, etc.) are all examples of human sensitivity to EM forces and fields. Atmospheric EM activity is regularly altered by such phenomena as sunspot eruptions and gravitational stresses which distort the Earth’s magnetic field. Under varying external EM conditions, humans are more or less disposed to the consideration of new ideas.
MindWar should be timed accordingly. Per Dr. L.J. Ravitz: Electromagnetic field constructs add fuel to the assumption unifying living matter harmoniously with the operations of nature, the expression of an electromagnetic field no less than non-living systems; and that as points on spectrums, these two entities may at last take their positions in the organization of the universe in a way both explicable and rational … A tenable theory has been provided for emergence of the nervous system, developing not from functional demands, but instead deriving as a result of dynamic forces imposed on cell groups by the total field pattern. Living matter on has a definition of state based on relativity field physics, through which it has been possible to detect a measurable property of total state functions. (Ravitz, State-Function, Including Hypnotic States” in Journal of American Society of Psychosomatic Dentistry and Medicine Vol. 17, No. 4, 1970.)”
And,
“Ionization of the air: An abundance of negative condensation nuclei (“air ions”) in ingested air enhances alertness and exhilaration, while an excess of positive ions enhances drowsiness and depression. Calculation of the ionic balance of a target audience’s atmospheric environment will be correspondingly useful. Again this is a naturally-occurring condition – caused by such varying agents as solar ultraviolet light, lightning, and rapidly-moving water – rather than one which most be artificially created. (Detonation of nuclear weapons, however, will alter atmospheric ionization levels.) Cf. Soyke, Fred and Edmonds, Alan, “The Ion Effect”. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977.
Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) waves: ELF waves up to 100 Hz are once more naturally occurring,but they can also be produced artificially (such as for the Navy’s Project Sanguine for submarine communication). ELF-waves are not normally noticed by the unaided senses, yet their resonant effect upon the human body has been connected to both physiological disorders and emotional distortion. Infrasound vibration (up to 20 Hz) can subliminally influence brain activity to align itself to “delta”, “theta”, “alpha”, or “beta” wave patterns, inclining an audience toward everything from alertness to passivity. Infrasound could be used tactically, as ELF-waves endure for great distances; and it could be used in conjunction with media broadcasts as well. See Playfair, Guy L. and Hill, Scott, The Cycles of Heaven. New York: St. Martin’sPress, 1978, pages 130-140.”
Now you understand the reason for the prevalence of television, wifi, and ELF/VLF towers. The prestige you don’t want to see is staring you right in the face. The tech grid that is built all around us is erected for the purpose of working in conjunction with the “chemtrail” geo-engineering that ionizes the atmosphere. The heating of the atmosphere is used in conjunction with frequency manipulation to control mass populations. While The Prestige is not a film directly about this, this is the use of Tesla, the father of modern communications technology, which brings to the masses the frequency manipulation on top of the theatrical illusion of Hollywood cinema “magic.” And I have just shown you two high level cryptocracy controllers who openly say it is such. The world is a stage, but most are spectators in this technocratic drama.
Hoffman writes again of the methods and techniques of the shadow establishment that are equally applicable to the Hollywood illusion machine:
“The Cryptocracy has always operated as a rhetorical system. In the Kennedy assassination we saw this in the command-words Camelot, Storyville, Shakespeare and Truth or Consequences. Predictive Programming works by means of the propagation of the illusion of an infallibly accurate vision of how the world is going to look in the future. This fraud has had a not inconsiderable impact on our reality. Aleister Crowley, in a statement to OTO initiates concerning one of his books, describes the underlying epistemology behind the glamour and enchantment which causes the occult con-game to become the weird reality we inhabit in America today:
‘In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.’ (Liber O)
Here Crowley admits that the OTO is a vehicle for imposing an artificial reality based on nothing but lies and promoted by liars initiated into the art and science of illusion.” (Emphasis mine. Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, 206)
Although not immediately pertinent to the film, I would like to give another example of twilight language for skeptics. IMF head Christine Lagarde recently gave a speech in which she made some very interesting comments about numerology that many found baffling. The video claims to give a prediction about economic issues based on the video’s numerology, which I would caution against. However, even if the video creator’s interpretation of the dating is incorrect, what Lagarde’s carefully planned speech undoubtedly demonstrates is the very principle of twilight language I have been arguing for. For her, the numerology is a language that conveys another message beyond the immediate, surface meaning.
The last sentence of Hoffman perfectly describes the theme and message of The Prestige: “imposing an artificial reality based on nothing but lies and promoted by liars initiated into the art and science of illusion.” Written in twilight language, it is a film about much more than petty magicians: It is a film about revelation of the method itself. It is a revelation of the method of revelation of the method. Just as Borden’s diary in the film is written in a cipher with a keyword that turns out to be “Tesla,” Nolan wants the viewer to understand that The Prestige is a film written in a cipher, whose keyword is Tesla. That is why I have focused my analysis on Tesla, who is the real message of the film, not Angier or the Bordens. Tesla is the real “wizard” who created the modern world, not the illusionists, with their stagecraft and sleight of hand. To transcend space and time and resurrect is the goal of modern science and transhumanism, but remember Tesla’s warning – it comes at a price. This is the message of the film’s twilight language. In my article, I presented a pledge, a turn and a prestige and today is Nikola Tesla’s birthday: Are you watching closely, or are you wanting to be fooled?
I saw The Prestige again on a whim two days ago, unaware that Tesla’s birthday was this week… so that’s interesting.
I’m digging your twilight language work. It’s amazing how much time wasted on reasoning is saved when one starts reading it.
This is your single greatest analysis yet IMHO. I arrived at similar conclusions about the film after a viewing last summer, but in the context of Brzezinski and Aquino, I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head. What is your interpretation of Legarde’s strange coded speech? It definitely means something. If not a controlled financial crash on July 20th, what?
Thanks! The feedback overall is this is the best yet!
As a new reader of your amazing web site, I was completely elated to find so many Jung references in such modern topics. However, I was surprised there wasn’t a connection, no pun intended, between Hoffman’s repeated use of the word “coincidence” and Jung’s concept of synchronicity. (Maybe implied but there is a difference between the two.)
After following the link for more Jung topics — “Nolan’s films are replete with uses of Jungian archetypes and synchronicity,” https://jaysanalysis.com///2010/08/21/inception-my-labyrinthine-analysis/ I was even more surprised to read the following:
“I am not here advocating Carl Jung, to be clear. Jung was very much opposed to the basic worldview I espouse, but we must still interact with and decode these phenomena, inasmuch as they are a part of the world we operate in.”
I found it a bit ironic considering I would like to imagine if Jung was still alive he would be doing the same thing as you. I admit not being completely familiar with all of your material and was hoping you would enlighten me or perhaps direct me with a link or two as to what and where you differ from Jung and/or what yours/his worldview is. Thank you!
I recently found these rather modern sounding quotes in Jung’s book “Aion” shortly before discovering your web site. (coincidence or synchronicity?) This sounds a lot like you, Jay, so hopefully you can understand my confusion bc I’m a big fan of both of you!
“Most people do not have sufficient range of consciousness to become aware of the opposites inherent in human nature. The tensions they generate remain for the most part unconscious, but can appear in dreams. …The greatest danger about unconsciousness is proneness to suggestion. The effect of suggestion is due to the release of an unconscious dynamic, and the more unconscious this is, the more effective it will be. Hence the ever widening split between conscious and unconscious increases the danger of psychic infection and mass psychosis. With the loss of symbolic ideas the bridge to the unconscious has broken down. Instinct no longer affords protection against unsound ideas and empty slogans. Rationality without tradition and without a basis in instinct is proof against no absurdity.”
“Materialistic atheism with its utopian chimeras forms the religion of all those rationalistic movements which delegate the freedom of personality to the masses and thereby extinguish it. The advocates of Christianity squander their energies in the mere preservation of what has come down to them, with no thought of building onto their house and making it roomier. Stagnation in these matters is threatened in the long run with a lethal end.”
“…The human mind has sunk deep into the sublunary world of matter, thus repeating the Gnostic myth of the Nous, who while beholding his reflection in the depths below, plunged down and was swallowed in the embrace of Physis. The climax of this development was marked in the 18th century by the French Revolution, in the 19th century by scientific materialism, and in the 20th century by political and “social realism,” which has turned the wheel of history back a full 2000 years and seen the recrudescence of the despotism, lack of individual rights, the cruelty, indignity and slavery of the pre-Christian world, whose labor problem was solved by the convict camp. The trans-valuation of all values is being enacted before our eyes.”
You are doing exactly what we all need to be doing — symbolic analysis, and the consequences of not questioning what we take in is what Jung was trying to warn us about. “With the loss of symbolic ideas the bridge to the unconscious has broken down. Instinct no longer affords protection against unsound ideas and empty slogans. Rationality without tradition and without a basis in instinct is proof against no absurdity.” When my teenage kids go to the movies, and just about for anything else they do, it is TOTAL INPUT ONLY, eyes wide open! They think I’m crazy to later want to delve into the meaning behind it all. We are all in big trouble and the ending of this big Hollywood production isn’t a happy one.
I believe coincidence is the acknowledgment of something magical, synchronicity is the resolution of its power. — Jay L. Jennings
I’ve written several times on synchronicity. Thanks for your comments.
Thanks Jay,
I’m so impressed you still read these and thank you for responding in a very timely manner. Sorry I got so caught up in an introduction to catch your attention earlier, I guess it worked, but the issue of synchronicity really wasn’t the question or concern. Please forgive me for not being clear, this is really what I need to know. I’m extremely interested and persistent.
This is what I wrote before — “I admit not being completely familiar with all of your material and was hoping you would enlighten me or perhaps direct me with a link or two as to what and where you differ from Jung and/or what yours/his worldview is. Thank you!”
This was the quote of interest linked within the above referenced article: “I am not here advocating Carl Jung, to be clear. Jung was very much opposed to the basic worldview I espouse, but we must still interact with and decode these phenomena, inasmuch as they are a part of the world we operate in.”
So really, how do you differ? Why would someone in your field of work distance themselves from a modern legend? I obviously admire Jung and would only dream of someone comparing my works to his — a mistake I almost made on you?
Jung is Gnostic; Jay is not. You might want to check out the following articles, one by Jay, the other by Dr. Philip Sherrard.
https://jaysanalysis.com///2013/09/05/the-mystery-of-the-serpentine-mirror/
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/articles/An_Introduction_to_the_Religious_Thought_of_CG_Jung.aspx
Love your stuff. Addicted to it really. Just found the site a few months ago.
Would love nothing more than your analysis of the movie Snowpiercer.
Thanks Frank. Loved Snowpiercer.
(Warning: spoilers and very long post ahead)
The Prestige is a beautifully intricate movie with a very disappointing end. Or at least that was what I thought as I watched, somewhat mystified, the “Deus ex machina” that the Nolan brothers decided to pull at the last minute to extricate themselves from a plot that, perhaps, was starting to spin out of control from some many “twists and turns”.
However, I couldn’t keep my mind from the last few lines of the movie that seemed to speak directly to the viewer, urging him to echo them in his head until he understood them.
“Now you’re looking for the secret…
But you won’t find it…
…because you don’t really want to know…
…you want to be fooled.”
Was there more to be seen then what was being shown? Were we as the audience “watching close” enough, as we had been advised to? Were we wanting to be fooled by the lightning and thunder of the Tesla machine, wanting it to be real, because the true explanation of the trick is just too simple and uninteresting?
And so it dawned on me, as it has, it seems, on a number of other viewers, the idea that the Tesla Machine isn’t real, that it doesn’t really work. That the Prestige is not a sci-fi film, nor is it naturalistic up until the end and 99% of the time, but that it is 100% realistic all throughout. That, in fact, one of its many ideas is that behind all the hocus-pocus of magic lie simple, rational and oftentimes disappointing explanations.
However, as many have pointed out, the idea that there is no “science magic” at all – that the machine Tesla built was simply a ruse to finance his research, which Angier was able to put to good use in playing his greatest and cruelest trick ever –, while solving some of the plot inconsistencies, raises at the same time many of its own. So, what follows is my opinion of what really happened in the Prestige. I think it can provide for an interesting reinterpretation of many of the film’s scenes and dialogs.
I believe Tesla, a man with evident showmanship as depicted in his public exhibition in the Albert Hall, while initially reluctant, ended up agreeing to build the transporting machine for the wealthy and obsessed Angier, in order to fund his now unappreciated research. Not being able, of course, of constructing such an impossible device, he planned with his magic-enthusiast assistant a little bit of a magic show of their own for Angier. The cats and the hats scene were staged by them to led Angier to believe that the machine worked as a replicator.
The scientific-naïve Angier was played upon in the same manner as he had played upon the ingenuous audience of his magic shows, with the two men of science humoring him with good-natured irony. For indeed Tesla did not really want to swindle Angier. He did build and supplied him with the machine. That is, the only possible machine that could be built: an illusionist’s contraption.
Angier eventually tested his new acquisition and realized that no such replicating machine existed, and that Borden must have been using a double all along as Cutter had suggested. He understood now, however, the deceptive power of science, and returned to London with the idea of employing the machine in a new trick and in the enactment of his final revenge upon Borden. Ironically, his new trick was not new at all, but was the same old simple trick of the transported man he had performed before, only with more glare and gloss, and a few water tanks being moved out of the theater every night.
He knew Borden would come to see the act, so whenever he spotted him in the audience we would present “the pledge” and “the turn” of the Real Transported Man himself and his double would only appear for “the prestige” far away in the balcony, and therefore not recognizable by Borden, who was now starting to be taken in, as Angier had been, by the power of the “true magic” of science (for had he not been informed of the “mysterious” water-tanks?). Whenever Borden was not present, Angier himself appeared in the prestige, being finally able to personally receive the audience’s applause at the end.
In the day Borden came intending to expose the trick, Angier, who was preparing for the prestige but also watching and waiting for this moment, spotted him among the volunteers from the public and quickly placed (or had placed by the blindmen) the water-tank under the trap door. Borden, much more interested in studying the machine then the presenter (whom he knew to be Angier from previous shows) doesn’t even notice that, this time, a double is on stage.
The look on the drowning man’s face as he is struggling, first to understand what happened to him, and then to save his life, cannot be the look of Angier or one of his supposed clones in the moment of their greatest victory, for which he had prepared for so long, and whose “price” he had willingly accepted. No, it is the face of a desperate man, crying for help – the face of Angier’s double.
Angier had thus finally and resoundingly beaten Borden in the magician’s game, completely destroying his opponent’s life in the process. He even went so far as to taunt him by offering to buy his secret, only to tear it to pieces in front of him without reading it – a trick he was no longer interested in and which he now believed to be very simple indeed.
However, things turned for Angier when Cutter went to see him and learned of the truth. Upon meeting “Lord Caldlow”, the pragmatically minded Cutter finally understood the true and only possible nature of the trick. In his mind, Angier had gone too far that time by killing an innocent man, his double Root, and using Cutter himself to incriminate and sentence to death their former colleague, Borden.
Cutter suspected, from the first Transported Man, that Borden might have a twin, which he eventually confirmed when Fallon was kidnapped. Even though he cared for Angier, he thought, in face of his terrible deeds, that the only fair thing to do was to give the surviving Borden the chance of retribution for his brother’s death.
As the film draws to a close we find Cutter and Angier in the old warehouse, darkness filling the place, except for the small light coming from the lantern. A disenchanted Cutter sets the tone for the final sequence:
“Take a minute to consider your achievement.”
He then tells him about the sailor who said drowning was like going home. Angier had taken comfort in that thought, not only in connection with his wife death, but to appease his mind for the murder he commited. Ironically for Cutter, his white lie about drowning had helped Angier in getting the necessary nerve to proceed with his act.
Angier, who had struggled with the idea of drowning (remember him submerging his face in the basin?), upon seeing Cutter leave instinctively turns his lantern towards a water-tank, and what does he see? A corpse strongly resembling himself. In a split second he understands that it must have been put there by Cutter. He even knows how he did it:
“No one cares about the man in the box”.
Cutter, who was a master of characterization, obtained and appropriately characterized several corpses (men in boxes no one cares about) to resemble Angier, the effect being aided by the obfuscation in the warehouse and of the water-tanks themselves.
However, Angier was still not able to understand the purpose of all this scenario. It was then that in entered Fallon, who tells him about the true nature of his relation to “Borden” and how they performed their trick, not before shooting Angier in the chest.
Angier, a dying man, now understands that the twin was let in by Cutter in order to kill him, but also that Cutter in his sympathy did not wish to dispossess him of his strange “achievement”, which he so greatly prized. And so Angier takes advantage of the scenario Cutter prepared for him and proceeds to play on Borden the final part of his great trick, telling him the imaginary story of his first use of the machine, what it did and the “price” that he had paid for his art.
For he knew well that he had paid a great price for his obsession – an innocent man’s life and his own. But in the game of illusion and masterful deceit, Borden’s secret disclosed and his own preserved, he had been the victor – and he had, after all, performed a most wonderful magic trick in this “solid, solid world”.
In the end, a close shot of one of the tanks is shown. Not just any tank, but a special one. The tank where Root, Angier’s double, lies.
A beautiful film that really plays its own magic trick on its audience, isn’t it?
Credit: D. P. Monteiro
Excellent article, glad I found your work. Hoffman once said something along the lines of “seeking knowledge of the occult elite’s agenda without knowing the concept of revelation of the method is akin to driving a model T in the space age” – something along those lines, and I tend to agree. He only explains revelation of the method, however, as a tactic of psychological warfare, a kind of “mockery of the victim”, and ultimately, as the fourth stage of an epic alchemical regressive-transmutation of mankind ie. from a relatively spiritually connected, self-empowered mankind into the soulless drones of a mechanized material age; but I am interested in another angle to revelation of the method that I myself have been contemplating/formulating, one that Hoffman perhaps only hints at and doesn’t at all describe in thorough detail, and I was wondering what your thoughts would be on this- particularly, revelation of the method as a tactic of manufacturing consent in order for the dark occultists to insulate themselves from the universal consequences of natural law. Infringing upon the will of another being without their implicit consent incurs negative universal consequence that no being in creation can avoid. And silent resistance-free participation in a system that is diametrically opposed to life and freedom is considered by the elite to be consent for that system. Therefore, by deliberately revealing their method, they are allowing the possibility for the truth to be known, and now, especially in our modern Internet age of information, the attainment of the true workings of the occult agenda has been made readily attainable, and is thus a choice that almost everyone can willingly make. Could revealing the method possibly be considered by the elite as a tactic for skirting the consequences of natural law and harvesting the implicit consent of the people? Regardless of how effective such a tactic is in ultimately insulating themselves from the consequences of natural law, do you think they are deliberately revealing their method in an attempt to do so? Granted this is only possible in a climate of mind control, where manufactured amnesia, abulia (loss of will), and apathy are rampant, but this is exactly the climate we have in our modern society. Through the transmission of esoteric archetypes in symbols and movie narratives etc., they are both consciously and subconsciously alerting the mindscapes of the masses to their presence and workings in the world today. The onslaught of esoteric transmission is tremendously overwhelming, yet the masses still silently participate in their system, offering little to no resistance, and thus granting their implicit consent for the global agenda to move forward. The oppressive authority needed within a global governance framework requires higher and higher levels of implicit consent. To think that they would hastily upset the primary inviolable law of which they are bound by rushing the process is inconceivable, as ubiquitous conquest has been the goal of the ruling class since the beginnings of human civilization itself. If such an agenda were to proceed in strict opposition to the greater will of the people, it would be ultimately doomed to fail. Consent is thus the key to their capstone. What role, do you think, does the existence of the Internet in regards to the deliberate revealing of the method play in harvesting this consent? Thanks, I just discovered your work through 21st Century Wire but I look forward to reading all your articles, Jarrod : )
Thanks Jarrod.
In some ways, the rivalry between Borden and Angier mirrors the rivalry between Tesla and Edison. Tesla started out working for Edison, just as Borden started out working for Angier, which is where their rivalry begins. Edison creates DC, which he knowingly and falsely promotes as superior to the AC that Tesla invented. Edison promotes AC as dangerous because it was used to kill a man–in a chair that Edison is credited with helping to create. In the movie, Edison is always after Tesla, and Edison’s henchman want to destroy Tesla’s work. Angier is after Borden and wants to destroy his work. Angier creates a new version of Borden’s trick, claiming that it is better. But in reality, Borden’s trick is the more amazing because it goes beyond the stage, into real life. Angier’s trick is just someone else’s invention; yet Angier, and we, the viewers, are fooled into believing it is the superior trick. However, anyone can do what Angier did as long as she has the machine. Of course, we know Tesla ended up broke and alone, whereas Edison ended up famed and celebrated–even though Tesla was the real genius. That is the one part I am not sure how to apply to the theory of Angier being a stand-in for Edison and Borden a stand-in for Tesla. But I just thought of this a mere 15 minutes ago, after reading your essay and thinking about the duality you mention. It seems like another aspect of duality to the film (which is one of my favorites).
I just wanted to add that the notion of Edison being responsible for Tesla’s invention being used to execute a man strikes me as similar to Angier ultimately using Tesla’s invention in the film to get Borden executed, indirectly (as opposed to killing Borden DIRECTly).
Fascinating. And so many of the usual suspects here: Nolan (of course); Bowie (openly Thelemic/OTO/Crowleyite); Michael Caine (who seems to show up in all the creepy films and has stayed at the top of movies for DECADES running…hmmm), Norton, Bale, goodness. I notice certain people seem to be nodes- like Nolan and also Woody Allen (mia farrow-sinatra-beatles) and lately ScarJo (LUCY = lucifer).
I’ve been looking into the revelation of the method lately; it’s clear we’ve entered that phase, especially seeing the open rituals in the super bowl and grammys, etc by Madonna, Katy Perry, et al. Also, the absolute proliferation of death (CSI, Zombies, vampires) in the most successful mass market story themes.
I think Alice Bailey (maybe?) Theosophist, laid out the principle- that the final phase (NWO/total control) would be ushered in by this deliberate unveiling. Of course the Creator will also have His final phase (Revelation) with the greatest light in history to play against the greatest darkness of the last days.
We must gird ourselves against evil now…
Great stuff Jay.
Hey Jay. I just found your site and I’m loving it. man, this movie had me confused for so long when it came out cause I was a big fan of Nolan after Memento &… I too thought there was something within the movie hidden in plain sight.. After multiple viewings (which was the case with movies I watched when i was single) I came to, more or less, the same conclusion…
Great articulation. loved it.
Im gonna check out your analysis on inception.
Peace
Thanks ks
Shiver inducing analysis. Thank you for unearthing these thoughts.
Reblogged this on Jay's Analysis and commented:
Tonight I’ll be on the Corbett Report and we will be discussing Christopher Nolan, The Prestige and its relation to statecraft. Reposting for reference.
Hello Jay,
Splendid article about a movie I really love. I agree that this film is multi-layered and very deep. I am listening to Jim Corbett’s interview; The Prestige – FLNWO #30. That conversation is interesting as well.
I am glad I found your web site!
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Thank you!
Hi again Jay, I was in film for a major portion of my adult life as a special effects artist in Hollywierd. grin
My name is Willy Whitten. Just browsing my name on google has some info on my work. I also have a blog, this links to my most recent page:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/911-false-flag-psyop/
I hope you check it out, we have much in common.
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Ok cool
Wow, great work. I’ll have to get my hands on some more of Nolan’s films, as he clearly is in the know like you said, much like the others who make some truly symbolic films like Lynch and Kubrick. His brother Johnathan with his TV show Person of Interest is a good one to check out also in my estimation, as he is revealing the already present AI/technocracy nightmare we are probably mired in at the moment. I’d recommend everyone checking out that show, and also that I think that show can be spun out into a positive anti technocracy type of message or take away. At least that’s my opinion on it, but I love a good under dog story so I’m kind of partial to those types of plots.
I have to say this was a good one among many good ones you have been cranking out. I have some different views on philosophy and religion/theology than you do, but even with that difference you have some very valuable insights into film and art that transcends those differences I think. Keep up the fight man, I think we might be winning in the future if we are armed with some rational insights and a plan on how to counter the mind control.
the cipher is not only “tesla.” I feel that they’re are two types of magic, magic which money has purchased, like the tesla machine, examplified by the scene with an identical sided coin. or real magic, portrayed by christian bales twin character and the “agony they both endure through out. transcending death is “agony.” enlightenment is agony, and the revelation of the method is elightenment.