And technically he does as well. Horrifying stuff.


I'll have to see it again today but I think you're making it out to be too much and miss what we're seeing.

I just noticed the knot thing too this time around. I thought him saying "I don't know" was him not admitting guilt but now it makes sense. I don't think I ever realized how much was going in this movie.

Yeah, it's a lot of shit happening from start to finish. Most of it becoming noticeable when you get the cues at the end and your gears start turning wildly.

The final bit with Angier and the tanks full of his clones is just that. Angier had to go on killing all of the clones in order for the trick to work. Just go back to the cat and the hat - they were perfect duplicates. Borden had a twin brother, which is why Angier laments towards the end, because he never believed Michael Caine's character when he told him that it was "double." The rub is that the clones were exact copies of Angier and they most likely included the same skill and mind set that the original Angier had.

Of course, Angier was also Lord Coldwell.

^ That is true. Borden was the better magician (simple trick) whereas Angier was the better showman (complex illusion). So then really the final narration pertains to Angier's incredulity regarding the simplicity of The Transported Man. That would fit in with the theme of obsession and its cost (Tesla brings that up and Cutter references that prior to Angier heading to Colorado).

And Angier was Lord Caldlow.

In any case, this thread makes me want to watch this movie yet again.

Movie is amazing

Plus, if both Bordens were identical copies, they would both love the same woman equally. His wife was torn up over the face that he only seemed to love her sometimes (and not on the days when the brother was filling in for him)

and he's also experienced drowning over and over. At least that was my takeaway, and as mentioned above, a very horrifying ending to the film.

No, "he" hasn't, at least in the sense that the Angier at the end of the film hasn't experienced drowning even once. The most any Angier has experienced drowning is once, when they were drowned.

For clarification, I do think that the Angier on the stage that gets drowned is the "original", while the one that appears a distance away is a copy. So in a very real sense Angier was committing suicide each time he performed the trick, allowing a copy of him to continue on in his place. From the perspective of the copy though, he has never drowned.

Why do you supose Angier shot "himself"? He prepped the gun in case something went wrong because he wouldn't want to live like that. The copy seemed perfectly normal. Yet he shot "himself" nonetheless.

Because there's something there that shouldn't exist. "He" freaks out and kills himself. Seems like Angier's mindset was to kill himself if anything went wrong. And it did go wrong. It was "merely" supposed to be a transportation device. That's what he understood it to be. Therein..he figures out how to use this unknown cataclysm to his advantage while also still being a huge burden on himself, literally.

From what it seemed like in that first try out. Seems like the copy got shifted near the gun while Original Angier was still standing in the machine. Clone Angier kills Original Angier. And so on and so forth w/ the drowing. Copy moves, previous one dies. I THINK that's how it worked out. He says something about not knowing whether he'd be the one standing or the one drowning. I don't think even he understands which Angier he is after the machine does it's thing. Remember..he's just a showman. He's still himself obviously..but which is he? The man that takes the fame or the man that dies? He's both of them. Again..horrifying shit there.

So you're saying the copy shares every memory and experience of the original EXCEPT drowning? I don't buy it.. He knows what drowning feels like because "he" drowns every night.

EDIT: unless the copy is made before the drowning. Like I said, haven't seen it in a while. In that case though, I like my version better

That doesn't make sense. The only Angier that feels the drowning is the one that literally drowns. The transported man escapes that, though the fear is there obviously. Knowing that you're going to drown yourself every time you do the trick.

What's never made clear is if it's literally just the man in the machine is transported...leaving the copy there to fall and drown or if it's the man in the machine that drowns and the copy survives. Again...an horrific element that Angier talks about a bit. Even he not knowing which is which.

But he could've made just one copy, not killed it and used it like Borden uses his twin.

Again...he freaked out. Didn't let it register.

Your edit is correct. The machine makes the double first, then the trapdoor drops Angier into the tank.

I think Angier knew that having two men live one life was untenable, especially as the machine made a double every time it was used. Remember that Angier at this time thinks that Borden is using something more than just a double, and that Angier had his own problems using a double already. Tesla's machine isn't a transportation device, not really, but Angier uses it to perform a trick so it looks like he's been transported.

BTW, the book has a significant difference in how the machine works that causes the book to play out in a much different way.

BTW, found this great article on the script for the Prestige (although it does also focus on the finished film):
http://www.screened.com/news/the-pre...-closely/2879/

I always thought the copy was the one that drowned. Angier desperately wanted to be the showmen and get the applause. He hated it when he was down below while his "double" was up above reaping the audience's applause. I took it that he got what he wanted...he was able to stay above and get the applause, but the downside was that he had to become a murderer...and to make it even worse he had to murder himself. Talk about dedication.

Brilliant movie.

It's an interesting metaphysical problem. To be fair, the movie never makes it clear which is the original and which is the copy, and when dealing with something that makes exact copies, is there really a difference? In fact, in the movie, Tesla's comment about the hats all being Angier's hat shows that he at least doesn't make a distinction between original and copy.

It is, however, always the "transported" man who survives.

Well I would say that it makes more difference to the one that drowns and less difference to the one that doesn't.

The Angier who is "transported" would only have the memories of the "drowned" Angier up to the point of the duplication. The duplication happened a split second before the trapdoor opened and Angier drowned.

This is made clear in the dialog when Cutter tells Angier he lied about drowning being a painless death, like "going home."

Yeah, that's the thing. There is no original and no copy. They are both Angier.

Imagine that you took the Mona Lisa, put it into Tesla's machine, and it makes an exact copy right down to each atom. The "copy" is indistinguishable from the "original," so you're simply left with two identical Mona Lisas.

From the point of view of each Angier, he would be the "original."

This movie would have been an all-time favorite for me if it didn't have a really fucked-up sense of "justice" in its plot. Here's two individuals, Borden and Fallon, who are willing to take the lives of individuals just to further their ruse and yet he lives in a happy ending? Seriously?

If Nolan had Fallon and Caldlow die in the vault and left Caine to raise the daughter, it would have been a much better film IMO.

Actually, you got that wrong. Fallon loved his family (Sarah and Jess) more than magic. He's the one that wanted to leave Angier to his trick. The magic obsessed Borden shunned Olivia for his obsession with beating Angier.

Both men who lived by obsession (Borden and Angier) died. Only Fallon and Cutter (who each saw the danger of obsession) survived.

To which Angier replies "no one cares about the man in the box." That goes to show the depth of his obsession that he's okay with all the suffering he's caused as long as he's beat Borden and baskes in the glory of the crowd.

Do we know which one was Borden and which was Fallon? I think they were supposed to be indistinguishable. So even though we saw at one point that the one dressed like Fallon loved the daughter we don't know how often we were seeing him as Fallon in the rest of the movie.