The Prestige

[adrienmundi]

So, I tend to like Christain Bale; there's something like believable desperation underneath most of his characters for me (and he's not at all painful to look at). Scarlet Johansen ranges from almost attractive (The Black Dahlia) to pretty darned hot (The Perfect Score); here, she was at her observed peak (something about period corsetries really works for her; I wonder what?). Plus, we got David Bowie as Nikola Tesla, a living hero playing a dead hero. You'd think this had all the ingredients of an excellent movie and, well... you'd be wrong.

Unlike a lot of people, I'm not impressed with Christopher Nolan's structuralism (but unlike a lot of people, probably even him, I went to school to understand structuralism). After about a third of the movie (pay attention; there are three steps to this movie*), I desperately wanted to ask him how that clever thing was working out for him; in the final third, it was a foregone conclusion that it wasn't working out well at all. I'll lay some of the blame at Hugh Jackman's feet; he was in a movie with incredibly talented and/or pretty actors, and he just didn't measure up (but I'm hardly a fan in general). Some turned in performances ranging from the very workmanlike to the astounding (Caine, in particular), but poor Mr. Jackman just wasn't up to snuff. The majority of the blame, however, I lay on Nolan, who thinks a moderately nonlinear plot with heavyhanded foreshadowing is the absolute height of sophistication.

So, see a matinee; I'd say the good parts are worth reduced admission. It's an interesting failure, but that's because some of the cast, not the ham fist of the direction.



*My own weak attempt at cleverness was telling fairyhead that we'd seen two thirds of a good movie. In all honesty, it was at best half.

Comments

[sistermystery.livejournal.com]

The Prestige was next on my list to see after M. Antoinette. The combination of Bowie and stage magic is too much for me to resist.

[wyldkyss.livejournal.com]

Bowie as Tesla was the complete selling point, even if I could have used less foreshadowing and more surprise twist.

[theinnocence.livejournal.com]

i'll ttyl about it. saw it tonight
did you see the illusionist?

[becket.livejournal.com]

I've been a fan of Nolans for a while, so I'll speak up for him a little bit.

Keep in mind that this is essentially his fourth movie, fifth if you count Following, which to my mind was more of a prep for Memento than anything else. I should say I don't believe in wunderkinds. All art, movie directing included, is a lifelong struggle to master the practicalities of your medium with the demands of your vision and conscience. I haven't seen the Prestige yet, but if you pick a director, any director, even one that you actually like and respect, and go dig up his 4th movie, chances are you might be a little chagrined.

I grant that people who are little more than clever can be truly annoying in a very acute and unique way. Consider though, that if you take the subset of directors who get to make big budget wide release movies and then reduce them to the ones who actually are clever filmmakers Nolan ends up looking pretty darn good.

I don't want to call down the attack squads of the armies battling the Hollywood Excess vs Independent Emo-tion War, but I give a good chunk of props to a guy who could easily go make wee tiny movies and have total creative freedom, but is willing to ride the hollywood monster and at least give us cleverness. So many movies, big and small, confuse vaguery for subtlety, volume for intensity, and self-obsession for introspection... is it bad to offer clever and try to give it?

Did you see Insomnia? I don't think any other director would have the balls to let Hilary Swank act circles around Al Pacino. I sort of saw that movie as Nolan's indictment of Pacino himself, as if he were saying, "Al, you suck. You didn't used to suck. Get some goddam sleep and come back to the set in five years."