The Prestige
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Rexkwando99
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psychosully said:
Um, dude, you forgot a VERY ket component..BOWIE!! I don't think I need to go any further than that!
Did anyone notice in the trailer, if you watch it in slo mo, there's a fram toward the end right before the explosion that shows a mural/paigting of Bowie's character. Wonder what that is all about? Who is he?
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Rexkwando99
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Yeah, maybe that is what it is. I haven't read the book, so its all new to me. But it took me a few times to catch it, did you see it?
D
Demonic12
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Currently reading the book and wow. It is really great, can't wait to see the film. Only question though- and can someone answer this without giving away any spoilers....
In the trailers it says that they were friends, yet in the book- or at least in Borden's account it didn't seem like a friendship at all, but rather he heard of Angrier by name before and then the first time he met Angrier he didn't like him at all and started the feud very shortly after that.
In the trailers it says that they were friends, yet in the book- or at least in Borden's account it didn't seem like a friendship at all, but rather he heard of Angrier by name before and then the first time he met Angrier he didn't like him at all and started the feud very shortly after that.
Demonic12 said:
Yeah, Nolan brothers decided to put here friendship between Borden and Angier, because they wanted to look their relationship to look more dramaticly after the death of Angier's wife, though you can read script review, which was very very positive.
I am worried now about The Prestige box office numbers.
After The Illusionist, I started having doubt The Prestige will get to even $60m
Besides there is so serious competior like Saw III.
And I am also worried about it's critical success, because movies like MV and Hollywoodland doesn't have it.
If The Prestige has critical and box office success, then it will be nominated as the best motion picture, and I hope it will be so.
After The Illusionist, I started having doubt The Prestige will get to even $60m
Besides there is so serious competior like Saw III.And I am also worried about it's critical success, because movies like MV and Hollywoodland doesn't have it.
If The Prestige has critical and box office success, then it will be nominated as the best motion picture, and I hope it will be so.
CrimsonMist
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i just finished read The Prestige and was really impressed. No doubts in my mind that this is gonna be a damn good movie.
But i have a few questions regarding the story, so SPOILERS ahead:
any help would be appreciated. Other than those minor discomforts, i enjoyed the book very much. Very well written, very interesting, because even when nothing was really happening, the whole magical appeal remained throughout, which i enjoyed. This should, along with being a very twisty film, also be a very amazing visual film as well.
But i have a few questions regarding the story, so SPOILERS ahead:
1. Does it take place in the distant future? I mean that in terms of when the book was writtenm 1995. Going by the tags Andrew finds in the cavern, the dates read 14/4/01...or April 14, 2001
2. Andrew is the rematerialized version of Nicky Borden correct? Obviously, the "ghostly" Angier still exists at the end of the novel. But what of Alfred Bordern? Was he simply one man who died of a heart attack? or was he twins, with one still out there, uncarring for what happened? or, like Angier, a real man associating with the prestige of himself like Angier, still existing to this very day as well?
any help would be appreciated. Other than those minor discomforts, i enjoyed the book very much. Very well written, very interesting, because even when nothing was really happening, the whole magical appeal remained throughout, which i enjoyed. This should, along with being a very twisty film, also be a very amazing visual film as well.
^^^
Ok, I'll answer on your questions.
Ok, I'll answer on your questions.
1. It can be so.
2. Well, nobody knows this, because it the main case of book - to keep everything important in secret. But as for me, I think Borden didn't have twin, it was just the rumour. He died like every normal man.
2. Well, nobody knows this, because it the main case of book - to keep everything important in secret. But as for me, I think Borden didn't have twin, it was just the rumour. He died like every normal man.
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http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=16328
The Third Act: The Prestige
Source: Melissa Greenwood
September 5, 2006
If you've been searching for a period film with a contemporary edge, look no further. Chris Nolan's latest pet project, The Prestige, promises to be not only entertaining and fresh, but also, amply visually stimulating (enter modern day beauty, Scarlett Johansson). Recently, ComingSoon.net was among the very first group to preview a clip of the movie. We were fortunate enough to literally watch Nolan work his magic on his film about magic, standing by as he added the finishing touches on what will doubtless be another one of his directorial masterpieces.
Now in its final phases of post production, the film, about two rival magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale), is all but complete and the work is about fine tuning, which Nolan quite enjoys. His current objective is merely to "improve it, making it the best it can be... polishing what [has been] done." I observed Nolan as he meticulously rewound and re-watched one scene, refining the most minute auditory details until they were flawless even to his discerning ear. It should come as no surprise that this process (sound mixing), which is all about attention to detail, is "one of the most fun parts of film making" for this detail-savvy director. He was in his element, confidently instructing the tech staff to implement subtle changes. At one point, Nolan even got out of his cushy director's chair, opting instead to sit in the front of the theatre to experience the film from a different angle, to see it from a detached perspective.
For those who have seen The Prestige and loved it, it is hard to believe that it almost didn't get made. "We started pitching the film four or five years ago," said Nolan, but "the studios [kept saying] magic doesn't work on film." Eventually, Disney and Warner Brothers agreed to back Nolan's project, an adaptation of Christopher Priest's novel by the same name. Luckily, Priest was pleased with the screenplay. "I think we got the blessing from him early on," Nolan shared, "but I think he [also] understood that we had to take liberties" in order to make his story translate to the big screen. The finished product is what Nolan calls a "loose adaptation" of a "tremendously exciting book" with a tremendously exciting cast.
Two cast members in particular, Christian Bale and Michael Caine, are practically Chris Nolan staples (think Batman Begins and its highly anticipated sequel, The Dark Knight). Despite Nolan's obvious affection for these two actors, his decision to cast them was actually not premeditated. The script "was written before I ever knew [Caine]," Nolan assured reporters. It was a sheer case of serendipity that the character, Cutter, "fit him like a glove" and that it "feels like it was written [especially] for him." What about Bale? It turns out he lobbied to play the role of Alfred Borden. According to Nolan "it seemed exactly right" for Bale to play Borden, adding "it's kind of unthinkable now that anyone else would [have] play[ed] him."
After years invested in the project, it is only natural that Nolan would be proud of the film he's made. "It's certainly the kind of film that I enjoy," he modestly confessed to ComingSoon.net. "It's the kind of film that if you watch a second time, you'll find lots of things different about it, all kinds of layers," adding that it delicately plays with the "fine line between intriguing people and frustrating them." What about the film's audience? "I try not to be too specific," Nolan shared, telling us that his strategy is simple: "I make films that I think would be fun and interesting to watch and I just assume that there are other people like me out there." We think it's safe to say he assumes correctly, with box office coups like Memento and Batman Begins among his list of enviable credits.
The Prestige opens in theaters on October 20.
The Third Act: The Prestige
Source: Melissa Greenwood
September 5, 2006
If you've been searching for a period film with a contemporary edge, look no further. Chris Nolan's latest pet project, The Prestige, promises to be not only entertaining and fresh, but also, amply visually stimulating (enter modern day beauty, Scarlett Johansson). Recently, ComingSoon.net was among the very first group to preview a clip of the movie. We were fortunate enough to literally watch Nolan work his magic on his film about magic, standing by as he added the finishing touches on what will doubtless be another one of his directorial masterpieces. Now in its final phases of post production, the film, about two rival magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale), is all but complete and the work is about fine tuning, which Nolan quite enjoys. His current objective is merely to "improve it, making it the best it can be... polishing what [has been] done." I observed Nolan as he meticulously rewound and re-watched one scene, refining the most minute auditory details until they were flawless even to his discerning ear. It should come as no surprise that this process (sound mixing), which is all about attention to detail, is "one of the most fun parts of film making" for this detail-savvy director. He was in his element, confidently instructing the tech staff to implement subtle changes. At one point, Nolan even got out of his cushy director's chair, opting instead to sit in the front of the theatre to experience the film from a different angle, to see it from a detached perspective.
For those who have seen The Prestige and loved it, it is hard to believe that it almost didn't get made. "We started pitching the film four or five years ago," said Nolan, but "the studios [kept saying] magic doesn't work on film." Eventually, Disney and Warner Brothers agreed to back Nolan's project, an adaptation of Christopher Priest's novel by the same name. Luckily, Priest was pleased with the screenplay. "I think we got the blessing from him early on," Nolan shared, "but I think he [also] understood that we had to take liberties" in order to make his story translate to the big screen. The finished product is what Nolan calls a "loose adaptation" of a "tremendously exciting book" with a tremendously exciting cast. Two cast members in particular, Christian Bale and Michael Caine, are practically Chris Nolan staples (think Batman Begins and its highly anticipated sequel, The Dark Knight). Despite Nolan's obvious affection for these two actors, his decision to cast them was actually not premeditated. The script "was written before I ever knew [Caine]," Nolan assured reporters. It was a sheer case of serendipity that the character, Cutter, "fit him like a glove" and that it "feels like it was written [especially] for him." What about Bale? It turns out he lobbied to play the role of Alfred Borden. According to Nolan "it seemed exactly right" for Bale to play Borden, adding "it's kind of unthinkable now that anyone else would [have] play[ed] him."
After years invested in the project, it is only natural that Nolan would be proud of the film he's made. "It's certainly the kind of film that I enjoy," he modestly confessed to ComingSoon.net. "It's the kind of film that if you watch a second time, you'll find lots of things different about it, all kinds of layers," adding that it delicately plays with the "fine line between intriguing people and frustrating them." What about the film's audience? "I try not to be too specific," Nolan shared, telling us that his strategy is simple: "I make films that I think would be fun and interesting to watch and I just assume that there are other people like me out there." We think it's safe to say he assumes correctly, with box office coups like Memento and Batman Begins among his list of enviable credits.
The Prestige opens in theaters on October 20.
Editing Sit Down With Nolan On The Prestige!
Date: September 5, 2006
By: Ronnie Adams
Source: Touchstone Pictures
With respect to movie making, I'm a fan of post-production, so I appreciate editing, color correcting and sound design more than other stuff. Nothing wrong with production but the bedlam of production just isn’t my thing. I know underneath all that chaos, it's a symphony of mayhem and that there is at least one person who knows what the hell everyone is supposed to be doing. Since that persons not me, I tend to feel drawn toward post, which is why I was more than happy to volunteer to visit with Chris Nolan and his producers as they finalize the sound mix for the upcoming thriller, The Prestige.
With less than a month and a half before the movies release date of October 20, the print itself has been finalized, so now it's all down to finishing up the sound design.
As me and a few other journalists made our way into Studio 1 at the Todd-AO sound studio, we're told that even though the print has been finalized, we'll be watching a video projection of the print. Which means, the quality of the video projection won't be great so not to panic upon first viewing. We are assured that the film looks great, but today's focus is strictly the sound.
I enter Studio one and I'm immediately blown away by the technology and then by the sound. The room is tall and long. On one end of the room, the video projection of two inter cut scenes is being shown. The mixing console in the middle of the room is massive. It looked like three 64 channel sound mixers were laid side by side with two technicians manning the controls. On each side of the console were three workstations lined up against the wall, with separate engineers monitoring controls as well. Behind the main mixing console were three large, comfortable upholstered chairs side by side with rheostat controlled lamps between them. In the center chair was Chris Nolan, with an unobstructed view of the screen and probably the most optimal acoustic placement in this perfectly designed sound studio.
Through the speakers, we hear Michael Caine telling us about the three parts to a magic trick, just like in the trailer. The dialogue is narration and under it, we see Michael Caine's character Cutter in a large workshop filled with caged yellow canaries, performing a magic trick for a little girl, who I assume is the young Scarlett Johansson character Olivia at around age 8. As he's performing this trick, we cut back and forth to a packed theatre. On stage is Hugh Jackman's character, Rupert Angier. He's about to perform a magic trick that involves an electrical field. Cutter starts up with the Part 1 of the magic trick, The Pledge. Angier calls for an audience member to come on stage and inspect his contraption and he picks a disguised Christian Bale character, Alfred Borden, who's wearing a fake beard and mustache. We then see Jackman's character move on with the act as Borden makes his way backstage passed an angry stage hand, who Borden yells at, telling him he's part of the act. But is he? As Borden makes his way backstage, he removes his disguise and proceeds underneath the stage to inspect the under workings. On stage, Angier is now fully engulfed in an electrical field. Borden continues to snoop around downstairs, where he finds a glass chamber filled with water. On stage, the momentum of the acts builds as the electrical field gets larger until an arc blinds the audience and Angier falls through a trap door into the same water chamber Borden is inspecting, which is directly below the trap door. As he falls in, the lid slams shut and locks. Cutter's narration continues on to Part 2. Borden realizes something is wrong because Angier can't escape the chamber, he's trapped and is going to drown. Cut back to Cutter, the narration moves on to Part 3 and Cutter finishes the magic trick for the young girl.
An amazing juxtaposition of the innocent and dangerous. Very telling of the journey that we'll see the characters take in The Prestige.
Despite the video projection, the pictures look superb. This is a period piece set in England during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The costumes and scenes look amazing and the mood of the film is telling. Jackman, Caine and Bale are spot-on with their acting and dialogue. I am hoping that Scarlett Johansson can equal their talents. Or, that she doesn't try to hard with over exuberant accent, like the vampire accent Angelina Jolie pulled in Alexander. I can't remember how she handled her accent in the period piece, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was set in 17th century Holland, but I don't remember it being all that bad.
The playback is cut short; Nolan isn't liking a certain sound. Everyone involved discusses it and the sound is ultimately pulled, which I find amazing because with all the whizzes and bangs going on, I never heard the sound in question, even after having it played back dozens of times. So much for my career in sound engineering.
After the sound is removed, Nolan and his producers are appeased enough to screen the footage again in context. Which means, we're about to see the first 10 minutes of the movie.
The lights are dimmed and up come the credits, Warner Bros. and Touchstone share the bill. We see not only the footage described above, but more. Immediately after the water chamber accident, we cut to Cutter testifying in an English courtroom against a shackled Borden, who's on trial for the murder of Angier. Cutter explains what he believes happened that night under the stage but he won't describe the specifics of the act for fear he'll be giving away his trade secrets. While this is going on, Borden sees the same little girl Cutter did the magic for earlier, and he waves to her. She's quickly ushered out of sight.
Cut to the prison Borden is being held in. We hear a guard explain that Borden is being kept separate from the other inmates because his talent for escaping shackles has put him under constant watch of the guards. A visitor has come to see Borden. The visitor explains that he is Solicitor Owens, and he was sent to buy all his magic tricks and technology. Borden explains that he can have them all but one particular trick. Owens isn't happy about this, he wants that particular trick above them all, and he's willing to black mail Borden to get it. Borden isn't sure what to make of the threats, so Owens hands him his card and a book. The book is the diary of Angier. The diary is the story of Angier's trip to Colorado Springs, where he went in search of a magic trick.
Cut to Angier riding on a train through the snowy mountains of Colorado. He's come all this way to visit Nikola Tesla, a magician scientist who performed a magic trick that impressed Angier so much; he ventured all this way to buy it from him.
Angier disembarks the train to a waiting horse drawn carriage and is taken into the town of Colorado Springs, which we see through a beautiful snowy shot over a low mountain range. When Angier sees the town, he marvels that the whole town is wired for electricity.
Jackman arrives to a celebrity reception at his hotel. When he checks in, he tells the deskman that he's staying indefinitely. You can hear it in his voice; he's staying until he gets that magic trick from Tesla. He arranges for a carriage to take him to see Tesla.
Cut again to the same horse drawn carriage now making its way through a forest filled with ambient fog. Again, beautiful but this time, there is a sense of danger in the fog. Angier disembarks, making his way on foot through the forest, which, off in the distance, he can hear low, repeating, metallic sounding thud. He approaches a tall metal and wire fence. He reaches out to open the door and is thrown back to the ground! The fence is electrified! Through the fog, a man with a shotgun approaches, scolding Angier for not reading the sign and accusing him of being a nosey reporter. Angier gets up, the man behind the fence recognizes him. He opens the door with a thick rubber glove, but doesn't let him in just yet. Angier tells him that he saw Tesla perform a magic trick in New York and that he wants to buy it. The man tells him it's not for sale and that he can't see Tesla while closing the large metal door. Angier, not fully discouraged, he tells the man behind the fence the name of the hotel he's staying at, and that he's not leaving until he sees Tesla.
End clip.
The vibe is amazing as well as the story. The subject matter is absorbing. The first ten minutes brought me deep into the film, so deep that I completely foregot we were only supposed to see 10 minutes of footage. I wanted to see more, which was the general consensus of the other journalists as well. Great story telling and cinematography. The turn of the century vibe is fantastic and helped along with the costumes, sets and an overall cyan/purplish hue to the picture.
We all were excited now, moving into an adjoining studio to sit down with director, Chris Nolan.
Can you talk about the challenges of doing a period piece versus what you've done before?
Nolan: Well, I think that a lot of the challenges are the same just in terms of trying to create the world of the film, it's own world and harness it with the period. Sometimes it can almost be easier because it's such a specific thing, and that's the trap of it. For me the challenge is to keep it true of the film so that the film feels relatively contemporary depending on how you approach it so that it doesn't fall into the rut of period filmmaking where everything is a bit formulized now. It can be stiff in structure. So we try to do it a little looser.
How many different locations did you use during this film?
Nolan: Really, we only went to Colorado for a few things, some of the shots. Everything else we did in relatively ordinary locations like houses and bars and lobbies of buildings and things like that. So we didn't build set. It was part of what we were trying to do in terms of certain part of the film, we didn't even light the scenes, but just used light coming through, that sort of thing. We tried to shoot in real places and just dressed them as we needed them to be. There's an artificiality that creeps in when you build a set and so we were trying to restrict ourselves and have everything have that feel of being a bit more spontaneous and contemporary.
How was it adapting this book and how close did you stay to the essence of the book?
Nolan: Well, I think that it's a pretty loose adaptation, really since we stopped writing the script I haven't gone back to it. My opinion of the book is that it was a tremendously exciting book with many, many ideas, many more than you can get into a screenplay and so the challenge was to try and distill the essence of what we felt were the most interesting elements of the book that [Christopher] Priest sort of put in there. It's a very long book and there's a lot going on so we had to throw away a lot of different ideas, a lot of different possibilities from the book in order to make it work as a film. So in that sense it's a pretty free adaptation, pretty loose, but I like to think that it captures the essence of what the book was about.
What elements did you keep?
Nolan: Too many to say really. Really, all the main elements of the film come from the book. It's probably easier to talk about what we haven't kept which are things like there is no present day framing device as there is in the book, but as I said it's been such a long time since I read the book that I'm probably not the best to judge how close it is to the book. I think that he liked the screenplay if that's any indication [Laughs]. I think that we got the blessing from him early on, but I think that he understood that we had to take liberties to make it work as a film because there are a lot of things that it does – without giving too much away story wise, but a lot of the things that he does in terms of misdirecting the reader or withholding information from the reader we can't do in the film. We have to find the cinematic equivalent.
How easy is it in a film like this to fool a viewer with things that you're not putting up there, that you might have to wait to see to figure out the twist?
Nolan: Well, it's harder than you think it's going to be and the reason is that people watch so many movies and are so sensitized to the grammar of films and the language of films that any deviation from the norm, any slight alteration in the balance of how you do things is immediately noticed by an audience and sets off alarms and has them looking at things in a particular way. So it's been actually a pretty fascinating process of trying to figure out the right emphasis in the story and at what point we want people to understand more than the character and at which points in the story we want the audiences to be behind the character. So there is a sort of fine line between intriguing people and frustrating people. This film quite specifically deals with that narrative issue quite a lot.
Magic always deals with slight of hand. Did you find it challenging at all, given the fact that you can set up any shot and do anything with anything, to preserve the magic of magic in making the film?
Nolan: Well, that was the whole challenge. That's the reason why when we first sort of went around to the studios pitching the film four or five years ago that they all said, 'Well, magic doesn't work on film. You can't do it.' We said, 'Well, no one has really ever tried.' The thing that we had figured out that we wanted to do in this film that I think solves that problem to an extent is that we don't attempt to present magic tricks or stage tricks in the film as being in anyway impressive. We're not expecting a cinema audience to react how a live audience would to a live magic trick. What we were actually doing is that we're exploring the world of magicians and actually showing how some of those things are done to intrigue the audience and then we're using the construction of the narrative itself to reproduce the effects of a magic trick or several magic tricks. That's why in the film in the beginning you see that it sort of outlines the grammatical, structural idea of how a trick works and we apply that to how the film tells a story. So there really isn't any point where you're trying to show something like a magic trick or stage trick and have the audience be impressed by that. We weren't trying to reproduce that sort of feeling or experience on film. It's much more about creating a cinematic world that makes the audience feel that they're engaged in the same process, being fooled, being misdirected and impressed.
Date: September 5, 2006
By: Ronnie Adams
Source: Touchstone Pictures
With respect to movie making, I'm a fan of post-production, so I appreciate editing, color correcting and sound design more than other stuff. Nothing wrong with production but the bedlam of production just isn’t my thing. I know underneath all that chaos, it's a symphony of mayhem and that there is at least one person who knows what the hell everyone is supposed to be doing. Since that persons not me, I tend to feel drawn toward post, which is why I was more than happy to volunteer to visit with Chris Nolan and his producers as they finalize the sound mix for the upcoming thriller, The Prestige.
With less than a month and a half before the movies release date of October 20, the print itself has been finalized, so now it's all down to finishing up the sound design.
As me and a few other journalists made our way into Studio 1 at the Todd-AO sound studio, we're told that even though the print has been finalized, we'll be watching a video projection of the print. Which means, the quality of the video projection won't be great so not to panic upon first viewing. We are assured that the film looks great, but today's focus is strictly the sound.
I enter Studio one and I'm immediately blown away by the technology and then by the sound. The room is tall and long. On one end of the room, the video projection of two inter cut scenes is being shown. The mixing console in the middle of the room is massive. It looked like three 64 channel sound mixers were laid side by side with two technicians manning the controls. On each side of the console were three workstations lined up against the wall, with separate engineers monitoring controls as well. Behind the main mixing console were three large, comfortable upholstered chairs side by side with rheostat controlled lamps between them. In the center chair was Chris Nolan, with an unobstructed view of the screen and probably the most optimal acoustic placement in this perfectly designed sound studio.
Through the speakers, we hear Michael Caine telling us about the three parts to a magic trick, just like in the trailer. The dialogue is narration and under it, we see Michael Caine's character Cutter in a large workshop filled with caged yellow canaries, performing a magic trick for a little girl, who I assume is the young Scarlett Johansson character Olivia at around age 8. As he's performing this trick, we cut back and forth to a packed theatre. On stage is Hugh Jackman's character, Rupert Angier. He's about to perform a magic trick that involves an electrical field. Cutter starts up with the Part 1 of the magic trick, The Pledge. Angier calls for an audience member to come on stage and inspect his contraption and he picks a disguised Christian Bale character, Alfred Borden, who's wearing a fake beard and mustache. We then see Jackman's character move on with the act as Borden makes his way backstage passed an angry stage hand, who Borden yells at, telling him he's part of the act. But is he? As Borden makes his way backstage, he removes his disguise and proceeds underneath the stage to inspect the under workings. On stage, Angier is now fully engulfed in an electrical field. Borden continues to snoop around downstairs, where he finds a glass chamber filled with water. On stage, the momentum of the acts builds as the electrical field gets larger until an arc blinds the audience and Angier falls through a trap door into the same water chamber Borden is inspecting, which is directly below the trap door. As he falls in, the lid slams shut and locks. Cutter's narration continues on to Part 2. Borden realizes something is wrong because Angier can't escape the chamber, he's trapped and is going to drown. Cut back to Cutter, the narration moves on to Part 3 and Cutter finishes the magic trick for the young girl.
An amazing juxtaposition of the innocent and dangerous. Very telling of the journey that we'll see the characters take in The Prestige.
Despite the video projection, the pictures look superb. This is a period piece set in England during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The costumes and scenes look amazing and the mood of the film is telling. Jackman, Caine and Bale are spot-on with their acting and dialogue. I am hoping that Scarlett Johansson can equal their talents. Or, that she doesn't try to hard with over exuberant accent, like the vampire accent Angelina Jolie pulled in Alexander. I can't remember how she handled her accent in the period piece, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was set in 17th century Holland, but I don't remember it being all that bad.
The playback is cut short; Nolan isn't liking a certain sound. Everyone involved discusses it and the sound is ultimately pulled, which I find amazing because with all the whizzes and bangs going on, I never heard the sound in question, even after having it played back dozens of times. So much for my career in sound engineering.
After the sound is removed, Nolan and his producers are appeased enough to screen the footage again in context. Which means, we're about to see the first 10 minutes of the movie.
The lights are dimmed and up come the credits, Warner Bros. and Touchstone share the bill. We see not only the footage described above, but more. Immediately after the water chamber accident, we cut to Cutter testifying in an English courtroom against a shackled Borden, who's on trial for the murder of Angier. Cutter explains what he believes happened that night under the stage but he won't describe the specifics of the act for fear he'll be giving away his trade secrets. While this is going on, Borden sees the same little girl Cutter did the magic for earlier, and he waves to her. She's quickly ushered out of sight.
Cut to the prison Borden is being held in. We hear a guard explain that Borden is being kept separate from the other inmates because his talent for escaping shackles has put him under constant watch of the guards. A visitor has come to see Borden. The visitor explains that he is Solicitor Owens, and he was sent to buy all his magic tricks and technology. Borden explains that he can have them all but one particular trick. Owens isn't happy about this, he wants that particular trick above them all, and he's willing to black mail Borden to get it. Borden isn't sure what to make of the threats, so Owens hands him his card and a book. The book is the diary of Angier. The diary is the story of Angier's trip to Colorado Springs, where he went in search of a magic trick.
Cut to Angier riding on a train through the snowy mountains of Colorado. He's come all this way to visit Nikola Tesla, a magician scientist who performed a magic trick that impressed Angier so much; he ventured all this way to buy it from him.
Angier disembarks the train to a waiting horse drawn carriage and is taken into the town of Colorado Springs, which we see through a beautiful snowy shot over a low mountain range. When Angier sees the town, he marvels that the whole town is wired for electricity.
Jackman arrives to a celebrity reception at his hotel. When he checks in, he tells the deskman that he's staying indefinitely. You can hear it in his voice; he's staying until he gets that magic trick from Tesla. He arranges for a carriage to take him to see Tesla.
Cut again to the same horse drawn carriage now making its way through a forest filled with ambient fog. Again, beautiful but this time, there is a sense of danger in the fog. Angier disembarks, making his way on foot through the forest, which, off in the distance, he can hear low, repeating, metallic sounding thud. He approaches a tall metal and wire fence. He reaches out to open the door and is thrown back to the ground! The fence is electrified! Through the fog, a man with a shotgun approaches, scolding Angier for not reading the sign and accusing him of being a nosey reporter. Angier gets up, the man behind the fence recognizes him. He opens the door with a thick rubber glove, but doesn't let him in just yet. Angier tells him that he saw Tesla perform a magic trick in New York and that he wants to buy it. The man tells him it's not for sale and that he can't see Tesla while closing the large metal door. Angier, not fully discouraged, he tells the man behind the fence the name of the hotel he's staying at, and that he's not leaving until he sees Tesla.
End clip.
The vibe is amazing as well as the story. The subject matter is absorbing. The first ten minutes brought me deep into the film, so deep that I completely foregot we were only supposed to see 10 minutes of footage. I wanted to see more, which was the general consensus of the other journalists as well. Great story telling and cinematography. The turn of the century vibe is fantastic and helped along with the costumes, sets and an overall cyan/purplish hue to the picture.
We all were excited now, moving into an adjoining studio to sit down with director, Chris Nolan.
Can you talk about the challenges of doing a period piece versus what you've done before?
Nolan: Well, I think that a lot of the challenges are the same just in terms of trying to create the world of the film, it's own world and harness it with the period. Sometimes it can almost be easier because it's such a specific thing, and that's the trap of it. For me the challenge is to keep it true of the film so that the film feels relatively contemporary depending on how you approach it so that it doesn't fall into the rut of period filmmaking where everything is a bit formulized now. It can be stiff in structure. So we try to do it a little looser.
How many different locations did you use during this film?
Nolan: Really, we only went to Colorado for a few things, some of the shots. Everything else we did in relatively ordinary locations like houses and bars and lobbies of buildings and things like that. So we didn't build set. It was part of what we were trying to do in terms of certain part of the film, we didn't even light the scenes, but just used light coming through, that sort of thing. We tried to shoot in real places and just dressed them as we needed them to be. There's an artificiality that creeps in when you build a set and so we were trying to restrict ourselves and have everything have that feel of being a bit more spontaneous and contemporary.
How was it adapting this book and how close did you stay to the essence of the book?
Nolan: Well, I think that it's a pretty loose adaptation, really since we stopped writing the script I haven't gone back to it. My opinion of the book is that it was a tremendously exciting book with many, many ideas, many more than you can get into a screenplay and so the challenge was to try and distill the essence of what we felt were the most interesting elements of the book that [Christopher] Priest sort of put in there. It's a very long book and there's a lot going on so we had to throw away a lot of different ideas, a lot of different possibilities from the book in order to make it work as a film. So in that sense it's a pretty free adaptation, pretty loose, but I like to think that it captures the essence of what the book was about.
What elements did you keep?
Nolan: Too many to say really. Really, all the main elements of the film come from the book. It's probably easier to talk about what we haven't kept which are things like there is no present day framing device as there is in the book, but as I said it's been such a long time since I read the book that I'm probably not the best to judge how close it is to the book. I think that he liked the screenplay if that's any indication [Laughs]. I think that we got the blessing from him early on, but I think that he understood that we had to take liberties to make it work as a film because there are a lot of things that it does – without giving too much away story wise, but a lot of the things that he does in terms of misdirecting the reader or withholding information from the reader we can't do in the film. We have to find the cinematic equivalent.
How easy is it in a film like this to fool a viewer with things that you're not putting up there, that you might have to wait to see to figure out the twist?
Nolan: Well, it's harder than you think it's going to be and the reason is that people watch so many movies and are so sensitized to the grammar of films and the language of films that any deviation from the norm, any slight alteration in the balance of how you do things is immediately noticed by an audience and sets off alarms and has them looking at things in a particular way. So it's been actually a pretty fascinating process of trying to figure out the right emphasis in the story and at what point we want people to understand more than the character and at which points in the story we want the audiences to be behind the character. So there is a sort of fine line between intriguing people and frustrating people. This film quite specifically deals with that narrative issue quite a lot.
Magic always deals with slight of hand. Did you find it challenging at all, given the fact that you can set up any shot and do anything with anything, to preserve the magic of magic in making the film?
Nolan: Well, that was the whole challenge. That's the reason why when we first sort of went around to the studios pitching the film four or five years ago that they all said, 'Well, magic doesn't work on film. You can't do it.' We said, 'Well, no one has really ever tried.' The thing that we had figured out that we wanted to do in this film that I think solves that problem to an extent is that we don't attempt to present magic tricks or stage tricks in the film as being in anyway impressive. We're not expecting a cinema audience to react how a live audience would to a live magic trick. What we were actually doing is that we're exploring the world of magicians and actually showing how some of those things are done to intrigue the audience and then we're using the construction of the narrative itself to reproduce the effects of a magic trick or several magic tricks. That's why in the film in the beginning you see that it sort of outlines the grammatical, structural idea of how a trick works and we apply that to how the film tells a story. So there really isn't any point where you're trying to show something like a magic trick or stage trick and have the audience be impressed by that. We weren't trying to reproduce that sort of feeling or experience on film. It's much more about creating a cinematic world that makes the audience feel that they're engaged in the same process, being fooled, being misdirected and impressed.
How early on was Christian Bale attached to this? Was it before 'Batman Begins' or after, and the same thing with Michael Caine?
Nolan: Christian and Michael were both quite late in the day. We were originally going to go make this film before we did 'Batman' with a different cast and we were very close to making it and then realized that we weren't going to have time to do it justice and get 'Batman Begins' finished in time. So we put it off and Christian sort of actually I'm not even quite sure how he got the script, but in the intervening years the script had sort of made the rounds, and he asked if we were interested in him for playing Alfred Borden. He seems exactly right and it's kind of unthinkable to have anyone else do it and certainly Michael Caine's character feels like it was written for him, but the funny thing is that it really wasn't. It was written an actor that we knew were going to cast, but it just fit him like a glove.
And what about Hugh Jackman?
Nolan: Hugh came onboard I believe before Christian actually, and I hadn't worked with Hugh before and I heard that he was interested in the script. I met with him and he just seemed to embody this balance that we needed between having a sense of integrity with a classic leading man with this great sort of authentic stage showmanship. The character has to have that, and Hugh's character, Rupert Angier, has a wonderful understanding about the interaction between the performer and a live audience. Hugh actually has that, but he also has I believe great depths as an actor that hadn't really been explored and people haven't really had a chance to see what he can do as an actor. So this was a character that would let him to do that.
Did anyone have to learn any specific tricks to make them look good on camera?
Nolan: Yeah. What we did is that we sort of had them learn all of the small stuff, the little throw away stuff. Not so much in their stage persona's, but sort of off the stage to just be doing small things with making something disappear unconsciously. Not trying to impress anyone, but just things that would be naturally so practiced and we had the moments, little moments with both of the characters throughout the film where they just move an object in a particular way and manipulate something almost unconsciously. They worked with Ricky, who's a magic consultant and his partner, and they got very good at doing that because even though we didn't require them to be able to perform bigger tricks the thing about magicians is that they have incredible dexterity and they're so sort of practiced at things. For these guys to be incredible they really needed to learn that stuff.
Did you learn anything?
Nolan: Me? No. I think that Ricky's company is called Need To Know Productions and literally, they're actually very, very good about really only showing the performer who's actually doing something what is going on.
How hard is it for you then if something is going to look right if you dont know how it works?
Nolan: Because we would sit there and have these conversations about which side the camera was going to be on because if you have a vanishing performance there's one that works in the back of the hand and there's one that works from the front. So we try and be specific with them and they would be there on the set and we would figure out which version it was going to be.
Do you fear any backlash from magic people that you're going to be showing too much behind the curtain?
Nolan: I don't think so, no. I mean, you never know how people are going to react, but I think that the film, the grammar of the film, the narrative is so in love with magic and the ideas of magic and the performance of that. It's really something that hasn't been addressed before in a proper film. So I have a feeling that magicians will enjoy seeing all of it's flaws with that kind of perfection. Also, I think that there's probably a certain amount of question that's going to take place in whether what we reveal is true anyway or not, and frankly some of it is made up and some of it is not. There are a lot of kind of wheels within wheels in terms of how we approached showing people how things are done. So this isn't one of these sort of Masked Magician things. It's not like that. I mean, we're not showing a trick that everyone knows and saying that this is how it's done. We're presenting the world of magic as we would like to be and the technology behind it as we would like it to be historically and exactly accurate. So that in itself makes this more of a fiction than an actual examination. So I hope that magicians will be okay with it.
How important do you think the relationship between the two magicians is in the film, and the reality that you created there in terms of their rivalry?
Nolan: I think that it's very important because in an era before television and radio, just at the very beginning of cinema magicians were very much larger figures than they are now. They were really sort of the rock stars and filmmakers of their day. Magic still exists today to a large extent and always will be in the live arena, but it was much, much bigger then in terms of the culture and the popular consciousness and their imaginations. For that reason the stakes of the of the story become much higher than in contemporary times. In terms of fame or fortune, there were professional rivalries between magicians and the stakes were very high in that ear and it was also a time of massive technological change and the story really deals with the birth of the scientific era in terms of the industrial revolution, post industrial revolution, the birth of electricity and so forth. Nikola Tesla who's a character in the film is the father of alternating currents. So it was a pretty extraordinary era actually in terms of intellectual adventures and scientific experimentation. So all of these things are what I believe drew me to the novel and what makes it really the ideal time to be addressing this issue in magic versus science.
Are you concerned at all with 'The Illusionist' coming out around sort of the same time that there might not be room for two films about magic?
Nolan: Well, I mean, only concerned in that you hope that people don't confuse the two in the marketing of it or whatever, but I don't from what I can gather I don't think that the two films are very similar at all. I hope not. From what I can gather this is a completely different thing and I'd like to think that movie goers aren't as sort of quick to pigeonhole films. But yeah, you worry about any kind of confusion or anything that will stop people from realizing that your film is opening.
Are you a fan of magic? Do you ever go watch David Blaine or David Copperfield?
Nolan: I'm sort of a casual fan. I think that pretty much anyone that you ever talk to when you really get down to it finds magic to be entertaining and is interested in it to a degree. It's no different for me. I certainly did go to see David Copperfield's show in Las Vegas. I think that magicians are pretty fascinating bunch of guys, but I'm not a fan in the way a lot of serious fans are. People are very passionate about it.
What was the rehearsal process like on this film and how specific did you have to be in order to get things to look the way you got them to?
Nolan: Well, we tried to keep the whole way that we photographed the film with the sort of production methodology, we tried to keep that as sort of loose and spontaneous as possible. So we would try and light scenes and shot three sixty and all of that which frees the actors up so that we don't have to rehearse exactly where they're going to be and all of that. We tried to sort of keep it loose which is an unusual approach particularly for this kind of material. But I felt that was going to be the best way to really break through that kind of stiffness that can emerge in every aspect of period filmmaking. I really wanted it to have the sort of more relaxed quality and a kind of looser quality like a contemporary film.
How hard or easy it was getting people like Scarlett Johansson in the film and even David Bowie?
Nolan: Well, it was that sort of thing of once you got great performers like Hugh and Michael and Christian signed up, it becomes a more interesting prospect and could get someone like Scarlett [Johansson] to take a look at it. I met with her and she just loved the character and I was very keen for her to do it. So that worked out well and David Bowie was really the only guy that I ever had in mind to play Tesla because his function in the story is small, but a very important role in the film. He really has to present an extraordinary and charismatic and noticeable presence in the film. I wanted someone though who wasn't a movie star per say, someone who was charismatic and had that sort of star quality, but in a slightly different way that, to me, Bowie was perfect for.
How did you convince him to do it?
Nolan: Really by telling him just that. I sort of flew out to New York to meet him and told him that I had to convince him to do this because I just didn't want anyone else or have anyone else in mind that could do it the way that I see in the film and luckily he seemed to respond to that.
Did he respond the same day?
Nolan: Yeah. He was pretty clear.
Was there ever a point where someone questioned the casting in that it's two former superheroes and a superhero's sidekick assistant?
Nolan: No. I mean, both Hugh and Christian have done other work as well, a lot of other work and so they're both fortunately viewed as great actors in their own right which is how it should be. They have sort of escaped that curse of people who have played superheroes. It's only when you sort of put the two of them together that that arises in a way and probably only also because I'm directing it and I directed 'Batman Begins.' But no, I didn't run into that.
Was there ever any talk of getting Bowie to do some music for the film?
Nolan: No. I never addressed that with him even though I am a fan and I have David Bowie song in 'Memento' and everything, but it felt like it would be inappropriate because he's acting in it as another character in the film. To me that would be a slightly distracting thing. So yeah, that conversation never really occurred.
How much of magic is a trick and how much is it the audience wanting to believe?
Nolan: Well, one of the things that film deals with is that when you start examining the idea of magic and what it really is it's, and it's a little more complicated even than that too because as magicians you don't really ask the audience to believe that you have magical powers. It really isn't about that belief. It's almost more about the disbelief, knowing that it's a trick. There is a line that Hugh Jackman's character has in the film where he says to another character, 'Consider sawing a woman in half. If the audience thought that was real while they were watching it they wouldn't clap. They would scream.' And that's something that Penn and Teller for example have riffed on for years in terms of that sort of odd relationship between what the magician is doing and what the audience is supposed to think of it. They're not really supposed to think that it's real. They know that there is a trick there and that's what interests them in watching, that's what makes it entertainment rather than sorcery or science which is the other contrast that we sort of outline in the film. It is it's own special form of entertainment, and I think that it relates very strong to cinema and films in the things that you see in a film, you know that they're not real the entire time that you're watching the film, but it is that tension between the knowledge that they're not real with a suspension of disbelief. That's what creates the entertainment of it. I think that magic is very similar in that. If the magician is really saying to you, 'I have special powers ' if they're doing that they really tend to be more in the realm of the psychic, for example, and that sort of thing. In the film, we look at like Tesla who was a scientist and performing things that people think are incredible when they see it, but they are real and presented as real and therefore are not magical. It's an odd issue.
So you think that it's an understood relationship between audience and performer?
Nolan: Yes, and it's knowing that you've been fooled that is a part of that. I think that is where films and magic are very similar. There is a common misconception about how magic works that you really only start to question when you get into a project like this, but what you immediately think of is that a magician sort of stands there and pretends to have special powers and do something magical, but it's actually much more subtle and it's more complicated than that. The audience is involved in the trick. They know that it's a trick in the same way that when you watch a movie you know that it's not real. So it's very much the same dynamic. When you make a film all of your efforts, or if you're making a drama or a thriller or something pretty much all of your efforts are trying to convince the audience of the reality of what they're seeing, but the bigger picture is that we all know it's fiction. We all know that these are cinematic tricks being played on us and that's what makes it entertaining as opposed to completely horrifying or depressing. That, I think, is what magic has too. It rests on similar principles.
How have you changed as a filmmaker on your last three films?
Nolan: I really don't know to be honest. It's kind of in a way not for me to say. I just work on things that interest me and I don't know really how those things change, but I do know that as I've made more and more films I've realized that the emotional component of the films have become more important to me because of the length of time that you invest in these characters and telling stories that span years at a time. I find that it's the emotional component of a character and what they're going through to be what keeps me interested in them through all of that time rather than any of the more technical aspects. But I don't really know to be honest.
Are you more excited by adaptations or original screenplays at this point, and do you have any immediate plans to do more original work?
Nolan: Well, they're all sort of one and the same to me. An idea can come from anywhere. It can be an adaptation. It can be an original idea. Again, I don't really distinguish. I do have original ideas that I work on and I have adaptations that I want to work on and things have a way of just sort of working out in what presents itself as being what you're going to do.
Nolan: Christian and Michael were both quite late in the day. We were originally going to go make this film before we did 'Batman' with a different cast and we were very close to making it and then realized that we weren't going to have time to do it justice and get 'Batman Begins' finished in time. So we put it off and Christian sort of actually I'm not even quite sure how he got the script, but in the intervening years the script had sort of made the rounds, and he asked if we were interested in him for playing Alfred Borden. He seems exactly right and it's kind of unthinkable to have anyone else do it and certainly Michael Caine's character feels like it was written for him, but the funny thing is that it really wasn't. It was written an actor that we knew were going to cast, but it just fit him like a glove.
And what about Hugh Jackman?
Nolan: Hugh came onboard I believe before Christian actually, and I hadn't worked with Hugh before and I heard that he was interested in the script. I met with him and he just seemed to embody this balance that we needed between having a sense of integrity with a classic leading man with this great sort of authentic stage showmanship. The character has to have that, and Hugh's character, Rupert Angier, has a wonderful understanding about the interaction between the performer and a live audience. Hugh actually has that, but he also has I believe great depths as an actor that hadn't really been explored and people haven't really had a chance to see what he can do as an actor. So this was a character that would let him to do that.
Did anyone have to learn any specific tricks to make them look good on camera?
Nolan: Yeah. What we did is that we sort of had them learn all of the small stuff, the little throw away stuff. Not so much in their stage persona's, but sort of off the stage to just be doing small things with making something disappear unconsciously. Not trying to impress anyone, but just things that would be naturally so practiced and we had the moments, little moments with both of the characters throughout the film where they just move an object in a particular way and manipulate something almost unconsciously. They worked with Ricky, who's a magic consultant and his partner, and they got very good at doing that because even though we didn't require them to be able to perform bigger tricks the thing about magicians is that they have incredible dexterity and they're so sort of practiced at things. For these guys to be incredible they really needed to learn that stuff.
Did you learn anything?
Nolan: Me? No. I think that Ricky's company is called Need To Know Productions and literally, they're actually very, very good about really only showing the performer who's actually doing something what is going on.
How hard is it for you then if something is going to look right if you dont know how it works?
Nolan: Because we would sit there and have these conversations about which side the camera was going to be on because if you have a vanishing performance there's one that works in the back of the hand and there's one that works from the front. So we try and be specific with them and they would be there on the set and we would figure out which version it was going to be.
Do you fear any backlash from magic people that you're going to be showing too much behind the curtain?
Nolan: I don't think so, no. I mean, you never know how people are going to react, but I think that the film, the grammar of the film, the narrative is so in love with magic and the ideas of magic and the performance of that. It's really something that hasn't been addressed before in a proper film. So I have a feeling that magicians will enjoy seeing all of it's flaws with that kind of perfection. Also, I think that there's probably a certain amount of question that's going to take place in whether what we reveal is true anyway or not, and frankly some of it is made up and some of it is not. There are a lot of kind of wheels within wheels in terms of how we approached showing people how things are done. So this isn't one of these sort of Masked Magician things. It's not like that. I mean, we're not showing a trick that everyone knows and saying that this is how it's done. We're presenting the world of magic as we would like to be and the technology behind it as we would like it to be historically and exactly accurate. So that in itself makes this more of a fiction than an actual examination. So I hope that magicians will be okay with it.
How important do you think the relationship between the two magicians is in the film, and the reality that you created there in terms of their rivalry?
Nolan: I think that it's very important because in an era before television and radio, just at the very beginning of cinema magicians were very much larger figures than they are now. They were really sort of the rock stars and filmmakers of their day. Magic still exists today to a large extent and always will be in the live arena, but it was much, much bigger then in terms of the culture and the popular consciousness and their imaginations. For that reason the stakes of the of the story become much higher than in contemporary times. In terms of fame or fortune, there were professional rivalries between magicians and the stakes were very high in that ear and it was also a time of massive technological change and the story really deals with the birth of the scientific era in terms of the industrial revolution, post industrial revolution, the birth of electricity and so forth. Nikola Tesla who's a character in the film is the father of alternating currents. So it was a pretty extraordinary era actually in terms of intellectual adventures and scientific experimentation. So all of these things are what I believe drew me to the novel and what makes it really the ideal time to be addressing this issue in magic versus science.
Are you concerned at all with 'The Illusionist' coming out around sort of the same time that there might not be room for two films about magic?
Nolan: Well, I mean, only concerned in that you hope that people don't confuse the two in the marketing of it or whatever, but I don't from what I can gather I don't think that the two films are very similar at all. I hope not. From what I can gather this is a completely different thing and I'd like to think that movie goers aren't as sort of quick to pigeonhole films. But yeah, you worry about any kind of confusion or anything that will stop people from realizing that your film is opening.
Are you a fan of magic? Do you ever go watch David Blaine or David Copperfield?
Nolan: I'm sort of a casual fan. I think that pretty much anyone that you ever talk to when you really get down to it finds magic to be entertaining and is interested in it to a degree. It's no different for me. I certainly did go to see David Copperfield's show in Las Vegas. I think that magicians are pretty fascinating bunch of guys, but I'm not a fan in the way a lot of serious fans are. People are very passionate about it.
What was the rehearsal process like on this film and how specific did you have to be in order to get things to look the way you got them to?
Nolan: Well, we tried to keep the whole way that we photographed the film with the sort of production methodology, we tried to keep that as sort of loose and spontaneous as possible. So we would try and light scenes and shot three sixty and all of that which frees the actors up so that we don't have to rehearse exactly where they're going to be and all of that. We tried to sort of keep it loose which is an unusual approach particularly for this kind of material. But I felt that was going to be the best way to really break through that kind of stiffness that can emerge in every aspect of period filmmaking. I really wanted it to have the sort of more relaxed quality and a kind of looser quality like a contemporary film.
How hard or easy it was getting people like Scarlett Johansson in the film and even David Bowie?
Nolan: Well, it was that sort of thing of once you got great performers like Hugh and Michael and Christian signed up, it becomes a more interesting prospect and could get someone like Scarlett [Johansson] to take a look at it. I met with her and she just loved the character and I was very keen for her to do it. So that worked out well and David Bowie was really the only guy that I ever had in mind to play Tesla because his function in the story is small, but a very important role in the film. He really has to present an extraordinary and charismatic and noticeable presence in the film. I wanted someone though who wasn't a movie star per say, someone who was charismatic and had that sort of star quality, but in a slightly different way that, to me, Bowie was perfect for.
How did you convince him to do it?
Nolan: Really by telling him just that. I sort of flew out to New York to meet him and told him that I had to convince him to do this because I just didn't want anyone else or have anyone else in mind that could do it the way that I see in the film and luckily he seemed to respond to that.
Did he respond the same day?
Nolan: Yeah. He was pretty clear.
Was there ever a point where someone questioned the casting in that it's two former superheroes and a superhero's sidekick assistant?
Nolan: No. I mean, both Hugh and Christian have done other work as well, a lot of other work and so they're both fortunately viewed as great actors in their own right which is how it should be. They have sort of escaped that curse of people who have played superheroes. It's only when you sort of put the two of them together that that arises in a way and probably only also because I'm directing it and I directed 'Batman Begins.' But no, I didn't run into that.
Was there ever any talk of getting Bowie to do some music for the film?
Nolan: No. I never addressed that with him even though I am a fan and I have David Bowie song in 'Memento' and everything, but it felt like it would be inappropriate because he's acting in it as another character in the film. To me that would be a slightly distracting thing. So yeah, that conversation never really occurred.
How much of magic is a trick and how much is it the audience wanting to believe?
Nolan: Well, one of the things that film deals with is that when you start examining the idea of magic and what it really is it's, and it's a little more complicated even than that too because as magicians you don't really ask the audience to believe that you have magical powers. It really isn't about that belief. It's almost more about the disbelief, knowing that it's a trick. There is a line that Hugh Jackman's character has in the film where he says to another character, 'Consider sawing a woman in half. If the audience thought that was real while they were watching it they wouldn't clap. They would scream.' And that's something that Penn and Teller for example have riffed on for years in terms of that sort of odd relationship between what the magician is doing and what the audience is supposed to think of it. They're not really supposed to think that it's real. They know that there is a trick there and that's what interests them in watching, that's what makes it entertainment rather than sorcery or science which is the other contrast that we sort of outline in the film. It is it's own special form of entertainment, and I think that it relates very strong to cinema and films in the things that you see in a film, you know that they're not real the entire time that you're watching the film, but it is that tension between the knowledge that they're not real with a suspension of disbelief. That's what creates the entertainment of it. I think that magic is very similar in that. If the magician is really saying to you, 'I have special powers ' if they're doing that they really tend to be more in the realm of the psychic, for example, and that sort of thing. In the film, we look at like Tesla who was a scientist and performing things that people think are incredible when they see it, but they are real and presented as real and therefore are not magical. It's an odd issue.
So you think that it's an understood relationship between audience and performer?
Nolan: Yes, and it's knowing that you've been fooled that is a part of that. I think that is where films and magic are very similar. There is a common misconception about how magic works that you really only start to question when you get into a project like this, but what you immediately think of is that a magician sort of stands there and pretends to have special powers and do something magical, but it's actually much more subtle and it's more complicated than that. The audience is involved in the trick. They know that it's a trick in the same way that when you watch a movie you know that it's not real. So it's very much the same dynamic. When you make a film all of your efforts, or if you're making a drama or a thriller or something pretty much all of your efforts are trying to convince the audience of the reality of what they're seeing, but the bigger picture is that we all know it's fiction. We all know that these are cinematic tricks being played on us and that's what makes it entertaining as opposed to completely horrifying or depressing. That, I think, is what magic has too. It rests on similar principles.
How have you changed as a filmmaker on your last three films?
Nolan: I really don't know to be honest. It's kind of in a way not for me to say. I just work on things that interest me and I don't know really how those things change, but I do know that as I've made more and more films I've realized that the emotional component of the films have become more important to me because of the length of time that you invest in these characters and telling stories that span years at a time. I find that it's the emotional component of a character and what they're going through to be what keeps me interested in them through all of that time rather than any of the more technical aspects. But I don't really know to be honest.
Are you more excited by adaptations or original screenplays at this point, and do you have any immediate plans to do more original work?
Nolan: Well, they're all sort of one and the same to me. An idea can come from anywhere. It can be an adaptation. It can be an original idea. Again, I don't really distinguish. I do have original ideas that I work on and I have adaptations that I want to work on and things have a way of just sort of working out in what presents itself as being what you're going to do.
What was your favorite part of the production process on this film?
Nolan: I don't know. There's been a lot of fun to be had really making this film. It's been a good process. I think that actually the process that we're doing now which is sound mixing is generally one of the most fun parts of filmmaking for me because basically you've made the film at this point. What we're doing now is simply trying to improve it and make it the most that it can be. So it's a quite enjoyable process in terms of just polishing things up. That's always the fun part. I don't know really. I enjoy all the different aspects which is why I like being the writer/director. I like being on the film from beginning to end.
You spend so much time on a film being a writer/director. Do you ever find it hard to let the film go and put it out there into the world?
Nolan: A little bit, but at the same time you know, you really know when you've hit that point of just sort of fiddling with it and you're not improving it. And at that point you know that you're done with it which is difficult, but you always recognize it and you always know what happens. So at that point I think that you're finished with it, but really a film isn't finished until an audience sees it and you see it with an audience who paid to see it and everything and you get through that whole process of getting it out there. You don't make films just to watch yourself. It's not so hard I guess. At that point you have to move past it.
Do you like watching your films with an audience?
Nolan: Yeah, with an audience it can be fun, with an audience who's wanted to see it and who've paid to see it. The whole way through we're watching the film with people to say, 'Okay, what's wrong with this? Does this work, does that not work?' It's a very sterile quality that those screenings have and it's always the most fun to just go see the film with a bunch of people who have paid to see it and have wanted to be entertained and have come to see it.
This film has to do with a couple of battling magicians. In your research did you ever come across a similar struggle?
Nolan: Not that I would comment on. No [Laughs]. But magicians, certainly in my research, talking to magicians and everything it's very clear that is a quality of obsession. There is an obsessive quality that the best magicians have to have because there is so much dedication to the secrecy and discipline of this art. So I would say that a lot of magicians are quite obsessive types.
What about the special FX that you had to do in post, can you talk about those?
Nolan: There aren't too many visual FX in the film. All those sort of electrical FX that you see, we decided to do those as visual FX because we looked into the practicalities of having a real person do them and it's pretty dangerous actually. So it's not something that you should actually be doing, and it's also something that they're very good at with visual FX. So that's mostly what there is. Everything else in the film is generally done through editing actually because we wanted to aggressively to make the point that we're not attempting to portray these tricks and so we felt very free into them in a way that the audience is kind of aware of, that there is a cut there. Therefore it's movie trickery as opposed to stage trickery. That's something that the film plays with and so we didn't actually have a lot of visual FX. We weren't actually trying to hide things. We're actually trying to show the audience where the cuts are and show them therefore how the movie tricks you.
Doing a film like this, are you now still interested in watching magic or not at all since you now sort of know how everything works?
Nolan: Well, what's interesting and what we've talked about is that once you know more about how tricks are constructed and how the methods work you'll go and see magicians and you will be able to figure out a certain amount of what they do. But what that means is that when they do something that you can't figure out it's even more impressive because you're even more baffled. So there is a real joy to being fooled in that way when you think that you know how things are done and then you're fooled again. It's actually more fun.
Commercially I think that 'Batman Begins' really put your name out there and now everyone knows who Chris Nolan is. Has that changed your career and brought more offers to you in terms of directing films, big action films, and how do you now go about approaching what you're going to do and what you're not going to do?
Nolan: To be honest I haven't really been, to be frank with you I haven't been really looking for a job in a long time. It takes so long to make these films and we've been self-generating material and so I really haven't noticed any difference particularly, and this was a project that we've been working on for over six years now and we're moving on to a sequel to 'Batman Begins' right after this. So my dance card is kind of fully. So I haven't really even been looking at a lot of projects. So I don't know is the simple answer.
What are you trying to suggest to audiences with the trailer that you put out, that it's more of a supernatural movie? What's the thinking behind that?
Nolan: Well, what it really is, and I think that the trailer does a pretty good job of explaining this or suggesting at the explanation and the beginning of the film does very much the same thing which is the film has elements of that I suppose could be termed supernatural, but it's more about the relationship between new science and magic. It's about when scientific discoveries were happening and the film takes place right after the birth of electricity, for example, and so there are a lot of new and exciting things going on in the world of science at this time that would be seen as supernatural which aren't now seen as supernatural. I mean, I think that you could almost more term that element as science-fiction than supernatural which is to say that new scientific discoveries are seen as supernatural and then over time that shifts and these things become banal to us. That's something that I think the trailer does a pretty good job of and plays fair with the audience in terms of suggesting that supernatural and science fiction element to the film.
Did you have a favorite scene to shoot?
Nolan: I think that actually some of the more backstage scenes in the film. Dramatically speaking they're very simple, but they involved four or five characters working sort of side by side and we shot them with no marks for the actors. It was a lot of fun to shoot because you never knew what was going to happen and you got to sort of reinvent it each take and that was a lot of fun to work on.
Do you find that it's been easier to make films since having a successful film under your belt?
Nolan: That wasn't really the case here because the project was already sort of up and running, if you like, before we did 'Batman.' So that was something of an exception, but I know that's tricky because succeeding with a film I was talking to one director once who said it quite well because he was sort of saying that you think it will be easier for you to make your films, but in a way it makes it easier for you to make their films so that the opportunity is there for you to do more of what you did for them successfully before etc, etc, but in terms in of something being successful before it gets easier in that you have more access to people to try and convince perhaps. But I'm not sure that it ever really gets much easier on some projects. I think that it was very fortunate in that we already had this project established with the studios and it was something that they had already agreed to do.
So Disney and Warner Brothers were attached to this movie before?
Nolan: Yeah. I think that it was three years ago, about three years ago. Yeah.
How many days did you actually shoot on this?
Nolan: Fifty seven.
What kind of audience are you going after with this film?
Nolan: I really don't know to be honest with you. I'm hoping that the film has a lot of sort of it's got interesting narrative hooks to me and it's got interesting structural devices, and in a weird and sort of interesting way it's a film about filmmaking. It's a film about the way that we watch films and that sort of stuff. So I think that there is a lot of fun to be had with that and it's certainly the kind of film that I enjoy watching and it's the kind of film that if you watch it a second time you can find all kinds of things that are different about it, all kinds of layers and all sorts of things that we've worked into the material. But in terms of who the audience is going to be, I don't know. I try not to be too specific in thinking about that. I make films that I think will be fun to watch and interesting to watch and I just assume that there are other people like me out there who are interested in similar things.
What's the rating on this?
Nolan: It's PG-13. I was hoping for an R. To be honest I think that because there is no bad language and sex it's a very I mean, I think that there is a certain edginess to it and a certain vibe and all the rest of that, but not enough to warrant an R. I should've put more swear words in it [Laughs].
Nolan: I don't know. There's been a lot of fun to be had really making this film. It's been a good process. I think that actually the process that we're doing now which is sound mixing is generally one of the most fun parts of filmmaking for me because basically you've made the film at this point. What we're doing now is simply trying to improve it and make it the most that it can be. So it's a quite enjoyable process in terms of just polishing things up. That's always the fun part. I don't know really. I enjoy all the different aspects which is why I like being the writer/director. I like being on the film from beginning to end.
You spend so much time on a film being a writer/director. Do you ever find it hard to let the film go and put it out there into the world?
Nolan: A little bit, but at the same time you know, you really know when you've hit that point of just sort of fiddling with it and you're not improving it. And at that point you know that you're done with it which is difficult, but you always recognize it and you always know what happens. So at that point I think that you're finished with it, but really a film isn't finished until an audience sees it and you see it with an audience who paid to see it and everything and you get through that whole process of getting it out there. You don't make films just to watch yourself. It's not so hard I guess. At that point you have to move past it.
Do you like watching your films with an audience?
Nolan: Yeah, with an audience it can be fun, with an audience who's wanted to see it and who've paid to see it. The whole way through we're watching the film with people to say, 'Okay, what's wrong with this? Does this work, does that not work?' It's a very sterile quality that those screenings have and it's always the most fun to just go see the film with a bunch of people who have paid to see it and have wanted to be entertained and have come to see it.
This film has to do with a couple of battling magicians. In your research did you ever come across a similar struggle?
Nolan: Not that I would comment on. No [Laughs]. But magicians, certainly in my research, talking to magicians and everything it's very clear that is a quality of obsession. There is an obsessive quality that the best magicians have to have because there is so much dedication to the secrecy and discipline of this art. So I would say that a lot of magicians are quite obsessive types.
What about the special FX that you had to do in post, can you talk about those?
Nolan: There aren't too many visual FX in the film. All those sort of electrical FX that you see, we decided to do those as visual FX because we looked into the practicalities of having a real person do them and it's pretty dangerous actually. So it's not something that you should actually be doing, and it's also something that they're very good at with visual FX. So that's mostly what there is. Everything else in the film is generally done through editing actually because we wanted to aggressively to make the point that we're not attempting to portray these tricks and so we felt very free into them in a way that the audience is kind of aware of, that there is a cut there. Therefore it's movie trickery as opposed to stage trickery. That's something that the film plays with and so we didn't actually have a lot of visual FX. We weren't actually trying to hide things. We're actually trying to show the audience where the cuts are and show them therefore how the movie tricks you.
Doing a film like this, are you now still interested in watching magic or not at all since you now sort of know how everything works?
Nolan: Well, what's interesting and what we've talked about is that once you know more about how tricks are constructed and how the methods work you'll go and see magicians and you will be able to figure out a certain amount of what they do. But what that means is that when they do something that you can't figure out it's even more impressive because you're even more baffled. So there is a real joy to being fooled in that way when you think that you know how things are done and then you're fooled again. It's actually more fun.
Commercially I think that 'Batman Begins' really put your name out there and now everyone knows who Chris Nolan is. Has that changed your career and brought more offers to you in terms of directing films, big action films, and how do you now go about approaching what you're going to do and what you're not going to do?
Nolan: To be honest I haven't really been, to be frank with you I haven't been really looking for a job in a long time. It takes so long to make these films and we've been self-generating material and so I really haven't noticed any difference particularly, and this was a project that we've been working on for over six years now and we're moving on to a sequel to 'Batman Begins' right after this. So my dance card is kind of fully. So I haven't really even been looking at a lot of projects. So I don't know is the simple answer.
What are you trying to suggest to audiences with the trailer that you put out, that it's more of a supernatural movie? What's the thinking behind that?
Nolan: Well, what it really is, and I think that the trailer does a pretty good job of explaining this or suggesting at the explanation and the beginning of the film does very much the same thing which is the film has elements of that I suppose could be termed supernatural, but it's more about the relationship between new science and magic. It's about when scientific discoveries were happening and the film takes place right after the birth of electricity, for example, and so there are a lot of new and exciting things going on in the world of science at this time that would be seen as supernatural which aren't now seen as supernatural. I mean, I think that you could almost more term that element as science-fiction than supernatural which is to say that new scientific discoveries are seen as supernatural and then over time that shifts and these things become banal to us. That's something that I think the trailer does a pretty good job of and plays fair with the audience in terms of suggesting that supernatural and science fiction element to the film.
Did you have a favorite scene to shoot?
Nolan: I think that actually some of the more backstage scenes in the film. Dramatically speaking they're very simple, but they involved four or five characters working sort of side by side and we shot them with no marks for the actors. It was a lot of fun to shoot because you never knew what was going to happen and you got to sort of reinvent it each take and that was a lot of fun to work on.
Do you find that it's been easier to make films since having a successful film under your belt?
Nolan: That wasn't really the case here because the project was already sort of up and running, if you like, before we did 'Batman.' So that was something of an exception, but I know that's tricky because succeeding with a film I was talking to one director once who said it quite well because he was sort of saying that you think it will be easier for you to make your films, but in a way it makes it easier for you to make their films so that the opportunity is there for you to do more of what you did for them successfully before etc, etc, but in terms in of something being successful before it gets easier in that you have more access to people to try and convince perhaps. But I'm not sure that it ever really gets much easier on some projects. I think that it was very fortunate in that we already had this project established with the studios and it was something that they had already agreed to do.
So Disney and Warner Brothers were attached to this movie before?
Nolan: Yeah. I think that it was three years ago, about three years ago. Yeah.
How many days did you actually shoot on this?
Nolan: Fifty seven.
What kind of audience are you going after with this film?
Nolan: I really don't know to be honest with you. I'm hoping that the film has a lot of sort of it's got interesting narrative hooks to me and it's got interesting structural devices, and in a weird and sort of interesting way it's a film about filmmaking. It's a film about the way that we watch films and that sort of stuff. So I think that there is a lot of fun to be had with that and it's certainly the kind of film that I enjoy watching and it's the kind of film that if you watch it a second time you can find all kinds of things that are different about it, all kinds of layers and all sorts of things that we've worked into the material. But in terms of who the audience is going to be, I don't know. I try not to be too specific in thinking about that. I make films that I think will be fun to watch and interesting to watch and I just assume that there are other people like me out there who are interested in similar things.
What's the rating on this?
Nolan: It's PG-13. I was hoping for an R. To be honest I think that because there is no bad language and sex it's a very I mean, I think that there is a certain edginess to it and a certain vibe and all the rest of that, but not enough to warrant an R. I should've put more swear words in it [Laughs].
Having watched it with an audience did you get any laughs where you didn't expect?
Nolan: There will always be surprises and you hope that it's not laughter where you didn't want it, but it's fun where you didn't expect it because a lot of what I put into my films I think is quietly funny according to my sense of humor even in films that seem very serious and very dry. It's fun when you watch a film with an audience and they actually respond to that and to things that you personally found funny, but we're never sure that other people would necessarily.
Are you a film goer in general? Do you enjoy going to watch movies?
Nolan: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I like films. There is a sense in which making films yourself and working on them certainly while you're in the process of making a film it's quite hard to watch other people's films because you tend to be focusing on the technical issues that you're dealing with at the time, but certainly with films I have the same sense of fascination with it and sense of anticipation and expectation as a regular audience.
Were you surprised at all with the commercial success of 'Batman Begins' because the last time I talked to you it was prior to the movie being released? Looking at it now, are you surprised or was that the reaction that you were expecting to get?
Nolan: I was very surprised for the simple reason. I felt always that we really put our heart into making a great film, and I felt that on our own terms we had succeeded, but I never really expected to satisfy critics and fans, 'Batman' fans and regular audiences equally. I thought that maybe we would get two points of the triangle, if you like, but the fact that all three groups really responded well to the film was a big surprise for me. It felt like you were going to lose one aspect of that somewhere along the way, but I don't know. We were very fortunate in that regard.
Because that formula worked so well is that something that you're looking to do for the 'Dark Knight' film?
Nolan: I think that what people responded to the most about 'Batman Begins' was how different it was from their expectations and so I think that we would be foolish to not recognize that and do something very different in the sequel. I certainly wouldn't have any interest in doing the same picture that we formerly had made, and that being an origin story it's a very particular thing. It's very sort of singular in it's pursuit. My interest in the sequel is to sort of move on from there and do something sort of quite different.
And since you did the origin story it frees you up from doing the whole introduction again. Are you then going to have a lot more action in the sequel?
Nolan: Well, I mean, we certainly put a lot of action in 'Batman Begins' through the film even though it didn't involve Batman until about fifty minutes in or whatever. So certainly we'll feel free to put Batman's action earlier on, but if you look at the rhythms of action movies they're complicated. There is a limit actually to how much action a film will take. You have to have a particular ebb and flow to make the action work. So 'Batman Begins' was actually pretty stuff in terms of that, but it didn't all get to involve that character because Bruce Wayne wasn't quite Batman and the whole origin of that, and that we don't have to deal with again.
Any truth to the rumors of Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Ryan Phillippe
Nolan: .as the Penguin? (laughs) No.
What about Sean Penn turning down Harvey Dent?
Nolan: Sean Penn? No. No truth to that rumor. All interesting ideas though. [Laughs].
Nolan: There will always be surprises and you hope that it's not laughter where you didn't want it, but it's fun where you didn't expect it because a lot of what I put into my films I think is quietly funny according to my sense of humor even in films that seem very serious and very dry. It's fun when you watch a film with an audience and they actually respond to that and to things that you personally found funny, but we're never sure that other people would necessarily.
Are you a film goer in general? Do you enjoy going to watch movies?
Nolan: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I like films. There is a sense in which making films yourself and working on them certainly while you're in the process of making a film it's quite hard to watch other people's films because you tend to be focusing on the technical issues that you're dealing with at the time, but certainly with films I have the same sense of fascination with it and sense of anticipation and expectation as a regular audience.
Were you surprised at all with the commercial success of 'Batman Begins' because the last time I talked to you it was prior to the movie being released? Looking at it now, are you surprised or was that the reaction that you were expecting to get?
Nolan: I was very surprised for the simple reason. I felt always that we really put our heart into making a great film, and I felt that on our own terms we had succeeded, but I never really expected to satisfy critics and fans, 'Batman' fans and regular audiences equally. I thought that maybe we would get two points of the triangle, if you like, but the fact that all three groups really responded well to the film was a big surprise for me. It felt like you were going to lose one aspect of that somewhere along the way, but I don't know. We were very fortunate in that regard.
Because that formula worked so well is that something that you're looking to do for the 'Dark Knight' film?
Nolan: I think that what people responded to the most about 'Batman Begins' was how different it was from their expectations and so I think that we would be foolish to not recognize that and do something very different in the sequel. I certainly wouldn't have any interest in doing the same picture that we formerly had made, and that being an origin story it's a very particular thing. It's very sort of singular in it's pursuit. My interest in the sequel is to sort of move on from there and do something sort of quite different.
And since you did the origin story it frees you up from doing the whole introduction again. Are you then going to have a lot more action in the sequel?
Nolan: Well, I mean, we certainly put a lot of action in 'Batman Begins' through the film even though it didn't involve Batman until about fifty minutes in or whatever. So certainly we'll feel free to put Batman's action earlier on, but if you look at the rhythms of action movies they're complicated. There is a limit actually to how much action a film will take. You have to have a particular ebb and flow to make the action work. So 'Batman Begins' was actually pretty stuff in terms of that, but it didn't all get to involve that character because Bruce Wayne wasn't quite Batman and the whole origin of that, and that we don't have to deal with again.
Any truth to the rumors of Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Ryan Phillippe
Nolan: .as the Penguin? (laughs) No.
What about Sean Penn turning down Harvey Dent?
Nolan: Sean Penn? No. No truth to that rumor. All interesting ideas though. [Laughs].
Carmine Falcone
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adding that it delicately plays with the "fine line between intriguing people and frustrating them."
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