Mallory Rubin (2:25)

Long because he was a couple minutes.

Joanna Robinson (2:28)

Over too much fun. He was having the best time of his life. It's the best interview that I heard. It's the best interview he's ever had in his entire life. And you can hear it yourself on House of Our next week for Peacemaker mid season check in. Mallory will be talking to our pal Benjamin Lindbergh a bit about Peacemaker and then you will get the Full James Gunn interview about that show. So that is something that is coming up on this feed next week. Anything else on the program reminders front that we should talk about?

Mallory Rubin (2:54)

Mallory, I can't wait to reunite with you and Rob for for Alien for the final two episodes. Missed you guys this week. I had a terrible migraine. I apologize for missing the pod, though. I did enjoy all of the bad babies who were like, is this because of the Ravens? Yeah, it wasn't, but I felt seen and known by.

Joanna Robinson (3:13)

I'm glad. I'm glad they know you so well. I am.

Mallory Rubin (3:16)

Yes. And I apologize if I am squinting into the camera even more than usual today. My migraine has lingered on.

Joanna Robinson (3:25)

Yeah, but she's here anyway. We tried to give her an out.

Mallory Rubin (3:27)

She's like, yeah, here I am.

Joanna Robinson (3:28)

This is her dedication to her art. It's a full time commitment, Mallory.

Mallory Rubin (3:33)

So there's definitely nothing in this film about the peril.

Joanna Robinson (3:38)

Exactly.

Mallory Rubin (3:39)

Of being overly committed to the achievement no matter what? No, I just miss you terribly. This is as simple as that.

Joanna Robinson (3:47)

Beloved Mallory continues to watch Buffy Vampire Slayer. So that's something we will check in again on the future. But I know that she has met Spike, so. Of Buffy Vampire Slayer Season two. And that is, I have the most important thing that's ever happened to me in my lifetime. Okay, spoiler warning, as we mentioned for the Prestige. Yes, there's a lot that happens with the Prestige. There's a lot of twists and turns. If you have made it this far in your life without knowing the twists and turns of the Prestige, please go watch it. Don't let us spoil it for you on a podcast, for the love of God. Okay, and then also, though we have not planned out our entire sort of fall programming schedule, there is entirely a possibility that we will continue into crisp Nolan Fall. It's something that is intriguing to both of us. So, you know, if the other content continues to sort of leave us with some spaces in our schedule, then perhaps what would be your preferred next Nolan movie for us to do?

Mallory Rubin (4:47)

Ooh, you know, I want to do all of them, ultimately, before the Odyssey. And I think we have time, and I think that would be a joy. But despite the fact that I think both of us feel fairly muted on this particular film, I do think there's a case that Tenet should be next because it is. It has an anniversary this year. It's five years. I always like to hit an anniversary. And then we could save Memento for the top of next year when we get an anniversary for that Granted. Did we say today we should save the Prestige for next year when it turns 20? No, we said, fuck it. We're doing it in the next year.

Joanna Robinson (5:18)

We're doing it now. We're doing it now.

Mallory Rubin (5:19)

We can do whatever the hell we want.

Joanna Robinson (5:22)

Sounds great. I love that for us.

Mallory Rubin (5:23)

All right, I will need to really test the merits of our home sound system if we do tenant at any point.

Joanna Robinson (5:31)

I'll be coming back to that a little later on in today's podcast.

Mallory Rubin (5:34)

Okay, exciting.

Joanna Robinson (5:35)

Let's go now to our opening snapshot.

Mallory Rubin (5:37)

Let's do it.

Joanna Robinson (5:43)

This film was directed by Christopher Nolan, screenplay by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, his brother. It took them six or seven, according to various interviews, years to write. And it was adapted from the Crispr Priest novel of the same name that came out in the mid-90s. And this film came out 2006. October 20, 2006. So is it an anniversary of October 20, 2006? No. Are we even in October? No. But here we are. It's the Prestige.

Mallory Rubin (6:13)

We're pretty close.

Joanna Robinson (6:14)

Worth remembering. This is something that was like this top of mind to me when I was thinking about where I was in 2006 when this came out. That in a sort of like Ants, A Bug's Life or like Volcano, Dante's Peak. All of these references are very stale and old. Dual movies coming out at the same time. Twist of fate. The Prestige came out just a few months after the Illusionist, which is another period piece about magicians with Edward Norton. I was watching a Jonathan Nolan interview this morning where he was talking about. Basically what happened is that they pitched the Prestige around town, and then Chris got pulled into making Batman, and so they had to press pause. And he said that Chris. He thought that Chris did such a good job convincing all these studios that a story about magicians would really play on the big screen, that that's how the Illusionist sort of came about. And it came out just a few months before Lost to Time. Nobody ever talks about the Illusionist, but it was never Norton Joint. And I do remember it pretty well from guess what?

Mallory Rubin (7:17)

Not Arjuna, Ramga, Powell's favorite movie.

Joanna Robinson (7:19)

No. And so.

Mallory Rubin (7:20)

So there you go.

Joanna Robinson (7:21)

Lost a history. Okay. The budget for this movie is $40 million. Worldwide box office, $109 million. It's quite muted compared, of course, to, like, the Batman movies that surround it and Nolan's later sort of original concept movies that he does.

Mallory Rubin (7:37)

Are you prepared to tell us exactly how much of that 40 million went to?

Joanna Robinson (7:41)

Wigs, beards, beards, goatees, Spectacles, sideburns, cheek padding.

Mallory Rubin (7:48)

Yeah. What's your guess? What percentage.

Joanna Robinson (7:50)

What percentage of the 40 million budget that is. That is a multimillion dollar wig budget, is what I would say.

Mallory Rubin (7:57)

Glue alone.

Joanna Robinson (7:58)

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's in the scope of. And we talked about this, and we talked about Inception in the scope of Chris Nolan's career. I think it's really. He did this movie between Batman movies that he took these breaks between Batman installments. So he didn't just become the Batman guy for such a huge chunk of his career. He's like, I'm also interested in doing this period piece about magicians. I'm also interested in doing this sci fi heist about dreams. You know, like, I am a guy with broad tastes, and so I can hit the bullseye of pop culture. And I can also hit the niche of a literary adaptation of a book about dueling magicians, which I love.

Mallory Rubin (8:39)

It's important to have that variance creatively, like for, I think I assume him as a creator for us as consumers, certainly for the industry at large. But also it's important to remember that there's a constant among the variants, and that is Michael Caine being in all of those movies.

Joanna Robinson (8:54)

Very true. What he said is what Chris Nolan has said is that when they wrote the screenplay, the character of Cutter, they did not have Michael Caine in mind. But I'm like, I feel like I.

Mallory Rubin (9:05)

Actually don't believe that.

Joanna Robinson (9:06)

I feel like you're lying to me.

Mallory Rubin (9:08)

I feel like there's no way that's true. There's just a way that's true. I think it's also like an underrated little bit of oddity that Bael's character's name is Alfred, and just one year after Michael Caine, of course, portrays Alfred Bael is Alfred. So there's just like, just all these little sprinkles that carry forward. Great.

Joanna Robinson (9:33)

There's a lot of similarities in terms of, like, the idea of dual identities. You've got someone like Angier who is a lord, who is masquerading as something, you know, like, there's. There's this sort of Bruce Wayne aspect to Angier. There's, of course, the dual life. Can you have a full life with this double identity idea with Borden? Like, all that sort of stuff that's in the Batman DNA is of course, in this story as well. I. I know that because Warner Brothers is like, hey, man, you got another one of those Batman movies. They made this movie sort of as quickly as possible and sort of as intimately as Possible. Wally Pfister, who's the DP on this movie, who worked with Nolan a ton, talked about how basically they did handheld camera for this movie because it's faster to just do handheld. So they were sort of sprinting through this movie, trying to make it as quickly as possible. They just dressed up la, you know, and sprinted through this movie. But he's like, it's exhausting holding that camera the whole time. But it gives the film this. It's almost like it's not an independent film, but it just gives it this really intimate quality that Christopher Nolan will never return to in any of the rest of his career thus far. I love the enormity of what Nolan has done with the rest of his career. We need these directors who can command massive budgets and think in larger scale and give us these immersive, huge experiences. But this is, you know, we're still running on the fumes of, you know, memento Nolan. Following Nolan like this is still him reaching back to his more independent roots. And so I like this as sort of like the last installment of that time.

Mallory Rubin (11:21)

Yeah. And what a fitting. What a fitting story to apply that filmmaking tactic to, like, even if it was born out of necessity, maybe, as opposed to, like, creative intent. It works so well because so of the story is about taking us inside of a certain perspective or putting us in the position of somebody who does not have that knowledge and does not inhabit that level of awareness and is trying to glean something from just a degree away. So I think, like, that the sensibility of the visual filmmaking in that sense really feels. And this is like a film that is going to unlock meta commentary after meta commentary as we talk about it today. And yeah, there's just, like, so, so much to that layering. And this is just one example of it. But, like, you know, obviously some of that is about what we understand about the. The trick or the illusion, the technique at any given point, what we can glimpse, can we see the trapdoor, can we see the sleight of hand? But also just like, can we understand something about a person, about their motivation, about what they do and why, about who they understand? Can we read what's on the page as they're trying to understand what's on the page, etc. So it feels. Yeah, it feels quite fitting, ultimately.

Joanna Robinson (12:32)

And are we being told the truth as we're reading what is on the page? And I think we'll talk a bit. We talked about legibility a lot when we talked about Inception, and we'll talk about That a little bit more as we go forward in terms of like, how to make something so complex legible.

Mallory Rubin (12:45)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (12:45)

You know, when we cover, inevitably cover Tenen or Dunkirk, we will talk about that again. And like, what is successful and what is not. But like, having handheld camera work throughout this film means that when we swing back and forth into recollection or, you know, jump forward in time, stuff like that, we are seamlessly because the handheld nature sort of can match. So we're just sort of like. We're not from like a wide setup into like a close intimate. We're just like constantly moving through time and point of view and perspective and all of that. And so I think it's just goes hand in hand. Nonetheless, despite the handheld nature, maybe probably because of it, this gets an Academy Award nomination for cinematography and for art direction, Mali Rubin. Let's go to our general discussion before. We have our usual sort of Nolan awards and categories to talk about, but we've got some general.

Mallory Rubin (13:39)

Yes.

Joanna Robinson (13:40)

Meta commentary, etc. To talk about. So general discussion wise. Mallory Rubin, where were you in 2006 and how. How did this film come to you at that time or later?

Mallory Rubin (13:50)

Yeah, I was midway through college in 2006 and I think, think I saw the Prestige for the first time in 2008. I can't recall exactly, but I believe I saw it. Like, I feel in my memory that I was living in New York City when I saw the movie, which would have been right after school. And I just love the movie so much. Right away. As we have discussed on our prior two pods, I love Christopher Nolan movies and this is, you know, one of my two or three favorites. It's certainly in my, my top three. And as I've mentioned, the prior couple pods that order can. Can sometimes, you know, vary a bit, but this is. It's never fallen lower than 3 for me, ever. And I just think it's fantastic. And it is like a. A movie that is so radically distinct on a rewatch than it is the first time around that I really enjoy having like both of those relationships to it. You know, there's the really unmatched experience of seeing it for the first time. If you have the privilege of going in knowing nothing about it and not having had any of the twists spoiled for you, which I had not, despite not seeing it during its initial theatrical run in 06. And it's just mesmerizing. It's awe inspiring. It is, as you already hinted at and alluded to even on first watch, digestible, legible. It's requiring a level of focus and attention from you, but it is not insisting that you track every single detail and fold the first time in order to find it, like, a satisfying experience. It is, of course, performing as a film, the three part magic trick that we learned so much about from Cutter and over the course of watching Angier and Borden act. We have the pledge, we have the turn, we have the prestige. And I just remember pretty vividly again, spoilers. We're getting into full spoilers from here. You've been warned. Please go watch the movie and then come back to the podcast. Like the first time that all of the twists started to domino and, and mount and build in real time. I remember in particular the cut to the twins, like, the finger, because you have that moment earlier in the movie where Sarah's like, how can it be, like, as bad as when you first got the wound? And I remember that, like, sticking in my mind, right? And you're. You're parsing and it's just like this kind of unbelievable experience. When you watch it subsequently, you can never have that experience with it again. Right. That's, like, just true. And again, on the meta front, we have, like, fun moments and lines in the movie that are, like, preparing you for that constantly. Once, you know, Sarah says it's actually very obvious. And, like, there's also a lot of stuff about whether, of course, want to be fooled, right? Want to be fooled or want to see. So, like, any time you see Fallon's face, even a fraction of it, a sliver of it, you can tell that's Christian Bale. Like, are you actively focused on trying to see that the first time around? Maybe, maybe not. But once, you know, you can't unsee it, it's impossible. So then it becomes almost like you are, like, in the headspace of one of the magicians, where you were trying to learn and understand how the trick was conceived and how it was crafted and how it was executed. And that is a very different but, like, also very rewarding and cool experience as a viewer. So it's a movie that I think is, like, always fun and interesting to return to. And it's just like, it's funny because I think whenever we talk about Nolan, you have a moment where it's like, you could make the case that this is the most Nolan movie. And, like, I think, you know, we did. Yeah, I think we did that a lot with Inception. And I think this is like, another one where you could do that. It's just so Nolan in every beat. Structurally, Thematically, in terms of its intention and the ideas. So, yeah, I just absolutely love this movie. And it's been one of the things I've been like, most looking forward to since you threw out the idea of Hot Nolan. Summer was talking about this together. Tell me about your journey of discovery with the film. When did you first fall in love with it? What has it meant to you since?

Joanna Robinson (18:03)

So I think the reason I would call this the most Nolan movie is because I would use Nolan as an umbrella term for the brothers and their collaboration, which is just like a part of the larger Christopher Nolan story is the Jonathan Nolan. Christopher Nolan collaboration elements. And we'll get into that. We'll parse to that a little bit more. But that has to do with my relationship with this movie, because in 2006, I was working at a bookstore in San Francisco, copies of Christopher Priest novel started flying off the shelves, and I was like, what is going on here? And that I. So I definitely saw the Prestige when so many people came in wanting to buy the book, excitedly talking about the movie and wanting to then go read the book and all that sort of stuff. So I was like, oh, what's all this? And I saw it, and I really loved it. But it was not until. And I've been talking about this a lot because there's a lot of thematic overlap with our coverage of Alien Earth. But when I started covering Westworld, which I would say next to Game of Thrones and then Lost is the show that I spent the most time studying, analyzing, thinking about. I went really deep on that for several seasons. And then it got hard to do that because, look. But that's the Jonathan Nolan joint. And in studying particularly that first season of Westworld, I went back and looked at the Jonathan Nolan films to just really sort of try to parse in order to try to figure out the mystery of season one of Westworld, I was like, okay, what are the clues that exist inside of Jonathan Nolan's other works? I stopped short of watching every season of Person of Interest. But that's okay.

Mallory Rubin (19:38)

Unlike Angier, you knew the limit.

Joanna Robinson (19:42)

I was the twin who said, enough is enough. We don't go back. Okay? And so looking at, particularly, I would say Memento, Prestige, and Interstellar, and looking at, you know, the emotional thematic resonance between those. I fell so deeply in love with Prestige. When I came back to it and really, really studied it, that's awesome. As, like, a blueprint for what is, what is interesting to a creative mind that I find so endlessly fascinating. I might be it's possible that I am slightly more of a Jonathan Nolan person than I am a Christopher Nolan person. Yeah, he's a tv. He's a TV guy. And you and I have talked about the idea of, like, long format, long form storytelling and how that's something that we really resonate with. And even though I haven't watched Person of Interest and I actually haven't even watched Fallout, so this sounds like a fake thing to say, but I have watched more Jonathan Nolan interviews, read more Jonathan Nolan interviews. Like, spent more time inside of his mind and his collaboration with his wife that I feel sort of like, closer than emotionally to his work, I think, to a certain degree. And there is an emotionality to his work that, you know, Christopher Nolan, when we talked about Inception, Christopher Nolan gets accused of being a little chilly, a little cold, a little sort of like, analytical in his story structure, but not so emotional. But when you think about Matthew McConaughey weeping in Interstellar, or when you think of, you know, Christian Bale talking to a little girl on the other side of some prison bars in this movie, or when you think about everything that happens in Memento, like, these are, you know, or the Dark Knight with Jonathan Nolan worked on, like, there is a beating heart at the center of their collaborations that is slightly absent from the other Nolan works. That, to me, takes what Nolan does so well to the next level and then just, like, imprints on me in a deeper way than, like, my delight and fascination with Inception is different from my emotional preoccupation and the chaos that this story, which asks you to, you know, and this is something that Jonathan Nolan is interested in as well, specifically, and Christopher Nolan too. There is no book, black and white, right or wrong, inside of this story. This story invites you to your point the first time you watch it. One of the magic tricks it pulls off, in addition to genuinely, I did not know that that was Christian Bale. I'm sure that there are some people who. Who did.

Mallory Rubin (22:22)

If you're. If you're going in and you're like, yeah, you're right. Because, like, it does the whole time that there's just like, well, it can't be a double.

Joanna Robinson (22:29)

It's a double. So, yeah, I'm sure there's like, at the beginning, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, Fallon, you're mysterious, you know, blah, blah, never speaks, blah, blah. So if someone's like, ooh, what's that about? And honestly, I'm being honest with you, and this sounds untrue, but if I were to watch this movie now in a vacuum. Yeah. Having spent this is not who I was in 2006, but having spent so many years studying story and films and stuff like that, I think my mind would have been like, why don't I recognize the actor playing Fallon? And would have tried to figure out who that actor was? And in doing so, with the little glimpses of side cheek that we get and under the hat that we get, I would've been like, wait a fucking second. I really do think that now I. I don't know that this would have worked on me, but in 2006, it absolutely did.

Mallory Rubin (23:17)

I was going to say something similar, actually. Like, I am trying to, like, remind myself that 19 years ago is not that long ago, ultimately. And as we recently talked about on the Buffy pod, like, from the late 90s, the early 2000s, both of us, through different stories, were falling into, like, message boards. There was plenty of, like, theory, theory, quarter stuff happening on the Internet already. But inside of the two hours of watching the film in real time, I do think right now, given the sheer volume of theory culture online, the, like, the brain is just in a different place watching this stuff. It's the volume of twin clues is so substantial that, like, yeah, I think probably there are plenty of people who. But my, my. It's funny because, like, my instinct is to say, like, call bullshit on anyone who's, like, I got it the first time. But I think you're right. There are probably plenty of people who, if they're like, intention and part of how they're perceiving it is I want to understand the trick. I don't want to be fooled. I want to track it from the word go. Borden, sitting in the office, sitting in the audience, looking for the trapdoor immediately.

Joanna Robinson (24:26)

Then.

Mallory Rubin (24:28)

It'S right there in front of your head. There it is right there and undeniable.

Joanna Robinson (24:32)

And then when it does work on you, and again, this sounds like. It sounds arrogant to say, but one of the reasons why I love this movie so much is that it did get me. And it is harder to get someone who watches as much television and film that I do. You can still get me, but it is harder, and it's definitely harder than it was for 2006. Six Joanna. And, like, so the. The joy of, you know, for me, it's the moment when we just get the first, like, full to camera, still in the prosthetics with full to camera. And I just remember, like, is forever blazing on my mind. Holy shit, that's Christian Bale. How did I not see it? And the delight in, like, how did I not see it is so good. And then there's. But then there's other revelations on top of that. So, like, even if you did spot that, did you figure out that it was just many, many tanks of dead Hugh Jackman's like, in a warehouse somewhere? Probably not.

Mallory Rubin (25:30)

So, like the blind stagehands Cutter's like, you know, you always had a knack for publicity. It's like, no, I need to make sure that my team can't see all of the corpses.

Joanna Robinson (25:39)

I want you front of house. You're front of house only.

Mallory Rubin (25:41)

I need you.

Joanna Robinson (25:41)

You're a great manager.

Mallory Rubin (25:42)

Front of house.

Joanna Robinson (25:43)

That's where I want you. So, like, there's plenty there, I think. Even if you. Even if you clock that it's also Christian Bale there. But then there's the pleasure of the rewatch, which is what you're talking about. The pleasure not only of the rewatch of, like, well, now I know. So then there becomes the extra layer of which Borden brother? You know, in the book Albert and Frederick, am I watching Al or am I watching Freddie? Like, which Borden brother am I watching? In any given scene, there are little, like, line cues, but there are also personality and performance cues that are really, really fun to parse in what Christian Bale is doing there. You know that the journals are written with the intention to, you know, deceive and befuddle the other. Then you have that layer that you're looking at. So you get to continually peel back the layers of the tricks that they're playing on each other, the tricks that the movie is playing on you, and something that Christopher Nolan has said in interviews about the rewatchability of the Prestige, because that's a question he's gotten a lot. Is he like. I think we made it with the hope that it would be rewatchable, and we made it in that sense. The reason why it's so satisfying is they are completely honest. It's a completely honest. Because I will say this for my beloved Jonathan Nolan in Westworld in later seasons. This is true of season one in Westworld. Completely honest. The clues were all there. You had all the information. It can become enticing. Then once you've had a taste of that, to try to further befuddle people, and then you start to get dishonest and in, like, you're hiding the ball too well in a way that, like, someone like, well, there's no way I could have figured that out. So it's not even satisfying that you fooled me because there I didn't even have a chance to figure it out right here. When you rewatch and you're like, they showed me Fallon so many times. How, how. That's just. Yeah, it's a. It's a joy for me to rewatch every time. And then I think there's just like rich thematic, there's emotional content that comes with, you know, Rebecca Hall's character, Sarah, which works really, really well. And then there's the like, obsession and jealousy and all of those. Those things that are interesting to us as well. So I just, I think it's a satisfying, emotional, fun film. And also David Bowie is here. So, like, what's up to love?

Mallory Rubin (28:06)

You know, this is a. I really love Bowie in this movie. I mean, not really a hot take.

Joanna Robinson (28:11)

But I mean, he's always a delight.

Mallory Rubin (28:14)

To get to spend time with, but he's just really great as Tesla. I love to that point of like, we have all the information we need. The red Rubber ball is not being hidden. It is being actively bounced from hand to hand and there for us to track. I love that. A number of the clues that we get, they of course work in terms of the mechanics of the trick and the twists and reveals of the plot, but they also work on a human level. Like one of the biggest recurring twin clues throughout is this, like, today you love me, today you don't aspect of the twins relationship with Sarah. And so you do have these lines right away, the first time that are telling you that. But to your point about the performance in those scenes, the nature of the interaction, it is so apparent which twin, right, is in love with that woman, which twin fathered that child. And if you don't know that the first time, it works completely because people have bad days, people's moods change, people are volatile, people sometimes mistreat the people closest to them in the world. So, like, you don't. You're not like, wait, why would he be behaving this way? Right?

Joanna Robinson (29:29)

Well, it's similar to spoilers for the Sixth Sense. If you're anyone who, like, up until recently, Craig Holbrooke was, was not spoiled on Sixth Sense. Here comes the spoilers.

Mallory Rubin (29:41)

Astonishing.

Joanna Robinson (29:42)

There's a similar scene in the Sixth Sense, right, where he like, shows up to dinner with her, his wife, and she ices him out and she doesn't talk to him. And it's you, when you rewatch it, you're like, well, that's because he's a ghost. But when you watch it the first time you're like, oh, this is a tense moment inside of this marriage. Right. So, yeah, the tensions that can exist inside of a marriage, but also specifically in reflection of Angier, who goes through something similar with Olivia, where there's, like, this affection with Olivia, but then he gets consumed by the art, the magic, the competition, Boreden himself, you know, and so it's like, sure, today I love you, and then today I'm obsessed with the job. But then you. Then you get the heartbreaking revelation at the end of the movie that, like, he was, like, deeply in love with her the whole time and could only experience half a life, had to plead with his twin brother to, like, please be nice to my wife because she is struggling. You know, like, all. All of these things kind of help.

Mallory Rubin (30:46)

Convince her that I love her. Yeah. It's brutal.

Joanna Robinson (30:48)

I think something that hides the ball even more satisfyingly is the fact that both of the twins love that little girl.

Mallory Rubin (30:58)

Yes.

Joanna Robinson (30:58)

You know, both biological father and uncle. Like, they have different feelings about Sarah, but they both have this. This fatherly devotion to the little girl. And so that. That also just sort of, like, muddies the waters a bit as you're trying to. Personal.

Mallory Rubin (31:15)

Yeah. Another, very quickly, another twin clue that I think works on all of these levels is not like the. How could you not know which knot you tied?

Joanna Robinson (31:23)

Right. Because you could just be like, I argue with myself in the journal. Right. Like, I'm on two minds about it, essentially.

Mallory Rubin (31:30)

It's like, because if you did something, just one person did something that led to that outcome, wouldn't you have potentially that kind of response? Like, wait, yeah, did I do this thing? Am I responsible? Like, did I tell myself that this would be fine and then it wasn't? So, yeah, it's just. It's great. It's great.

Joanna Robinson (31:51)

So it's, like, intellectually satisfying. Like, you just relish all the ways in which it's all there. It all fooled you, but it's all there. Not in, like, a clunky, dumb way. It's all there in, like, a way that's just sort of. Of smoothly, silkily integrated into this very human story of, like, obsession, tragic, devastation, all this sort of stuff.

Mallory Rubin (32:12)

It's a plot puzzle, but it's like a puzzle of the mind. It's a puzzle of the heart. It's a puzzle of human behavior. It's a puzzle of deceiving other people and deceiving yourself. Like, it's just. It's just a joy. A joy?

Joanna Robinson (32:23)

Yeah. Like taking notes on you rewatching this a couple times before we recorded and, like, taking notes on all the. All the moments, all the lines, all the visual clues. It's just like. Well, that's just the entire movie, actually, even parse it. Videos do exist on YouTube of, like, every single clue. And I was like, oh, you're just going to roll me?

Mallory Rubin (32:39)

The whole movie? Two hours and nine minutes, or whatever the runtime is.

Joanna Robinson (32:43)

Yeah, that's what the movie is. But I will say, you know, it is satisfying to call a few out. And I will say, the opening shot of the top hats and the cats.

Mallory Rubin (32:50)

Great, great one.

Joanna Robinson (32:52)

Then we go right to the birds. All of that is. That's Angier, the opening shot, the birds, that's Borden. Right. Cutter is telling us sort of everything we need to understand, to be in the right mindset, to understand everything. And then he's like, show you something ordinary, a man. And then, like, the. Like, the camera's just like, right away, there's Christian Bale and in a fake beard in the audience. You know what I mean? And it's just like. It's just delicious. Okay.

Mallory Rubin (33:22)

One of my favorite examples of that is the nephew, Sarah's nephew, the little boy who can, you know, through more innocent eyes, spot the truth. It's like, what about his brother?

Joanna Robinson (33:32)

What about his brother?

Mallory Rubin (33:34)

It's like, great. We actually just tweeted it out.

Joanna Robinson (33:37)

This coin has two heads. Okay, Anyway, so something that Jonathan Nolan has talked about, about the experience of watching this movie for the first time, and this is the difference between doing this over the course of a film versus over the course of a season of television, is what he calls the sort of. When you go see David Copperfield perform a magic trick, you know, also that. That is a magic trick of some kind. But there is this, what he calls it, the pleasure of the liminal space, a hiccup of the human mind where you want to believe, right? And this is a quote from the film. But if you could fool them, even for a second, you could make them wonder, right? So you want to just sort of like, you're watching this over the course of two hours. Your brain is plenty occupied trying to track what is happening when, right? Because we're bouncing all over time. And then it gets the revelation at the end. If, however, this were, like, episode one of a season of television, you know, the Redditors would have freeze framed a side profile of Fallon on, like, Reddit before, like, the night is over. And they'd be like, that's also Christian Bale at the End, you know, so you don't. You can't do that over a season of television. So it's. Anyway, okay. Our beloved producer Judah introduced this theory. I never heard this theory, but introduced this theory in our notes last night. Speaking of sort of like twists and turns and that sort of stuff. The Ali Tesla theory. So Andy Serkis plays a character named Ally, Mr. Ali, who is the assistant to. And the assistants are very important in this movie. Assistants to Nikola Tesla is played by David Frickin Bowie. And so this Reddit theory lays out this whole idea that Ali is actually the real Nikola Tesla and that like, you know, David Bowie is playing sort of an actor hired to portray Tesla when the real scientist is Ali. How convincing do you find this? Do you want to go into any particulars of this? Is this, is this thematically interesting to you? What do you think about this theory?

Mallory Rubin (35:46)

I don't subscribe to it. I was not aware of it until last night. And in the mere hours I've had to think about it since Arjuna brought it to my attention. I'm not inclined to believe it, mostly because. But I like it. I think it's very interesting.

Joanna Robinson (36:03)

I agree. I like it. I don't believe it, but I do like it.

Mallory Rubin (36:06)

Yeah, that's where I am too. I think this is really fun and really interesting. And just in general, I love that 19 years after the movie came out, we can still have this experience. It's like, here's a new theory that maybe you hadn't heard of before. I think where I ultimately landed, why I don't personally, personally land on Team Ali, is actually Tesla, is because as the characters in the film and the script of the film actually tell us in plain language, an indisputable fact. Everything we need to know is revealed.

Joanna Robinson (36:46)

Like, actually.

Mallory Rubin (36:46)

And I think that's kind of an interesting thing about the movie. Like, we talked a lot about this during our Inception pod, where there's such a robust debate raging still about the conclusion of the movie. That's actually not the case here. Like, I mean, there's some stuff that is less open to interpretation, but, like, the movie shows its work. Right?

Joanna Robinson (37:05)

I agree. I agree with you. I will say, having gone on a sideways journey through the Reddit theory boards after Arjuna posted this, the main theory that people like to debate is whether or not the Tesla machine actually works. But there's a scene where we see Hugh Jackman shoot his own clone. So, like that. I think that. But they were like, similar to Inception. There's just like pouring over granular detail. Like, all the hats are slightly different. And I'm like. I don't think they are like, all this other stuff like that.

Mallory Rubin (37:38)

I feel like Allie's wearing a hat. So I'm like. I'm kind of like they're using Ally's hat to test it too.

Joanna Robinson (37:41)

I mean, it's just like. It's a lot of questions, but people are still constantly debating. It's not the way that Inception is intentionally.

Mallory Rubin (37:51)

Yeah, right, exactly. And so that. I think that is the crucial distinction. There will always be room in a story like this to speculate and to wonder and to introduce new possibilities, just kind of inherently because of the nature of what is unfolding in the film. But I think, And I should say, hey, I have not read this book, so I have no idea if this or any other aspect of what we talk about today is, like, clarified in further detail at some point. I have no clue. Which is not usually my relationship to the stuff we cover, but I actually don't mind that that's my relationship to. To this.

Joanna Robinson (38:25)

There's some massive differences. And so, like, it's not. It's not one of the. It's. It's an adaptation that is in many ways so loose that I don't know how much it, like, really, really enhances your experience.

Mallory Rubin (38:36)

Yeah, yeah.

Joanna Robinson (38:37)

It's. The information is Most differences in terms of, like, what they're interested.

Mallory Rubin (38:42)

Interesting. So. But I guess, like, to put a bow on it, I think that it feels to me. I can't say this with 100% certainty, but it feels to me like if Ally were, in fact Tesla, the movie would tell us that at some point, and it wouldn't be like a. Oh, we're stitching together the theory through. We're putting a slice of bread together through the crumbs. It would be like, here's a loaf. And then we're going to show you how we cut it. And then we're going to show you how we crumble it back.

Joanna Robinson (39:09)

That's.

Mallory Rubin (39:09)

That's my sense of it.

Joanna Robinson (39:10)

Great. Great analogy. Um, I agree with you. I do think that could be fun. The way in which he's the one to answer at the gate, the way in which he goes down to the hotel. Like, there's ways in which. If he were the real Tesla, that's kind of fun and interesting.

Mallory Rubin (39:24)

Absolutely. Like the role of a showman, the role of the engineer. Like, the idea of partnership, even in general. And. And what is a risk to reveal or not reveal what you need to keep Secret, especially for so, like, a character. A character, a historical figure in this film as the character like Tesla who you know, is as. And. And there are many, I think, wonderful scenes. The Tesla scenes are, like, among my favorite in.

Joanna Robinson (39:50)

In the movies.

Mallory Rubin (39:51)

Spoiler for some of my picks for categories today where this is just active text for. For what he's saying in the kind of council, the unheeded harbingers that he's dispensing, these warnings that he's dispensing to Angier about, like, what. What society is ready for or not and the way that it. It pushes you away. And of course, obviously, also the. The Edison Tesla parallel for the Angier Borden relationship. And just this idea of, like, the shape that rivalry takes and where it can lead you. It makes more sense to me if, like, Tesla is actually Tesla. But I could. I do agree that there's a way that it actually also fits into the like. Well, how do you use a guy like Root.

Joanna Robinson (40:33)

Yeah. You know, or like this idea of the partnership in terms of, like, not. There's one of the conversations that Alfred is having with Fallon where they're talking about Angier's trick and he's like, you will figure it out. Right. This idea that, like, one of the twins. One of the twins is better at something and the other twin is better at something else. There's this idea perhaps that one of the twins, obviously, when Olivia joins the team, she helps them judge up the showmanship, but there's this idea that, like, one of the twins might be better at showmanship and the other twin is better at putting together the puzzles of a. Of a trick and stuff like that. And so, like, that idea, like, what are you better. What role are you better suited for inside of a partnership like this? I will say this, and it's not the last time Ali's cat is going to come up. If Allie were the real Tesla, I don't think he would let this charlatan pretending to be him put his cat inside of that contraption. So that's.

Mallory Rubin (41:34)

I've got some notes on using the cat. Regardless.

Joanna Robinson (41:37)

Yeah, I will say with the. With the inclusion of Tesla, you know, again, to just sort of parse Jonathan Nolan's work. He. His fashion fascination with science, sometimes for better, for worse. There is a real tough period in my Jonathan Nolan fandom where he and Lisa Joy were, like, really good friends with Elon Musk. But, like, you know, he is, like, tech obsessed. Went to Colorado Springs for several months in writing this. This script. Really, really want to dig into, like, everything. Tesla, that's where the lightning lives. Joe, that is. That's a great line.

Mallory Rubin (42:13)

Great line.

Joanna Robinson (42:13)

Absolute banger. It made me think of, like, some of our Buffy Vampire Slayer lines that we cared about, but, like, the idea that technology is magic at this time in our history. Technology is the real magic. There's no scientific explanation for the transportation machine. And the film does not even stop to try to, like, really explain it to you. But at that time, light bulbs were magic, you know, and so that's. That's just sort of, like, inside all of this. And I think also something worth knowing in the book is that Christopher Priest uses the Edison Tesla rivalry as a much more consistent parallel to the Bourdain. And I like the way that it is sort of downplayed inside of this. I shall say the way that the machine works in the book is quite different. It just splits the man into sort of two parts, and one of them is sort of spectral, and the other is, like, physically sickly. And it's just. It's very different than this, like, cloning idea. But I do want to really briefly talk about this, like, Ship of Theseus conundrum about the cloning idea, because this idea that Angier, you know, having explored throughout the movie, nobody cares about the band inside the box. Like, I don't want to take my bows down, you know, under the. Under the floor. I want to take my bows on the stage. When he's, like, greedily asking Borden, which one of you took the bows? And he's like, we traded off, actually, like, we both got to do it. But the best. All of that lead up to every night, I didn't know if I would be, you know, the man inside the box in the tank or, you know, the man in the balcony. And this idea, this idea of the thing, quote, unquote, that survives. Angier's trick is the clone. Every night, it's the clone that survives. And Tesla, in selling his machine to, says, all of them are your hat. There is no measurable difference. We've got the calipers out. All of the circumferences are the same. They're all your hat. But we don't know what difference this over and over and over again process has on a man. And there are reads that you can have of this movie that in the process of doing this, he laid his trap, no matter what. This was his idea from the start. But the nastiness that is late, like, to take his daughter, like, the nastiness that is The Angier, late in the movie, warped by plenty of other things, says, I don't care about my wife, before he goes, you know, through the copy machine several times. So this is already something that has disturbed and warped him. Like, what might the cloning process have done to him? He has no way of knowing if that clone in the balcony is just like. Just like a tiny bit different every time. And the ship of Theseus idea of, like, how many times do you replace a board on a ship before it becomes a different ship? How do we relate that to what Angiera is going through? What minor cellular mutation, what minor personality difference than makes him not the same man as the man who for the first time went into that tank of water?

Mallory Rubin (45:46)

You know, what I love about this so much is that all of that is there. And I think it is equally true and interesting to think about the other side of that, which is that if he's not like a Xerox where the toner is a little less sharp every time. And it is actually. And this is like this. This is. There's a version of this film where, like this question, you know, is that you. They're all your hats. Are they all your hats is like the entire focus of the film. And that's obviously not the case. But if it is, if they are all your hats, and it is him, and the interpretation is that the ship is the same after the boards are replaced, no matter how many of the boards are replaced, then the question which I think is just as interesting is like, what does it mean that you would do that to yourself? That because if, right, or like every time that he's from firing that gun to every single night, a hundred shows he signs up for, every single night for as long as it ran, he dropped into that tank, knowing what the outcome would be. And that harrowing reveal of the line of liquid coffins. And I really in particular love the.

Joanna Robinson (47:08)

Payoff of Cutter.

Mallory Rubin (47:13)

Calling back to Julia's drowning.

Joanna Robinson (47:15)

And the eulogy.

Mallory Rubin (47:16)

Yeah, the eulogy. And this, like, what, you know, you told me it was. It was like going home. I was lying, actually. It was agony. And so, like, what if that was what you inflicted upon yourself because you thought it was worth it, because that cost was worth paying to you.

Joanna Robinson (47:32)

And what I love about that, because that is because of all the things that happens in the movie, the idea that Angier would be like, oh, going. That take will just be like going home. And fine is painly ridiculous. But not inside of a story which hits again and again and again. You Want to be fooled.

Mallory Rubin (47:50)

Right.

Joanna Robinson (47:50)

Let me latch onto this thing that Cutter said at the eulogy. Oh, it'll just be like going home. I will just justify this thing that I'm about to do to myself every single night to be the greatest. Not just to be the greatest, but to entrap and torment this person who I have made my shadow, my enemy.

Mallory Rubin (48:09)

All that sort of thing. Yeah, there's, like, the idea that the fiction is why you go to the theater, that it's the thing you crave. Like, I love. I also love the moment where anger's, like in one of the conversations with Tessa, like, if they. Yeah, like I'm gonna present it as illusion. If they thought it was real, they'd scream.

Joanna Robinson (48:26)

If they thought I was sawing a woman in half on stage, they would be more bad. That's just so great.

Mallory Rubin (48:30)

And so there's a. I'm going to try to make this comp. Without spoiling the specifics of this story, the story in question, because it is one that we both consider a sacred text. And I much like this film, would want people to discover it on their own, but it's like very Never let me go coded to me, you know, so. Yeah, I just. This is, like, also fascinating.

Joanna Robinson (48:52)

Okay. What are the influences on this film? I'll just run through some of them really quickly. It's a little less. Less chock a block full as, like, some of the Inception and Batman analogies we were talking about. But we should mention that there was a real magician who went by the stage name Ching Ling Fu. There's Ching Ling Su inside of this movie, but this is a real man who existed who pretended to be elderly and did this trick and perform, you know, and for years pulled this off. And that was the inspiration for Christopher Priest to write this book in the first place. And the rivalry, the real life rivalry of Edison Tesla, which you can see in the absolutely subpar film, the Current.

Mallory Rubin (49:34)

War.

Joanna Robinson (49:36)

What does it do? You know, you mentioned Tesla's a real world figure. What does it do to you that there are. There is someone real like Tesla inside of the story and that the real person, Tesla is connected to the sci fi part of this particular tale.

Mallory Rubin (49:57)

I think that there's probably a version of this story where these are fictional people instead of real life figures. And it works equally well, honestly. But because, like, if you're watching this movie and you don't know that Tesla and Edison are real people, which is, I think, possible. I. I don't know that you have a lesser experience, honestly. But I think a lot of people, especially now in the Tesla era, are familiar with the fact that this is a real person. And as you noted, this is, like, spawned other examinations in pop culture, as I think, you know, we've been talking about many times over the years, but including recently because of Alien Earth, the, You know, Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws, and, you know, the way that we always are interested in this idea, science, technology, magic, when do they become indistinguishable from each other? So I think that's, like, really fascinating given that part of the story hinges on the fact that the machine is presented as a thing that actually works, that it clones this person, and it's like, like, so that's not a trick. Okay. You know, there's that aspect of it, but I think more broadly, and I'll. I'll return to this in some of my categories, so I won't go, like, I won't go too much into depth in it here, but I just think the way that Tesla speaks about and. And the magicians as well, you know, from Cutter to. To. To Borden to Angier, like, talk about what people want and how they perceive what they receive. It's really interesting, I think, to me, to think about what is consistent and what. What differs. If that is, like, a real thing, an advancement that could improve something about your community or your life versus how you pass the time for one night out at the stage, you know, and, like, that. That's in the mix and in the brew for everything. And then I think, like, the area where it's most interesting to me, and this doesn't ultimately, like, have anything to do with the fact that they're real people, but I think the fact that they are adds, like, a little bit of an extra. A jolt to this, the rivalry, which obviously we'll talk about more in our categories. One of the things that I love best about, like, this showmanship versus scholarship, you know, the theater star versus kind of the true artist. I love that that is, like, not where it ends and that it's entwined then with this examination of the different forms that resentment can take. Like, there's a this guy's a hack version of the resentment. Why do people like the hack? And then there's a this guy's better than me version of it.

Joanna Robinson (52:31)

That's the greatest magic trick I've ever seen. This sort of like.

Mallory Rubin (52:34)

Yes, exactly right. Like, having to acknowledge that that person is your rival, is superior, and that you will never be able to do that. And, like, how that drives you mad, but that it's equally crazy making to say, like, why do people praise this buffoon? And so that's obviously applicable then in the other relationship, which like, I really like.

Joanna Robinson (52:53)

I think it's also really interesting to think about inside of that notion, the why they do it as it is reflected back in Edison and Tesla, because something that the film doesn't go too deep into. There is one sort of line about it, but this idea that Tessa wanted to give away his power for free and Edison, right, wanted to monetize it. And the thing that gets Tesla got is this idea that like, well, the powerful people who see the opportunity to make money are going to try to squash the person who is trying to give away this life giving thing for free. And what's so interesting inside of the Tesla legacy is the idea that he could create a cloning box that could, I don't know, feed everyone forever and any idea of world hunger, whatever. And this fucking magician, like rich ass tourist is just sort of like, I'm gonna use it for magic, for showmanship, to, you know, entrap my rival, all this sort of stuff like that. But the why they do it is so interesting because you think about Angier as this, you know, absolutely stinking rich lord. And he talks about, you know, he talks about in his, as he's dying very quite slowly from, from a gunshot, talks to Borden about why he does it, right? And he's like, we'll come back to this. I probably in, in our categories, but like, if you can fool them even for a second, you can make them wonder. Then you get to see something very special. You really don't know. It was a look on their faces, right? So that is why Angier does it, Borden does it. And he explains this to Angier when they're looking at this fake elderly Chinese magician. And he says, total devotion to his art, utter self sacrifice. It's the only way to escape this. And then he slaps the brick wall next to him. Borden and his, the Borden twins came from nothing. They come up from the bottom. And so the idea of magic and the idea of transportation is the idea of like, how do we escape the like, poverty, the genuine real discomforts and horrors of this world that we are brought up into. You know what I mean? And like, as you're talking about in his explanation, the world is simple and all of that sort of stuff. And so like for him it's about adoration, recognition, something like that. And for Borden it's More interior driven. And I just. I think they're differing motivation, never mind their differing skills, never mind their similarities is something really interesting to think about, especially as it reflects back on that Edison Tesla rivalry, specifically.

Mallory Rubin (55:42)

Yeah. And I think the idea that, like, in theory, you know, when we hear this voice multiple times in some fashion, everybody could have just gone about their. Their day, their career, their lives, and decided not to care about the other person, but that's not what happens. And these, like, sort of mounting cycles of reprisals because it represent to each of them not only like the potential superiority of another person or of another pursuit, but like something existential about what you put into the world and what is valued in the world is, I think, quite interesting. And then the way that that becomes something that defines your. Your entire life, that you can't be considered without the other person being invoked. And so the person you thought was insignificant or you thought was inferior is not only not a footnote, but is in the opening line of your obituary, like, fascinating, horrifying. Yeah, yeah.

Joanna Robinson (56:40)

Okay. Other influences. Barry Lyndon. Have you ever seen Barry Lyndon?

Mallory Rubin (56:46)

No.

Joanna Robinson (56:46)

Okay. I really recommend, of all the movies that like, go into rep screenings in Los Angeles or elsewhere, I recommend to people Barry Lyndon above all else. Because it is just. You have a huge tv, but is a different experience seeing it on like, like a massive screen. Because this is a film that was like, you know, notoriously or famously lit naturally. There are so many scenes that are lit by candlelight alone. And it is just. If you hear about Barry Lyndon, you're like, I'm not gonna like that movie. And I have talked to so many people who then went and saw it on the big screen and were like, oh, my God, there's just something. So anyway, so the natural lighting of Barry Lyndon is used here again and again. Once again as part of, like, expediency. It's easier to do setups if you're just using natural light. You don't have to like, re rig any lighting or anything like that. And, you know, and so you have setups of like Michael Caine in front of like a ton of windows. The bird cages are in front of the windows. So Sarah hanging herself or Cutter, you know, explaining the trick to Jess or all these various things in front of this bank of windows. Borden walking past all what you beautifully called the liquid coffins lit by the fire around him, but his face is completely in shadow. Like these sort of lucky things that happen inside of this world of natural lighting. And, you know, they didn't use Natural lighting in every scene, but they used it a lot in this movie as a sort of inspired by Barry Lyndon, which I love. The Hound of the Baskervilles. A specific edition of the how to the Baskervilles. A Cygnet Classics edition that has a oil painting on the front of sort of the gas lamp lit London this Wally Pfister has talked about seeing on his son's desk and being like, yep, that's it. That's my London. And then the Thin Red Line, which is one of my favorite movies. Christopher Nolan talks about the way in which that film just slides in and out of memory. You know, you could. You could use. Tree of Life is sort of a similar situation, a much more confounding but similar situation where you're just sort of like, you're not doing the. With love and respect, the TV show Lost. The, like, whoosh of an airplane sound in order to bring you into the past. There is no, like, hard and fast cut sound is bleeding through as we're just sort of like, taken back inside of various memories or time periods. And that just sort of freedom of fluidity and that idea that, like, the audience will come with you in this. So much of this movie is in the editing, and that's just something we can partially thank Terrence Malick for. Thanks, Terrence.

Mallory Rubin (59:34)

Thanks, Terrence.

Joanna Robinson (59:37)

I already talked a lot about the Jonathan Nolan, Chris Nolan partnership and how I feel about it. But I'm just curious for you. When you think about Memento, the Prestige and Interstellar and the two out of the three Batman movies, is there an identifying feature that you see? Anything that stands out to you in terms of Jonathan Nolan's influence on Christopher Nolan or vice versa that you think is worth talking about?

Mallory Rubin (60:01)

I don't think I have anything to add beyond what you beautifully summed up. I think it's interesting that there's a heartbeat and an emotional core to the films that stem from their partnership. I think if that were the entire filmography and how they both spent their lives, we would be fortunate for it. And I think it's really cool that that's also not the case. And, like, they do their distinct things without each other. Like, I. I like the idea of the way that that partnership is always something that they can return to, but actually, like, not like the twins in this film, something that they simply cannot. They're not each living half a life. Right. Right.

Joanna Robinson (60:36)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (60:37)

So I. I think that's. That's really interesting. But, yeah, I'm just. I am such a. A I'm such a enthusiast of the bulk of. Of Nolan's filmography that, you know, I have such affection for the films that they've crafted together and. And also the. The films that Chris has. Has made without his brother. I'm excited for you to watch Fallout, given that it's not only a. A J J Nolan joint, but crucially, a goggin. So many of your main dudes just wait for.

Joanna Robinson (61:08)

I know.

Mallory Rubin (61:08)

Great stuff.

Joanna Robinson (61:09)

It's the world's biggest mystery why I haven't watched it.

Mallory Rubin (61:11)

Also, Snacky is there. So we got some yellow jackets ties there.

Joanna Robinson (61:16)

I mean, I know, I know.

Mallory Rubin (61:16)

Great, great stuff.

Joanna Robinson (61:17)

I've heard nothing but good things. I will watch it, I promise. I think it's interesting to think about. I think this movie and Memento, in terms of, like, a puzzle we have to unravel, are much more successful than something like Tenet in terms of that legibility. It's there in Inception, but it's absent in Tenet. And so I can't really say Chris Nolan is incapable of it because he does it in Inception, but I think in Tenet, this attempt to being like, follow me. Here I go on this, like, unusual time journey, it works in Dunkirk, but it doesn't work in Tenet. So I think that's interesting, and I think it matters. And there are plenty of tenant defenders, and we've gotten emails from them. Hobbitsanddragons Gmail.com, if you're a tenant defender. But, like, I think it matters that it didn't work one time. Do you know what I mean? It, like, sure. Even better highlights the time that it does work. I want to talk about Dead Wife of Palooza is what I'm calling it. Okay, we're gonna. We're gonna talk about this in the categories. It's something we've been building up for. But I did want to mention this is our richest text when it comes to the theme of. Of the Dead wife as key plot point of a Nolan joint. Tough to report that neither of these dead wives exist in the book. These are Nolan confections.

Mallory Rubin (62:46)

That is just, to me, remarkable and perfect.

Joanna Robinson (62:52)

In the book, Angier leaves Julia for Olivia, right? So she doesn't die in the take. The inciting incident is a. Is a disrupted seance and a miscarriage. It's not. Julia dies in a tank, and then Sarah does not hang herself in the book. And so that's just something that they thought was really important to put in here. Interesting.

Mallory Rubin (63:15)

Incredible.

Joanna Robinson (63:15)

I do think it's worth noting that both Chris and Jonah Nolan, their closest creative collaborators, when they're not working with each other, are their wives. Emma Thomas for Chris Nolan, and Lisa Joey Nolan for. For Jonah Nolan. So I, you know, it's like they love their wives.

Mallory Rubin (63:31)

They.

Joanna Robinson (63:32)

They respect wives and stop fictional lives. It's fine. We've already talked a little bit about this idea of identity duality doubles. What's. Is there anything sort of remaining here that you think is quite interesting to drill down on?

Mallory Rubin (63:45)

I think we can save it for the categories.

Joanna Robinson (63:47)

Okay. And last but not least, the metatext rich one. We talked about this with Inception, the idea that you can sort of map the characters of Inception onto various members of the crew of a film production. I actually think this is even more so than Inception, a story. I would have to sort of restudy Oppenheimer, which perhaps we will, as we continue on our Nolan journey, in terms of, like, what feels like the most, a story about people creating things and the burden of the cost, the responsibility. But, like, this is what it's like to devote yourself to your art. This is what it's like to work with your brother, wife. This is what it's like to captivate an audience. This is the danger of adding special effects to your movies. I think all of this is in the mix here, and I think especially there are just shots of, you know, and Crystal and has talked about this overtly. Like, for him, the idea of the magic show is the idea of cinema. Like, he's not hiding it. He knows that this is what he's doing. There are shots of both Angier and Borden in the audience, sort of like face tipped up to the lights that look so much like someone watching a film to me, just, like, entirely captivated. That moment that we referenced earlier of Angier having seen Borden du the Transported man, and he. Olivia's asking him about it, and he said, you know, what happened, Robert? He had a new trick. Was it good? It was the greatest magic trick I've ever seen. So thinking about Christopher and Jonathan, if you prefer going to see a movie that one of their contemporaries or one of their rivals made and just sitting there and thinking, how did they do that? How did Terrence Malick slide in and out of memory like that? How in Barry Lyndon did they light their scenes with just candles and can I do it? Can I do it better? Can I. Plus it, what can I do? I enjoyed that. I loved that movie. I just loved that trick. But I want to do it better. How can I? I think that's Such a rich thing to bone, to chew on while you're.

Mallory Rubin (65:57)

While you're thinking about what's going on beneath that stage. Yeah, I love it. And it's interesting to think about, like, not only maybe across the competitive set, but even just inside of their creative partnership. Brothers.

Joanna Robinson (66:14)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (66:14)

You have, like, the Batman. You have, like. You know, we were two young men at the start of a great career. Two young men devoted to an illusion. Two young men who never meant to hurt anyone. I don't know that the Nolan brothers have ever heard of it, but it's interesting to think. Like, to think about how they might be thinking about their part in that as well. For the other people who, like, watch their films and have. That response is almost equally interesting to me. So, yeah, this is, like. I agree. I think the films are often quite meta in that respect, but given that the movie itself matches onto the three acts of the trick and is, you know, is thus presenting itself, presenting these two hours, this experience as a magic trick, which is like. Like a bold declaration to make and, I think completely earned, you know, so you have to be able to actually then, like, back that up and it has to work. It has to wow the crowd, like, to make a movie. I feel like I'm stepping on a lot of my categories today, but, like. So I'll come back to this briefly, but I think that it reminds me a little bit of, like, a movie or a show about a musician or a movie or show about a comedian. And how completely undone those can be is, oh, if it's not funny, the singing is bad or the jokes aren't funny, you know, so if you're gonna make a movie about the brilliant magician, whether it's the showman or the scholar and the crafter and the forger or where those things meet and how at the end of the day, they both borrow from each other, even though one of them is gonna say they don't. That he didn'. I didn't need to. They're both going to find themselves completely mystified at some point by what the other person did. And the trick has to put the audience in that state simultaneously of you want to be fooled. And I wanted to track it all. I wanted to know. I actually need you to tell me. Maybe there's a part of me that wishes you hadn't, but I need you to. You got to fucking nail it. So they are the magicians in the crafting of this film. And there's a way that. That goes, like, badly wrong to the point where it almost reaches the level of, like, Cutter saying to Angier, you've kind of, like, achieved too much to now suffer this level of professional embarrassment. Like, there's a version of it where if you do this, and it's like, this sucked. Yeah, it's. It's such an own goal. You're dunking on yourself by centering these creators who can port people to, like, a different plane of existence. But when you nail it, it. It's the prestige. Everybody turns to the back, looks up in the. In the balcony and says, how did you do it?

Joanna Robinson (69:01)

How do do it?

Mallory Rubin (69:02)

Everyone's Ackerman. Like, it's rare to see real magic.

Joanna Robinson (69:05)

Something that we talked about, that I was thinking about a lot when I was watching this. Something we talked about this, or I brought it up with Inception. Is this idea of Christopher Nolan, specifically more than. Than Jonathan Nolan, as, like. Like having a Persona that goes with him being the great director, you know, and this. It's not unique to him. I would say that, like, you know, Alfred Hitchcock has it, you know, like, plenty of these, like, sort of great creators are just sort of like, cultivate something. But, like, the fact that, like, you can close your eyes and you're like, I'm pretty sure I know what Christopher Nolan is going to wear to this. Right? It's gonna be a crisp collared shirt. He'll probably have his black long trench coat on, you know, a belted pair of jeans. I'm like, you know, like, he's got a costume. That coat that he always wears. There is a Persona to him. And, like, I'm not saying it's inauthentic, but it is cultivated. You don't do that by accident. And so this idea of the Great Danton or the professor, this sort of, like, what is your. What is your pulpit, public Persona? And what are the. What are the things that come along with your. Your dedication to your craft? I'm Christopher Nolan, and I don't own a cell phone. I'm Christopher Nolan, and people aren't allowed to sit on my set. On my set. I'm Christopher Nolan, and I'm gonna crash a plane for tenant. I'm Christopher Nolan. I'm gonna set off a bomb for Oppenheimer. Like, these are all things that you can just map on to these magicians in terms of, like, the escalation of commitment to your work, the cultivation of mystique and Persona and showmanship. I think especially the, like, you can't sit down on my set is just, like, really, really feels like it could fit right in. And then. Yeah, and then the brother thing, of course. And like, I talked about this recently, but Inside Llewyn Davis, which is my sneaky favorite Coen brothers film, and the way in which that film explores what it would be like for you to be without your creative partner. Right. Because Oscar Isaac's character in that movie, his creative partner has killed himself. And so it's all about him. How do I go from a duo to a solo act? And so that idea of the Coen brothers, then not immediately after, but pretty short after, start doing movies apart from each other. And then you peel away the Joel from the Ethan Cohen, and then you can identify what is Joel and what is Ethan. And then we're all just, like, really waiting for. For them to come back together, because that's where the magic is. But like, an idea of Jonathan Nolan has talked about this in plenty of interviews of like, I'm the little brother. Christopher Nolan's the middle brother, but I'm the little brother. And he got. He was into film first, and he, you know, like, what? All of that sort of anxiety worms its way into the script naturally. So, okay, I think we did all the things that we could do. Should we go to Our Prestige Shop 2020?

Mallory Rubin (72:02)

Let's do it.

Joanna Robinson (72:11)

Right now.

Mallory Rubin (72:11)

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From your garage to your attic, visit homedepot.com how doers get more done. All right, this is our combination of superlatives and other sundries that we've been doing for our hot Nolan summer.

Mallory Rubin (72:46)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (72:47)

Last hot Nolen summer installment of it. Each category has an associated Nolan film quote with it.

Mallory Rubin (72:56)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (72:57)

That I will read every single one. Because I did this to myself. Why so serious? Funniest line or moment from this actually, frankly, not very hilarious movie.

Mallory Rubin (73:09)

Not a ton of laughs.

Joanna Robinson (73:12)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (73:14)

Weirdly, that made this category easier for me, and it sometimes is because I did not have a of lot, lot of contenders for this. I went with my guy Root here specifically. I genuinely find this scene hysterical. Root's speech after Cutter cleans him up and trots him out to present him to the skeptical Angier as his double. And he's like, you know, ty's still drunk, he's stumbling. But then as soon, you know, he's a performer. So as soon as it's ready to be the showman he can be, and that's all fine, but would not have made the cut if not for the reason that I picked this, which is that he then makes a speech that I just love. Root says, tangier, yes, you would drink, too, if you knew the world half as well as I do. You think you are unique, Mr. Angier? I am better. And Caesar, I played Faust. How difficult could it possibly be to play the great Dan Dong? I just think this scene is, like, absolutely hysterical. The specific comedy of Root, obviously, in general, and his worldview and his feelings on the craft. The broader comedy, though, of an actual double being deployed in a story where the supposed doubles are, in fact, actually either twin brothers or copies, clones, and then even though this is an actual double, kind of ends up not being so different in a way that in some ways, like, delights Angier, because then the trick is possible to perform, but also is kind of, like, harrowing to him. Right. Because it ends up. And we've already talked about this. I'll return to it in other categories. Being the man in the box, being the one below the stage who can't soak up all of the inaguration of the crowd. So the idea that Root is, like, actually, like, I can be a showman, too. The thing you do do, I can do. When Angier's entire existence is defined by saying, the thing Borden can do, I don't know how, is delicious. And then the icing on the comedy cake here is that he walks off the stage quoting Henry iv. My liege, I did deny no prisoners. Like, I. I think this movie is basically perfect, so there's very little I would recommend changing about it. I wouldn't have minded, like, one more.

Joanna Robinson (75:42)

Root scene, one other routine.

Mallory Rubin (75:43)

They're just all kind of good, I think.

Joanna Robinson (75:46)

So when we talked about showmanship versus scholarship.

Mallory Rubin (75:49)

Yes.

Joanna Robinson (75:50)

This is something that Christian Bale talked about in interviews about this movie where he was like, you know, Hugh Jackman was cast first, right. And then Bale actually had to, like, come and, like, petition for the part. And basically Jacqueline was given the option to play Borden or Angier. Right? And he's like, I think I'm better suited for Angier. And Christian Bale has talked about this where he was like, well, Hugh has been on. He's like, I'm actually not really good at that sort of, like, flashy stuff. He's like, But Hugh has been on and, like, tons of stage musicals, so this is, like, perfect for him to be the more showy Angier and, like, I'm the more awkward Borden. Like, he's like, that all works really, really well for our personalities. But I think also that idea of, like, we get to watch Christian Bale do a double performance in this movie, and we get to watch Hugh Jackman do a double performance. And the Hugh Jackman double performance is so entertaining and so obvious. You know, not just the prosthetic teeth, but just sort of like, you know, night and day, blah, blah. And then with Bale.

Mallory Rubin (76:43)

Yeah, we have to watch, like, are you watching closely?

Joanna Robinson (76:46)

The degrees of warmth of expression of their eyes and, like, you know, all this other stuff. So I just think that that, like, all of that. Of those layers are really, really fun. That's great. I love that you picked root. I think him saying I played Faust is one of the funniest things.

Mallory Rubin (76:59)

So great. It kills me. Wait, this is occurring to me in real time. I'm not prepared to defend this thesis. Let me. Let me say that.

Joanna Robinson (77:08)

Is this the origin for the Greatest Showman?

Mallory Rubin (77:10)

Well, that. That's. That's actually seems clear. But, like, how responsible is Christian Bale, who now, like, you pair this with the we think bullshit but trotted outline about, like, we weren't thinking about Michael Caine. How responsible is Christian Bale basically going to Nolan and saying, it doesn't matter that I'm your Bruce and that we just did this? Put me in this one too, for the fact that then everybody is in. Nolan uses the same gas for, like, all of his movies.

Joanna Robinson (77:38)

Moving forward. It's true that it only really starts after, like, Batman. Interesting, interesting, interesting, interesting.

Mallory Rubin (77:45)

Okay, what is your pick for this category?

Joanna Robinson (77:49)

I don't think you're gonna agree with me.

Mallory Rubin (77:50)

Okay, tell me.

Joanna Robinson (77:51)

But I would like you to hang with me.

Mallory Rubin (77:52)

Tell me.

Joanna Robinson (77:54)

We obviously have notes for using cats in experiments. We obviously have. No, I definitely have notes because this cat. Cat looks just like my cat. Yeah. Really down to the green eyes. Just like my cat. However.

Mallory Rubin (78:07)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (78:07)

Andy Circus's alley. His, like, body language when it's clear that Tesla has put. Has his cat in a. In a very beautiful and fancy carrier. And he's like, what?

Mallory Rubin (78:18)

Where?

Joanna Robinson (78:19)

And then, you know, and he says, like, you know, if anything happens, you're responsible. But, like, like, I. I think. I think just his performance of, like, ah, my cat is. Is really funny and good. I think Ally saying it's perfectly safe as Angier walks towards, like, this most insane, like, squid like lightning situations. And then this is broad, but the. The stuff with the prison warden and the prison guard.

Mallory Rubin (78:50)

Right.

Joanna Robinson (78:51)

I'm going to know all of the professor secrets. Only if I teach you how to read.

Mallory Rubin (78:54)

Is only if I teach you how to read. Does make me laugh every time. That's a great one. Yeah. I can't support the cat pick. Obviously. I do support you. And I cosign the other two nominations.

Joanna Robinson (79:04)

His anxiety is funny.

Mallory Rubin (79:06)

Using the cat.

Joanna Robinson (79:07)

Like, the image of the cat being.

Mallory Rubin (79:09)

Jolted by the lightning, distressing. I'm just like, don't let him use the cat. Don't let him use the cat. I will say on the cat front, I really like the filmmaking touch of removing the collar so that then when that cat runs out and the other cat has the collar, we're just. Just like, hey, they climb a cat.

Joanna Robinson (79:24)

Yeah. And the way those cats hate each other, which is interesting. Okay. You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. Sickest set piece. This is a little difficult because this isn't as showy as Batman and Inception.

Mallory Rubin (79:42)

Yeah. So weirdly, the last two categories I filled out were set piece and stunt. I had a hard time with for this one.

Joanna Robinson (79:49)

I don't. I. I might not even have something for stunt.

Mallory Rubin (79:52)

Actually, at the end, I ended up. I came up with something, but I'm not sure, frankly, that it counts. I. I don't know if it's actually technically a stunt. We'll see when we get there. But, yeah, there's the, like, the nature of the. Okay, what do we think of when we think of a set piece and. And do these kind of, like, hit that scale? But the re. Actually, the reason I ended up finding this so hard was like, a little less that and a little bit more a product of a very positive thing that we've already, like, touted, which is the editing. Editing. The editing the film means that, like, very few. And this will come up in other categories. Very few of these things, like, kind of exist in isolation. You know, we return to them, they're strewn across the film. And so I ended up going with maybe this is a little bit of a cheat. But I ended up going with Angiers the Real Transported man in a couple different ways, though. Ackerman's initial response to seeing it just which. Which we've already mentioned, like, the part of me it's very rare to see real magic. His advice, to dress it up a little, disguise a little, give them enough reason to doubt it, which I really love. Then Anger debuting the trick for the audience. Borden in the seats. He invokes Julia's drowning. Which just part, I guess, ultimately part of why I picked this is because it's obviously so central to the reveal, but also, like, to their character journeys. And they're shared, entwined up downward spiral with each other. Reveals the machine. In my travels, I have seen the future, and it is a strange future. Dude, he doesn't talk that way. I don't know why I'm using that voice. Activates the machine. Stands in the bolts, that crackle of those forks of electricity. We've seen it in these more confined, like, test scenarios and spaces. But to watch the crowd see that for the first time is like, I think, an incredible experience. Then he disappears. We see through Borden's eyes the trapdoor. And then the reappearance. Man's reach exceeds his imagination. So we're calling upon the lessons from Tesla then. This, like, reminds me of how we talk about Star wars duels sometimes. Our favorite Star wars duels. And it's like the action has to connect to a character moment. So this is something we've already discussed today on the pod, but, like, it's basically why I picked this here. Watching Borden be truly stumped by Angier for the first time, this role reversal, him being the one who's like, he's a no talent magician and they're calling him the bloody best, but for the first time he's actually like, I don't understand what he did. I think Bale is, like, fantastic in this role. It's one of my favorite. I think, obviously it's not Christian Bale is a great actor, but this is one of my, maybe is my favorite Christian Bale performance. I'd have to think about that. He's been great in a lot of movies. Um, this is one of my favorite scenes of his in the entire film. 60 yards in a second. In a second. And all that we know is he uses a trap door. What is going under, going on under that stage? This is what you mentioned earlier. Why can't you out think him? I love that. Why can't you out think him? And then the way that it leads Borden to go back even after, like, basically making a pledge not to and falling into a trapdoor of a different sort that Angier set for him. We have the initial glimpse of that moment earlier in the film and then the understanding builds over time, like with this reveal that he didn't actually kill him, that he was a mouse, led to the Cheese. And that he ultimately was, like, as driven by his desperation as Angier had been the entire movie is just fantastic. So it's more than just a set piece, ultimately, but that's what I went with.

Joanna Robinson (83:30)

Who has the upper hand in any given moment. Moment. And how that changes as we rewatch and rewatch and rewatch is so interesting to me.

Mallory Rubin (83:37)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (83:38)

But I love that. That moment of, like, we see Borden talking, quote, unquote, Borden talking to, quote, unquote, Fallon, Right? And he's like, that's it. We'll leave him alone. We won't go back. It's fine. We'll do, you know? Well, and then we know that he goes back, right? Reading of this, where he can be like, well, he said it, but he couldn't help himself. That's just human nature. But actually, what's true is that the other twin is the one who, like, couldn't help himself. Right. And so we're just, like, watching, you know, and later says, you were right. Yes, we should have left him alone. We shouldn't have gone back. I think watching him bluster backstage and say, I'm part of the act, you know, like, you idiot. Like, all this other stuff like that. And then to rewatch that scene and watch to see if Angier is, like, clocking him out of the corner of his eye. Do it, you know, is all very interesting, especially giving given twice. We see them storm each other's stage in disguise and get the upper hand on each other. So I think that that is all. One, two, three. Incredible. That was a massive cheat. I will meet it with a massive cheat and say all of the magical electricity stuff with Tesla. So I will say the light bulbs, the current transferring between Tesla to Angier, Tessa walking out like a wizard.

Mallory Rubin (84:59)

Right.

Joanna Robinson (85:00)

We hear cutters say, like, your magician's not wizards. Right. But Tessa walks out with this lightning crackling, connecting all across his body, and it's like, that's a wizard. Like, that is a wizard right there. Or, you know, when we. When we flash back to the Expo and the lightning sort of crackling back and forth. So all of that, which is science.

Mallory Rubin (85:22)

Yep.

Joanna Robinson (85:24)

But is the most magical thing about this movie until you get to boxes of clones, is, I think, in terms of, like, visuals, which feels like a cheat because we do have a different visual category coming. So, like, in theory, I could have saved this for that, but, like, that's the closest I could come to sort of, like, set pieces, just like Colorado Springs or the Tesla Workshop Shop, sort of all of that.

Mallory Rubin (85:50)

Yeah, our pics are connected because. And that crackles there. And the Real Transported man. And then.

Joanna Robinson (85:55)

And then, you know, the. The back side of a hill that no one ever noticed that a tons of ton of hats were sitting on. Must be nice. Okay.

Mallory Rubin (86:05)

It's very spacious up on the peak in Colorado Springs.

Joanna Robinson (86:08)

Hard to climb if you've got a bum leg, but we do our best. Okay. You either die here or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Who is the real villain of. Of this movie. I would like to hop on the back of what you were talking about. When you're talking about, like, this person you either dismissed or were frustrated by, it becomes forever linked with you. Is the first line. Is the first line in your obituary, all that sort of stuff. I would follow that to its logical conclusion, which is imposter syndrome, which is something that, like, just on a personal level, I've been really, like, struggling with recently, I think, because, like, I was out for a little while and coming back and that's just like a. That's just like, a thing that's hard for people when they, like, leave and come back and they're like, oh, everything was fine without me. What do you mean? And so this is something that, like, all of us struggle with all the time, and something that, like, I've definitely struggled with throughout my career. But, like, watching these two men who are so good at what they do, but the sickness of.

Mallory Rubin (87:12)

It's.

Joanna Robinson (87:12)

It's not. I need to be, at best, out of arrogance, though it is is It's. I need to be best so that no one can tell me I don't belong here. Right. I. It needs to be unimpeachable that I belong here. And for Borden, part of that comes from class anxiety and from Eger. It's. Part of that comes from, like, I'm just a guest inside of this world of the theater. And I'm just like, you know, the way in which he, like, sort of is hiding his identity so as not to shame his. His rich family has, like, like, you know, found a wife inside of this world, you know, but, like, do I belong here? And you've got Cutter, who is responsible for some bad dadding in this film in terms of, like, the way in which he talks to these. These men about their work. And so, like, to your point of, like, can you just leave it? Can you just be happy with how incredibly good you are at this thing? And then there is a sickness inside these men where they're like, no, because I need to be, be the best at this. Because otherwise I'm worried that I'm the worst at this. Otherwise I'm worried that everyone thinks I don't belong here at all. And I think that is for a little brother, Jonathan Nolan, to like write this screenplay for his brother Christopher Nolan, who has made a Batman movie. I mean, they worked on this before Batman, but that is just sort of like baked into the, into the process. So yeah, that urgency inside of these men, we're just sort of like, there's a couple things that would make it so this movie doesn't exist. One is if they had CPR because Julia was just seconds away from being fine. And the other is therapy. If we just had some therapy, I'd like to think instead of just like talking to our wives and girlfriends and disguised twin brothers about it, I think we would be doing better. So I have to say about that. All right, who do you think is a real villain of this movie?

Mallory Rubin (89:20)

My pick is kind of related. I'm going with obsession as, because I was considering going with ambition, but I don't think it's that. I think it's when ambition tips.

Joanna Robinson (89:32)

Right?

Mallory Rubin (89:32)

It's when. And it's interesting to me to think about this because as you and listeners of this pod and many people at the Ringer know, we talk a lot about obsession as kind of the holy touchstone of what we do here. Right. It's like a thing to celebrate and a thing to center. It's like we talk all the time about the Ringer is built on passion, expertise and obsession. And I love that about what we get to do. And I think that's very much how like, I relate. I'm not surprised that we both had very personal answers to this. This is like of part of why this is such a good prompt. So I, I, I think that obsession can be a gift, but I think it's really smart to examine when the like dark underbelly of that can rear and what, what leads maybe to that outcome, you know, when. Because even like, you know, this is another thing that we share, we talk about often. Like, I don't think competition is a bad thing. I don't think rivalries are a bad thing. Right. Like we, we're, we're competitive people. I think that can like really drive people. I think it drives us when envy and need turn into that destructive, all consuming force. When you can't exist or find contentment without thinking you won. That's a bad place to be. And I really, really love, I like, I Think it's an important thing to think about. I try to think about it. And like, I love the way that the movie explores that. You know, you have this kind of. Of like a declaration of intent. Right. My passion is equal to the task, which I fucking love, is what I said to you at the greeting of this podcast. And then you just have warning after warning after warning, much like the clues and glimpses of how the trick itself is performed, that point us road signs clear as day, illuminated by all the bulbs in the field, to where we're heading. Right. Like, there's only one place that the story is going. I really love the way that Tesla is used in the film in this respect in particular, like when he says, have you considered the cost of such a machine? Price is not an object.

Joanna Robinson (91:42)

Price is no object. Have you considered the cost?

Mallory Rubin (91:44)

Perhaps not, but have you considered the cost? Like, that gives me a chill. I can recognize an obsession. No good will come of it. Hasn't good come of your obsession? At first, but I follow them too long. I'm their slave. And one day they will choose to destroy me. Like, even in this moment, for Tesla, of self awareness and recognition of the peril and the plight and the folly, it's still, they will destroy me, not I will destroy myself.

Joanna Robinson (92:10)

Right. I.

Mallory Rubin (92:11)

That's such a, like, perfect little touch. And the way that anger's response to this is like, if you understand an obsession, then you know you can't change my mind. And Tesla is, of course, right. This is going to be this one. One of many unheeded warnings and a harbinger of what awaits. But I love the way that that builds over the film when Robert is. Is maybe the first time in the pod I've called him Robert. It didn't feel right.

Joanna Robinson (92:32)

Angier is so fun to say.

Mallory Rubin (92:34)

Yeah, Roberts, it's not. Sorry, Rob. His name.

Joanna Robinson (92:37)

His name in the book is Rert.

Mallory Rubin (92:39)

Rert. I might have been able to hang.

Joanna Robinson (92:41)

With a little bit more, actually, in your Giles era.

Mallory Rubin (92:43)

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When Aier says to Olivia, this has come up already. I don't care about my wife. I care about his secret. And there's that moment of. Of just enough shame to pull himself back in. But also like kind of, we clock, he clocks, Olivia clocks, everyone clocks. He's already lost, like, losing the clarity of either what actually drove you in the first place, or perhaps more accurately, what you told yourself drove you from the start. The truth that unlocked the fiction that you were going to continue to start the Walter White.

Joanna Robinson (93:21)

I did it. For my family.

Mallory Rubin (93:21)

Exactly. For my family. Exactly. Exactly.

Joanna Robinson (93:24)

I liked it.

Mallory Rubin (93:24)

Yes. The way that Cutter will ultimately say, obsession is a young man's game. Like, I just. I can't follow you any further. And then, of course, Tesla's letter, which is just sensational. I add only one suggestion on using the machine. Destroy it. Drop it to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Such a thing will bring you only misery. Like, this is a literal one. Ring, my precious stuff is sealed up. Destroy it. Like, that's what this is.

Joanna Robinson (93:57)

Hutter wants to destroy it. Like, everyone's after destroying this cursed object. Yeah. Love it. Okay, are you watching closely from this movie? Most exquisitely gorgeous shot.

Mallory Rubin (94:12)

Mine's the field of light bulbs, the snow field. I think that is fucking beautiful. And I love the way just the light fills the screen. I love the literalization of this thematic aspect of illumination given form in that visual. I really love when Ally picks up the bulb and it goes dark, and then it's placed in Anger's hand and him then twisting it back into the earth. Where are the wires? Exactly. The look on Angier's face in the sequence, the magician witnessing something magical, is, like, a very powerful thing to be able to show us in the story. And it's also just beautiful. So that's my pick.

Joanna Robinson (94:53)

I think, for me, it's. I already mentioned it, but Borden walking away as the fire rages around him and all the tanks are around him and his face is completely in shadow. And the way in which the light is reflecting off the tanks basically gives you, like, a smoke and mirror, like, literal smoke and mirrors moment inside of this magic movie, which I think is just absolutely incredible.

Mallory Rubin (95:20)

I love that.

Joanna Robinson (95:21)

I also do think a lot about Angier taking that bow below the stage.

Mallory Rubin (95:26)

Yes.

Joanna Robinson (95:28)

It's a beautiful shot and emotionally resonant for this character and for all the people who work behind the scenes and don't feel like they get to take the bow. And then also, just to usher us into the grisly, gothic final chapter of this story, the first introduction to the blind stagehands.

Mallory Rubin (95:53)

Oh, yeah, that's a great one.

Joanna Robinson (95:55)

So gruesome and, like, not that, like, you know, being blind is. But just the way in which they're just sort of, like, sightlessly there is just incredible stuff. Okay. I can't remember to forget you. The scene you think about the most. Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (96:14)

I also thought this was incredibly hard, I think, in some ways, because a lot of the things I would have wanted to pick could have gone in multiple categories, but also because of the Editing and the way we returned to scenes. So I'm not going to go with the scene, but I'm going to go with an idea. The idea that I think about the most, which is explored over a few scenes and which we've mentioned a few times today already, which is just like the commitment that the twins make to live their entire life in secret. Like, I think about this all the time, and I love the way that it is presented to us over the course of the film. When Borden and Angiera Cutter sends them to see the goldfish trick. You've already mentioned this. This moment where Borden is, like, observing and says, this is the trick. This is the performance right here. This is why no one can detect it. Method, total devotion to his art. A lot of self sacrifice, you know, it's the only way to escape all this. You know, the glimmer in his eye, the smile on his face, realizing that the choice he's already made at that point.

Joanna Robinson (97:20)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (97:21)

Can bear the fruit that he's hoping it will bear. And then the way that Angier, who couldn't recognize it, has to acknowledge that Borden could. Right before he is aware of what the true significance is, he's saying to Julie Julia, Borden saw it at once. I couldn't fathom it. Living my whole life pretending to be someone else. Now he will. He has already changed something about his life, you know, as is discussed actually in that scene. And of course, we'll end up as Lord Caldwell at the end, or not the end throughout, revealed to us toward the end. But it's a completely different relationship to that choice when he makes it. Angier insisting to Olivia, this is one of my favorite ways that this is engaged with in the film. Film that Borden is deceiving her, that he wants her to think that the glasses and the wigs and the glue that she spotted lying around the workshop are there for a secret double all the time.

Joanna Robinson (98:18)

Olivia.

Mallory Rubin (98:19)

That's who he is. That's what it takes. He lives his act. Don't you see? Like, he has come to understand something fundamental about this man and yet still doesn't understand the extent of it.

Joanna Robinson (98:30)

The prestige. You know, there's moments where, you know, where Borden is reading Angier's journal, right? And Angier's like, you know, he doesn't understand, like, the kind of commitment it takes. And Borden's like, I shot my own fingers off, right?

Mallory Rubin (98:45)

What the fuck are you talking about? If only you knew. And they will obviously actively discuss the idea of. Of sacrifice. And kind of both pitch the other on the fact that they made the truest one at the end. But, you know, obviously then the way this manifests in their other relationships in their life is also like, I think this is part of why I picked it for this cast. Think about the most. Because, you know, everything with Sarah, like, we get the.

Joanna Robinson (99:09)

That's mine is like, Sarah, like, all of the. Not today. Yeah. All of those moments for Sarah is just so, you know, you already mentioned that there is, like, plausible explanation for it, but just sort of like her rapid decline. I think it's also like, Sarah is so important in terms of, like, our shifting loyalties inside of this movie. Right. Like, we watch Azure lose his wife and Hugh Jackman, like, sob and, like, rent his clothing on the ground. You know what I mean? And so how are you not. But it's so interesting because I was looking at various analyses of the screenplay, like, sort of what people thought about how you break it down into the three part and stuff like that. And some people call Angier the protagonist of the screen movie. And I, you know, I think it's fine to say it's dual protagonist in this movie or, Or. Or. Or triple, if you want to count Borden twice, which you should. But actually, it's like shifting protagonists of this movie and. And it shifts where your sympathies are. And it is so important for Borden. Someone we watched tie a knot on poor Piper Parabo, which meant with her consent, which meant that she could not get out of that tank and then show up at the funeral and say, I'm not really sure which one. It is so important that, like, right there, after we see him meet Sarah, and it is so important that we then are, like, with him inside of that relationship and inside of that warmth and connection. And so we. His sort of arrogance and standoffishness is quickly thawed. And so then we are sort of like, we're with him through this. Oh, but then, like, this one maimed this one. Well, then this one maimed this one's back. And who's the bigger villain inside of this? And I think at the end of the day, it's Angier. Like, at the end of the day, the person who goes the furthest is obviously Angier. And so then when you rewatch, you kind of rewatch that in mind. But, like, it's just a careful magic trick, the way in which they use. Again, they're Nolan, so they use them both Juliet and Sarah, you know, in these intimate moments to. And Olivia to Like a less successful degree, I would say, to. To give us the interior lives of these people. I think it is so interesting to your pick about the dedication to living a half life to the secret. It's a real, like Ned, you could tell Kat about Jon Snow moment for me where I'm like, you could tell Sarah. It bought her a really nice house. You can tell Sarah and she won't tell anyone, but they're so committed to this that they won't. Whereas Julia knows who Angier is really. Like, he's told Julia, Right. But, like, Borden won't let himself tell Sarah. And then the one more layer deep on that, though, is that Borden and Julia have this secret. Right. They have this moment over the knot that, like. Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (102:10)

The luck. Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (102:10)

That Angier is not involved in, which I think is so interesting. Interesting inside of all of that.

Mallory Rubin (102:15)

The fact that Angier is willing to reveal this in Borden is not. Tracks completely to me because he is revealing something about the nature of theatricality and presentation. And Borden is like, this is a fundamental aspect of creation. I can't share it. And so I really love that when in the first meeting with Sarah, which this is shared ultimately because of the sad, scared little boy, but still, it's like the opening note for their union. Never show anyone this is what he says. They'll beg you and flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up, you'll be nothing to them. You understand? Nothing. The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything. Now, to your point, would Sarah respond that way? Of course not. We even have the bullet catch reveal scene there to, like, give us a counterweight to, like, this insistence that nothing could be revealed. But it is just kind of like a sacred aspect of how the twins have chosen to live. So then the way that. That deception, the toll, the cost mounts for two people and four people who these. These characters, the twins do love. The fact that she could always tell whether the I love you is sincere or not, I agree, is just like, whew, boy, that's a. That's a painful one. And the way that it eventually does shatter that is an illusion that doesn't hold right. Is like the idea that the relationship can with. Of withholding. So when Sarah's like, I can't live like this, his response is, oh, you think I can? You think I bloody enjoy this? But it's still the choice that he believes has to trump all other choices that he could possibly make.

Joanna Robinson (104:01)

And also that's the wrong twin inside of that.

Mallory Rubin (104:04)

Yes. Right. And then, like, I think the way that we get that just absolutely, like, crushing. We each had half of a full life, really, which was enough for us just. But not for them line when he's talking to Angier at the end is just really fucking devastating. And as is the way that he responds to the simple, easy declaration with no, like, simple, maybe, but not easy. There's nothing easy about two men sharing one life. And so that is the thing I think about the most, is just what was required to do this and why he thought this was. Was right.

Joanna Robinson (104:40)

Yeah. And if I will say, the benefit of reading the book is the benefit of understanding how these two men came up. Like, how. How their background, how they started, how this decision was made in the first place. Like, all of that sort of stuff, which is not something we are privy to because it's part of this. Like, you can't. Like, he cannot press, pause and monologue about the moment in their life when they made the decision to do this and what their life was like and all that sort of stuff, but you can do it inside of a book. I think also the shifting, the matter of perspective, this goes back to sort of the imposter syndrome, the obsession, the envy sort of thing. As you're following Borden and seeing him greet Sarah and the baby and being like, he took everything from me. And he has that. He's perfectly happy. He's so happy he has that. And then later, reading the journals and, like, sometimes he says he's happy, and then sometimes he sounds like a man trapped. And it sounds. Because one. One. One twin does kind of get to win for a big part of their. A part of their life there where it's just sort of like, I dated first, so my girlfriend becomes our wife. So, you know, like, you know, my kid becomes our kid. Like all this, you know, in theory. Who's to say? I don't know how often the other twin was also having sex with Sarah or was every night a headache night when it was the other twins turn.

Mallory Rubin (106:01)

I don't know.

Joanna Robinson (106:02)

But, like, I think that, like, you know, and then to. To hear then the other twin talking to Olivia and, you know, and while he's sort of magician, like, sort of twirls his wedding ring along his fingers, right? Because he's just sort of, like, stuck inside of this reality. But, like.

Mallory Rubin (106:22)

And then when he says to her later, like, the one who does love Olivia. Yeah, like, I know. I don't want to talk about. I don't need to talk about that because to him, she is the one. And her response is. It's inhuman. Human.

Joanna Robinson (106:33)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (106:33)

To be that cold. Like neither of them can fully. There's not a way for either of them to fully enjoy that life because it is definitionally fractured.

Joanna Robinson (106:44)

Okay. Swear to me, this movie is rated PG13, which means it could have exactly one F bomb. Where would you put it? For me? There are so many places I could put I don't care about my wife. I care about his secret. When that happened in the movie theater that I was watching the movie in, I. I and many other people gasped. Yeah, I don't care about my wife. Would it have been stronger with I don't care about my wife. I care about his secret? Maybe. I don't know. I think about Paradox bitch all the time. But like, that's a. That's a place that I would consider. It's such a. Like.

Mallory Rubin (107:27)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (107:28)

Slice through you moment. And to maybe watch this character who has. Does not swear elsewhere to swear. Swear to me. Swear here would maybe even drive that further home.

Mallory Rubin (107:38)

But yeah, the crumbling of the sophisticated facade even further.

Joanna Robinson (107:42)

That's the debonair sort of.

Mallory Rubin (107:43)

I like that. That's a great one. Yeah. This was not nearly as clear to me as the fucking paradox bitch because frankly, I just think actually there's a version of this movie where these characters are cursing all the time that like, feels truer to how they would speak, I think, particularly Borden. So I had three nominations, all of which we've quoted elsewhere at Arianny. I think all the fucking time. Olivia. Same for the same reason you said. Just the slipping in that moment into like a completely unvarnished real version. Yeah, exactly. I think the. The board in with the like abusive prison guard moment. Only if I teach you how to fudgeing read would have been great. And the Alley Cat moment. You're fucking responsible for whatever happens to this animal.

Joanna Robinson (108:34)

That's the one.

Mallory Rubin (108:35)

You're fucking responsible.

Joanna Robinson (108:41)

He doesn't speak English. If he does, is with an accent thicker than sauerkraut sauce. Most baffling accent.

Mallory Rubin (108:46)

I've been waiting three months for your pick here. I can't wait. There are some choices. I can't wait to see what you go with here.

Joanna Robinson (108:53)

I think. I think it's Garjo o'. Clock. Honestly. I think it's time to talk about. You can make the case. I think for Andy Serkis, master of blending. And I buy him as King Kong. I buy him as Gollum. I'm not sure I buy him as someone from the Bronx. I'm not quite sure that that fully works for me.

Mallory Rubin (109:15)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (109:16)

And then, you know, Bowie's really doing something inside of his movie. I love it. I love it.

Mallory Rubin (109:22)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (109:23)

But. But let's go back to ScarJo.

Mallory Rubin (109:26)

When you're with me, you're with me. That's my pick. How can it not be like, what. What is that? Okay. It's.

Joanna Robinson (109:40)

It's stunning. It's genuinely stunning. I didn't see much about her casting. It's interesting. She's, like, so dead center on the poster. I don't know if you're gonna watch a Hugh Jackman ScarJo join. I would recommend Scoop over this. Okay. So no one cared who I was until I put on the mask. Best use of an old inverse regular. I'm sorry, it's just Michael Caine again.

Mallory Rubin (110:06)

I think it's Christian Bale.

Joanna Robinson (110:08)

Okay.

Mallory Rubin (110:08)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (110:09)

I mean, they're both incredible. I just think that the way that, like, Michael Caine, inside of so many of these stories becomes this, like, narrator, and they all. They all narrate inside this movie. But, like, this movie opens with, you know, him explaining the three parts of the magic trick, which we then find out is, like, part of his testimony at a trial. Like, when you drill down to it, he. He's not saying it to Jess during the trick. He's just doing the trick for her. He's saying it as part of his testimony. Then he's like, and then there's the prestige. And then the lawyer's like, so, what'd you say? And you're like, wow, what a testimony to give. But you buy it because it's Michael Caine, and you're just swept up in the romanticism of it. You put it in all the trailers. You're just sort of like. It's. There's so much juice to just putting Michael Caine in that role, in a role that, like, is a little tough because of the way that Cutter's loyalties go around, because of the way that Cutter is, like, really hard on Borden. Like, weirdly, at the beginning, like, all of this sort of stuff is. Just works so much better because it is avuncular thinking about Alfred, Michael Caine in the role.

Mallory Rubin (111:23)

We're also just treated to some of the most amazing, amazing line deliveries from him in this movie. Saves me cutting you an arrow. I can't do the accent, but it's just a great one. I absolutely love it. You know, I've picked Michael Kane for this category before. I think it's an appropriate pick. Basically every pod. I can't challenge the pick. Certainly wouldn't dream of it. I think the reason I picked Bale is, like, you know, as we've already talked about, I just love the performance, but I think, specifically, like, the degree of difficulty of this performance, given the subtle distinction in each scene based on which twin he is. Like, it's kind of amazing. So good. Yeah. So that's.

Joanna Robinson (112:05)

I think this is my favorite Bale performance.

Mallory Rubin (112:07)

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I don't know what I would pick instead, actually. I mean, I think he's fantastic in a lot of films, but this is my pick.

Joanna Robinson (112:17)

Here's one I just completely failed to deliver on, which is the stunt category. Why do we fall, sir? So that we can pick our. We can learn to pick ourselves up.

Mallory Rubin (112:24)

I got one. One for you.

Joanna Robinson (112:26)

Tell me.

Mallory Rubin (112:26)

Here's what I'm going with. The leg crush.

Joanna Robinson (112:28)

Yeah, I was gonna say that's my. That was my only option, is, like, falling through the stage into the leg crush.

Mallory Rubin (112:33)

The two. I. I was also considering the bullet catch because that is, like, an interesting. An interestingly choreographed scene. Though, frankly, it is one of the. The few true, like, notes I have on the movie where I'm just like, how'd he get picked? Yeah, they don't see that that's him. Like, as you noted, we have time infiltration after infiltration, and they will both get away with this. But when it's, like, a huge crowd and they're further in the audience, like, then I can kind of accept it more. And then there's also, like, more of a, oh, we should. We should have clocked them aspect to it later. But here I'm just like, I don't know that he should have been able to put a. To put bullet in that gun. Anyway, the leg crush, you've got a lot of stuff that helps heighten the impact of the actual stunt that's involved. So, like, Olivia has betrayed Angier, has led Borden to root. Borden has incepted Root, right. Telling him this. Like, I. Oh, it went bad. He had complete power over me. Be careful of giving someone that much power over you. Cut to cut. Her saying to Angier, don't. Don't do the. Don't do the trick tonight. Yeah, don't do the trick. We don't do any tricks we can't control. And then injured does it anyway. Borden has infiltrated. The mat is removed. So we've had these, like, charming light moments elsewhere in the film where he drops, Olivia falls. She's like, oh, we couldn't have gotten something softer. They like, entangle. Very romantic, very sweet. Great. Everyone's happy. Life is going great. Not so fast. Falls down, crushes his leg, which then is like this ultimately, like, really crucial. Not not only moment for further resentment, but kind of becomes one of the key, like, we can track where we are in time aspects of the film. When does he have the lamp? When does he have the brace? When does he have the cane, et cetera. Looks over after sustaining this injury and sees Borden where Root should be. Borden going up, sealing the stage. Professor guys in his professor guys. Because Olivia has said, you know what? You actually could learn something from him.

Joanna Robinson (114:42)

A little razzle dazzle.

Mallory Rubin (114:43)

Little razzle dazzle. Some jazz hands going. And makes a complete mockery of Angier's act. Lowers Root from the rafters to dangle him. And so this moment before of, like, I'm caught beneath the stage. I'm bowing when no one's there to see me because I don't get to be up there soaking it in.

Joanna Robinson (115:06)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (115:06)

The other side of that. Also hobbled and trapped beneath.

Joanna Robinson (115:13)

Really incapacitated. While my reputation just goes through the paper shredder. Really good. Okay. It's a great excuse to talk about a great moment, but I don't think there's actually really any good stunts in this movie.

Mallory Rubin (115:27)

But he falls. We do our best. Okay.

Joanna Robinson (115:32)

Stealth. MVP of this movie that not enough people talk about. Amateur. Seek the sun, get eaten. Power stays in the shadow. I'm gonna say it's Rebecca hall as Sarah, which we already talked about how crucial Sarah is to this movie. And I would add that. I already mentioned this, but the way in which Christian Bale calibrates how he looks at her scene to scene, depending on which twin he's playing, is really incredible. There are some shortcuts that have. I would say all three of these women are fairly thinly drawn. Piper Perabo actually perhaps has the most dimensionality because she is like, a thing that she wants to do. But like. But like, the way in which. Which. And the way in which Sarah falls apart is like, right off a cliff. Right. I think I could have seen, like, a few little nips of Sherry before, but we got, like, full blown what happens. But I just think that, like, Rebecca hall is. This is an incredible year for Rebecca Hall. She just started for 10, a movie that I love and this. And then she does Vicky Christina Barcelona. I actually thought Rebecca hall was going to be, like, one of the biggest actresses in the world, and then she's, you know, she's directing. Like, she's doing interesting things, but, like, she did not become the thing that I thought she was gonna become. And like, I find her really arresting in this movie. And I think, you know, people talk about Jackman and Kane and Bale, but I think. And they gracefully don't talk about ScarJo that much. But I think we should be talking about Rebecca Hall a bit more. So.

Mallory Rubin (117:15)

Co sign completely. I'll just say now that she's my pick for a later category, which is like, why didn't this person not come back? Because she's so sensational. I mean, always, but she's. She is so sensational working with his material. So.

Joanna Robinson (117:30)

I agree.

Mallory Rubin (117:31)

I would. I really would like to see them work together again. Like, I think this is. She's just dynamite in this movie. I agree. Not relevant to the current discussion, but she is married to Morgan Spector, who plays George Russell in the Gilded Age. And they are.

Joanna Robinson (117:44)

That is just. Is the.

Mallory Rubin (117:45)

That is a 10 out of 10 couple right there.

Joanna Robinson (117:47)

What is Rebecca hall doing? Morgan Spect.

Mallory Rubin (117:51)

That is a 10 out of 10 couple right there. My pick here. That's a great one. My pick is what I already mentioned earlier, which is just like the movies. I'm trying to adopt a Michael Kane Cutter accent. I just simply am not capable of it. I love the way he says that the trick designs actually, like, not only not fucking this up so that we're like, wait, can this person sing? Or is that joke funny? But nailing it to. To wow the audience the way that we would feel wowed if we were just in the seat at the theater, but also then allow us to better understand it, to take us deeper inside of the space of the people who are, like, inhabiting this world and crafting these. These illusions, I keep there. I don't know if you're having this experience of like, every third line about, to quote Arrested Development, like, you don't have time.

Joanna Robinson (118:41)

Illusions, Michael.

Mallory Rubin (118:42)

For my illusions, every time I say tricks, I wanna. I wanna quote that. But, like, whether it's the Transported man or the New Transported man or the original Transported man or the real Transported man, whether it's the Bullet Catch or the original bird trick or the, the updated dove trick or the Tank Not Escape or anything like the Goldfish bowl, the fact that we are seeing it through the audience's eyes, then seeing it through the eyes of the scholar, the eyes of the engineer, the intention, the care, the study, like, and then that is given meta form in the film itself. I just really love. And I think. I guess my runner up is like. Though I'm on the fence about whether this is like a one to award or one to note, actually, but I think I land ultimately on one to award is like, the makeup, the prosthetics, the costume design. Because again, the fact that on rewatch you're like. If you see just an inch of Fallon's face, you're like, that's Christian Bale. Doesn't change the fact that the first time you watch it, that's not necessarily the experience good.

Joanna Robinson (119:41)

It's really good.

Mallory Rubin (119:42)

And it's like, also, in addition to the Fallon and the Root, like the kind of core areas where that needs to.

Joanna Robinson (119:48)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (119:49)

Work and convince us, there's the. Just all of the other disguises that they used to kind of go about their day where you have to accept that that would work, you know, that they could maybe infiltrate that room or get on that stage even for a second. So.

Joanna Robinson (120:03)

Yeah. How many fake beers in this movie? Okay.

Mallory Rubin (120:06)

Quite a few.

Joanna Robinson (120:07)

You're waiting on a train. A train that will take you far away. Best dead wife moment.

Mallory Rubin (120:12)

A lot of pics.

Joanna Robinson (120:13)

Is it Piper Parabo's dead body flopping onto the stage?

Mallory Rubin (120:18)

It is.

Joanna Robinson (120:18)

Or is.

Mallory Rubin (120:20)

Is. I regret to tell you.

Joanna Robinson (120:22)

It is. Or is it Sarah's hands twitching and then stilling in front of the. In the bird cages?

Mallory Rubin (120:29)

It is Julia. It is Julia drowning. It is The. The. It reminds me a little bit of what they do with Keri Russell's eyes in the third Mission Impossible film. It's like the moment when the eyes just, like, shift. Horrifying. Always drowning.

Joanna Robinson (120:45)

Work from Piper Perabo. Better than Jackman's. Good. She's better. Like, it's really good in terms of that moment. Yeah. When, like, Julia's just gone.

Mallory Rubin (120:52)

Yeah, exactly. It's unmistakable. And then I think the reason that this is the pick, even though I think I, like you, am more kind of emotionally connected to everything happening with Sarah, is really just like, this is like the inciting incident for everything. The not as that great early twin clue. The how could we not know of it? The cycle of vengeance and violence that this sparks. The. The need to, you know, constantly try to one up each other. The bullet catch, the crunching of the bird cage. On and on and on it goes. All the stuff we've already talked about. The way that Angier then uses the tank, like, both to issue this message to Borden in the presentation, in the speech, but then also the fact that, like, he is. That is the tank. The tank that his wife drowned in is the tank that he is drowning versions of himself in every night. It's like, to me, the ultimate manifestation of that self delusion. Right? Like, I can tell myself that this pledge is intact. That tank is a way to remind myself that I'm doing it for her. Her. Even though that's not what this is anymore and it hasn't been. I don't care about my time. Yeah, really, really, really good.

Joanna Robinson (121:59)

Also worth noting that, like, Angier, the. The parallels of, like, Angier drowning and Julia drowning and Borden hanging and Sarah hanging is a nice, grizzly little mirror moment inside of this movie.

Mallory Rubin (122:13)

Okay, I was lying. You said it was agony tough.

Joanna Robinson (122:17)

Once again, just want to note for the record that the Nolan's agony added two dead wives to a story that had no dead wives in it. Okay.

Mallory Rubin (122:28)

Unbelievable. Like, defies belief and yet doesn't.

Joanna Robinson (122:34)

And yet here we are. Okay. They won't fear it until they understand it, and they won't understand it until they've used it. Clearest great man moment. I'm gonna give it to this. You're familiar with the phrase, man's reach exceeds his grasp? It's a lie. Man's grasp exceeds his nerve. The only limits on scientific progress are these are those imposed by society. The first time I changed the world, I was hailed as a visionary. The second time, I was asked politely to retire. The world only tolerates one change at a time. And so here I am enjoying, quote, retirement. Nothing is impossible, Mr. Angier. What you want is simply expensive. And then we get the price, and then the cost that follows, but the, the exceeds, you know, man's reach exceeds his grasp. Which is then, of course, reiterated, as you mentioned, in the. In the transmorted man trick. But that's just, like, their fascination. You know, we talked about this with Thomas Wayne. We talk about this inside of Inception. I think this, this, you know, I put it in here in the first place, place because I was just thinking so much about Oppenheimer. But it really is an interesting thing for these brothers and Christopher Nolan, specifically to sort of revisit again and again, which is just sort of like, what can the one man, the one great man, the one great brain, the one great thinker, the one great innovator, do right? And so to, like, put that inside of a movie where Tesla is here, Tesla, the great innovator, Tesla is here. And for Angier to then, like, steal that valor a bit inside of, like a trick. Yep, is. Is particularly juicy, but I just the use of Tesla in general, the casting of Bowie as Tesla, I think is so interesting because inspired, you know, there is just this. He's not in the movie that often. He's not even given, like a. He's not giving a big, like, Jared the Goblin King, showy Bowie performance. He's doing something quite subtle here, but, like, there's just a star quality, and you're just like, oh, my God, Bowie's here. Oh, my God, Tesla's here. And this is before Tesla was a household name with the car company, et cetera. And so, you know, plenty of people knew who Tesla was, but not everyone knew what a Tesla coil was. And so I think that casting choice is so interesting. The speech is so interesting. And the preoccupation inside of filmmaking, which is such a collaborative process, this idea of, like, you know, I find it an endearing sort of Achilles heel for Chris Cole in this idea, this preoccupation with this idea, you know.

Mallory Rubin (125:21)

Yeah, I think this is my pick as well. The quote that you picked, I mean, how could it. How could it not be like, I think, think, you know, Tesla just in general in the movie for. For the reasons you said. Like, I think that the fact that Nolan is preoccupied but, like, through that preoccupation, very aware and constantly assessing, like, where. Where this leads people is. Is, yeah, important. I think the. The other Tesla quote that feels very, like, headline, great man, bold font to me is in the. And I like that because, like, the quote you read is when they're, you know, we've had the little handshake moment and the bringing of the light bulb, but then that's like in their basically first proper conversation, you know, on the. On the deck. And then the other quote that I think is very reflective of this idea is in the farewell note. So it's kind of like the bookends of their experience with each other. I apologize for leaving without saying goodbye, but I see to have outstayed my welcome in Colorado. Colorado, truly extraordinary, is not permitted in science and industry. Perhaps you'll find more luck in your field where people are happy to be mystified. I love that line. And that feels like one of the more meta quotes in the film from the Nolan. Like, people are happy to be mystified when they go to a movie. They're looking and hoping to be transported. So to pair that appreciation and recognition that Angier esque, We do it for the look on their faces with the interrogation of. Well, we're doing it also for, like, kind of the holy, like, the sanctity of the craft of forging this and being able to, like, being the rare few who can, you know, the Borden and then the Tesla ability to, like, see it in full and take stock of in a way that neither Angiera or Borden is able to, because it is there in the. In the midst of it. And like, ultimately, if you look at Tesla and the actual timeline of, like, where the film is set and where he is in his life, like, he's in the midst of it too, but he's experienced a lot of it to that point. And I think that idea of, like, what this kind of competition and need drives people to, but then also, like, the way the world responds to advancement, whatever form advancement takes. And like, the idea that the wonder can be mixed with the fear.

Joanna Robinson (127:47)

Resentment.

Mallory Rubin (127:48)

Yeah. And the awe can give way to something that could be. Can be as active as, like, banishment. Like, we will not accept that you're here. We are afraid of what you're doing to this place and to the world, and we're not ready for it. Like, it's just all.

Joanna Robinson (128:05)

I mean, but like, all of that's wrapped inside of, like, it's not Colorado that's rejecting him. It's Edison's goons that have been sent to persecute him. And so it's like Edison's goons who. The same ones who showed up at the Expo and are sort of fear mongering in the audience of, like, oh, looks dangerous to me. You know, like, I don't look safe at all.

Mallory Rubin (128:25)

Yeah. That people are susceptible to, like, so stimuli in all sorts of forms. Like, either what you present to them or what other people do is really interesting.

Joanna Robinson (128:34)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (128:34)

Like a great man does not fully control his own fate.

Joanna Robinson (128:37)

That's.

Mallory Rubin (128:37)

That's what Tesla would say in the film and certainly what a lot of these films have to say.

Joanna Robinson (128:41)

All right. We have a few categories to get through and I want to make sure that we have time for everything. So let's zip a little bit and say. I'm going to say regrettably miscast. I would say Ms. Scarlett Johansson. I would put someone else in that Olivia role.

Mallory Rubin (128:55)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (128:56)

I think terrible, but, like, it's just someone, you know.

Mallory Rubin (128:59)

Yeah. It doesn't really feel like a so ScarJo performance that we remember. I think the she. That's a good one. I think the other candidate here is Andy Serkis. Even though I think he's good in the movie. I'm kind of. Of like, I don't know that Ally is particular enough to necessarily have needed to be played by Auntie Circus.

Joanna Robinson (129:16)

He has such a broad performance from.

Mallory Rubin (129:19)

I do. I do really like some of his. Some of his scenes and moments and like, you know, you have a circle, circle of trust with someone who's diary you stole. Very fun. Very charming, very good.

Joanna Robinson (129:28)

You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled. Most satisfying twist.

Mallory Rubin (129:32)

I mean, we've talked about them all.

Joanna Robinson (129:33)

Second bale in plain sight. Second bale in plain sight. Just stunning.

Mallory Rubin (129:39)

Stunning stone. And that's. That's just sensational. It's unbelievable. It's really like kind of like Pantheon stuff. That's the pick, obviously. I think this, I guess the, like, quieter pick that we've talked about. But I want to note quickly again, it's just. I do love the double diary deception.

Joanna Robinson (129:57)

Yeah, I love the double diary deception, which then, like, makes you question everything that you. You heard leading up to it. I mean, I don't think that Borden sat down and faked every entry in that diary. Encoded every entry in that diary. Especially given the way that it's like the dual perspective and stuff like that. Like, I don't think the whole thing is fake, but it's certainly in latter entries. It's possible that he was just sort of like, let's see how I can taunt Angier. It's not who I am underneath phrasing, but what I do that defines me. Nolan is not known for his sexual content. But let's go ahead and try and excavate the horniest moment of this film. I'm gonna say it's giving your wife a cheeky little kiss on the thigh.

Mallory Rubin (130:39)

Yep.

Joanna Robinson (130:39)

That Michael Caine's like, they can see you in Road three and four when you do that. It's this. It's this. You know, he. They literally, like, have sex in this movie. But it is the. It is the secrecy, the thrill of the secrecy of, like, every night I get to go up on stage and smoosh my wife on the thigh in plain view of everyone. But also, they're not supposed to see that I'm doing it.

Mallory Rubin (130:57)

It.

Joanna Robinson (130:57)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (130:58)

The blokes at the ends of rows three and four, that's. That's. That's one of my contenders as well. And then it's kind of, like, sad because he's been scolded, so he doesn't do it. He kind of has just, like, a slight little, like, rub of the thigh instead. And that's it.

Joanna Robinson (131:11)

That's.

Mallory Rubin (131:11)

That's the miss. Miss. The last thigh Kiss. I would also like to nominate, in a similar approximate part of the film, the discussion of the wet knot. I'd like to throw that out there for horny consideration. Wet knot. Julia is quite.

Joanna Robinson (131:28)

Quite good with knots.

Mallory Rubin (131:30)

Quite. Julia. Julia is ready for the wet knot.

Joanna Robinson (131:33)

Knows her way around. Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (131:36)

So that. And then I think when. Because in the scene that you just mentioned where they, you know, it is an intimate scene, because this is when Angier is trying to, like, figure out the goldfish bowl trick, and he's, like, wrapped in a sheet and he opens it and he's already shirtless, and then they're about to fuck. Why not just, like, have your dick in the bowl? That's a little surprise for your wife.

Joanna Robinson (131:54)

In the bowl?

Mallory Rubin (131:55)

Yeah, part of the trick. It's like, look what I revealed.

Joanna Robinson (131:59)

You want the convex glass to really just sort of like, showcase it for you. Yeah, it's my dick in a bowl, dear.

Mallory Rubin (132:06)

And then you're gonna get a wet knot.

Joanna Robinson (132:13)

An idea is like a virus. Resilient. Highly contagious. The line that hits hardest, 20 years later, later. Free, clean power.

Mallory Rubin (132:24)

Grim. That's free, clean power. Oh, my God. Tesla, boy. Yeah. Harrowing pick. I like it. I am gonna go with no one cares about the man who disappears, which feels very upsetting. More upsetting somehow, every time you watch it. I like the way, really, structurally, that.

Joanna Robinson (132:46)

That.

Mallory Rubin (132:46)

That kind of builds over the film and is explored over, like, initial. After the first performance, and he's under the stage and can't enjoy the celebration. No one cares about the man who disappears when everyone else is drinking champagne and celebrating and he's just, like, swept up in what he doesn't have, that it's not enough. It's not satisfying enough when he's in his Cald Low era and lording his victory over Borden, he's doing it by invoking that idea again. And I win because no one cares about the man in the box, the man who disappears, and the way that then he. He's, like, haunted by this and all of the different things that it means as he's looking at his own water coffins and, like, touching them and saying it again. No one cares about the man and the box and has to really confront that. And then, you know, we've discussed this already, but I think the way that Borden gets to celebrate by saying, like, Angiers down to his final breath. And that's the thing he needs to know, right, is, like, which of you Was it? Like, did you get to do it? Was it him?

Joanna Robinson (133:51)

Yeah. We trained.

Mallory Rubin (133:52)

And the smile on his face when he gets to say we took turns. Because, like, while it was a half life, it was a life that they got to share.

Joanna Robinson (133:59)

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Okay. You think darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the duck. I was born in it, molded by it. Most devastating moment. There's actually a few candidates for this. For me.

Mallory Rubin (134:17)

Yeah. It's a sad movie.

Joanna Robinson (134:18)

Mine.

Mallory Rubin (134:18)

So I'll go quickly because mine's related to what I was just talking about, which is just that I think my pick is ultimately when Borden has to sit, when the twins have to say goodbye like they're partying.

Joanna Robinson (134:26)

It's one of mine. We go alone now.

Mallory Rubin (134:28)

You go live your life in full now. All right. You live for both of us and bounce us in the ball. Like, the idea of the Transported man taking shape truly, like, for the first.

Joanna Robinson (134:38)

Time, balancing goodbye in a way that, like. Like, you know, we barely heard him talk all the whole movie.

Mallory Rubin (134:45)

Yeah.

Joanna Robinson (134:46)

I think also, I mean, not today. No. Is really, really tough.

Mallory Rubin (134:53)

Pain.

Joanna Robinson (134:54)

Gordon saying goodbye to his niece, promising that he'll return. But, like, again, it's just, like, so clear that he loves her. And this is so painful for him to say goodbye to her and say goodbye to his brother. I think also, just like, this is. This is. This is minor pain. This is rewatch pain. Sarah telling the wrong brother that she's pregnant.

Mallory Rubin (135:18)

We should have told Malin.

Joanna Robinson (135:21)

Should really be here.

Mallory Rubin (135:21)

Incredible moment.

Joanna Robinson (135:26)

You really should have told Malin.

Mallory Rubin (135:27)

That's a great one. I love that.

Joanna Robinson (135:30)

But I think. I think. I think Christian Bale is Borden on the other side of the bars to his brother and to his niece, who is also his daughter.

Mallory Rubin (135:42)

Yeah. Because I think so much of the film is about the sacrifice and what is required to devote your life to something in full, which we've obviously discussed a lot today. But I think then really seeing the tenderness and celebration and joy of the other side of it. Right. Like, they did get to share life, and they always had each other, no matter what. Like, no one else could know. And that secret was harmful, but it was a secret that they shared. They shared everything too much more than two people should share, some might say. But they did ultimately get to share it all. And then, like, that's over. So you're not just losing your brother, which would be horrible enough. You're not just losing your twin, which would be horrible enough. You're not just losing your creative partner, which would be horrible enough. You were losing, actually a part of you a half of your entire existence to that point. Like, how would you even think. Think about who you were moving forward? So that's. Yeah, that's my pick. And then he apologizes, too, because there's, like, guilt entwined with the sorrow.

Joanna Robinson (136:39)

Sorry about Sarah. Sorry about Sarah, man. All right. Can you hear the music, Robert? This is usually where we talk about a Zimmerism, a Hans Zimmerism, really. I'm just saving this for Dunkirk on the score, but you wanted to keep this for sound design. So what did you want to say about the sound design?

Mallory Rubin (136:57)

So this is like a class. I suggested we keep it for sound design. Was going to talk about the sound of the electricity, the crackles of the current on the machine. Because it is, to me, like, there is an element. You know, this movie is a mystery, it's a thriller. There's, like, a horror aspect to it, and I think that heightens it. I'm going with something else, though. I ended up actually going with the score moment after all, because this is a scene that you've discussed a couple times. It was the greatest magic trick I've ever seen. The way that the score is used in that scene is, I think, like, breathtaking, because we are watching. So we are watching Angier is watching Borden perform the Transported man for the first time. And he's gone once again, in full disguise to seek out their revenge. You know, Olivia has kind of said, like, let me help, actually, I'm not going to stop you, I'm going to help you. Right. They've had this really, like, intense. My wife for a couple of his fingers, like, were never. The scores never even. I'm never stopping. Preamble to this. And then the Professor's performing in the crowd is basically, like, unmoved, nearly silent. There's no theatricality. Right. And then the way that this scene is edited, where we cut between the. The. The Transported man being revealed to the crowd and Angier peeling off the disguise as he's recounting to Olivia what he witnessed. The bouncing of the red ball. He had a new trick. And the score activates and it surges and then it just remains at this, consistent, like home. I don't know how to talk about music, but, like a sustained pitch, like a resonation. Yes, that's a perfect. That's the perfect word. Like the way that they talk throughout the movie about, well, you've got to get the audience to that place. Right? Like, it can't be root. You've got to sell them. The mounting tension that Moment of anticipation. The way that the score reflects that. And then the door. The bounce into door one, close door one, and the score stops. It's just the sound is sucked out of the scene just like Borden disappeared. Was it good? It was the greatest magic trick I've ever seen. And we don't actually see in that sequence the return.

Joanna Robinson (139:09)

Right.

Mallory Rubin (139:10)

But the way that the sound plays in the scene, the absence of it, tells us what is happening. And it's just like, I think, great. Really reinforces what transpired. And the fact that Angier, who went there to inflict horror harm, was too odd by what he saw, too delighted.

Joanna Robinson (139:27)

I was reading through the screenplay, and.

Mallory Rubin (139:30)

I'm not sure who. Jack.

Joanna Robinson (139:31)

You know, there's differences in the screenplay, in the movie. That's fine. That's fine. Stage directions that, you know, the actors decide to follow or not in a discussion they have with the director. Jackman doesn't quite play it this way, but the way that it's written in screenplay is like.

Mallory Rubin (139:48)

St.

Joanna Robinson (139:49)

Still with a smile on his face, sort of basking in the joy of that moment of getting to witness that. Jackman's playing it with more, like, frustration and resentment inside of it. Awe.

Mallory Rubin (140:02)

Awe, for sure.

Joanna Robinson (140:03)

Awe. But not, like, delight the way that, like, it was originally conceived, but that idea that, like. Yeah, you're just so transported. Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (140:13)

There's like, a begrudging appreciation before you shift back into, like, Terminator mode. So the music really enhances that there. I love it. What about you?

Joanna Robinson (140:21)

I didn't do this one. Okay. For me, I think this is.

Mallory Rubin (140:24)

You want to keep it?

Joanna Robinson (140:25)

I thought we'd just give it. Okay. For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship. Actor who never returned to the Nolan verse, but should. Have you mentioned Rebecca Hall? I'm going to give it to Roger Reese, who is one of my favorite. I first saw him in church, Cheers. He showed up in, like, later seasons of Cheers. West Wing fans obviously know him from West Wing, but, like, I know him from a lot of stage stuff that he did in the Shakespeare realm. And he's just. He. He passed away, so this will not come to be. But, like, he's just. He's got one of the most delicious voices that has ever existed. And if you want, like. If you want, like, a. A straight shot to upper crust, you can hire Roger Reese to do that. But there's just, like, this rye quality to him that always delights and. And draws you in. And I think he could have been a really fun, like, sort of Fringy player inside of the Nolan verse. So.

Mallory Rubin (141:20)

Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah. Owens is. Owens is really good in the movie. I love that. Great pick.

Joanna Robinson (141:27)

Some men just want to watch the world burn. The most. Nolan thing about this movie, this is.

Mallory Rubin (141:33)

A coin flip to me. Between the nonlinear plotting and the sheer tonnage of dead wives. I. I don't know how you pick between them, honestly. Co champions.

Joanna Robinson (141:46)

I think. I think the like, the monomania. The like. Why do we do it? Why do we do this? Why do we torture ourselves? Why do we do this? Especially making this having. Coming off of. Coming off of back Batman. I think this is summed up in this line. I don't want to kill doves. Then stay off the stage. Right. This is just sort of like this is what we do. Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (142:14)

Gotta get your hands dirty.

Joanna Robinson (142:15)

We sacrifice all, you know, for. For the art. Do we do it for the look on their faces in the crowd? Do we do it to transport ourselves away from a world that we don't want to be in? Like. I don't know. It's all. It's all very interesting. You know, I think about a lot lot. What I forgot to mention earlier. Tell me that Jonathan Nolan and Chris Nolan were raised together and Jonathan Nolan decided to have an American accent. And Chris Nolan has a British accent. They were. They spent summers in Chicago. Their mom's American. So like, you know, it could have gone either way. But Chris Nolan who went to college in London and. And Jonathan Nolan who went to school at Georgetown, like they. He just decided. Decided I'm gonna be an American. Like maybe to differentiate from his brother or. I don't know what it was, but it's interesting to me.

Mallory Rubin (143:01)

Could be the deepest insight into that partnership yet. Could just be that when you spend a few years in the mid Atlantic.

Joanna Robinson (143:08)

Yeah.

Mallory Rubin (143:08)

It leaves a mark.

Joanna Robinson (143:12)

Love that for you. Okay. Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us. What aspect of Nolan's upcoming the Odyssey are you thinking about? Slash most high hype for this month?

Mallory Rubin (143:23)

A lot. After rewatching this movie. I mean there's a lot like a rivalry borne out in war. What happens in the moments when a man is presumed dead? That's an interesting one. Just the idea of like the journey that you must go on and the tests and trials that you. You face. The omens that are dispensed. Concealed identity. Not to spoil the Odyssey, but that'll play a role. I'm sure it'll shock everyone to hear who has ever seen any Christopher Nolan Nolan movie.

Joanna Robinson (143:52)

Can't believe you spoil homer here.

Mallory Rubin (143:55)

But yeah, there's.

Joanna Robinson (143:56)

There's a.

Mallory Rubin (143:57)

There's a lot. You know, Christopher Nolan has his areas of interest. That's just true.

Joanna Robinson (144:05)

Thinking about the way in which they did handheld cameras for this, I was looking into the cameras that they're using for the Odyssey because, of course, like, Nolan is so fascinated with the world of IMAX now that, like, he doesn't really do handheld anymore. Won't we want big, big, big, whatever. Good news, though. New IMAX film cameras that are 30% lighter and 30% quieter, thanks to carbon fiber construction. These lighter cameras will enable cinematographer Van Hoytma and Nolan to capture more shots that would have been possible with older, heavier models. It will also help them deal with the fact that older IMAX cameras make certain scenes more difficult to hear, which was especially an issue for Nolan considering he doesn't like to use adr, a traditional technique for filling in dialogue later for a scene that's a little too loud or sonically chaotic on set.

Mallory Rubin (144:57)

Damn it.

Joanna Robinson (144:59)

Tenant wounds shall be healed.

Mallory Rubin (145:01)

I can't hear. I still. I don't know what anyone said in Tenet Same.

Joanna Robinson (145:05)

And it's not just Kenneth Branagh's accent. If only we had used ADR and Tenet, perhaps we would have understand what was on. Going, Going on. But we didn't.

Mallory Rubin (145:13)

Oh, man.

Joanna Robinson (145:14)

But apparently that will matter less for the crashing waves of the Ionian Sea in. In the Odyssey. So that's tremendous news.

Mallory Rubin (145:23)

Anybody who has ever watched a date on the Bachelor that was set near a water feature and you're like, couldn't hear a fucking word. It's really hyped right now.

Joanna Robinson (145:35)

That is the Prestige. The End of Hot Nolan Summer. The Bridge to Crisp Nolan Fall.

Mallory Rubin (145:42)

Do we have a working title? Yeah, for whatever spring will be.

Joanna Robinson (145:45)

No. Hobbits. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail dot com.

Mallory Rubin (145:48)

Get on it.

Joanna Robinson (145:48)

Good ideas. Thank you to so much to the number one Prestige fan, Arjuna Rangka Powell, for his work on this episode. Thank you to John Richter. Thank you to Carlos Jarboga. Thank you to Jomi at dinner on Social. You want to clip that wet knot sequence from Mallory, but everyone loves a little horny Mal on the Instagram. And we will see you soon for more Alien Earth. Bye.