Of course Borden’s double was his brother. Cowardess’s logic seems best here – Borden clearly has no idea how Angier’s version was done -he clearly is unfamiliar with Tesla’s machine.

And I think the “clone” that got created by the machine is indeed an identical copy, down to thoughts, emotions, etc, to the point where it does not matter which got killed each night. Angier’s words in his dying speech were along the lines of “I never knew which one I would be after the trick was activated: the man in the tank or the man on the balcony.”

They were the same person. There was no difference, not anymore since Borden shared his life with his copy. if you want to separate them the hanged one was the Olivia lover.

Sorry for the English, I’m from Italy and in the following text there are few complicated phrases.

Presuppose: the Tesla machine creates an exact copy of the people with the same memories, emotion and intention.

1. We don’t know anything about Borden’s past. We just know he’s working for Cutter as tricks finder.
2. Since the beginning of the movie, Borden can get the Chinese fishball trick because he’s sharing already half of his life with his copy. Angier while speaking with Julia said he wont ever do something like that.
3. Still in the beginning Borden assert he has a new and unique trick, he is the only person who could perform his trick. Infact many other people could have a twin brother, but only Borden has an exact copy. Moreover they (the two Borden) don’t are ready jet to perform the trick, they still have to practice life sharing. For this reason one of the two Borden involuntary kills Julia and the other can’t remember what knot has he made.
4. Starting the relationship with Sarah the twins theory appears to be obviously impossible since the difference between two brothers should be too big to not be seen by a wife, because of the different personality and memories.
5. Borden appeared to be not worry or scared by the Tesla machine at the demonstration like if he previously saw the machine in function.
6. It can’t be just a coincidence that Borden sends Angier to the only man in the world able to duplicate things. Remember Borden says “keyword is the method” and writes Tesla on the piece of paper. At the end of the notebook Angier is reading all movie long, we find out Tesla is only the key because the real trick is the sacrifice, the life sharing to satisfy jealousy. Anyway the Tesla machine makes necessarily part of the trick because twins are not sufficient equals on the psychological field.
7. How could Borden use the machine if Tesla started building it for Angier, and could he find the money to pay it? In the lunch scene at the Tesla house, Tesla explain he had been exiled by the scientific field and retired in Colorado, before that he worked in Europe there he could have met Borden that, without buying the entire machine, propose himself like human body for the experiment and made the copy without let Tesla know anything about the result. For this same reason, Tesla, leaving the table, says to Angier that he already begun the machine. He actually needs only money to keep going with his experiments (he don’t know the machine works).
8. Borden is surprised and frustrated by the Angier Final trick because he cant think of such a cruelty and because the trick took much more time than two year to Borden to be structured and prepared by sharing life.
9. In the end Angier is the only one who mention the word brother or twin he’s confused he was looking for a trick more complicated than the simple double person he didn’t get the real trick, the sacrifice, the glory sharing, the entire life and family sharing.

It does make sense that he uses only one double for his 100 day act but what about the end of the movie where we see all of the clones that he killed in the water tanks?

Not only that, but what about all of the cats and top hats that are outside of Tesla’s house when they find out that the machine works?

Surely he didn’t just place multiple hats and black cats in the same place just to trick Angier? Angier would have realized the machine didn’t work after he tried it the first time.

And what about the first time he tried it? A clone was made and he either Angier shot the clone or the other way around. Perhaps you should watch the movie again.

Borden and Tesla used Angier’s (who was from a noble family) obsession to run on a wild-goose chase half-way around the world.

Borden did have a twin. After the chinese-guy trick, he had a revelation of how to use his twin to perform his trick—i.e. to live a lie in the eyes of the public.

While Angiers is in Colorado Springs wasting his time and money, Borden is using his performance and the money he and Tesla are conning from Angiers to get rich and famous.

Now for the Prestige:

Angiers realizes that Tesla’s machine never worked in the first place. He gets himself 100 acts using body-doubles. He does not care much for the fame or the money or the trick.He wants revenge.

Does he get 100 doubles? No he only gets two…One he uses continuously every day in his 100-day act till the
day he knows Borden has taken the bait to walk into the basement…Here he frames Borden by trapping his double in the tank.

He uses the other double to convince himself (and us) that he can get his hands dirty and kill a man when the time is right.

We, the audience, know the truth. That cloning is impossible and that Angiers did not kill 100 clones every night. But that’s what we want to believe because everything else will spoil the prestige.

Remember that Angier was making Bordens life miserable and took it so far as to kidnapping and burying his brother alive. Borden simply said enough is enough, let me get this guy far away from here right away on a wild goose chase where he will spend all his money and get nothing in return.

Does that make sense to you? How would you feel if someone buried your brother alive? Remember that Borden did buy one of Tesla’s machines and he used it in his later act. The machine did nothing but produce shiny electricity that added to his performance onstage.

He didn’t know that Tesla would come up with a machine that cloned someone. Towards the end of the movie, he and his brother were going nuts trying to figure out how he teleported from the stage to the balcony.

One Borden even asked his brother to let it go and not go to Angiers shows but he did anyway and that’s how he ended up in jail for the murder of Angier.

Bottom line is, Borden had a brother, Angier cloned himself numerous times, Borden wins at the end when he kills Angier. Any questions?

Therefore you all make the point that Borden went to see Tesla and then his “clone” shows up in the movie.

The thing you have to remember is from the begining of the movie after they figure out how the old chinese man makes the fish bowl disappear, they tell the viewers that the old chinese man is very strong but makes a sacrifice by having to pretend to be an old weak man so he can sell the trick.

Borden then says that its a small price to pay to have a great trick and he tells Angier that he has such a trick. The trick he is talking about is the reappearing man trick with his brother.

He pretty much tells you that he and his brother pretend to be the same person in order to pull the trick off and therefore have to sacrifice both lives to live as one person.

Of course Tesla wasn’t going to say no to money. He took his money and accidentally discovered how to clone people. Borden didn’t know that he could actually do that.

As far as Borden knew, the machine was a good addition to his magic act because of all the electricity that it produced. It would add to his performance.

The reason he tells Angier that he had a twin brother was because he wanted Angier to know right before he killed him. It really isn’t that hard to comprehend.

1) Is it more believable to think that Angier was actually cloning himself or that he somehow found 100 body doubles?!?! Both scenarios are pretty unbelievable, perhaps a 3rd option is the explanation…of course I have no idea what that 3rd theory would be – lol

2) I absolutely agree that Telsa was in on it, but in what capacity, it’s hard to tell.

3) Perhaps we [the audience] were not meant to figure this out…that’s all part of the illusion!

I have a question for everyone. Do you think the other Borden brother actually died? I really don’t see how he wouldn’t have I mean they had to bury a body after hanging him and yet he tells the guard “watch closely” before he is hung suggesting he was about to escape…perhaps that was merely because his brother would live on and it would seem like he performed magic but really hadn’t. Yet I couldn’t help but think of the bird tricks, one where the bird was squashed, one where the bird, tied with the string, was saved. OK, as i’m writing it though, it does sound impossible. Still the whole thing makes you wonder…well the whole movie does, doesn’t it? I’ll have to watch it a second time and see what else i pick up!

The machine does not work. It never worked.

Tesla [anagram for S-T-E-A-L] partnered with Borden in an elaborate ruse, the goal of which was to frustrate–and rob–Angier.

The hats and cat thing–all staged, all planned.

The burning of Tesla’s lab–executed by Tesla and his assistant themselves. Think back, we see two characters, in silhouette, burning the building. Immediately thereafter we see Tesla and his assistant riding away in a carriage–with the reflection of the fire they just set noticeable in the carriage window.

Angier figures out that he’s been duped. He tests the machine. BUT WE NEVER SEE THE RESULT OF THAT TEST!! We see, much later, Angier shooting his “clone”.

This was a rehearsal for his 100 performances. Angier hired a double, staged the trick, and then shot him; ie., he convinced himself that he had the will to “get his hands dirty”.

Having been duped by Borden, he returns to the UK and starts to plan his macabre 100 performance revenge.

From the very first frame of the movie we are told that there is no such thing as true magic. Suspending disbelief and swallowing the idea of a cloning machine is a mistake, and, in fact, misses the point of the entire movie.

There are two birds, two cats, two Borden brothers, but only one Angiers–and a cast of 100 body doubles of the quality that only a Lord could afford to recruit and train.

ALERT DUE TO SPOILERS

The movie is about magic, it itself a magic trick, we know this as the narrator Cutter (who you could see as the magician of the movie, the one showing us the trick) tells us “There are three parts to every magic trick..etc.” From the beginning we know that this movie will essentially be one big magic trick…First comes the Pledge, where we are shown the various characters…the so-called normal things which we are asked to inspect…Borden, Fallon, Angiers/The Great Danton the women everything looks the way it should, a “real” world where the tricks behind illusions are blunt and upfront (you are shown how all the tricks are done, nothing you see is unbelievable), then comes the turn, where the major plotlines of magic converge, danton’s framing of borden/borden’s sending angiers on a “wild goose chase” for a secret that never was…(to use a magic analogy they are both temporarily disappeared). the prestige, the final revelation, is the duality of Borden (and his twin brother), and the horror of Danton’s predicament of killing off a clone. The trick, as they repeatedly try and tell you, is to get you to believe, even for just a second, that danton is making clones of himself . the magic being used, the method, is a movie. in the world of the movie, diagetically speaking, there were clones, but we know that that is impossible, unless we suspend disbelief. One of the major concerns is the narrative structure, Cutter’s intro and conclusion clearly state that he is showing you a magic trick, and it felt like some of the lines in the movie were little prods and pokes “plants” if you will, like when Borden says “The world isn’t ready for that trick” he can almost be taken as speaking outside the frame, refering to the fact that the cinematic viewing audience is not at the point in the film where they are ready to see that trick. Time and time again we are shown tricks with a pledge turn and prestige, the overall narrative of the story also takes that form.

Cutter acts as a guide for both Borden and Angiers, in a sense molding them for us; Borden is a “natural magician” with an innate power to spot illusions (he sees the chinaman’s trick first, spots the bird trick and the trap door under the tesla machine as well.) when he show’s angiers the chinaman’s “act”(his faked crippledness) he literally spells out whet magic is to him: absolute sacrifice, living a lie (as a natural magician he already knew that as a method, he already had his twin brother kept secret, he just lacks Presentation (, his near invisible performance in the awarded 10 minutes on the stage with Cutter’s magican, and his poor stagemanship before the bullet accident) not until he teams up with Olivia does he gain the showmanship he needs. you would have to watch the movie a few times to figure out definitively which Borden was which at which times, but the “do you love me today line” is an indicator of the switch on a number of occasions. As a natural magican Borden, like the Chinaman, is willing to sacrafice everything for his “secret” as he says, “its not your secret, its the trick you use it for”..meaning that the best magican’s need to live a life of complete illusion, borden’s twin could be seen as evil, but not borden himself, his twin presumably didn’t tell him if he did tie the other knot, and that set in motion a revenge cycle, getting in the way of borden’s goal of being a great magician.

Angiers is the great performer, a natural on the stage, he lacks the practical magician”s wherewithall to think up tricks, cutter guides him through everything, and he is eventually pulled in by borden’s trick, refusing to believe in the double. tesla’s machine is the turn, the beginning of the magic of the movie, where you are shown the impossible, the definitive scene is angiers shooting his clone, if this really happens then the machine works (an impossibility we are sucked into believeing), also at the end, the rows of tanks full of dead dantons forces you to believe in the clones for the story to work.

if you believe in the clones, you’re the “fool” cutter is talking about, but if you belive that the movie has a definitive explaination, somehow abiding by natural law, and not just the fantasy world of the movies, you’re missing the point. how have to engage in willful suspension, while also being aware of doing so…a little doublethink for ya.

as an extra thought:
there may be need for an explaination of the clone’s state of memory, or algier’s ability to calibrate the machine. When he shoots his clone, the clone is in the location he appears for his prestige or at least not in the machine, perhaps his statment about not knowing whether he’d be in the box referenced his need to calibrate the machine to send himself to a better location , and his inability to know for sure what would happen after he had made the adjustments. this inability to know is because after going in the machine he replicates a perfect clone of him at that moment. When he shoots the clone, it seems to say “No, I’m…” or at least protest, without a look of evil on its face, as if it could be saying, i’m the real angiers, don’t shoot me. in that case, the other, cloned angiers would have to somehow posess all the mental states of angiers, a true clone, they are both angiers, complete with all his memories and emotions, and personality (of revenge and his love of performance, and his overall plans) he truly is killing himself in a way, a suitible symmetry to borden’s half-life. but that’s just what they want you to believe…

If Borden had a clone, then he obviously must have known how the Tesla machine worked, so he wouldn’t have been so perplexed when he first saw Angier’s trick – he wouldn’t have been so puzzled about the trick.

This tells me the 2nd Borden was NOT a clone – it was his twin brother.

Oh, and I now understand about the cat, or rather, duplicate cats outside.

Angier knew he would drown each night. That was his ultimate sacrifice – he was prepared to die (up to 100 times) in order to get the chance to set Borden up. (he also wasn’t sure whether Tesla would ‘work’). The reason he was prepared to drown was because he himself was under the illusion that drowning was ‘like going home’ (what Cutter told him, or as it turned out, lied). I think that’s why he could do it without it weighing too heavily on his conscience.

My question is about the cat. Where did the duplicate cat appear? Shouldn’t it have been 50 yards away? How come we hear it all the way outside?

if its a clone
a- the movie doesnt make sense
b- the director said its a brother
c- the book is based on a story which clearly describes the lives of the 2 BROTHERS

The machine makes a copy! It isn’t a transporter. That’s just the name of the trick the magicians gave it. The copy is the one that lives and that appears away from the machine. I thought this was elementary folks.

Also, Angier did die the first time he duplicated himself since “he” was the one transported and the clone stayed in the machine and shot the real Angier.

So every time the show was done, the one left in the machine, who fell into the tank, was the clone and the transported one was the one who started the trick.

Glad you liked it. This was my first attempt at any kind of review for public consumption, and my main motivations were finding a SF element somewhere I didn’t expect it and thinking, “Escape Pod listeners would love this”.

I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean here. The time it takes for the Angier in the machine to drown is rather irrelevant since that took place below stage, the stage hands were all blind, and it was rather noisy so they probably wouldn’t have heard it.

Meanwhile, above, we don’t know where exactly Angier was transported to, so perhaps it simply took him a minute to get to the balcony, or perhaps he paused for dramatic effect. I’m reading the book now–it’s much different from the film–but in it Borden (by way of his journal) makes mention of the fact that magicians would meticulously study the theater they were performing in and use that to their advantage. I’m guessing that Angier rehearsed his trick at least once before performing it in front of the audience and found where he would appear and where he could appear to the audience and used that to add to the illusion.

1. Angier placed a gun next to the machine, stepped in and was duplicated –> The body in the machine (I assume to be the duplicate that would need to be drowned in future tricks) reacted by shooting the other (REAL Angier).

2. In the ‘murder scene’ the duplicate comes through the trap door and takes quite awhile to drown. If Angier didn’t know what was going on why wasn’t he proceeding, unknowingly, to TA DA upstair on the balcony? How did he know to wait a full minute or more?

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

Loved it. I saw the end coming — I’d figured out Borden’s trick quite a while before it, though Anna beat me to it. She guessed it as soon as they mentioned that Fallon never talked. And the Lord Cawdleroy (or whatever his name was) bit was foreshadowed quite early, when Angier and his wife are talking about the fact that his family had money but he wouldn’t use their name. That didn’t really dampen our enjoyment of it, though.

The impact this film had on me wasn’t so much the tricks. It was the exploration of evil. Borden begins evil. Or at least, half of him does. (I strongly suspect there was a “good twin” and an “evil twin” — though the good twin still had to have been more about Borden than about doing the right thing.) There was no good reason to tie that knot. There was no good reason to show up and destroy the bird trick. He didn’t go after Angier because he thought Angier was going to ruin him. He went after Angier because he could. He made Angier want to ruin him. The tragedy of Borden, if I’m right, is that the wrong one probably got hanged.

Angier, on the other hand, has more of an arc. His shooting of Borden has clear motivations — he simply wants revenge. Not nice, but understandable. As the hatred grows, though, he becomes worse. “I don’t care about my wife, I care about the trick.” I believe he becomes jealous, not just of Borden’s success and secrets, but his amorality. He strives to emulate it, to turn it against him. And he succeeds. He throws the one good thing in his life over to Borden as a sacrifice. He has Fallon buried alive, deceives Borden into a death sentence… And thinks nothing of destroying himself, over and over and over. The whole point of the SF/F element was to make that symbolic act literal. So he dies (if he dies — I kept waiting for a hint of another copy) because, having destroyed Borden, he’s done. There really is nothing else to live for, he threw the rest of it away. That Borden still lives anyway is sort of immaterial.

Anyway, that’s my take. I was taken by the creepiness of the film, by the sense of impending doom the entire time. To me, the most shocking moment wasn’t the image of Angier killing his duplicates — I expected that. It was the collapse of the bird trick. The appearance of Borden, the screaming woman, the sound of knives. It was all so sudden, and came out of nowhere. It’s when I realized that the movie was really about two people developing their evil. In public.

And at no point in the movie was the audience lied to. Everything said by everyone was completely true, to the best of that character’s knowledge. And yet none of it was as it seemed. That, I thought, was brilliant.

And, um, Luke? Hold on a sec while I remove my name from the Google directory…

But who else guessed that Jackman’s Character was Killing the ones going into the trap door?

This is a different take on the end of the movie, few people want to hear it. Remember in the last lines there was something like: ‘The truth is right in font of you but you don’t want to see it’? It seems to be true. I’m putting it out here because, well, I lack romance? Maybe?

Tesla was faking the entire thing beginning to end. He was just as much magician as wizard, the whole bit with duplication was faked too. Jackman’s character found this out and used the duplication trick as an opportunity to restart relations with his double (this time kept well secret) and revive the teleportation act with new misdirection. The nightly dumping of water was all part of it.

When Cain’s character is condemning Jackman’s morality towards the end he is talking about the killing of his double to convict Bale’s character of murder. At the very end Jackman was trying to find some vengeance (his defining characteristic) against the remaining Bale brother by suggesting that the machine behind him worked. He was hoping that Bale would waste years trying to figure it out just as he had wasted years trying to figure out Bale’s act.

It feels (cruel? cold?) putting the mundane explanation out there. And, really, that was the point of the movie. People want the mystery of an illusion, at some level they want to believe.

Also, I thought it was very interesting that all the stage illusions are given away casually, easily, but the human illusions . . . never fully explained.

Overall, I loved this movie and want to see it again.

Incidentally, I dated a magician for a time, and this film is spot-on about what being in a relationship with a professional showman/deceiver can be like.