h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Did anyone listen to the conversation on Kermode and Mayo last week about who was the least bad at acting out of Bowie and Sting?

FB

The original Prestige book was written by Christopher Priest, who is a science fiction writer.

The book, and indeed the film, does conform to Philip K Dick's description of science fiction really is. He called it the 'shock of dislocation' - the world that a good science fiction story presents you with is one the is identical to our own, except for one critical aspect that it crucial to the story.

So, I would rather argue that it is a science fiction film from the start, but one that hides it's true intentions until towards the end.


Geggs

I podcasted it only last night. It's not often I disagree with the Good Doctor, but Bowie is fantastic when cast properly.
Having said that, where exactly did he think Tesla got his accent from?

The stars, man.

Gif

No that's "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (also rather good, with Bowie especially good). Except he just had a British accent in that. Er, never mind.

>>So, I would rather argue that it is a science fiction film from the start, but one that hides it's true intentions until towards the end.<<

This was a bit of a problem. If the scene is set in a world where impossible things can happen, it should be clear from the start. Having it in the end looks like cheating, really. All the time you think there must be an explanation which makes sense within the reality of the fiction, ie the real world, we think. Que nenni, in the end, finally things can happen which defy the laws of nature as we know them. I was disappointed.

I get there was a second Bale, but seeing as Tesla only made the machine later on where did he come from? Was he some long lost twin, or a found double?

I think the idea is simply that they were twins pretendeding to be one person, so that their trick can work. They weren't long lost at all, they were together all their lives, regularly swapping roles.

So when Jackman asks Bale about the trick that cost the girl's life at the start, he is answering honestly when he says "I don't know" because it was the other twin working the trick that night.


Geggs

I suppose the ultimate question is, which one survived? Was it the girl's father or he uncle? Though I guess she will be well looked after either way.


Geggs

The girl's father is the one that survives. When the uncle is about to be hanged and Fallon comes to see him, the uncle apologises for what happened to Sarah.

As someone said they were basically twins living one life/identity. The film makes a lot of sense for their story once you realise that. You understand why Caine/Jackman kidnap and bury Fallon alive it is suddenly so traumatic, even more so than it might be. Why sometimes he loved Sarah/sometimes he didn't etc, etc.

I understand there was two of them, and that they took turns. What I don´t get is if they always did that, why and where the second one came from originally. After all Fallon doesn´t show up untill quite late in the movie.

The second one came from his mother's womb about the same time as the first. They're twins. Not clones, not duplicates, not anything science fictional. Just twins, living a complex lie for the sake of a trick, their whole lives. Just like the guy who pretended to be a crippled chinaman ALL THE TIME so he could do his trick.

jeremy irons played a pair of twins

they were surgeons and used to switch with each other for the hell of it, along came a woman and it all ended in meltdown and death, can't remember the name of the film??

True. I guess Fallon doesn't show up till late because they can only link the identities once the main one in important enough to warrant an assistant. Presumably they had always used Fallon, but not so publicly before.

Either that or other twin would always stay indoors while one was out.


Geggs

He was in The Man in the Iron Mask but you're probably thinking of Cronenbourg's Dead Ringers

thats it, dead ringers!!!

Fallon appears as soon as they start doing their own shows ... about half an hour in ... he's the one who pushes Jackman's character and thus Bale *only* loses two fingers in his magic bullet trick.

It may also explain why Bale doesn't know which knot he tied when asked at the funeral and in court, if the Fallon twin was the one who actually tied it.

Ahh, that´s interesting. I´ll have to watch that scene again.

I watched Dead Ringers quite recently. It's possibly the only film that's ever given me nightmares! Cronenberg is an incredible director, and I have been impressed by every single one of his films I've seen, from The Fly right through to A History of Violence (not seen Eastern Promises yet).
I think The Prestige works because Jackman's character is driven to these extremems of sci-fi/magic because he thinks it was sci-fi/magic all along, and then it turns out to be something completely mundane, to his way of thinking. Suddenly, instead of being in a two-horse race to far-out lengths, he's all on his own in outlandish realms. It needed to be sci-fi crazy, to drive home the contrast.