The first shot of
The Prestige (Nolan, 2006) is a context-less slow panning shot of a pile of top hats lying in the woods. The top hats immediately conjure up associations with traditional stage magicians, and the Victorian era, whereas the fact that a large amount of them are lying in a forest creates an immediate enigma; what are they doing there? Non-diegetic sound occurs in the form of a voice-over asking "Are you watching closely?" and the shot cuts to black. As we do not see the source of the voice, this makes us wonder who is saying it. The film then opens with a parallel edited sequence, with a voice-over narration by Michael Caine's character, who is showing a little girl a magic trick with a canary, explaining the three stages, or acts, of a magic trick. This inter-cuts with footage of Hugh Jackman's character onstage, performing a daring magic act, and Christian Bale's character, onstage to inspect the apparatus as a member of the audience, coming offstage and removing a disguise. Jackman's character is then dropped into a tank under the stage, seemingly unable to escape, while Bale glares maliciously. All of these quick events make the audience ask a number of questions, and the fast pace of the editing implies that this is taking place after the majority of the main events of the film.
The costumes and sets of the piece make it very clear that this is not taking place in the present day, presumably being set sometime in the Victorian/pre-Victorian era. The sequence combines low-key, atmospheric lighting with powerful stage lighting during the magic sequences.
The first shot of The Prestige (Nolan, 2006) is a context-less slow panning shot of a pile of top hats lying in the woods. The top hats immediately conjure up associations with traditional stage magicians, and the Victorian era, whereas the fact that a large amount of them are lying in a forest creates an immediate enigma; what are they doing there? Non-diegetic sound occurs in the form of a voice-over asking "Are you watching closely?" and the shot cuts to black. As we do not see the source of the voice, this makes us wonder who is saying it. The film then opens with a parallel edited sequence, with a voice-over narration by Michael Caine's character, who is showing a little girl a magic trick with a canary, explaining the three stages, or acts, of a magic trick. This inter-cuts with footage of Hugh Jackman's character onstage, performing a daring magic act, and Christian Bale's character, onstage to inspect the apparatus as a member of the audience, coming offstage and removing a disguise. Jackman's character is then dropped into a tank under the stage, seemingly unable to escape, while Bale glares maliciously. All of these quick events make the audience ask a number of questions, and the fast pace of the editing implies that this is taking place after the majority of the main events of the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment