Crawling in the Dark
Written by Billy W on April 19, 2009
Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts…
The first part is called The Pledge.
The second part is called The Turn. The magician takes the ordinary something…
And makes it do something extraordinary.
Now you’re looking for the secret.
But you won’t find it because, of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t want to know.
You want to be fooled.
- Michael Caine as Cutter, from the movie The Prestige
In the late 1800s, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison vied for supremacy in the electrical power generation business. Edison tried to publicly discredit Tesla on several occasions by offering demonstrations of how supposedly dangerous Tesla’s AC (alternating current) electric power distribution was. In some cases, animals were electrocuted to death to make the point. In the end, however, Tesla’s AC won out and became the standard in electric power distribution.
Who cares, right? Most people don’t know how the electricity they use every day is generated, nor do they want to. They just pay the electric bill each month and service continues, allowing them to watch TV, check out internet porn, whatever…
Dropping a check in the mail, or having the funds electronically transferred each month and expecting continued, uninterrupted service is like offering a prayer or a sacrifice to some god in order to carry on a comfortable existence. I mean, if the folks at your local power generation facility decide not to keep electricity flowing to your residence at some point, regardless of your timely payment, what are you going to do about it? Those people at the power plant might as well be gods to you.
So how do people carry on and not go crazy worrying about whether or not they’ll have electricity to use whenever they need it? Well, we all know the answer to that one: Faith. Faith in our local energy providers to keep us adequately supplied. Having faith is much easier than trying to learn and understand what makes the world go ’round or the universe do it’s neverending cosmic dance.
The movie The Prestige tells the story of two rival magicians vying to become London’s premier illusionist. Throughout the story, it’s not clear who’s supposed to be the good guy and who’s supposed to be the bad one, and by the end of the story we learn that good and bad has nothing to do with any of it. No morality tale here, just a story of obsession and the fragility of the human heart.
One character is all about being the best. Everything he does, he does for the sake of perfecting his craft. The other is all about fame. He knows that by amazing people, he’ll inspire wonder and give people a reason to believe that the world is a mysterious place and the puzzling nature of its workings inextricable. He knows that most of his audience gets by on faith, not reason, and with this he hopes to achieve a godlike status.
The final scene’s dialogue is a bit philosophy-laden (though not complicated) and thought-provoking. One of the magicians states that his whole raison d’etre was just to see the look on people’s faces when the final trick is carried off. People want escape, and magic is the perfect vehicle for it. The audience forgets all about how cold and miserable the real world can be, and for a moment are filled with wonder. We love thinking about the possibilities, usually more so than finding out concrete answers.
You might say that certain people, like doctors or scientists and engineers are more concerned with finding the answers than dwelling on the possibilities. Even the great physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman said, with regard to his love of theoretical physics, “The kick is in the Discovery” (of how things work). But, I’m willing to bet (if I could even do such a thing) that scientists like him always get a kick out of discovering things because newly-discovered knowledge always opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. Let’s face it, we’re usually more intrigued by the possibilities than we are with simple truths. Facts are cold and hard while possibilities are warm and inviting.
So, that’s what you get with The Prestige, a slightly philosophical movie that intrigues and entertains. You have two rivals: one who is concerned with perfecting his craft and truly becoming the best magician he can be, and one who is obsessed with convincing everyone that he is the best, regardless of his actual talents. Of course, there’s some of each character in all of us.
If you haven’t seen it yet, this movie is definitely worth your time.
Posted in: Philosophy and the Movies, Society, science fiction