The Prestige [2] Pavan Kumar

Introduction:

In this write up two incidents of miscommunication between individuals from the movie - “The
Prestige” will be scrutinized. “The Prestige” is a mystery thriller film directed by Christopher
Nolan. The story is about two prominent rival stage magicians: Robert Angier and Alfred
Borden. Themes of duality, obsession, sacrifice, and secrecy pervade the conflict between them.
Obsessed with creating the best illusion both of them engage in a competitive one-upmanship
resulting in a tragic ending for both of them. For a detailed description of the plot please refer to
the url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige_(film)

Brief description of characters:

Angier is not a very talented magician. In the beginning he is presented as a naïve showman. But
he gets obsessed with overtaking Bordon after the latter is responsible for the death of his
beloved wife. He is ready to resort to any means to learn the prestige for the ultimate trick of
Bordon – “The Transported Man”. He is unable to overcome his obsessions.

Bordon is a naturally gifted magician, who strongly believes that secrecy and sacrifice are
essential for a magician to be successful. He does not hesitate to take risk or to put others at risk,
which is referred to as “making your hands dirty” in the movie, in order to gain the public
acclaim. He is strongly adhered to the dogma that one should never reveal his secrets. Once a
secret is revealed it is of no use. He is responsible for the death of Angier’s wife.

Bordon has a twin brother, Falon. They run the showman business together, each interchanging
the role with the other – a magician and an engineer. They even share their personal life together
so that this secret, which is pivotal to the success of ‘The Transported Man’, does not go public.
However, Bordon takes extreme precaution to conceal this fact from everyone including his
wife. This leads to a lot of complications and misunderstandings in the movie.

One of the incidents of miscommunication occurs between Angier and Borden and the other
between Borden and Sara (Sara is Borden’s wife).

Miscommunication between Angier and Bordon:

In the movie Angier gets extremely infuriated when Bordon is responsible for breaking his leg.
In the aftermath of this event, he kidnaps Falon (the engineer and brother of Bordon) and
demands Bordon to reveal the secret of all his magic tricks as a ransom in exchange for Falon.
Bordon then hands over his personal notebook which contains the details of each and every trick
that he invented. Angier then retorts that the book is worthless since all the writings were
encrypted with a cipher. Bordon says that the answer is “tesla” in a tone creating an impression
to Angier that he got his trick engineered by the wizard Nikola Tesla. Angier then spends a large
part of his fortune and travels half way around the world to persuade Tesla to build a machine for
him that he can use to perform the trick - “ The Real Transported Man”. Bordon does this
intentionally to mislead Angier, and Angier falls into this trap, unable to unravel the
sophistications involved in their communication. This event is a major turning point in the
movie.

Cause:

The main causes for miscommunication in this case are:

1. Receiver is unable to interpret and understand the message of the sender.

2. Sender is not clear in conveying the message. Indeed, he is deceptive in communicating
the message.
3. Both sender and receiver have personality barriers. The sender is extremely adamant
about maintaining secrecy while the receiver is obsessed with overpowering the sender.
4. Rivalry between the sender and the receiver further aggravates the situation.

Miscommunication between Bordon and Sara:

As mentioned earlier, Bordon kept secret the fact that he had a twin brother Falon and that he is
sharing his personal life with him (in the sense that they would interchange their identities
Bordon-Falon periodically or as the need arises). He did not reveal this secret even to his beloved
wife. She, being an acute observer of the behavior of her husband felt the intuition that
something was not right about him. She often used to plead him to be honest with her and
wanted their relationship to be free from tricks and lies. However, Bordon does not pay heed to
her emotions, and is extremely adamant about maintaining the secrecy of having a twin brother.
Falon courts Olivia and this further aggravates the situation since Sara thinks that her husband is
not faithful to her. She is unable to see any reason why their relationship is so fickle - one day, he
loves her and the other day he is indifferent to her since she does not know the facts (as
mentioned above). In the end, she commits suicide unable to cope with the mental trauma she is
undergoing. She had no one close enough to support her during this quagmire.

Cause:

The main causes of miscommunication in this case are:

1. Sender not able to empathize with the receiver since the context in which they are
communicating is different. For Falon(acting as Bordon) it is not possible to love Sara
since he is in love with Olivia.
 2. Receiver is unable to cope with the failure of communication. Sara is not able to stand the
fact that her husband is courting another woman despite her fidelity to him. She ends up
committing suicide.
3. Personal barriers of both the sender and receiver come into play even here. Bordon will
not give up his secrets and Sara wants them to be faithful and open to each other.
4. Lack of credibility between the communicators makes it harder for them to understand
and empathize with each other.

Remedies:

For both instances the only possible remedy is for the persons to overcome their personal
barriers. Physical or organizational barriers are not present between the protagonists in the
movie.

There will be an easy flow of communication if there is an open environment between the sender
and the receiver. Bordon should disclose his secret to her. Angier should get over with his loss
and either stay away from Bordon or join hands with him rather than getting obsessed with
harming him. Sara should have talked to someone close and tried to seek assistance. She should
not have taken to suicide. Thus being truthful, building credibility with the receiver, being non-
deceptive and forgiving are some of the characteristics of an effective communicator as we learn
from the instances of miscommunication in this movie.