The Prestige with Kayla Drescher

00:00:00
Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast. The questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Jamie, any last words.

00:00:23
Speaker 3: What a day, What a day it is for men being bitches to each other?

00:00:29
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I am.

00:00:31
Speaker 3: Just so thrilled. Welcome to the Prestige episode of the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftis.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Dorante or the Great Durante.

00:00:41
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this movie this second I we'll talk about I haven't seen this movie in like eight or nine years. And the second it started, you're like, oh right, this movie is so silly. This is a silly one. I love it.

00:00:55
Speaker 2: It's serious.

00:00:56
Speaker 3: Every scene is like, what's the trick? What's the trick? And at the end of the scene they're like, ah, I still don't know the trick. And then the next scene is him going to another guy being like, I didn't find out the trick. It's it's just all the trick, the secret, the trick, the secret, the trick, the secret, the daughter, the wife, the trick, the secret.

00:01:10
Speaker 2: Sometimes there's a cipher.

00:01:11
Speaker 3: Sometimes there's a cipher, and sometimes there's a journal. This is ultimately a movie about men reading each other's journals, and that is important, beautiful, that's important.

00:01:21
Speaker 2: Men should write more journals.

00:01:23
Speaker 3: There's tricks in the journals. They can't be vulnerable in the journals. At the end, they're like, just kidding, bitch like.

00:01:30
Speaker 2: But in theory, men should write more journals and then exchange those journals so that they can understand each other's feelings better.

00:01:37
Speaker 3: But when does a journal become a manifesto? You know, it's a slippery slope. It's a slippery slope. I don't know. These are journals, but they neg the whole journal. At the end of the journal, they're like, actually, this was not a real journal, work of fiction. And I'm fucking your girlfriend, and how do you like that? And you're in jail.

00:01:54
Speaker 2: And also I framed you for murder, bitch.

00:01:57
Speaker 3: And you're in jail. How does that feel? I And oh, I adopted your daughter spoiler alert, I forgot about I know that he stole his daughter. The twist at the end, I know is the twist everyone remembers. But the twist that I forgot that like hit me even harder than the end is when he shows up with the daughter, I was like, this is just these divas. I love it. Okay Bybolical, all right, all right, this is the Bechdel cast, Caitlin. What is the Bechdel Test? Tell them? Tell them?

00:02:26
Speaker 2: It's a media metric created by best friend of the show, Alison Bechdel. Yes, there are many versions of the test. The one that we use requires that two people of a marginalized gender have names, they must talk to each other, and their conversation has to be about something other than a man. And we also like it when it's something narratively significant and not just throw away dialogue.

00:02:49
Speaker 3: And let's get one thing out of the way. This movie does not pass the Bechtel mast and not a little bit and even close. I think two women are in the scene at the same time, but like, not really.

00:02:57
Speaker 2: I found that barely.

00:02:58
Speaker 3: I found this great letter box list called Christopher Nolan films that fail the Bextel tests. Bonus points if the leading man is haunted by his dead wife, and this movie does meet both, and it's and the list is guess how many movies are on this list?

00:03:11
Speaker 2: Ten.

00:03:12
Speaker 3: Nine, they're nine?

00:03:13
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, can you name.

00:03:15
Speaker 3: All of the Christopher Nolan films that fail the back Let's bring our guests in and let's let's.

00:03:20
Speaker 2: Let's collaborate on this.

00:03:21
Speaker 3: This is a group project. This is a returning guts an incredible returning guest.

00:03:25
Speaker 2: Indeed, she's a magician. She runs a magic venue in Chicago called the Cosmic Underground Theater where she performs every Friday and Saturday night. So be sure to check her out. And you remember her from our episode on Now you see Me. It's Kayla Dresher.

00:03:41
Speaker 4: Hell, welcome, We thank you. I'm so happy to be here. This is awesome.

00:03:45
Speaker 5: Thanks for doing this because I agree this movie is just silly, so I'm excited to talk about it.

00:03:51
Speaker 3: It's a silly one there, it's so much movie. I'm so curious what your perspective is as a magician. But before it, but before we can get to that, can you both I have I have the cipher, so I actually, oh, true, true, But can you, between the two of you guess the Christopher Nolan films that fail the Bechdel test? All nine of them?

00:04:13
Speaker 5: Uh?

00:04:14
Speaker 2: Well, maybe going in chronological order of release. Okay, Memento, although there might be one before that that I haven't seen, but let's start with Memento.

00:04:23
Speaker 3: Correct.

00:04:24
Speaker 5: I had to look up just various Christopher Nolan films, so already I'm starting from way behind. But I mean, I'm trying to remember the Dark Night and it feels like that might be on there.

00:04:38
Speaker 2: It is.

00:04:38
Speaker 3: It definitely is cool. Kind of haunted by a dead girlfriend, I guess, more so a girlfriend.

00:04:43
Speaker 2: Right right?

00:04:44
Speaker 3: And then Memento definitely. Wait, I haven't seen mymenta in a long time? Dead wife, living wife? Are we trying to save the wife?

00:04:50
Speaker 2: The whole thing is that she's dead but he doesn't remember about it or something I forget.

00:04:55
Speaker 3: But I know that Christopher Nolan's wife is his producing partner. But at some point it's like I get it. I get it. You think your work will be better when I die? Okay, Like okay.

00:05:05
Speaker 2: But then we've got Inception.

00:05:07
Speaker 3: It is a big one. Yeah, dead wife haunting.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: Yes, Interstellar.

00:05:11
Speaker 3: Correct, I haven't seen that one.

00:05:13
Speaker 2: Insomnia, No, that that's not on that one that must Pass? Wow, you know I've never seen that one.

00:05:18
Speaker 3: Let's throw in this movie. The Prestige is one of them. The prestige, of course, Big Dead, wife Dead, everyone dead, everyone sure, everyone dies?

00:05:28
Speaker 4: Is dark, Knight rises on there?

00:05:29
Speaker 3: It is as is Batman begins. Yes, okay, two more? Two more more?

00:05:36
Speaker 2: Is Oppenheimer on there?

00:05:38
Speaker 3: No, it is not okay, Tenant Tenet is on it. And the last one, perhaps the least factel test passing this movie ever made by Christopher Nolan. Oh shit, it's a movie I think I called when it released, I still haven't seen it.

00:05:52
Speaker 2: I called, Oh, Dunkirk Boy Island.

00:05:54
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, those are the nine movies that do not pass. And that's all I have to say. Beautiful, all right, the prestige, the prestige, Kayla. I'm so curious what your history with this movie is.

00:06:08
Speaker 5: So really, the last time I saw this movie was when it was in theaters, so I we're talking like junior year of high school maybe, and I remember not caring for it for just a load of reasons. But the friends I was with, who were very intelligent people, were like analyzing the whole timeline jumping and like.

00:06:29
Speaker 4: All this just how it was real.

00:06:31
Speaker 5: They were like, oh, this is so good, and I just kept thinking that magically this is a mess. And I think that's why I didn't like it is that it's both incredibly accurate and also incredibly inaccurate to magic.

00:06:46
Speaker 2: Interesting and had you started magic at that point when you were that age?

00:06:49
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, yep.

00:06:51
Speaker 5: So I had been doing magic for maybe about ten years at that point, because I started when I was.

00:06:54
Speaker 4: Seven, So it's quite inciting.

00:06:56
Speaker 5: Okay, So being like very involved in the magic community but also not knowing a lot about magic history, I just remember going, I think that some of these things are historically pretty accurate, but also like what.

00:07:10
Speaker 4: So there was just a lot of that and I remember not caring for it.

00:07:13
Speaker 5: So when you suggested that we do this movie, I was like, Oh, this is gonna be fun and I want to rewatching it again. I felt the same, very similar, and I'm excited to like dive into the details. But it definitely feels in terms of personality, it's very similar to It's like a kind of an exaggerated way to explain the magic community, and a lot of magicians just this over the top, like jealousy and stealing stuff and all that is pretty accurate, But then a lot of the historical figures they discuss or don't discuss is so inaccurate that it makes me a little bit like, well, you could have added in anybody to make this just more accurate, or you could have changed this one detail to make this better. So now a lot about magic history, especially magic history of magicians who are not white men. I now look at this movie going, oh, we needed help.

00:08:12
Speaker 3: Oh I'm so excited to hear more about the history. It's really wonderful talking about a movie with someone who has historical context on why the movie is frustrating in a way that you don't. It is just a treat. I'm very excited, Caitlin. What's your history with this movie. I saw the movie when it first came out, I believe in theaters, and because I don't have a background in magic and wouldn't have been annoyed by any historical inaccuracies, I loved it. I was like, this is awesome, and as an appreciator of magic, and again not knowing any better, I was like, well, this must be the pinnacle of magic history. And then I bought it on DVD and I watched it pretty regularly, maybe like once or twice a year for the next like five years or so.

00:09:04
Speaker 2: But then it tapered off. For me, I hadn't seen this movie and I think fifteen or so years, but I would still consider it probably my second favorite Christopher Nolan movie behind Inception. It's mostly based on vibes and the men being bitches to each other aspect of the movie. You know, it's not gonna fare well on the nipple scale, but on the rompo meter, I still think it's a ten out of ten. I have boatloads of fun watching this movie, and I'm so excited to talk more about it.

00:09:39
Speaker 3: Jamie.

00:09:40
Speaker 2: What's your relationship with it?

00:09:43
Speaker 3: I think I sort of in part of my career in podcasting to this movie where I was thinking about it truly because I was thinking about I mean, we had started the Becdel Cast at this point, but I covered this movie on the Cracked Movie Club in twenty seventeen. It was the first time I had seen it. I was like, this movie is terrible for women and great to watch. Unfortunately many such movies right So I really enjoyed it and I went on the Cracked Movie Club and then I met Jack O'Brien off of that who started listening to the Bechdel Cast brought us onto the house stuff Works Network brought us onto iHeartRadio. Anyways, that was all like the better part of a decade ago. So I was like, wow, I kind of owe it all to the prestige in a way. Wow, I could argue.

00:10:34
Speaker 2: Me found it in a ditch your podcast partner.

00:10:38
Speaker 3: No, it was like, this is because I met Jack O'Brien that we came onto the net.

00:10:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no, that huge catalyst.

00:10:45
Speaker 3: Yeah yes. So it was like a big thing to like, why we're sitting here in this way? In a way I don't know. So I had a fun walk down memory lane thinking about that and rewatching this movie, which I remember little bits of but I did not remember. It was basically like watching it for the first time again. I had some Mandela effect thing going on where I was so sure Rachel McAdams was in this movie.

00:11:12
Speaker 2: This is a really Rachel McAdams coded movie.

00:11:16
Speaker 3: I think we should have swapped her out with Scarlett Johanson. Who is you know, outside of disputing her shitty politics, I'm also just like the most diabolical accent work, Like the woman cannot do an accent to save her life. I was like, where's Rachel McAdams. She could do an accent. Maybe I think I think she did in the guy Ritchie lock Holme's movie. Oh right, she's in those sense.

00:11:41
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why it feels like she should be in this movie.

00:11:43
Speaker 3: They look very similar. They whatever they you know, And and it's another silly one, hmm.

00:11:49
Speaker 5: There's also the I don't remember her name. I earlier definitely called her Pati Poblo, and I think it's Piperblo.

00:11:57
Speaker 3: That's a parable Petoo Pablo. Yeah, by preparable. Yeah. She was always always happy to see her and something she feels.

00:12:06
Speaker 5: Like an easy person to confuse for. Rachel McAdams liked they.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: I see it.

00:12:11
Speaker 5: Their their look is similar, like the way. So when you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, you're right, that wasn't her.

00:12:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I There are a lot of women who could be Rachel McAdams in this movie, and that's you know, white women, brown hair. Rebecca Hall, who I love Rebecca. I love Rebecca Hall, and I love her in this movie. And we'll talk about her character because I did clearly remember what happened to her character, and it's and it's a crime. I did remember. David Bowie, Nicola Tesla. I'm very curious on your thoughts on that, Kayla. I feel like men are obsessed with Nikola Tesla and they love to bring him. I mean one comes to mind, certainly, but you know many guys are obsessed with Nikola Tesla. Wasn't surprised, I thought, Andy, Sir, I guess ooh, I was so happy to see him. I forgot he was in this and he's everyone's doing a little accent in this movie, and some people are doing it well, and other people are Scarlett Johansson and David. I don't know if David. I don't know what David Bowie is doing rip to him.

00:13:16
Speaker 2: And mostly because okay, I kept I was watching this movie and I was like, I was like, David Bowie's performance as Nikola Tesla is reminding me of something and I could not figure it out. And what I concluded is that his voice sounds exactly like Pierce Brosnan's voice. Yeah, but David Bowie, I think it is supposed to be doing. Was Tesla Russian? Where was he from or somewhere in Eastern Europe? But I think he's supposed to be doing like an Eastern European accent that David Bowie is not doing I would say most of the time, and he.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: Just serbian serbian American.

00:13:52
Speaker 2: Okay, okay. So I watched a movie that no one else saw, The Current Wars, which.

00:13:58
Speaker 3: Yes, I was thinking of that. Who is in that Tesla movie? I think there's a third one too? Oh?

00:14:04
Speaker 2: Really? So Nicholas Holt plays Tesla in that movie, and then it's Michael Shannon and who's the other person. But it's another like very like male rivalry men being bitches to each other movie. But I feel like no one saw it.

00:14:22
Speaker 3: There's also Ethan Hawk, Yes, Ethan Hawk as Tesla twenty twenty, right, right, right, right. I mean he's an important cultural figure. I'll be honest, I don't know very much about this guy, and let's just leave it at that, because that's the extent of what I know. He exists, and I'm assuming that his legacy is tarnished by his association with Elon Musk. Yeah, but yeah, I forget where I was going with that. Oh, there's so much to talk about. What I mostly loved about this movie in retrospect is just like it is so wild that Christopher Nolan was making two amazing movies between Batman movies. It is just it's just so good. This was between Batman one and two, and then Inception comes between two and three, which is ridiculous. Yea, and good for him. I love this guy, and I feel like people don't really talk about this movie very much anymore, certainly not as much as Inception. It was a hit at the time, like I guess, a more modest hit by Christopher Nolan's standards. But I wish people talked about this movie Moore.

00:15:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it only like slightly overdoubled its budget rather than like multiplied its budget by ten kind of thing.

00:15:36
Speaker 3: Kind of embarrassing for him, right, yeah, I guess because how big a hit was Inception by Yoh yeah, Inception made like almost a billion dollars? Got it? Okay, Well, this movie is really good and if you haven't seen it, you know you should. I I pirated it, can I be honest. I pirated it.

00:15:53
Speaker 2: That's okay. I watched it on my DVD that I still have.

00:15:56
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.

00:15:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's great.

00:15:58
Speaker 3: Look at God.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, thank you. All Right, so let's take a quick break and then we'll get into the recap.

00:16:16
Speaker 3: And we're back.

00:16:18
Speaker 2: This is maybe the longest recap I've ever written, and I really tried to like simplify it and pare it down, but it's so complicated this.

00:16:25
Speaker 3: Movie, Kayla. If it's cool by you, could we like, as the performances are happening, can we ask your perspective on them?

00:16:33
Speaker 5: Oh? For sure, I very much agree that this is a very well done movie. But I have a lot of opinions, So please ask at any point and I'm ready.

00:16:44
Speaker 3: Okay, excellent, and feel free to just just jump in, burst in brilliant.

00:16:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so we'll place some content warning here at the top for suicide. But we are in London in the late eighteen hundreds. We open on voice over from Michael Kine talking about how every magic trick consists of three parts. The first is the pledge, where a magician shows you something ordinary. Next is the turn, where the magician takes the ordinary thing and makes it do something extraordinary, such as disappear the object. And the third part of the magic trick is the prestige that's the name of the movie, where the magician brings back the disappeared thing.

00:17:33
Speaker 3: Okay, fact check number one, Kayla, is that true? Ah? So awesome?

00:17:41
Speaker 5: I think I think in part so I've never heard this language before. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist in a book that might have been written around that time period. I've never heard, just like the language of pledged turn prestige. That's a new one for me. I mean, they did explain how a trick works, which is like, here's this thing. Look it's normal, and now I do a cool thing with it. So yeah, that is definitely true, especially the part where they say if something disappears, you need to bring it back. That's like a very steadfast rule in magic. So if you do make something vanish, you got to bring a backgirl to people can to ask a lot of questions, and it feels like it's not fulfilled. It feels like there's a cliffhanger, and we don't want that in the middle of a trick. So yes, but I think they added a lot of fun fluff to it, which I'm not mad about. It's good, it's fine, cool.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: It's a movie that feels like a movie. You gotta be doing movie things. Okay. So while we are learning this, we are also seeing bits from a magic show performed by the Great Dantun aka Robert and Jeer played by Hugh Jackman.

00:18:49
Speaker 3: Hugh Jackman's having the time of his damn life, oh boy, and he never works with I was like, here's my head cannon. Christopher Nolan's like, okay, it's a bit much, you know, Like I feel like Christopher Nolan is not an ally to theater kids at the end of the day. That's just my guess. That's just my guess because I think Hugh Jackman turns in an excellent, if extremely weird performance in this movie. And I also am like, yeah, I guess it makes sense. I feel like Christopher Nolan is like a serious actor kind of guy. Sure, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm wrong.

00:19:23
Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:19:24
Speaker 5: There was a cause I was looking at One of the things I often do is when there's a magic movie, I want to know who was the consultant on it. And one of the consultants was Derek DelGaudio, who is quite well known for his show in and of itself, which is it's on Hulu, but it had a pretty successful run in New York. And one of the things that Derek Dolgaudier, I guess mentioned was that he was brought on to help the actors really embody, like the feeling and personality and the oomph of a magician, which I feel like Hugh Jackman was like, I got this. I'm surprised he didn't have a song because that felt like it should have fit right in, especially knowing that like.

00:20:04
Speaker 3: This was the greatest show he's and he's the greatest show miss the greatest Show twenty seventeen. Yes, yep, it.

00:20:11
Speaker 5: Felt because Dogattio is very artistic and it's it's a very different way of performing magic than I would. He's very much about emotion and story and all of this stuff. So it doesn't make sense to me when you're like Hugeman is a lot. It's like, yeah, no, I but I see where kind of where that could have come from easily.

00:20:27
Speaker 3: In Okay, so they found it. Sounds like they matched their energies, well big time.

00:20:32
Speaker 2: That's cool.

00:20:33
Speaker 3: Okay, Well did you find their respective performances convincing or like passable as actual convincing magicians?

00:20:43
Speaker 5: If there was an equivalent of a Bechtel test to how magician y is this actor, it would have a ten out of ten. Like everybody in this was like down to the jealousy, the silliness the like often slightly immature way of responding things feels very familiar.

00:21:03
Speaker 2: So yes, incredible, Okay, Yeah, So we're seeing this magic show that Robert Angier is performing, and then another magician, Alfred Borden played by Christian Bale, sneaks backstage during the show and sees Angier fall into and be trapped inside of a large glass tank of water, where he presumably drowns because we cut to a courtroom where Borden is on trial for murdering and Jeer, and then testifying in court is Cutter, the Michael Kane character who is an Engeneus, the engineer, the designer of magic tricks and builder of the apparatus that makes them possible, and he was doing this for Robert Angier leading up to his death. Borden is convicted of this murder and sent to prison, where he is approached by a solicitor who represents someone named Lord called Old or something, and this man is looking to buy the rights to Borden's most valuable trick, called the Transported Man. There's also mention of Borden's young daughter being taken care of.

00:22:25
Speaker 3: This movie is in some ways about fathers and daughters. Except you know, not.

00:22:29
Speaker 2: Really except not really, not really, but Borden is hesitant to play ball, to play with his rubber ball, that is. But anyway, we flash back a few years to Robert and Jeer arriving in Colorado Springs. He is hoping to be granted an audience with Nikola Tesla, who a Jeer wants to commission to build him something. We're not totally sure what, but Tesla's assistant Ali played by Andy Serkis, says no thanks, Tesla is not interested.

00:23:05
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure to see Andy's circus acting in human Forum and.

00:23:10
Speaker 2: Not in Gollum or whatever, Ape Star Wars Ape Man Ape. Yeah.

00:23:17
Speaker 5: Yes, I randomly met Andy Serkis same a couple years ago.

00:23:21
Speaker 2: Oh cool.

00:23:22
Speaker 5: It was one of those times where you're like, oh, I really respect this man and at the same time, I made a fool of myself and it was great. He's so nice, And it also is weird when he's like you go, oh, yeah, he sounds like a normal person. I'm so you see him sounding so different my bushes yep, but he's super sweet. You also met him, Jamie, Yeah.

00:23:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's still I think one of my favorite interviews I've ever done. Just like the coolest, nicest guy ever.

00:23:50
Speaker 5: That's awesome.

00:23:51
Speaker 2: I didn't meet him, but I saw him from Afar on the Warner Brothers lot when I was an intern at Conan like eleven years ago.

00:23:58
Speaker 3: Wow, we've all had close encounters of the circus kind.

00:24:03
Speaker 2: Well yes, okay, So then we flash back even further to when Angier and Borden were working together along with a Jeer's his wife Julia played by Piper Parabo of Coyote Ugly Fame or she's also known Pati Popo, Yes, and they are doing a trick at a show that involves tying Julia up and dropping her in that large glass tank of water that we saw earlier, which she has to escape from, and one night during a show, the trick goes wrong. Julia is not able to escape from the tank and she drowns, and so Angeer blames Borden for killing his wife because Borden maybe tied a different not than usual that Julia wasn't able to escape from, but bordon can't remember which knot he tied. So this is the end of the Borden and Jeer professional relationship and the beginning of a huge rivalry between them and them being huge bitches to each other.

00:25:16
Speaker 3: This is probably one of my favorite sequences in the movie, and we have to say one of the worst sequences for women because it is just a classic Nolan fridging the wife to move the you know, and I know this is based on a novel as well, so you know who was the first to fridge. I'm actually not sure.

00:25:35
Speaker 2: I did not read the book, but it says something that Nolan was drawn to this project.

00:25:39
Speaker 3: He loves a dead wife. I would just be so nervous. And if I were Emma Thomas, who is I mean, they seem very happy whatever, Okay. I love the sequence with Hugh Jackman just bawling his fist ups and being like what not was it? It's like, I know, it's really serious because a woman has died, but he's being so funny. He's like yelling at his journal like what was it? And then they do the thing where I guess over the course of years. I'm also like not sure the time the amount of time that passes in the course of this movie.

00:26:12
Speaker 2: It's kind of confusing. Yeah.

00:26:13
Speaker 3: Occasionally one will just show up in a fake ass beard and be like do you want to know my trick, and then like shoot the other one and then you're like, wow, that was that was intense. And then someone else shows up in the They're just showing up in various facial hair like, it's just it's so dramatic. I love it.

00:26:33
Speaker 2: It's awesome. Okay, So the rivalry is born, and sometime after this, Borden is working on his own act with this guy named Fallon who is Borden's and they're working on a bullet catching trick, which Borden's wife, Sarah played by Rebecca Hall, doesn't like because she thinks it's too dangerous and she's like, what if you die? I can't raise this baby on my own. That's right, I'm gregnant, and.

00:27:04
Speaker 3: He says, okay, I'll tell you my trick. That's what that's the only way to learn his trick is to get pregnant, just.

00:27:10
Speaker 2: To get pregnant with his baby.

00:27:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, high stakes.

00:27:13
Speaker 2: He insists that it's mostly safe. But one night, as Borden is doing the bullet catch trick and giving the gun to an audience volunteer, which why would you do that? There are too many variables involved? But anyway, he gives it to an audience volunteer who turns out to be a jeer who wants to kill Bordon.

00:27:37
Speaker 3: So I pause, Kayla, authenticity check.

00:27:43
Speaker 5: Great question. So thinking about the water tank, that is very dangerous and could easily go wrong effect. I used to be in a touring show called Champions of Magic and the show has an escape artist and he did the water tank and there was one night where it did go wrong and drop the curtain and I'm like the next performers who have to walk out and be like hey, And so it is very dangerous, it can go wrong quickly. So super authentic that that would be somebody's demise. Also very authentic that because at the time there was a woman who was very well known for being an escape artist, which I'll get into more of that shortly, but her name was Nerva and she was a very famous escape artist. So it does make sense that that would be something a woman would do because that was very accurate to the time. And same with the bullet catches. There are over ten I don't actually know the number at this point. It's got to be ten or twelve magicians who have died from the bullet catch. So it is a very dangerous thing. It's not like that anymore. Too many safety things have now gone into play. But it would have been conceivable that they would have given the gun to an audience volunteer to pull the trigger. Now it is not done, but yeah, it is a very authentic thing.

00:28:55
Speaker 2: Interesting.

00:28:55
Speaker 3: Okay, that was something, yeah that I was excited to hear what you thought about, because I was like, I guess I do believe that in Victorian England they were just doing whatever they're like, I certainly believe they were killing birds, like you know, stuff like that.

00:29:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:29:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I can give you the thumbs up on all of that is very accurate.

00:29:16
Speaker 3: Okay oof yeah, bleak.

00:29:21
Speaker 2: Okay. So it's Angier who is at the show holding the gun for this bullet catch trick, and he sabotages it doesn't manage to kill Bordon, but Angeer does shoot off a couple of Bordon's fingers, which will make Borden doing a lot of magic tricks very difficult.

00:29:41
Speaker 3: And again with the Christopher Nolan of it all, I was like, it's so funny that this movie, with like this intensity of like tethered rivalry is what comes out immediately before the Dark Knight, which is the movie is about the exact same thing, is about an intense, tethered rivalry between men who like want them to die but also need them to survive and Rare Rare like it's just it's his favorite. True.

00:30:07
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, Angeer and Cutter are now working together and they hire an assistant, Olivia played by Scarlett Johansson.

00:30:17
Speaker 3: She's like and she's like cheery out like I just.

00:30:20
Speaker 2: Not and it's not great. They're practicing a disappearing dove trick that keeps the dove alive for once, because, as we just alluded to, many previous bird disappearing tricks would kill the bird.

00:30:37
Speaker 3: And Michael Kane is like, so, what do you want to be good or not? To be a good magician, you gotta kill a couple of birds. That's how he talks.

00:30:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And a Jeer is about to perform this updated version of the trick at this big show, but uh oh, one of the audience volunteers turn out to be Borden. They're always going to each other's shows, and Boren.

00:31:05
Speaker 3: Just like, it's just like please it. The staff must not care for these guys at all, because I'm like it's just a beard, Like, surely there's a do not admit this guy and he's gonna be wearing a little outfit. Yeah, it's so fun.

00:31:20
Speaker 2: They're not paying close enough attention or something. But Borden goes on stage to be the audience volunteer. He deliberately again sabotages the trick and kills the bird in front of everyone, as well as like breaks the hand of the other audience volunteer in so doing, and this gets Angier booted out of this venue that he was performing at. So now Angeer needs a way to redeem himself, and he seems to be getting closer to meeting with Tesla, although I think the gap of time between these two events is like several years. Not sure, but I really don't.

00:31:59
Speaker 3: I have no I'm sure that it's like in the novel, it's like clarified. It doesn't super matter, but everyone's just so frequently disguised. And there's so many time jumps because Christopher Nolan is also obsessed with a little time jump.

00:32:13
Speaker 2: He loves time.

00:32:14
Speaker 3: I don't even know. I mean, it takes place at least over Okay, it takes a place at least over the course of the daughter's life, so we're covering at least she's what six five four or.

00:32:24
Speaker 2: Five six, six six seven, maybe, yeah, so.

00:32:27
Speaker 3: At least half a decade. But it is it is a little confusing for sure. Yeah.

00:32:32
Speaker 2: But the whole thing with Tesla is that he built a machine for another magician, presumably Boreden, and this one can do quote unquote real magic, not just illusions and misdirection, but wizardry, and Angier wants a machine like it, and he finally meets with Tesla and asks him to build a specific machine, although we don't yet know exactly what it's supposed to do.

00:33:04
Speaker 3: Pausing again, Kayla.

00:33:06
Speaker 2: Are there machines that do real magic? Just kidding?

00:33:10
Speaker 3: And I guess specifically, historically, I was not able to like Tesla did not collude with magicians.

00:33:17
Speaker 5: Is that correct as far as I know? Yeah, no at all. I think there's a really easy thing that happens a lot with movies that are about magic, where they just are like, well magic, like real magic is just science, and it's like, oh, yeah, I guess at Tesla Coyle, if you don't understand how it works, it does look very magical because it's unexplainable. So I think it's an easy thing to be like, oh yeah, magic magic make real equal science. Like that's that's it. So as far as I know, Tesla's not also a magician or isn't friends with or wasn't friends with anybody, So yeah, I don't think so. I think it was just an easy tie in.

00:33:56
Speaker 3: I thought it was like kind of I was curious with you because I thought it was like, it's so it's kind of ludicrous, but it's also clever where it's like Tesla did famously always run out of money, and so you're just like, oh, this is a world where he would accept a magician's bribe to continue his experiments.

00:34:15
Speaker 2: It's just so silly, I guess. Also in the book, the rivalry between Tesla and Edison is played up a little bit more to sort of mirror the rivalry between Angier and Borden, but that gets scaled back on. It's still there in the movie, but it's lesser than its presence in the novel. Okay, so Angier has finally got his meeting with Tesla, then we flash back again. I think again the chronology of events are confusing, but I think we're further back in time, Angier goes to watch another show and sees Borden's new trick, the Transported Man, and it's the best magic trick that Angie has ever seen.

00:35:01
Speaker 3: I love, I love, and he's like, ah, that should have been my trick.

00:35:08
Speaker 2: So how this trick works is, or how it appears on stage at least, is that Borden goes into a door on one side of the stage, then a second later, Borden steps out of a different door on the other side of the stage, as if he was magically transported to the other little cabinet. And again this is like the most amazing trick that Angier has ever seen. But Borden is not a great showman, and certainly again not the greatest showman, and not.

00:35:38
Speaker 3: The greatest showman, which is by the way, I think. I know that that movie has a huge following and is beloved by many people I love and respect. I'm just like that movie has an evil aura to me. That movie is so diabolical.

00:35:51
Speaker 2: It's a turd. I thought it was nasty.

00:35:55
Speaker 3: It's just it's just a diabolical movie.

00:35:57
Speaker 2: Okay, So Borden is bad at showmanship. So Angier thinks that if he can figure out how to replicate aka steal this trick, that he can use his showmanship to really sell it and get the audience excited about the trick.

00:36:15
Speaker 5: So accuracy check. This is so accurate. It's so deeply, deeply accurate. So in magic, you have people who are really good at inventing things, so they're coming up with the methods and creating the trick, and then a lot of times they will sell the trick and anybody can buy it right Or for example, if you think about David Copperfield did this illusion where he seemed to fly on stage and it genuinely looks like flight. It's incredible, and then somebody will be like, Okay, I want to buy that, and he'll hold on to it for a little bit, and then a couple of years ago he was like, okay, it's for sale. And then it could be for one person, it could be for multiple people. So people might like how there was kind of the discussion in this movie about oh, can I buy your tricks? That's very common. I've been approached by multiple people being like can I buy this? Can I buy this? So that is a thing. So if you're a good inventor of magic. You are often making a lot of money selling things you come up with.

00:37:13
Speaker 2: Got it?

00:37:14
Speaker 5: I would say that, like, it's a fair assumption that if somebody is mainly a product creator, they are not also a good performer. So there is kind of like a very distinct inventor or performer type of magician. But doesn't mean that many people can't blend the two. But you do tend to see like, oh, like, I'm not a good inventor of magic. That's just not what I do. But I'm I'm a good entertainer, so that's where my focus is. So I'm the person buying the effects and then making them my own, but doing them in a fun and entertaining way. So it does make sense that somebody will be like, I came up with this brilliant trick, but man, I cannot sell it on stage as much as I want to. It's this pretty pretty legit.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: Okay, follow up question the way that if you're writing a novel or any book or screenplay or anything like that, you copyright it to protect it, and then if you're like perhaps trying to adapt a book to film, you would like sell the rights to it. Is there a similar kind of thing where like you copyright a magic trick, or like, how do those things get protected?

00:38:20
Speaker 5: They don't. You cannot copyright. Yeah it legally, you cannot copyright magic. So how it works if you want to do somebody else's material is a magician could create something. So Teller is a good example of Penn and Teller, who created this really amazing piece called Shadows, which is worth a YouTube watch at some point it's it's very beautiful. He does that some magician I don't remember where he's from, but a different magician, not from the US, seals the routine but hypothetically is doing it in a different way. So you don't know how Teller's trick is done. He's never sold it. There is mystery to the method. So this other magician does it, but it looks the same, it's just done in a different way. So Teller was able to copyright the script and the choreography around the routine, which meant what this other magician was doing. Teller was able to sue and ultimately win that case because this other magician was doing the thing that was copywritten. I see, which is right. But if it's method, no, there's nothing you can do the.

00:39:27
Speaker 2: Same way that you can't copyright an idea for a story. You can only copyright like written text yep, if you have written the story down yep.

00:39:36
Speaker 5: Exactly How do.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: You and how does the magic community feel about that? Is that like a net positive or is it a polarizing thing? That's so fascinating.

00:39:45
Speaker 5: So it's a bit polarizing, but I think everybody does kind of come to the same general ending place, which is it would be great if we could do that. There was a bill that went to Congress at one point that was trying to make magic classified as an art in terms of law, but ultimately it didn't go anywhere unfortunately. I don't know why that happened, but it just it went to a different committee and then ceased to exist. And so the way the magic community kind of goes about doing this is just it's a small community. So if somebody steals your stuff, we're all going to know about it, right, especially if you steal somebody's stuff that we all know, Oh yeah, we watched this guy all the time, and then all of a sudden somebody else is doing it. We're like, wait a minute. And it is very easy for somebody to sort of get black bald for a bit.

00:40:34
Speaker 3: In the magic world, it's like jokes stealing basically.

00:40:38
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, and we're like if you do a new stand up set but it's not filmed or recorded, and then somebody else does those jokes, you have to kind of be like, well, I know those are mine, but how do I prove it? I don't know. So it's exactly the same with magic, is like, unless you have proof, unless you have video or anything that shows that you did it, it's very difficult to be like, wait, that's mine. So it is very much alike the community holds you morally responsible for doing things, but that doesn't mean it's stoppable.

00:41:11
Speaker 3: Right, God, that's so frustrating. Yes, but it does, I don't know, feeds into a problem that drives me personally up a wall about live performance right now, which is like that it's so because there is such a pressure to be constantly filming and documenting and having proof that it makes it really hard to like workshop something and like refine material, which well whatever, I'm like changing this up, but which in comedy is why I think crowd work is so popular right now because you cannot possibly work on it and the directive of the algorithm is to just produce as much as possible and not actually like refine material. God, well, that is very I feel like I'm going to fall down a research rabbit hole about copywriting magic tricks. That's really interesting.

00:42:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, unfortunately it will be the shallowest rabbit hole you've ever been down, because there was just nothing. There's just no things. I will say that, like, especially with the Internet now, it's very helpful. So this just happened to a friend of mine and without naming any names, like it happened his stuff got stolen. He is very well loved in the magic world, and he tried to handle it internally and quietly, and it didn't happen, and so he he just went on Facebook and went, this is what happened. And now the people that stole his stuff they've lost work, like they're gone. So it's like, yep, that's the magic community will for sure hold you responsible. That of course has plus and reminduses somebody could make an accusation that's false.

00:42:42
Speaker 3: So like but like these divas were constantly sabotaging each other.

00:42:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, yep, yeah, that is It's very That's why I'm like, yeah, this is a very similar and accurate thing when it comes to the personality of magicians. Yeah it is, It really is.

00:42:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wow, it's great, fascinating. Yeah.

00:43:02
Speaker 2: So Borden has just done his transported man on stage for the first time, and Angier is like, how do I steal this? And the only way that Cutter can think that Borden must be doing this trick is by using a double, a look alike that comes out of the second door. So they get to work on finding a double who looks like a jeer, and they hire this guy named mister Root, who is also played by Hugh Jackman.

00:43:35
Speaker 3: Who is just theater kidding out during these sequences. He's having so much fun.

00:43:41
Speaker 5: I feel like Hugh Jackman was like, hey, listen, I need this guy to be drunk, to have a mix of multiple accents, and I need you to let me play him as if there were two thousand people watching good and now here we are and it's it's just beautiful, a theater kid having a great time.

00:44:02
Speaker 3: I do love I not every huge Ackman performance is for me, but I do love how consistently he just like, you know, he's versatile, he can do something serious but it's not his preference. He would rather be doing something silly. He would rather be wearing tap shoes. And I love that quality in a person. I love that he and Sutton Foster together too, like just link up of the century.

00:44:28
Speaker 2: I love them.

00:44:29
Speaker 3: Wow.

00:44:30
Speaker 2: So they find mister Root and they perform their version of the Transported Man, and the audience loves it. The only trouble is that it's Root who comes out of the second door as Ajeer falls through a trapdoor on stage, so it's Root who gets all of the applause and recognition. So Angeer is not satisfied with this. He tells Olivia, his assistant, who he is now also smooching, to go work for Borden so that she can discover Bordon's secret and tell it to Ajeer so that he doesn't have to keep relying on the drunken mister Root, who is becoming more and more unreliable, which it turns out Borden is behind because Borden has been going to mister Root and encouraging him to make demands and blackmail and Jeer because Borden is still hell bent on sabotaging and Jeer and his career.

00:45:37
Speaker 3: It is so fun that Root's character has made to seem so like thick that he needs to have the idea to sabotage be given to him by another character. I thought that was very funny. Yes, like it's a very broad performance, and like I think in a different movie it would be like, well, how are we portraying addiction? But that's just like so far from what the goal of this movie is. That it's like we're looking at a cartoon character and I'm smiling.

00:46:05
Speaker 5: This same This is also one of those things that's like, wow, this is oddly accurate in terms of like sabotage, especially for the time period. So Minerva, who I mentioned earlier, was an escape artist, and she was very famous for this thing called a milk can escape where basically it's like this, you know, kind of mini water torture tank, but you can't see through it. So not the one that I was seen this movie, but little and so you have to get inside and then you got to get out somehow and annoyingly at the same time, Harry Houdini was very well known for that effect, but not as well known as Minerva. And although the proof is very much up to interpretation, it is understood that Houdini had some guys go and rig her milk can escape, so she could not get out of it, very similar to how like the knot might have been tied incorrectly like that, So she did almost die like a small handful of times hypothetically due to Houdini paying some guys to go do it. So it's for sure a big thing, especially in the mid late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds. For sure, this was like the idea of magicians sabotaging each other was just like the game. It was just, Oh, if you're gonna do this as a career, get ready, someone's gonna try to mess me.

00:47:22
Speaker 2: The stakes are high. Yep, you might die.

00:47:25
Speaker 3: Was this period of time like it seems to me? And this is also I'm pulling from like doing a lot of researcher on spiritualism and like Huddi's weirdo relationship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and like that whole thing. But like, is this this appears to me or is this a media thing? Appears that Victorian England is a specifically popular time for magic. Is that true or is that just how we see it in media?

00:47:52
Speaker 5: No, it's very true. So like kind of going, let's just say between eighteen fifty to nineteen ten, it was super popular. Magic was very much on the rise, and it was very common for magicians, like a solo performer to be touring the country or even the world. And in some aspect, I think what is often kind of missed here is you had a lot of performers like so Dante was where I believe they got the name that Hugh Jackman chooses the Great Danton. The Great Dante was like a that was a guy that performed magic at that time. You have Houdini, you have Keller and Thurston. But the one thing that they're missing most media is missing is the extent of women that were equally as famous as all of the guys during the shows. And so you've looked at like spiritualism. So the Fox sisters, that's massive.

00:48:48
Speaker 3: They were excellent magicians.

00:48:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, excellent magicians and like incredible story.

00:48:54
Speaker 3: My spiritualists are going to kick me in the head. But yes, excellent magicians.

00:48:58
Speaker 5: Yep. And what's also which is kind of crazy, is a lot of time I will get asked, oh, hey, what uh like do you have some sort of psychic power? Are you connected to another realm? Is that how you can do what you do? It's like no, but if you if you show me a psychic or if you show me anybody that kind of pretends to do that, I can replicate it equally as convincing. So the Fox Sisters and I know that folks that are in this spiritualism movement, Yeah, for sure they're gonna they would get mad at me saying that. And that's okay because that is just the thing I can do. And so the Fox Sisters were of that same time, and they admitted that everything was wrong, that they didn't do anything. Oh, this was all magic. They're incredible conditions, which they did open up a gigantic gap for other women to do very similar things or just like adjacent things. So for sure, the Fox Sisters have like contributed a lot to magic.

00:49:53
Speaker 3: There was another Oh my gosh, I think Mina Cranton was another character that was really associated with the Spiritualist movement, but was sort of revealed to be an excellent magician who also was beefing with Harry Houdini. Harry Houdini just was beefing with anyone and everyone, like inventing additional hours in the day. But she was doing she was kind of doing some like pussy magic. She was doing some some weird stuff.

00:50:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:50:23
Speaker 3: She was like, oh, this is from your dead husband and then pulls something out of her poot.

00:50:26
Speaker 2: You're like, yep, it was a lot oh literal pussy magic. Yes, yes, pulling things out of her vagina.

00:50:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm not That's not a euphemism. It was just like what she was up to.

00:50:36
Speaker 2: I was like, what do you mean by that?

00:50:38
Speaker 3: And now I get it magic of the pussy. Yeah, I guess. I'm like, I'm feeling for what is worth. If anyone listening is interested in spiritualism, I'm not disowning it. I do believe in elements of it, but just early spiritualist there's there's a lot of you know, bells and whistles and no need to deny it.

00:51:01
Speaker 2: You know.

00:51:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't hate us because it's impressive. It's impressive. It's impressive, you know, like sometimes for women to get by, they had to start a religion.

00:51:10
Speaker 2: Check out Ghost Church for more information.

00:51:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:51:15
Speaker 2: Okay, So, so Borden is now sabotaging and Jeer's transported man trick because he's upset about Anger having stolen it, and Borden hires Olivia kind of at Angeer's insistence, but there's all this like she's kind of flip flopping all around. But she goes to work for Bordon and she steals Bordon's diary and gives it to Angeer. But it's a cipher written in code, so Angier's like, I don't know how to read it. It's going to take months to decode, and I don't even have the secret keyword. So he kidnaps Fallen, the mysterious man who's the designer of Bordon's tricks, but Fallon refuses to talk, and so to get Fallen back, Borden gives Angier the keyword to decode his cipher diary. And the Kenny word is Tesla.

00:52:16
Speaker 3: Okay, and that is very, that feels very. The Da Vinci code is apple to be but much like Da Vinci code, I'm nodding, I'm like, yes.

00:52:24
Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly yes. So this is what prompts a Jeer to go to Colorado and commission Tesla to build him a magic machine. And while he's waiting for it to be completed, Angier finally finishes decoding Bordon's diary, only to discover that Borden wanted Angier to have his diary to taunt him and be like, my secret's not in this diary, you bitch.

00:52:55
Speaker 3: And oh, do you think that's the last time this is going to happen in this movie? Because no, not even close.

00:53:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Tesla meanwhile has been testing out the machine that he has built, but it doesn't seem to work because it zaps a top hat or a cat, but whatever the result is supposed to be, it's not working or doesn't seem to be working until Angeer goes outside and sees a pile of top hats and a couple spare cats.

00:53:31
Speaker 3: The cat scene cracked me up that, like, in most ways this movie ages very well looks wise, but the Tesla coil fx are like, oh oh, two thousand and six. It's like, clearly just a cat sitting in front of like a green screen or something, and then seeing like the look like you see a cat getting electricated. It's alarming, but funny.

00:53:52
Speaker 2: It is goofy looking, it is fun So we see all of these replicas of the hats and the cats, and we realize that the machine duplicates whatever you put in it, it's just that it shoots out the replica at the wrong place. So now Tesla just needs to make some adjustments to fix that, and he does, and he gives the machine to Angeer, who starts testing it out on himself for his transported man trick. We cut back to Borden in prison where he is awaiting execution, and he decides to give up his tricks, or at least part of them, to that solicitor who represents Lord cold Law, who we find out is like a collector of magic secrets in paraphernalia. Then we flash back to Borden and his wife Sarah, who is emotionally tormented that Borden seems to only love her half of the time, and she I can't take it anymore, and she dies by suicide.

00:55:03
Speaker 3: This is an evil choice, an evil choice. We've already killed off one wife to further the plot, and now we have done it a second time. We'll talk more about Sarah because I feel like she She and Olivia are both characters I thought had a lot of promise and could have. I mean, first of all, I mean I just love Rebeccahle also and I think like her performance is one of my favorites in this movie. But the fact that it's like it's kind of can't be but also really deeply sad that it's established from the first time this character appears. She's like, you know what's wild? You don't love me sometimes, and that is just the reality that she lives with. It's paid off. Keep listening, but it's so depressing, and you're like, wow, that is sometimes what it feels like to be in a bad relationship as a woman. You're like, well, what do you do? I'm Mark, It's like eighteen whatever. I have no option in the world, So I guess I just have to deal with this. I don't know if you've ever dated a comic or someone else you know, of the of the dork arts, you're like this more than me. Seriously, you know I've been on both sides of that. Actually, what do you do?

00:56:17
Speaker 2: What can one do?

00:56:19
Speaker 3: Just dump them?

00:56:20
Speaker 5: Don't don't date a magician.

00:56:22
Speaker 2: Don't date magicians, don't date comedian d don't date actors.

00:56:26
Speaker 3: We are toxic people. Stay away away from us, leave us to fuck each other to death in peace.

00:56:35
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:56:37
Speaker 2: Okay. So Meanwhile, and Jeer is staging one last show where he will perform the quote unquote real transported Man using the machine that Tesla built for him, which zaps him with electricity, duplicates him, and then shoots the duplicate out into another part of the theater, and he does the trick for the first time in front of a big audience, and the crowd is loving it, which infuriates Borden because he and Fallen not only have had their tricks stolen, but they can't figure out how Angier does this version of the trick, so Borden starts investigating, and then we see the scene that we saw at the beginning of the movie where Borden sneaks backstage and sees Anger fall into the water tank and drown, only this time we see Borden try to save Angeer, so it would seem as though Borden did not kill him. Then we get a reveal that Angier did this to frame Borden and ruin his life because Anger is alive because he got duplicated by the machine and he's living in secret as the mysterious lord called Law who pays a visit to Borden in prison, and Borden is like wait a minute. This is the man I was convicted of killing. So if he's alive, I'm not guilty, but no one gives a shit whatever.

00:58:15
Speaker 3: Too bad, bitch, which is true of the justice system in general.

00:58:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. Then we get another reveal that Fallen and Borden are identical twin brothers, where one would live as Alfred Borden, the magician who was married to Sarah and has a daughter, the other as Fallen, the engineer who wore a disguise to obscure the fact that he looks exactly like the other Bordon. And they would take turns and switch places and kind of both live these double lives. Yeah, and this is how they did such a convincing transported man trick. And this is also why Borden only seemed to lie his wife half of the time.

00:59:03
Speaker 3: I know, And it's like he's like a magician, never reveals his secrets.

00:59:06
Speaker 2: And I was like, but but you can do it, reveal it to your wife just once.

00:59:11
Speaker 3: She's good for it. You know, she's never she's never leaked, Olivia, she's leaky, She's she's leaky. But look, she's just trying to get by another character who very much just jettisoned from the movie kind of in the third actor, like where did she go?

00:59:27
Speaker 2: Where's Olivia?

00:59:28
Speaker 3: But well, but the reveal, what do we think of the reveal? I think by that point I've just been so like run over by the truck of the plot of this movie that I'm like, yeah, sure, so nice.

00:59:41
Speaker 2: The first time I saw the movie, I was like, holy fucking shit. I didn't see that coming at all. But now looking back on it, I'm like, that is the goofiest reveal of all time, Like, of course they're twins, like de doy it seems so silly and obvious.

00:59:57
Speaker 5: Now it's closest movie was not made for magicians to like it because for so many reasons. But that was the That was the first thing that I thought the first time I watched it was like, twins.

01:00:10
Speaker 3: Oh, because that's a real.

01:00:12
Speaker 5: Thing the magicians do. So it's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Is it not twins? Oh it's twins? Okay, cool, Like we met nothing.

01:00:20
Speaker 3: Twins are common in magic?

01:00:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean are a lot of magicians twins? Now? Do magicians who have a twin make their twins magic?

01:00:28
Speaker 2: Yes?

01:00:29
Speaker 4: Wow?

01:00:30
Speaker 5: Yo? Whoa yep? I can think of three right now that I've like personally watched use their twin.

01:00:37
Speaker 2: Do people know that they have a twin or is that part of the secret.

01:00:40
Speaker 5: No, that's part of the They try to tea up under wraps as best as possible.

01:00:44
Speaker 3: Whoa, Also, that's it's I'm just like, I'm so curious of Like, man, you've really got to maintain the relationship with your twin for that to work. Like, hope you guys don't get in a fight or one of you is unemployed.

01:00:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean same with like, if you have an assistant, true, you better treat god assistant real well.

01:01:02
Speaker 2: True Arena, they're gonna do to you what Root does to Anger and sabotage his little tricks. Okay, so we're almost done. Well, you get the reveal that there are two Burdens and they're both living dual lives as either Borden or Fallon. One of the Bordens is executed while the other one approaches Angeer and shoots him the angier that did survive the transported man trick.

01:01:35
Speaker 3: But don't forget his dying word is abracadabra.

01:01:38
Speaker 2: Bordens is yes, yes, I hate it, so goofy. They're like any last words and then a pregnant pause and then ABC that.

01:01:50
Speaker 3: Is like executing a comic and then having that be like is this thing and then getting.

01:01:56
Speaker 5: Dropped like yeah, I can't.

01:01:58
Speaker 3: I have to imagine as a magician, you gotta be like, come on, guys, come on. It was We're not like that.

01:02:06
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are a couple of other options that I thought would have been nice.

01:02:10
Speaker 2: But yeah, al kazam for example, no, I'm kidding an option. I did laugh a lot at the part where there's this guy who runs a venue that has given Angier like a week long run to prove that he's got what it takes. And during the first show, that's when Borden comes on stage to sabotage him and kill the bird. So the venue runner has to like boot Angier from the venue, and he says like, I've hired a comedian to replace you. You know I hate comedians, and I was like, ah, exactin yeah, okay, so we've gotten all these big reveals the remaining Borden shoots and Jeer, and in Angeer's dying monologue, he's like, oh my god, what I can't believe it, and then he reveals that every time he did his transported man trick, he would murder the duplicate, the one that wasn't part of the prestige. So he has killed various clones of himself and then Angier dies and Borden, the remaining Bourdon, returns home and reunites with his young daughter Jess, who again Angier had stolen when the other Bourdon was sent to prison.

01:03:31
Speaker 3: And so he had to do what he had to do.

01:03:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so this burden coming back, reappearing again is the prestige of the movie. Wow.

01:03:45
Speaker 3: Movie, And.

01:03:48
Speaker 2: So let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

01:04:01
Speaker 3: And we're back.

01:04:03
Speaker 2: We're back, kileb.

01:04:05
Speaker 3: Where would you like to start this discussion because I'm curious in hearing more the history. But I'm yeah, what jumps out to you?

01:04:12
Speaker 5: So there are two main elements of this movie that from a magician's perspective, I'm like, no one is. I forget Hugh Jackman's wife's name from the beginning, Julia, Julia. Immediately I didn't understand why she was the escape artist doing this incredible thing, but she never spoke, and this other magician took all the credit for just like walking around the box, which is a very common theme in magic, Like a lot of times the assistant who needs to be quite small, often flexible to do the secret of the trick. He is the one doing all of the work and the magician is just walking around making poses like look at this moving boxes and then taking the ninety percent of the applause. But I was just like, well, this is this isn't just an assistant thing. This is like, oh no, she's doing an incredible skill, right and getting so little from it.

01:05:10
Speaker 2: The movie like it's one thing for yes, like that happens in real life all the time, where an assistant a woman does a bunch of labor and gets no credit for it. But that's something you could comment on, which the movie does not do. The movie just acts as though she's not a magician. Also, she hasn't really done anything. She doesn't deserve any recognition, which was very disappointing.

01:05:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I feel like and we get a similar like I don't know, Yeah, I think that truly. That's one of the areas where you're like, all Christopher Nolan knows how to do is kill a wife. Because the story opportunity is literally right there and then instead her death, this's the inciting incident for the story instead of I mean and I so when the Scarlet Johansson character came along, Scarlett had we talked, I forget what movie we last saw her in, but Unrepented Zionist sucks. But when this Scarlett Johansson character comes along, it almost felt like, oh, well, here, you know, and it's a Christopher Nolan movie. I know he's not going to take the opportunity, but here is an opportunity to maybe rectify how Julia's character was treated, because she is also presented in an assistant capacity to begin with, but she's got opinions on things which Julia didn't really seem to have. She is sort of trying to play these divas against each other and to benefit on her own. And it's like, now, knowing what you're saying, Kayla, is that like this was a time where a woman could it would have been difficult, but could conceivably have been a very famous magician. That's like, I mean, it's a different movie, but that's like I think that there is room to ingratiate Olivia into this complex Bizarro plot, and like she would have been a useful red Herring for a lot of stuff in this movie, but she kind of just slowly disappears. And then you see what often happens in movies of this time, in Christopher Nolan movies, where it's this like, she becomes a plot device, she becomes a reflection of the dead wife. She become like the reveal involves her, but mostly as it relates to sexual deception. She has been enduring for years and doesn't know. But it's sucked because it felt like Olivia was as like Olivia and Sarah both have interior lives, but only to a point, and the point is the men.

01:07:37
Speaker 5: It would have been I think a much more interesting story, even if they included just a small portion of this. So there was a magician of the time. Her name was Adelie Hermann, and she was married to Alexander Hermann, who was the super famous magician. Adelaide was the assistant but also a circus performer. She did a lot of stunts, but she really didn't too much magic. And then her husband died very soddenly, and she went, Okay, I'll just learn the whole show and did and became super duper famous, like super deeper famous, more famous than Eudini, more famous, like massively famous, touring the world. That could have been an interesting story to like hear about, you know, a little bit of a subplot of her learning more of the show or like anything that would have just made her more than what she was would have been great, right, And like I said, there are tons of magicians of that era that it would have been great to just add in a little bit of their true life to know, Oh, Okay, she's actually like a really good magician, right.

01:08:39
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, And it's like, I mean, from that perspective, it's like the fact that well, I do like in some ways, I think it's like kind of funny and clever that they're pulling in Tesla as it being involved in this plot. It's like, well, why bend over backwards to involve Tesla when there were so many, like you're saying, like so many real life figures that would have been like more realistic and also actually plausible and authentic to what was going on at this time. And that I mean, at very very least, like Olivia should be perceived as a threat to these guys, as a potential professional threat. And I feel like there's a version of this movie where maybe she you know, because she knows both of their acts, so does that stand to make her one of the most like if whether it's dishonest or not, like, one of the most successful acts in the world. But instead she's like, I love him, you're like.

01:09:37
Speaker 2: And him being both of them because basically her role in the story eventually just gets relegated to being the romantic interest of both and Jeer and then one of the burdens, and she just kind of gets shuffled back and forth between the two. It's hard for the audience to know exactly where her loyalties lie or what that even means for this story. I was kind of losing track of, like who does she love? Who is she loyal to? If anyone like what is going on there? Yeah, what did you think about the line that Cutter says, Kayla, where he's like, where they hire Olivia in part because she's attractive, And then Cutter says, a pretty assistant is the most effective form of misdirection thoughts.

01:10:27
Speaker 5: I mean it's accurate, like a hundred percent. I mean, a lot of magicians will there are multiple reasons why you want to hire an assistant that is captivating regardless of gender. Having an assistant that is truly captivating is key. So a lot of magicians hire dancers because they can grab the attention and it doesn't necessarily need to be while something secret or like the method to the trick is going on. It can literally mean just the assistant is really drawing the audience in too. You know stage right, well, one prop is being wheeled off and another on that we just you know who wants to see that. So sure the assistant does a small dance routine and then we go on to the next illusion. So it could be as simple as that. So it is definitely a useful tool to have an assistant that really captivates attention. It is more than likely. So there's a historical inaccuracy in this movie that I'll mention in a second, but it is more than likely that now an assistant will be a woman because you need somebody who is small in stature and flexible to do a lot of the routines. So that tends to be the route. Even if it's a woman who's the magician, they might often hire a woman assistant just because of the stature necessities, right, So that is possible An element that is historically inaccurate in this movie is that there would not have been women doing things like sawing a person and half illusions because that only started really by pt. Celbet, who invented the sawing a woman in half. That's the title of the trick during the women's suffrage movement.

01:12:09
Speaker 3: Direct, yeah, very direct, but it is direct.

01:12:12
Speaker 5: Kidding, it directly correlates with women getting the right to vote.

01:12:16
Speaker 2: WHOA so kidding?

01:12:18
Speaker 5: It's it's so interesting.

01:12:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:12:21
Speaker 5: There's a magic historian, Jim Steinmeier. He's massive in magic. He's he's created tons of illusions and he is the backbone to things like making the Statue of Liberty disappear and the flying carpet during the Aladdin Broadway musical. So like the massive and so he wrote a book and in that book it very specifically states that the reason for the explosive popularity of sawing a woman in half was due to its specific timing and culture. And he doesn't really elaborate on that, but if you if you start to look at it, you're like, oh, so you're telling me that the time where we gave women more rights in society was the time where a magician went I'm going to take those away if only for this ten minute routine, right.

01:13:07
Speaker 3: Like it's a fantasy act out ya. That is we should be talking about that every single day. Yeah, that is agreed, so fucked and so interesting.

01:13:19
Speaker 5: It's really interesting because that really opened up like all these illusions that were done in the eighteen hundreds that were often done. It could have been a woman, it could have been a guy like I, could have been a kid, you know, it was just a whoever could fit in the box was the person that did it, Like Robert Houdan, who was a very famous illusionist, did it with his son. You know, all this stuff, right, But really the opening up of like any woman getting put in a box and mutilated and put back together, that only started in the twenties, nineteen twenties, So it's a little it's a little bit inaccurate in this movie, but also just really interesting to know that, like, oh, magic is Magic's weird.

01:13:57
Speaker 3: I think that it's again like something that you are more aware of than most people, Kila. But the fact that like all popular media and all entertainment is a mirror to the time is coming out and that is a fascinating o cregious example that is nuts.

01:14:16
Speaker 5: Wow. Angela Sanchez, who is a brilliant magic historian. They really dove deep into this in like a collegiate paper that they wrote, and reading that paper, I was like, everything in magic makes sense now, But now I'm upset and it's just a lot. And so kind of reading their work and hearing them talk about these things is like, oh, shoot, yeah, I didn't even think about Oh let me look at let me look at this illusion or this popularity of this one magician or anything, and compare it more culturally. You really start to see a lot of that come about. There is another moment that I wanted to talk about, but I want to make sure that we are done talking about this thing. My brain went transition and then it I don't know if it happened.

01:15:03
Speaker 3: No, please, you're you're in the driver's seat, whatever whatever you want to move along to.

01:15:08
Speaker 5: I'm honored. Thanks for letting me drive.

01:15:10
Speaker 3: This is great.

01:15:11
Speaker 5: So there's a moment where they are talking about it's when they're all done with the first show and we watched the water tank escape and they're all talking and yelling at each other in the basement, right and there's a moment where Michael Caine goes, you need to go to this theater. There is uh and I'm not gonna say the language because it's wrong, but there's men from China, a man from China who's performing, and Hu Jopman's like Chuckling Sue. And then they go and they watch this magician perform, and you see like, yes, this man is likely of Asian descent, So okay, cool, wrong, So Chung Ling Sue. His real name is William Ellsworth Robinson.

01:15:55
Speaker 3: Oh that's a real figure.

01:15:56
Speaker 5: Okay, but not Asian.

01:15:59
Speaker 3: Okay, good lord?

01:16:01
Speaker 5: Right, So of course in this movie, you can't be like, should we discuss cultural appropriation because it's in the eighteen hundred. It's like, no, it's not. I understand that that would be a weird subplot to just throw into the movie. But there's somebody else that we can mention. So Chumling Siou William Robinson. He had a rivalry, and it was very interesting that that was the magician we decided to name in this movie because the rivalry is very similar to the rivalry in this movie, where there was a magician named Ching Ling Fu actually from China who was brought to the US for the Omaha World's Fair, and Fu was the first like celebrity in America because he was so famous doing his act that he would be performing at a theater that across the street was a movie theater, one of the first movie theaters, and it was playing a video of his act because it was cheaper to go to the movie theater, so if you didn't have a lot of money, you could go watch his act at the movie theater while he was playing across the street. That is the level of fame that Fu had. And then he put out this challenge, being like, if you can figure out how I do any of my material, then I'll give you money, and et cetera. And William Robinson he recreated Fu's act and Fu was like, okay, you did it, but you didn't do it correctly, like you didn't use my method. One of those things was producing a massive fish tank like in this movie. Okay, And William Robinson was like, yeah, but I did it. You didn't tell me how to do it exactly correct. I still replicated it, give me money, and Fu went no. And that was it. That was all that was needed to become this massive rivalry that changed Magic Forever because William Robinson started dressing up and calling himself Chungling Sue and was doing Fu's act. But in America everyone went, you're not actual Chinese. Like we we know that you're not, like we know that Fu is actually Chinese.

01:18:05
Speaker 3: In a racist costume.

01:18:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, uh huh, we we can smell that because we've been adoring Fu for years, so we don't like you. And so William Robinson went, Okay, then I'm going to go somewhere where Fo hasn't been yet. So he went to England and by the time Fu got to England, everyone said, you're not the real Chinese magician. This guy is talking about Robinson. So Fu did not have a career in England and that became this massive rivalry. But Chuckling Sue also never grew to be this seventy year old man that they are showing in the movie. William Robinson was one of the many magicians that died from a bullet catch. So he died on stage during a bullet catch in his fifties, and so it was just a really interesting way of really interesting to put William Robinson as Chuckling Sue in this movie. When you could have easily made this into that character could have been Chickling Foo easily.

01:19:03
Speaker 3: And why wouldn't it have been?

01:19:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, because up until recently, and by recently I mean twenty twenty, people did not know magicians, magic historians, did not know Chingling Foo existed.

01:19:17
Speaker 3: O wow, Okay.

01:19:18
Speaker 5: So it was only in I believe twenty nineteen, twenty twenty that a book came out by a historian, not a magic historian, who lives in China, who discovered the life of Fu and end he wrote a book. The book is amazing, and then magicians went, who's this? And there was a there was supposed to be a debate between a very well known magic historian and the writer of this book. And the magic historian said, because there's always a debate, unlike is what William Robinson did wrong for that time period, not for now, but for the time period. And many, like myself say yes, but many say no, it was just how you had to have a career. I hate the debate so much. Welcome to my soapbox. But they we're gonna have a debate in the magic story and said, I can't believe you wrote a whole book on this guy. Because the most I've ever been able to find is like four paragraphs.

01:20:12
Speaker 3: How did you.

01:20:13
Speaker 5: Find out more information? And the writer of the book said, I went to the library.

01:20:18
Speaker 3: Robert Edgars vibes.

01:20:21
Speaker 5: That was the end of the debate. It was incredible.

01:20:23
Speaker 3: Whoa, he's like, I tried reading a book, you dusty bitch.

01:20:27
Speaker 5: Wow? Yeah?

01:20:28
Speaker 3: That okay. So theoretically, and this isn't too because if the answer truly was as simple as I did some research that is so addicative of so much lost history. But theoretically, like so this would have been not as bizarre a choice as it would now seem in two thousand and six. Or is it still a bizarre choy? Because he was known to be a white man in yellow face in two thousand and six, right, correct? I didn't know that before this recording. Because Chuckling Sue is played by a Chinese American actor in this movie. It's his last film appearance, Strata Charlie Chi, who is also in a bunch of other very popular American movies, including The Joy Luck Club, including Batman the animated series like all sorts of fun stuff. But why choose this magician specifically if it is so well known that he was fraudulent in all these ways.

01:21:31
Speaker 5: My guess is, and I don't know who would have decided that this was the magician that they wanted to talk about. I don't know if this was in the book or if this was a decision made by the writers, Christopher Nolan, maybe the magic consultant. But the questioning of cultural appropriation in magic, or even just the discussion of it, did not happen until about twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, and there are still in twenty twenty five, there are still magicians dressing up and pretending to be not light of some Asian ethnicity to benefit the trick that they want to do, or using props that have are an artistic just rendering of Chinese characters. So it is. It is a very common thing in magic, and the fact that it's really only been questioned, and I can tell you when it started questioning it because I'm the one that did it, so I know what happened, because that didn't happen until I went, what's up, why are we doing this? And then started doing all this research. Of that time as well, there were a lot of magicians pretending to be Indian for their benefit so it just was a very common thing of the eighteen hundreds. The first one, the first magician to ever do it was oddly a woman in the early eighteen hundreds. But it is a very common thing and it just really didn't start being discussed until the last seven or eight years.

01:23:01
Speaker 3: And tell you, like started the conversation.

01:23:04
Speaker 5: Which is it shouldn't be me like, that's why is that? Why did it take that long? Somebody before me should have said something. But you know, I had a podcast discussing mostly like the diversity and inclusion lack there of in the magic community, and because of that, I think a lot of people started looking into, oh this is weird. And I had on the author of the Jingling Fu book, Samuel Portias, and we discussed a lot of things about on that topic. And it's a fascinating element of magic history that really nobody has talked about. Even now. It's more talked about now, but it is not widely enough spoken about.

01:23:40
Speaker 2: Well. We even see a jeer in the movie when he's first presenting the version of the Transported Man trick, when he's using a double and he says, like, the next thing you're going to see isn't even an illusion. This is real magic known only to select few. It comes from East Asia, and it's like real witchcraft wizardry kind of thing, the way that so often any non white culture will.

01:24:13
Speaker 3: Be missed a size exactly.

01:24:16
Speaker 2: And I can't even imagine how much that was exploited in magic for centuries.

01:24:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, and extensively, because when ching Ling Foo gets brought over and becomes this massive celebrity touring the US and multiple times magicians in the US or magicians in England who can't a lot of people can't easily access going to East Asia. So it's so easy to give yourself some cred and say I just came back from China, from Japan, from wherever, and said I picked this up when I was traveling. And now immediately the audience is like, oh, tell me more. You must be a big deal if you've been able to go travel to these places, and you must have money or somebody paid for you, like you are now celebrity in my eyes. And it was just an instant way to get people to love you and to think you were amazing. And it Unfortunately, even though all of the reasons why that happened are no longer applicable. It's still very much a thing that happens in magic. I mean when I was a kid, I had I mean, this is kind of crazy, but I had a long piece of paper that was deemed the Chinese laundry ticket, and it was this idea that you drop your laundry off it a dry cleaner, and you received this ticket, but it's in it's not in English, and then you tear it up and you restore it. And like that was the trick I did for years as a kid. Wait, why did I do that?

01:25:47
Speaker 3: That makes no sense. It was normalized, just normalized. Yeah, I mean, it's.

01:25:51
Speaker 5: Just it's a product you bought from the magic shop right everywhere.

01:25:54
Speaker 3: And again, like it's just like a reflect in the same you know, a very different example, but just as the woman being sold in half as a reflection of the politics and values of the time and just a reflection of how history is preserved. I'm like, I'm right. What was the name of the author who wrote that book again.

01:26:14
Speaker 5: About ching wing Fu? Yes, Samuel Portius. I think it's po rt e o u s poords. That sounds I can't spell, but it'll pop up.

01:26:26
Speaker 3: You're you're a performer, you don't have to know how to spell thank you? And did they hear that every all performers should be told that. But yeah, I mean just speaking to how you know, as technology develops in it, as you know, there are far more ways to preserve history does not mean it is being done better. It just gives a larger platform for centuries old misinformation to sort of persist, you know. That's that's I'm so glad that book was written. Wow, I was not expecting that side quest in this episode.

01:26:58
Speaker 5: Thank you for maddening to me. So as soon as that came up, I was like, you've got to be kidding me, and I like paused the movie. I had to just wait a second because I was like, you can't tell me this is Oh, it's happening, okay. It just is one of those things that like if it were done more historically accurate, totally different if they had said like, oh, yeah, this this performer is not actually Chinese, but he's been living because they say like, oh, he's been living like this, he walks like this old man with a back problem, like all of these things, and they also had just thrown in there like that man's from New York. He's a white man, and he is he's just been living this way to perpetuate this character. Then that's legit, Like okay, you'll did it. But I just think nobody knew. I really think just nobody knew to even think about it, to say it, to discuss it, to.

01:27:47
Speaker 3: Go out to the library.

01:27:48
Speaker 5: No, too hard.

01:27:50
Speaker 3: That's really yeah, because I mean I guess it's like we can't know, but it seems like you know, again, even the like horrific read of what really happened of like this guy kind of like Rachel doleas all like he like lived as another race in order to deceive others for years. That's I feel like is also very much in line with and is a far more racist version of what the two protagonists are doing. So why like in a world where we have to have the historical figure of Chung ling Suit in this movie, it's like almost foreshadowing to acknowledge that he is so committed to the deeply troubling bit that like his life is kind of fucked, the life of his and others are fucked as a result, because that's what happens in the third act of this movie. It's just yeah, well.

01:28:48
Speaker 2: In the movie starts to explore this theme of like, well, how much sacrifice are you willing to make for your magic career? When the chung Ling Su character shows up on screen again, the movie isn't acknowledging that he but.

01:29:05
Speaker 3: They sort of just make up another thing. They make up a physical disability, right.

01:29:10
Speaker 2: And say, but that is the beginning of this thematic under like under or overcurrent of the movie, as far as like and to what lengths is anyone willing to go to for the sake of their craft? And you know, as a performer, when are you on? And when are you off? And what if you're always on? And what if your whole life is basically a lie to maintain a specific illusion. And that becomes like such a huge part of the Borden character.

01:29:46
Speaker 3: At which point I'm like, he shouldn't get his kid back at that. We shouldn't be clapping for that. So he will do We have no reason to believe he will not do this again.

01:29:55
Speaker 2: Well he doesn't have a twin to do it with anymore.

01:29:57
Speaker 3: But yeah, but he's gonna fuck this kid's life, like absolutely.

01:30:02
Speaker 2: But yeah, my whole deal with this is, you know, we learn that there are these two Burdens, these identical twin brothers who share a life, and one of them is Borden part of the time and one of them is Fallen part of the time, and they switch back and forth. But this is all happening at the expense of one of the Borden's marriage with Sarah, who thinks that her husband doesn't love her half of the time and thinks that he's perhaps cheating on her with Olivia, and this leads her to die by suicide, which so I'm just like, And this is I think, actually a reflection of like a lot of men's behavior in real life, their willingness to destroy their lives and other people's lives under the guise of quote unquote sacrifice for their craft, but really they're just hurting all the people around them. And this is actually something we talked about on the Men Being Bitches Matreon theme that we did recently, where we covered the Banshees of Indus here and amadaeis. But this is very much happening with Borden as well, And the whole time, I'm just like, poor Sarah, like, and there's a moment where Borden tells Fallen aka the other Bordon, but we don't know that yet that Sarah knows something is a miss. She can tell that her husband only seems to love her half of the time, and so.

01:31:30
Speaker 3: That's like her how we're introduced to her, which is like clever in the corniest way possible, but like it's so it's so silly, it's right, like god, women, women are women are just socially conditioned to settle for so little. It'd be like sad because she's she's like, well, at least this makes me feel good the days that you do love me. I was like, right, cope, it's cope. Sarah's coping so hard.

01:31:55
Speaker 2: But toward the end of the movie, when she's like really had enough and she's like I can't take much more of this, Borden asks Fallin. We're not sure which one is married to Sarah at this point, but he's like, hey, Sarah realizes something is not right. I need you to do whatever you need to do to reassure her that Borden loves her. And so we think, okay, maybe we're gonna see more intimacy between them, or more emotional nurturing or something, but instead, the next time other Bordon is with Sarah. They have a fight. He is verbally and emotionally abusive toward her. She's saying like, all I want from you is to be honest with me and to give me the affection and love that I deserve. And she's like, do you love me? And he says not today. And this seems to be the catalyst for her taking her own life, which.

01:32:54
Speaker 3: I think, you know, not that this has never happened in history anything like that. I like, I guess I'm curious what you both. I just thought that was an incredible selling out of this character. Like I while I absolutely like while people have taken their own lives over issues like this, I just it doesn't quite square with the character we know. To me, it's like this is someone who, while she is clearly heartbroken and is like I think we see that she's drinking a lot to cope with the gaslighting and the stress, this is just not someone who I think would abandon their child like that. I just I feel like she's got a lot. I mean again, it's like I don't want to get into like a toxic pattern of like she has so much to live for, But it just felt like she's killed in this really tragic way to raise the stakes more than to remain faithful to the character that we've met.

01:33:52
Speaker 2: I agree. Yeah, I think that Christopher Nolan just did what he does best, which is kill off a woman.

01:34:00
Speaker 3: I mean or the novelist, you know, because this is based on a book by Christopher Priest, a different Christopher could be responsible for this crime. But yeah, I just found it very frustrating and like typical of how you know, men are quick to Yeah, I think that this is essentially like a glorified Fridging moment where we haven't killed a woman since the beginning, so let's get a second dead wife in the mix. And the scene is just I thought, so like overwrought with like corny symbolism and the caged birds and the blah blah blah and that like it just I don't know, it was not a worthy departure to this character who are sympathies are with And again it's in the same way. I mean again, she and Olivia are very different characters, but like I think there's one scene where they might be in the same room, but.

01:34:56
Speaker 2: The other at dinner together the two women, but.

01:34:59
Speaker 3: They do not speak to each other, and you're just like, I don't know, I don't know. I just it was as with every Christopher Nolan movie in history, basically, the treatment of the only women in the movie was dismissive and frustrating.

01:35:16
Speaker 2: Which we talk at length about on the I think both the Inception episode and the Dark Night episode as far as like Nolan's.

01:35:25
Speaker 3: Safe to assume every Nolan movie we've ever covered, we've had a version of this conversation, for sure, but this one too. Sorry, Kayla, what were you gonna say? I was gonna say.

01:35:34
Speaker 5: In Magic, we kind of created the magician form of the Bechdel test, which is we call it the table test, which is if your woman assistant can be replaced by a table that.

01:35:47
Speaker 2: Oh I remember you talking about this on the Now You See Me episode.

01:35:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think in many ways the women in this movie could easily be replaced by a table, like damn, you know, there's there's a lot of sad death. But besides that, they're at table, right, and that's it. Like, so it is very indicative of how many magicians treat assistants, where they're merely a prop to be manipulated and used for your own gain. So it does feel a lot like, oh yeah, this is like legit, this is how a lot of magicians are. So the movie and the treatment of the women characters are very much similar to how magicians would treat assistance.

01:36:28
Speaker 3: With that in mind, I'm curious your thoughts about Olivia and how she's characterized throughout the film.

01:36:35
Speaker 5: Is Olivia Scarlet Johansson?

01:36:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, sorry, I like, honestly it just locked in for me. But yes, the Scarlet I had the character. Yeah, how did you feel about how she was characterized? H yeah.

01:36:46
Speaker 5: I really should have written down their names, but they were said so minimally that I didn't remember what really anybody what their names were, right, And.

01:36:53
Speaker 3: When the whole cast is movie stars, You're like, yeah, we.

01:36:57
Speaker 5: Know, yeah, I think in many capacities, like I just going back to sort of any hoodainty based rifle, like thinking about Whodini and the spirituals and movement at the time in his weird relationship with it kind of you brought that up earlier. Jamie is like, there was a lot that was done with rivals in the late late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds that would be sending an assistant to get some information or find out more information, Like any sort of manipulative tactics to mess with your rival was for sure done, even if it was like close to murder. So it does feel like a thing that would have been done. But there's another element of just like magic in adult as its whole. And I'm going to say this, this is my theory. There are absolutely exceptions, but I really believe that all magicians are one of two diagnoses, and they're either narrative rgent. So I have ADHD. It helps, it's by super on stage. It's great. A lot of magicians are autistic nor aamergent in any capacity. It makes sense because we're super nerdy and there's a lot of hyper focus on things. But also like for me, my brain is so all over the place that performing it really lends a lot to my way of performing in the comedic sensibilities I have, et cetera. But then there is a small subset of magic that is more manipulative and potentially narcissistic that that tends to be what comes out for a lot of magicians and to me in that moment, Hugh Jackman was like, no, no, no, this is all about me. Y'all don't actually care about you at all. This is about me go get the secrets, and so it just it really just tracks for a lot of behavior that you see, especially at that time period in the magic world. So it wasn't so surprising that she would have been manipulated in that way and then also gone and like fall in love with two different magicians. Like there was just a lot there that was like, oh, yeah, I've seen this from people in the magic world. I've seen this from women in the Magic world. Former, yeah, it feels it feels accurate. It didn't need to happen in a movie, but it does feel.

01:39:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah, I guess I would just go back to, like, again, this is changing the movie we have, But it just felt like, because of there's like historical precedent for women to become more powerful in this world, I wish that she had developed into like I don't even care that you know, she's like hooking up with the various magicians. You're like, yeah, that's you know, based in any horny arts community, like that's gonna happen. But it just felt like that was where a lot of her plot relevance stopped. As time went on, which is frustrating because I didn't feel like she was introduced that way. I'm not sure if maybe there's more of a story for her in the novel or less, but yeah, it just felt like by the edge she was a table, you know, she was a warm body to move the platforward, and that's a shame. It is.

01:39:59
Speaker 5: I'd like to pay which if they ever decide to rebake this movie, which I guess it could happen. They're remaking Harry Potter and everything, so it's possible there could be a reboot. I would like to pitch the idea that actually, at the end, when everything is like all the people have been murdered and all of the you know, every all of the deception has been completed, and obviously these two male magicians are not going to be doing magic anytimes too, and that actually we get to see this great spotlight on Scarlett Johansson as super famous magician doing doing magic that doesn't involve twins and deception like any you know, outside of the norm sort of magic deception, any sort of personal deception, and she's just some super famous magician touring the world and everybody loves her.

01:40:44
Speaker 3: Like that would be great, She'd be thriving. That would be a fun like even just like a fucking post credits scene or something like that would be cool. And again like fits with the themes of the movie, where it's like, well, did she get all this success by and you know, doing it the most ethical way possible. No, but that's not what show business is about, baby, blah blah blah, get.

01:41:06
Speaker 2: Your hands dirty.

01:41:08
Speaker 5: Yeah.

01:41:08
Speaker 2: I feel like there could have easily been a subplot where Olivia while Borden and Angie or are so focused on trying to prove who's the better magician, and they're sabotaging each other and they're going to each other's shows and they're shooting each other and stealing from each other and taking their diaries and blah blah blah this stuff. While they're distracted with that, while they're misdirected, perhaps Olivia is over here like learning all of their tricks, yeah, developing all the skills, and then yeah, rising to prominence without either of them. That would have been cool. I wanted to go back to Sarah Borden's his wife, because okay, so after she dies, you would think there would be a scene where Borden discovers her body or like some aftermath of learning that she has and it's presumably his fault or he was the catalyst for it. But we do not see this on screen at all, Like, why isn't there a scene where he's like, oh my god, my beloved wife is dead, like.

01:42:22
Speaker 3: Right, which is because we get plenty of that from Hugh Jackman at the beginning. We get multiple long shots of him like punching the wall, being like a what not?

01:42:32
Speaker 5: Was it?

01:42:32
Speaker 2: He's trying to drown himself it seems at one point.

01:42:35
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yeah, he's so dramatic, right.

01:42:38
Speaker 2: Instead, what we see bordon do is tell Olivia that he never loved Sarah, he never loved his wife. He loves Olivia, blah blah blah. And I would say, at least to the story's credit, Olivia says like, how are you so cold? Sarah was your wife, She was an important part of your life. Now she's gone, and you don't seem to give a shit at all. And it's at that point of the movie where I think Olivia kind of disappears from this story, but at least she calls him out for this. But also, yes, the Borden, we're seeing, right there is not the one who's married to Sarah, but that Borden still had a relationship with Sarah. She was his sister in law. He pretended to be her husband half of the time. Surely he had some connection with her and some affection for her, and surely he would be upset that she died even if she wasn't his wife, But like, he is so callous about her death, and so what the fuck is that? And then also if the movie wants to hit this theme harder, of like the sacrifices you have to make to be a great artist or a great performer or whatever in the movies trying to examine like, sure, these types of things usually means some sort of sacrifice, but at what cost. The movie doesn't care about the cost it takes on their relationships. It really only cares about the cost of like their own lives, because most of the men end up dead by the end of the story. And it's like, well, those are the stakes. But it's also like, well, the stakes are also your meaningful relationships in your life, and several of those happen to be with your romantic partners, your daughter, and like the movie just it doesn't seem like it cares about that that much.

01:44:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like I I mean, I'm not gonna like cut it any side, but it feels like for the end to pay off, you have to like ignore certain character dynamics for it to be authentic. And like Sarah is the first person on the chopping block in terms of like her death making any coherent sense. And again it's like they should have just made a different for a different decision with that character. Like there are equally upsetting like you know, in a world where Sarah and I know this would have been less common at the time, but like a world where Sarah left him and took the daughter instead of killing her off in this really gruesome, I think underthought way. And then like you're saying, Kitlin, like not show the characters react. And it also that chafes a little bit with like who I understood Bordon to be. I think that like what we're supposed to think in the moment and what I assumed because I forgot the twist at the end. I was like, oh, he's so, you know, like poisoned by fame and he has this like bad goateea now and he's blah blah bl like he's he's he does he doesn't care what happens. But it's like, yeah, again, theoretically, if we're like Cinema sendsing the plot a little bit, like this would be a big problem between Borden and his brother. This would be a huge problem.

01:45:58
Speaker 2: Right, Like you got to convince my wife that I love her, and now she's dead and now I hate you. Bro.

01:46:06
Speaker 3: Yeah the jig and we already know how like whatever, Borden has ended a long standing relationship over a very similar issue before a dead wife problem. But but that spoils the reveal and all this other stuff where it's like, yeah, for the for the plot of the movie to work, you just sort of have to, Like it's interesting who the movie assumes that you will ignore and forget about, And it's the women characters who they've founder written the.

01:46:34
Speaker 2: Entire time, right, Yeah, not to mention, the movie doesn't even acknowledge the abuse inherent in not telling your wife that sometimes you're a different guy. Like, yeah, that's the manipulation that is full of sault and abuse, and like why wouldn't they tell them?

01:46:59
Speaker 4: Right?

01:46:59
Speaker 5: Why if I were a twin? It would be weird to be like, Hey, could you actually go to my home today? I don't feel like it. Why don't you do it? That's weird? Yeah that makes no sense.

01:47:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you kiss my wife today?

01:47:13
Speaker 3: I'm right, I'm busy, I'm busy. Yeah, you're like, what is the reason?

01:47:18
Speaker 5: Yeah?

01:47:18
Speaker 3: What is the reason? That's like. But you're like, but that seems more complicated than just going home?

01:47:28
Speaker 5: And whose daughter?

01:47:29
Speaker 2: Is it?

01:47:29
Speaker 5: Like? There's just it's it's I just have so many questions, right, So.

01:47:34
Speaker 3: The twins, I think that it's it. I guess we're to believe that she is reunited with her biology.

01:47:41
Speaker 2: That is confirmed. Yeah, the biological father of the little girl whose name is Jess.

01:47:48
Speaker 3: But you're just I'm sort of like, what Michael Caine raise her? Like? I you know, it seems like her the odds would be better for her.

01:47:56
Speaker 5: Uh.

01:47:56
Speaker 3: Not that Michael Caine seems like an ideal caretaker.

01:47:59
Speaker 5: But he's better.

01:48:01
Speaker 3: He hasn't he's to As far as I know, he's only killed birds. I don't think he's killed people.

01:48:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, so no, twin, No twin, doesn't twin.

01:48:11
Speaker 2: That he's switching off his life with Yeah, yeah, there.

01:48:15
Speaker 5: Is a narrative that happens. And this is not only to the magic worlds, but it's a narrative that exists everywhere. But I just know I've heard it a lot. Like if you go to a magic convention, the chances of like a sixty ish year old white guy just complaining a lot about how his wife doesn't understand him as a magician and therefore she won't come to conventions anymore because she hates magic and she doesn't like that I do it, and I've taken over our guest room with all of my magic stuff and my wife hates it. And my wife, my wife, my wife. It's so and I know that's everywhere, but it is like a really interesting thing to be like, oh, there's your wife. Are we exploring the fact that your wife just doesn't understand that this is your who you are and what you do or what is what is this? And I think ultimately it's just nothing. It's just let's move the plot. It's a plot point, but it is just sort of thing to be like, oh, yeah, that's right. A lot of people complain that their wives don't understand them and their magic tricks and she won't pick a card for me anymore because she's sick of it. I get it. I'm sick of it. I get it.

01:49:19
Speaker 3: I think I think that there is especially in and this is like a lesson that i've again like I've been on both sides of I'm assuming we kind of all have is like it's especially it's like creative, like if someone if you're creative in someone's day to you, like I almost am like, it's weird if they're coming to every show, like there should be boundaries in place, and it's like there's there's a line between like I feel supported. It would be, it would be it would make me feel sad if my partner came to no shows ever. Sure, but I would also be kind of like it's not I don't know. When someone's like, my my wife comes to every show, You're like, that's beautiful. I am sort of like.

01:50:01
Speaker 2: What does she need to and are you going to every single one of her things? Whatever she's got going on?

01:50:08
Speaker 5: What?

01:50:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, how are you? How are you reciprocating? I mean again, two each their own, But I think like, yeah, it's I mean speaking to that dynamic, Kayla, It's like I want you know, Sarah, I would imagine Sarah is not as interested in It might not even be that she's not interested. She's probably just raising their child, which he is not doing. In spite of the fact that there's two of him and one kid. He actually should be present more, you would think, right.

01:50:34
Speaker 2: And if they're in a committed relationship where they love and trust each other, why wouldn't you tell your wife that you have a twin brother and say, hey, make sure don't tell anyone else like this. Maintaining this secret is crucial to the integrity of my career. But I guess integrity is a funny word there. But like to maintain my illusions, my magic, you have to keep this under wraps because, like being in an intimate relationship with someone does, there is a level of trust that you have to agree to do with each other. And it seems like they probably had that, or at least that Sarah was willing and able to be a trustworthy partner for him. But as it's so often the case, men have trouble reciprocating the honesty and vulnerability and emotional labor that is necessary to maintain a relationship.

01:51:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, which just means more of like the table of it all the like, Yeah, the women of this movie are more like stakes machines than someone whose like interior life is really being thought about, which again is just like, as much as I love a lot of his work, the least surprising thing to hear about a Christopher Nolan movie that you could possibly hear, like, I guess he sort of tried to write a woman in Oppenheimer, but like, it's just not gonna happen at this point, and I don't At this point, I'm like, I don't even want him to. I don't even want him to. I don't want to. I don't want to know after like five hundred years what he's like. Wait a second, Like, I don't want to know what he thinks we're thinking, right, that's none of my business.

01:52:12
Speaker 2: Speaking of Christopher Nolan, so he directed the movie. Of course, he co wrote the screenplay with his brother, Yeah, which Jonathan Nolan he works with all the time. He works with all the time. They co write a lot of scripts together. But the joke I was trying to like craft in my head was like, what if there's a reverse prestige thing happening with these two brothers where we think they're brothers but it's really just one man, because has anyone even seen Jonathan Nolan in public?

01:52:45
Speaker 3: Wow?

01:52:45
Speaker 2: Okay, have we seen them together? Are there even two men? I think it's just Christopher Nolan.

01:52:52
Speaker 3: Poor Jonathan catching astray?

01:52:55
Speaker 5: So does that mean that, like they both have partners that only want them, is actually married to both of them?

01:53:01
Speaker 2: One man is married to both of them.

01:53:03
Speaker 3: They're both married to Emma Thompson. No, that's I don't know.

01:53:08
Speaker 5: It's I don't know what's messy or the movie or that plot, like it's it's great.

01:53:13
Speaker 2: That's just my little head cannon, but it's probably not true. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about? We've been talking for the run time of the movie.

01:53:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think let's let's call it. Let's go unless unless kill it, unless you have more to get into. That was everything I had.

01:53:32
Speaker 5: There's always so much of a rabbit hole I could go down with weird magic history, But today is we've talked enough, we get it. Magic's weird, it's great, this is awesome.

01:53:43
Speaker 2: Rabbit hole pulling a rabbit out of a hat?

01:53:48
Speaker 3: Is that a fishing fish bowl, fish pole?

01:53:51
Speaker 2: Rabbit hole?

01:53:54
Speaker 3: Yes, so sit with that. Listeners think about that.

01:53:58
Speaker 5: That's really why we're all here today.

01:54:02
Speaker 2: The movie does not pass the Bechdel test. As we said, there is a scene where Olivia is telling one of the Burdens. She's like, the day before Sarah died, she told me that she wanted to meet with me, but I chickened out and I didn't end up meeting with her, And then Olivia wonders what Sarah might have said. So there's sort of like a speculation of a conversation that could have happened between two women.

01:54:27
Speaker 3: Does it pass the Bechdel test if a woman thought about talking to another woman and that ultimately didn't a conversation, by the way, that would have been about men, Yes.

01:54:36
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. Yeah no, so no. But rating the movie on the Bechdel cast nipple scale, where we rate from a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens, you know this gets a half nipple because I would say we see Julia, the first fridged wife who gets killed during the magic trick. We see her do magic, we see her, we see an escape artist act from her. Uh, she's barely acknowledged as doing such by the movie, but you know we're seeing we see her, there's visibility, So because of that, a half nipple, and I give it to the duplicated cats who are just kind of running around in the snow. I got Tesla's headquarters.

01:55:33
Speaker 3: I loved it. I loved it. I've gotta I've gotta say it's a little it's a little harsh for a movie I enjoy so much, but I gotta go zero. I gotta go zero. I what I really appreciate is I was really looking forward to this conversation because I knew Kayla was going to have some incredible background, and sure enough, you did not disappoint. Yeah, yes, you once again delivered you always do, and thank you for giving. I'm like more excited about what you told us about historically, and I'm going to think about a woman being sowd in half because of suffrage for so long. So it's worth the ride. It's a fun it's a fun movie. I enjoy it. I like, I still really enjoy it. But no nipples. No nipples. Women appear but mostly to be fridged or caught up in a twisted assault based sexual relationship.

01:56:27
Speaker 2: So yeah, Cayla, how about.

01:56:30
Speaker 5: You I would have. I think, like inherently I also would have get it half a nipple because of Julia, who did, in fact do like a very difficult escape. But then there was an immediate minus of half nipple with the Chungling Shue situation, and so I think ultimately it's zero. But if I were to give it to anybody, I would want to give it to Andy Serkis, who really had to act his way into convincing everybody how great Tesla.

01:56:58
Speaker 2: Was in an American accent no less.

01:57:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love to see him walking up. I just was so I forgot that. Caitlin. You you reminded me. Andy Serkus was in this and I like had a little squeal. I love him. He should get to be people more. Well, I don't know. He should do whatever he wants.

01:57:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, his his body of work, his choice.

01:57:22
Speaker 3: Yes, sometimes so if there's one thing he's gonna do, he's gonna put the dots on. He loves to put the dots on, and I and no one puts the dots on like him. Benedict Cumberbatch tried true.

01:57:37
Speaker 2: Benedict Cumberbatch is the other actor who plays the main character in the current War twenty seventeen.

01:57:43
Speaker 3: Wow, never forget it.

01:57:45
Speaker 2: All comes full circle, Kayla, thank you so much for joining us a what a magical conversation. Where can people follow you? Tell us more about your venue and your shows?

01:57:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you can follow me my Instagram and everything is magic and heels heels like your shoes, not like a doctor. I do have to say that now for reasons double e to be clear.

01:58:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:58:11
Speaker 5: And the venue that I now co own with my partner Harrison is called Cosmic Underground Theater, which is also our social media handles. You can see us perform every weekend, Fridays and Saturdays in Chicago. So if you're in Chicago, we want to come to a cool show. Come, we'd love to have you.

01:58:27
Speaker 3: Please, great, kay.

01:58:28
Speaker 5: Thank you both so much for having me. This is great. I was love being here, so thank you for having me again.

01:58:33
Speaker 3: Thank you for coming back. This is I just always learn a million new things that I'm fascinated by every time we talk. So you can find us in all the regular places AKA our Patriot akar Matreon. We're for five dollars a month. You can get to bonus episodes with just Caitlin and myself on a theme. Usually of your choosing. Sometimes we disrespect democracy and as well as access to our black catalog of nearly two hundred episodes.

01:59:02
Speaker 2: Which includes more men being bitches to each other.

01:59:06
Speaker 3: It's true. This is an important entry to the canon, and I'm glad that we got around to it as we work our way through the men being bitches subgenre. Yes, absolutely yes.

01:59:18
Speaker 2: And with that we're going to disappear abracadabra fie.

01:59:23
Speaker 3: Then we die fye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me, Jamie Loftus.

01:59:35
Speaker 2: And Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann and.

01:59:40
Speaker 3: Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?

01:59:43
Speaker 2: That's me and our logo and merch and all of our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her?

01:59:51
Speaker 3: Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.

01:59:56
Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

01:59:58
Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo.

02:00:03
Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Spectelcast