Christopher Nolan's fifth film, The Prestige, starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, is a period mystery thriller about two rival magician's and their struggle to outdo each other on the way to the top. For me, one of the most interesting aspects of the film is it's commentary on conventional film form and the three act structure as a whole. Nolan is obsessed with how an audience perceives or comprehends stories and films. Just as he toys with this in Memento (unconventional story structure) and Inception (cinema as a dream), In The Prestige, Nolan likens cinema to a magic trick that the audience is participating in and being fooled by. The three parts of a trick that are explained act as metaphors for the three acts of a film. The first act is the set-up or exposition, in the second act, a strong conflict emerges, and in the third act, it is in some way resolved. He is also saying that the movie going experience is truly magical itself. Seeing as though this focus on structure and the cinematic experience are such recurring themes throughout Nolan's body of work, they are something that I may explore further in our next essay.
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