In the film, The Prestige, the question is this commitment or obsession comes up a lot. When you can't discern the antagonist from the protagonist in a film, you know that obsession must be playing a role, making one character seem normal, then the other. One character that this effect a great deal is Borden, especially when you see the ending. It turns out that Borden has an identical twin, and that they live one life. This fact alone should be proof enough of his obsession, but there’s more. They don’t even tell the two women who they love that they are not always the same person. They are too obsessed with keeping the secret.
Borden has an identical twin, his name was Freddy, versus the “original’s” name of Alfred. They both also play a character named Fallon. In the film Alfred tells Angiers that they each lived half a life, as seen in the first 2 minutes and 30 seconds of this clip:
Borden has an identical twin, his name was Freddy, versus the “original’s” name of Alfred. They both also play a character named Fallon. In the film Alfred tells Angiers that they each lived half a life, as seen in the first 2 minutes and 30 seconds of this clip:
They even went so far as to chop off one
twin’s fingers to ensure that they stayed identical. Commitment does not
include dismemberment. Obsession leads to harming oneself, Borden has clearly
crossed the line.
The
final piece of evidence of Borden’s obsession is the fact that neither Alfred
nor Freddy tell those they love about their secret. Sara, Alfred’s love, seems
to know at the end and commits suicide, but neither of them actually told her
or the other woman, Olivia, the truth. When you can’t tell those most precious
to you what is really going on, and harm your family, then that’s all the more
proof of pure obsession. Borden is undeniably obsessed with his secret.
I personally thought Borden actions and emtions prved commitment. But I can understand where you're coming from. If Borden is obsessed it is very clearly to a different degree than Angeirs, my question for you is how would you describe/compare the degress of their obsessions? Like on a scale of 1-10.
ReplyDeleteum, I think I would put Angiers at a 9, while Borden sits at a 7.5ish place, but depending on the part of the film being watched, I think it can go up or down.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's fair. I put Angiers at a twelve though. Dude was pretty cray.
ReplyDeleteYou know I'm in the commitment camp for Borden, but this statement does give me pause: "Commitment does not include dismemberment." Nice blunt, effective summation.
ReplyDeleteThank you for letting us know how much of the clip we needed to watch to get your point. That shows us that you've previewed the clip and ensures that we don't waste our time watching parts of the clip that don't relate to the argument.
One two-part grammatical error comes in this sentence: "One character that this effect a great deal is Borden, especially when you see the ending." First, the correct verb is "affect." It's a common mistake, but remember (in almost every case) that "affect" is a verb and "effect" is a noun. Second, it should be "affects" to agree with the subject of the sentence.
Keep up the good work! Can't wait to read your posts for the second quarter.