The Prestige (2006) quotes
Two stage magicians engage in competitive one-upmanship in an attempt to create the ultimate stage illusion.
The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.
– Alfred Borden
Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.
– Cutter
Do you have anything to say?
– Officer
Abracadabra.
– Alfred Borden
Are you watching closely?
– Alfred Borden
You’re familiar with the phrase “man’s reach exceeds his grasp”? It’s a lie: man’s grasp exceeds his nerve.
– Nikola Tesla
So… we go alone now. Both of us. Only I don’t have as far to go as you. Go. You were right, I should have left him to his damn trick. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for a lot of things. I’m sorry about Sarah. I didn’t mean to hurt her… I didn’t. You go and live your life in full now, all right? You live for both of us.
– Alfred Borden
Goodbye.
– Fallon
Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.”
– Cutter
Alfred, I can’t live like this!
– Sarah
Well, what do you want from me?
– Alfred Borden
I want… I want you to be honest with me. No tricks, no lies, no secrets.
– Sarah
Do you… do you love me?
– Sarah
Not today. No.
– Alfred Borden
See? He’s fine!
– Alfred Borden
But where’s his brother?
– Boy
You went half way around the world, you spent a fortune, you did terrible things – really terrible things, Robert, and all for nothing.
– Alfred Borden
For nothing?
– Robert Angier
Yeah
– Alfred Borden
You never understood why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It’s miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you… then you got to see something really special. You really don’t know? It was… it was the look on their faces…
– Robert Angier
Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine?
– Nikola Tesla
Price is not an object.
– Robert Angier
Perhaps not, but have you considered the *cost*?
– Nikola Tesla
I’m not sure I follow.
– Robert Angier
Go home. Forget this thing. I can recognize an obsession, no good will come of it.
– Nikola Tesla
Why, haven’t good come of your obsessions?
– Robert Angier
Well, at first. But I followed them too long. I’m their slave… and one day they’ll choose to destroy me.
– Nikola Tesla
If you understand an obsession, then you know you won’t change my mind.
– Robert Angier
No one cares about the man in the box, the man who disappears.
– Robert Angier