Nolan Turns Tricky Notion Into Prestigious Film

Much like a magician, filmmaker Christopher Nolan has come to discover that over the past six years, timing is everything.

He burst onto the scene in 2000 with his mind-bending reverse-thriller "Memento," and he scored a nice trifecta in 2002 by landing Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank for the dark detective thriller "Insomnia."

But before either of those successes, Nolan and his brother, Jonathan, had conceived a dramatic thriller called "The Prestige," based on a novel of the same name by Christopher Priest. And just as soon as he was to begin work on the film a few years later, "Batman Begins" flew his way and one of the eventual stars of "The Prestige" was literally waiting in the wings.

"I was going to make the film before 'Batman Begins,' and right at the last minute -- literally the last day before I was going to get on a plane and start looking for locations for 'The Prestige' -- I realized that we just didn't have the time to do the film justice and turn 'Batman Begins' around for a summer 2005 release," Nolan told me in a recent @ The Movies interview.

"I promised the studio that I would not allow ("The Prestige" to be overshadowed), so we put the film on ice and was able to come back to it a couple of years later. Thank goodness I was able to do that," Nolan added. "I was able to reapproach the script with fresh eyes, which was great, and also from a casting point-of-view, I was able to imagine, suddenly, Christian Bale as Alfred Borden and Michael Caine as Cutter. To me, those parts are unthinkable with anyone else at this point."

"X-Men's" Wolverine, Hugh Jackman, also stars in "The Prestige," which chronicles a rivalry between two Victorian-era magicians that turns into a deadly obsession. Jackman stars as Robert Angier, a flamboyant magician with better stage presence than Borden but who is inferior in skill. Cutter is Angier's mentor and trick designer and, most importantly, a voice of reason amidst all of the madness.

Co-starring Scarlett Johansson, David Bowie, Andy Serkis, Rebecca Hall and Piper Perabo, "The Prestige" opens Friday in theaters nationwide.

The Pledge
Nolan said it was a tricky proposition when he first started pitching the movie to studios four years ago.

In a nutshell, the belief was that magic movies didn't work. But in the presentation of the idea, the filmmaker cracked that notion wide open.

"There was a pervading belief that magic movies didn't work because people wouldn't be impressed by magic tricks on screen," Nolan recalled. "It's true, of course, but that isn't at all what this project is about. It was about making a story had its own set of tricks and conformed to the construction of a magic trick. It wasn't at all about trying to impress people with stage magic. It took awhile to convince the studios of that."

Once Nolan revisited the project, the one person to whom he didn't have to sell the idea was Bale, having experienced the filmmaker's magic making "Batman Begins."

"Having worked with Chris before, I really knew that this guy could really make this work on the screen," Bale told me in an @ The Movies interview. . "He's a fantastic brain, and I think this is perfect for him. He so often manages to find the intrigue, twists and turns that people have not have seen before."

What turned Bale and Jackman onto the tale was that -- woven within it -- not one, but two, men were obsessed with defeating each other at their own game.

"It's surprising how few films with that paradigm -- there are a lot of books and plays about it, but very few films," Nolan said. "Ridley Scott's 'The Duellists' is one of them, and Michael Mann's 'Heat' is another one we looked at -- 'The Sting' -- there are various versions of the theme, but not as many films as you'd expect."

And what makes "The Prestige" especially unique was that there is no clear-cut definition of who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist.

"There are very few where there is a clearly delineated hero and villain. That was another problem we had in selling the project," Nolan said. "It had a slightly different feel. It defies categorization a bit, but those are the sorts of projects I'm interested in."

Ironically, like Scott told me in an interview for 25th anniversary of the release of "The Duellists" in 2002, Nolan admits that it takes a certain amount of obsession to complete a film like "The Prestige," which is about obsession -- like many, if not all of, his films.

"I'm particularly obsessive in the way I go about it. I can only do one film at a time, and it works out to be a film every two years," Nolan said. "That's just the way I approach it.

"To me, every film I do is the last film I'm going to make," Nolan added with a modest laugh. "That's the way I look at it. I think, to be honest, that's the way I enjoy it. Yeah, it gets intense and everything, but it's great to be doing something that you love and pouring everything into it."

Also what makes Nolan's films a bit more unusual than others is that they're a family affair. In addition to his co-writer brother Jonathan, the director's wife, Emma Thomas, is his producer. She's been with Nolan from the very beginning, as an associate producer on "Memento," co-producer of "Insomnia" and a main producer on "Batman Begins" and "The Prestige."

Nolan said it's impossible to separate his personal and professional lives because film is such of a large part of his life, but he doesn't mind.

"It gets intense at times when you're working with people you love," Nolan said. "But at the same time, there is a benefit. The joke that Emma always makes is, 'If we didn't work together, we'd never see each other,' which is true. We're able to work together well and effectively, so, so far so good."

And it looks to be getting even better. Thomas is on board to produce the Batman sequel "The Dark Knight," which will once again star Christian Bale in the title role.

"She always says that she doesn't want to produce the next film, but I always strong-arm her into it," Nolan joked.