The Prestige (2006) is a film that induces the viewer to consider the nature of identity. Throughout the film, the viewer is caught up thinking and wondering about the male characters of the film. Borden and Angier both end up living with a different identity for prolonged periods of time, which creates for the viewer a sense that we can not know the true identity of each of these characters because they're never being truthful with us. This is compounded by the element of performance in the film. Each of these men become actors, and it is unclear when that mask comes off. The employment of audiences, masses of unknown faces, who will never gain an identity and who exist just to support and feed Borden and Angier's own identities serves to further question what identity really is. Every time one of the magicians intrudes on the other's trick, it's as if you're coming out of a haze, finally seeing something solid and real as you recognize a familiar element of each character. This further serves to keep their identities in question. One moment they have the hopes, ambitions, and desires we've come to associate with them, and the next they're a nameless face in the crowd. The understanding of identity portrayed in John Locke's Meditations II is in question here, what identity do these men really have? At the end of the film, however, the illusion dissipates, and we all know and understand the trick. The men are no longer shrouded in mystery, and their identities (even the essential differences that define each of the twins) have become clear to the viewer. We are allowed to go back to our previous understanding of identity, where one man has one consciousness and one history. The requirements for John Locke's concept of identity are satisfied and we're satisfied too, because now we understand it, the secret is lost. "The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything".
The women of the film, however, call identity into question in a far more subtle manner. Unlike the men, it is not their goal to deceive or create doubt about their identities. However, the way in which these women were created in the film strips them of any true identity.
Look at the pictures below:
They're all the same woman.
I mean, yes, they're different actresses, with slightly different facial features and slightly different hair. But really? They're the same woman.
Each of these women meets and falls in love with one of the main characters. She lives her life being his pretty assistant. She does everything she can to make him happy and support his career, from physically taking care of him, to becoming a sounding board for his obsessive ravings. Eventually, however, each of them falls prey to the man's obsessions. The trick takes priority over their lives, and they become one of the sacrifices the man has to make. The comparison is strikingly clear in the scene where Sarah dies, hanging like a birdcage in the room full of doves. While the women are technically in different situations, their actions, personalities, and eventual fates are virtually indistinguishable from each other. They are defined by their love and dedication to the main character, even their deaths are all about how they affect the magician's identity. Their identity is not distinguishable from each other, nor from their love interest. They become just another part of the magician he is capable of losing when the risks become too great, comparable to Borden's lost fingers.
As the viewer is distracted by the question of identity concerning the magicians, the women represent a different kind of loss of identity. The lack of separate identities for the three women fits in this movie, where there are clones, twins, and doubles all over the place. It makes sense to have these three characters blur the lines of identity, since everyone else is anyway. However, this is not a phenomenon unique to this movie. In fact, female characters are often written as forgettable archetypes in film and literature. If the plot is not directly centered around the woman and her personality, the general consensus seems to be: why giver her one? So my question is, do we believe the filmmakers did it on purpose? Was it purposeful to cast three women who look remarkably similar? Was in on purpose that they wrote their parts so that act, speak, and are broken in the same ways? Was this an intentional choice to make the question of identity pervade the film even further, or was it the product of our society's lack of interest in portraying complex, individual female characters?
The Prestige seems the perfect movie to analyze in light of Locke's "Identity". The two main characters battle identity crises in their own ways. However, I really enjoyed your connection of loss of identity to the three main female characters. Their roles, as you stated, were centered around the main characters. However, if their lives are centered around others, does that necessarily mean they have experienced that loss of identity? Perhaps their dedication and devotion to others is the most significant part of their identity, but they are still present and conscious. While the women are all similar in certain degrees, they are also all different in their level of true devotion to their respective love interest. From true love ad devotion to confusion, and betrayal, they differ greatly in emotional concrete support. I think as the viewer, it is up to us to decide individually how they are similar and different.
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