The Bechdel Cast - The Prestige with Kayla Drescher

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Kayla Drescher have a discussion about The Prestige (2006), disappear it, then make it magically reappear for your listening pleasure! Follow Kayla on social media at @magicinheels and check out her magic venue in Chicago, Cosmic Underground Theater | @cosmicundergroundtheaterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or do they have individualism? The Patriarchies effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Jamie, any last words? what a day what a day it is for men being bitches to each other oh my gosh i am just so thrilled welcome to the prestige episode of the becktockto cast my name's jamie loftis my name's katlyn dorante or the great dorante oh my god this the second i we'll talk about i haven't seen this movie in like eight or nine years.

And the second it started, you're like, oh, right, this movie is so silly. This is a silly one. I love it. It's silly, but it's serious. Every scene is like, what's the trick? What's the trick? And at the end of the scene, they're like, I still don't know the trick. And then the next scene is him going to another guy being like, I didn't find out the trick.

It's just all the trick, the trick, the trick, the trick, the trick, the trick, the secret, the daughter, the wife, the trick, the secret. Sometimes there's a cipher. Sometimes there's a cipher and sometimes there's a journal. this is ultimately a movie about men reading each other's journals and that is important. That's actually beautiful. That's important. Men should write more journals.

But there's tricks in the journals. They can't be vulnerable in the journals at the end. They're like, just kidding, bitch. Like I love it. But in theory, men should write more journals and then exchange those journals so that they can understand each other's feelings better. But when does a journal become a manifesto? You know, it's a slippery slope. It's a slippery slope.

I don't know. these are journals, but they neg the whole journal at the end of the journal. They're like, actually, this was not a real journal. This is a work of fiction and I'm fucking your girlfriend. And how do you like that? And you're in jail. And also, I framed you for murder, bitch. And you're in jail.

How does that feel? And, oh, I adopted your daughter. Spoiler alert. I forgot about the, I know that the twill- He stole his daughter. The twist at the end, I know is the twist everyone remembers. But the twist that I forgot that, like, hit me even harder than the end, is when he shows up with the daughter.

I was like, this is just these divas. I love it. Okay. Biblical. All right. All right. This is the Bechtel cast. Caitlin, what is the Bechdel test?

Tell them. Tell them. It's a mediometric created by best friend of the show, Allison Bechdle. Yes. There are many versions of the test. The one that we use requires that two people of a marginalized gender have names. They must talk to each other. And their conversation has to be about something other than a man.

And we also like it when it's something narratively significant and not just throwaway dialogue. And let's get one thing out of the way. This movie does not pass the Bechtel Tass. Not even a little bit. Not even close. I think two women are in the scene at the same time, but like not really. I found this great letterbox list called Christopher Nolan Films that fail the Bechal Tess bonus points if the leading man is haunted by his dead wife. And this movie does meet both.

And the list is, guess how many movies are on this list? 10. Nine. There are nine. Okay. Yeah. Can you name all of the Christopher Nolan films that failed the back? Let's bring our guest in. Oh, yes. And let's let's collaborate on this. This is a group project. This is a returning guest, an incredible returning guest. Indeed. She's a magician. She runs a magic venue in Chicago called the Cosmic Underground Theater where she performs every Friday and Saturday night. So be sure to check her out. And you remember her from our episode on Now You See Me. It's Kayla Dresher. Hello. Welcome back.

Welcome. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. This is awesome. Thanks for doing this because I agree. This movie is just silly. So I'm excited to talk about it. It's a silly one. It's so much movie. I'm so curious what your perspective is as a magician. But before we can get to that, can you both, I have the cipher. So I actually can't participate. But can you, between the two of you, guess the Christopher Nolan films that fail the Bechtel test all nine of them. Well, maybe going in chronological order of release. Okay. Memento. Although, there might be one before that that I haven't seen. But let's start with Memento.

Correct. I had to look up just various Christopher Nolan films. So already I'm starting from way behind. But, I mean, I'm trying to remember the dark night and it feels like that might be on there. It is. It definitely is. Cool.

Kind of haunted by a dead girlfriend, I guess, more. or so. Dead girlfriend. Right. Right. And then. Memento definitely. Wait, I haven't seen Memento in a long time. Dead wife? Are we trying to save the wife? The whole thing is that she's dead, but he doesn't remember about it or something. I forget. But I know that Christopher Nolan's wife is his producing partner, but at some point it's like, I get it. I get it. You think your work will be better when I die. Okay. Yeah. But then we've got Inception. That's a big one. Yeah. Dead wife haunting. Yes. Interstellar.

Correct. I haven't seen that one. Insomnia? No, that's not on that one. That must pass. Wow. You know, I've never seen that one. Let's throw in this movie, The Prestige is one of them. The Prestige, of course. Big Dead Everyone. Dead everyone. Dead everyone dies. Sure. Everyone dies.

Is Dark Night Rises on there? It is. Mm-hmm. As is. Batman begins. Yes. Okay. Two more. Two more.

Two more. Is Oppenheimer on there? No, it is not. Okay. Tenet. Tenet is on it. And the last one, perhaps the least, Bechtethel Tuss-passingest movie ever made by Christopher Nolan. Oh, shit.

It's a movie I think I called when it released. I still haven't seen it. Oh, Dunkirk. Boy Island. Yes. Those are the nine movies that do not pass. And that's all I have to say. Beautiful.

All right. The prestige. The prestige. Kayla, I'm so curious what your history with this movie is. So really the last time I saw, this movie was when it was in theaters. So we're talking like junior year of high school maybe. And I remember not caring for it for just a load of reasons. But the friends I was with who were very intelligent people were like analyzing the whole timeline jumping and like all this. Just how it was

really like, oh, this is so good. And I just kept thinking that magically this is a mess. And I think that's why I didn't like it is that it's both incredibly accurate and also incredibly inaccurate to magic. And had you started magic at that point when you were that age? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yep. So I had been doing magic for maybe about 10 years at that point because I started when I was seven.

So it's quite some time. Okay. Right. So being like very involved in the magic community and not, but also not knowing a lot about magic history. I just remember going, I think that some of these things are historically pretty accurate, but also like, what? So there was just a lot of that.

And I remember not caring for it. So when you suggested that we do this movie, I was like, oh, this is going to be fun. And I rewatching it again, I felt the same. Very similar. And I'm excited to like dive into the details, but it definitely feels in terms of personality. It's very similar to, it's like a kind of an exaggerated way to explain the magic community. And a lot of magicians, just this over-the-top, like jealousy and stealing something. stuff and all of that is pretty accurate. But then a lot of the historical figures they discuss

or don't discuss is so inaccurate that it makes me a little bit like, well, you could have added in anybody to make this more accurate. Or you could have changed this one detail to make this better. So knowing now a lot about magic history, especially magic history of magicians who are not white men, I now look at this movie going, oh, we needed help. Oh, I'm so excited to hear more about the history. It's really wonderful talking about a movie with someone who has historical context on why the movie is frustrating in a way that you don't. It is just a treat. I'm very excited. Caitlin, what's your history with this movie? I saw the movie when it first came out. I believe in theaters. And because I don't have a background in

and wouldn't have been annoyed by any historical inaccuracies. I loved it. I was like, this is awesome. And as an appreciator of magic, and again, not knowing any better, I was like, well, this must be the pinnacle of magic history. And then I bought it on DVD and I watched it pretty regularly, maybe like once or twice a year for the next like five years or so, but then it tapered off for me. I hadn't seen this movie in I think 15 or so years, but I would still consider it probably my second favorite Christopher Nolan movie behind Inception.

It's mostly based on vibes and the men being bitches to each other aspect of the movie. You know, it's not going to fare well on the nipple scale, but on the rompometer, I still think it's a 10 out of 10. I have boatloads of fun watching this movie, and I'm so excited to talk more about it. Jamie, what's your relationship with it? I think I sort of in part of my career in podcasting to this movie, weirdly. I was thinking about it. Truly, because I was thinking about, I mean, we had started the Bectil cast at this point, but I covered this movie on the Cracked Movie Club in 2017.

It was the first time I'd seen it. I was like, this movie is terrible for women and great to watch. Unfortunately, many such movies, right? So I really enjoyed it and I went on the Cracked Movie Club. And then I met Jack O'Brien off of that who started listening to the Bexel cast, brought us on to the How Stuff Works Network, brought us on to IHeart Radio. Anyways, that was all like the better part of a decade ago. So I was like, wow, I kind of owe it all to the prestige in a world.

a way you could argue. Me found dead in a ditch, your podcast partner. No, it's like this is because I met Jack O'Brien that we came on to the network. That's what I said. No, no, that huge catalyst. Yes. So it was like a big thing to like why we're sitting here in this way, in a way. I don't know. So I was, I was had a fun walk down memory lane thinking about that. And rewatching this movie, which I remembered little bits of, but I did not. remember it was basically like watching it for the first time again. I had some Mandela effect thing going on where I was so sure Rachel McAdams was in this movie. This is a really Rachel McAdams coded movie. I think we should have swapped her out with Scarlett Johansson, who is, you know, outside of disputing her shitty politics, I'm also just like the most diabolical accent work. Like the woman cannot do an accent to save her life. I was like, where's Rachel McAdams?

She could do an accent, maybe, I think. I think she did in the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies. Oh, right? She's in those ones? Maybe that's why it feels like she should be in this movie. They look very similar. They, whatever, they, you know, and it's another silly one. There's also the, I don't remember her name.

I earlier definitely called her Pity Poblo. And I think it's Piper Paboblo or Parabal. Pity. Pee D.P. Not Pidu Pablo. Yeah, Piper Parable. Yeah, she was always, always happy to see her in something. She feels like an easy person to confuse for Rachel McAdams.

Like if they, I see it. Their look is similar, like the way, so when you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, you're right. That wasn't her. Yeah. There are a lot of women who could be Rachel McAdams in this movie. And that's, you know, white women brown hair. Rebecca Hall, who I love, Rebecca, I love Rebecca Hall. and I love her in this movie, and we'll talk about her character,

because I did clearly remember what happened to her character, and it's a crime. I did remember David Bowie, Nicola Tesla. I'm very curious on your thoughts on that, Kayla. I feel like men are obsessed with Nicola Tesla, and they love to bring him. I mean, one comes to mind, certainly, but, you know, many guys are obsessed with Nicola Tesla. I wasn't surprised. I thought Andy Circus. Ooh, I was so happy to see him.

I forgot he was in this. And everyone's doing a little accent in this movie, and some people are doing it well, and other people are Scarlett-Jahanson. And I don't know what David Bowie is doing. R-I-P to him. It mostly, because, okay, I kept, I was watching this movie, and I was like, I was like, David Bowie's performance as Nicola Tesla is reminding me of something, and I could not figure it out.

And what I concluded is that his voice sounds. exactly like Pierce Brosnan's voice. Yeah, I hear that. But David Bowie, I think is supposed to be doing, was Tesla Russian? Where was he from? Or somewhere in Eastern Europe. But I think he's supposed to be doing like an Eastern European accent

that David Bowie is not doing, I would say, most of the time. And he just... Serbian American. Okay, okay. So I watched a movie that no one else saw the current wars, which was... Yes, I was thinking of that. Who is in that Tesla movie? I think there's a third one too.

Oh, really? So Nicholas Holt plays Tesla in that movie. And then it's Michael Shannon and who's the other person? But it's another like very like male rivalry, men being bitches to each other movie. But I feel like no one saw it. There's also Ethan Hawke. Yes, Ethan Hawk as Tesla 2020. Right, right, right.

I mean, he's an important cultural figure. I'll be honest, I don't know very much about this guy. And let's just leave it at that because that's the extent of what I know he exists. And I'm assuming that his legacy is tarnished by his association with Elon Musk. Yeah. But, yeah, I forget where I was going with that. There's so much to talk about. What I mostly loved about this movie in retrospect is just like, it is so wild.

that Christopher Nolan was making two amazing movies between Batman movies. It is just, it's just so good. This was between Batman 1 and 2. And then Inception comes between 2 and 3, which is ridiculous. Yeah. And good for him. I love this guy. And I feel like people don't really talk about this movie very much anymore.

Certainly not as much as Inception. It was a hit at the time, like I guess a more modest hit by Christopher Nolan's standards. Sure. But I wish people to talk about this movie more. Yeah, it only like slightly over doubled its budget rather than like multiplied its budget by 10 kind of thing. Kind of embarrassing for him. Right. Yeah, I guess because how big a hit was Inception by, oh yeah, Inception made like almost a billion dollars.

Got it. Okay. Well, this movie is really good. And if you haven't seen it, you know, you should. I had, I, I pirated it. Can I be honest? I pirated it. That's okay.

I watched it on my DVD that I still have. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's great. Look at God. Yeah. Look at God. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So let's take a quick break and then we'll get into the recap. New year, new goals. And in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the how to money podcast.

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But it's so complicated this movie. Kayla, if it's cool by you, could we like, as the performances are happening, can we ask your, like, perspective on them? Oh, for sure. I very much agree that this is a very well-done movie, but I have a lot of opinions. So please ask at any point, and I'm ready. Excellent. And feel free to just jump in. Burst in.

Brilliant. Yeah. Okay. So we'll place a content warning here at the top for suicide. But we are in London in the late 1800s. We open on voiceover from Michael Kine talking about how every moment. magic trick consists of three parts. The first is the pledge where a magician shows you something ordinary. Next is the turn where the magician takes the ordinary thing and makes it do something

extraordinary, such as disappear the object. And the third part of the magic trick is the prestige. That's the name of the movie where the magician brings back the disappeared thing. Okay, fact check number one, Kayla, is that true? Awesome. I think in part. So I've never heard this language before. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist in a book that might have been written around that time period. I've never heard just like the language of Pledge Turrent prestige.

That's a new one for me. I mean, they did explain how a trick works, which is like here's this thing. Look at it's normal. and now I do a cool thing with it. So yeah, that is definitely true, especially the part where they say if something disappears, you need to bring a bath. That's like a very steadfast rule in magic.

So if you do make something vanish, you have to bring it back girls. People are going to ask a lot of questions. It feels like it's not fulfilled. It feels like there's a cliffhanger. And we don't want that in the middle of a trick. So yes. But I think they added a lot of fun fluff to it,

which I'm not mad about it's good. It's fine. Cool. It's a movie that feels like a movie. movie. You've got to be doing movie things. Yeah. Okay. So while we are learning this, we are also seeing bits from a magic show performed by the great Danton, aka Robert Angier, played by Hugh Jackman. Oh, Hugh Jackman's having the time of his damn life. Oh, boy. And he never works with Chris. I was like, here's my headcanon. Christopher Nolan was like, okay, it's a bit much, you know, like. Like,

I feel like Christopher Nolan is not an ally to theater kids at the end of the day. That's just my guess. That's just my guess. Because I think Q Jackman turns in an excellent, if extremely weird performance in this movie. And I also am like, yeah, I guess it makes sense. I feel like Christopher Nolan is like a serious actor kind of guy. Sure. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong. We don't know. There was a, because I was looking at one of the things I often do is when there's a magic movie, I want to know who was the consultant on it. And one of the consultants was Derek Delgadoio, who is quite well known for his show in and of itself, which is, it's on Hulu, but it had a pretty successful run in New York. And one of the things that Derek O'Gadio, I guess, mentioned was that he was brought on to help the actors really embody, like, the feeling and personality and the oomph of a magician, which I feel like Hugh Jackman was like, I got this. I'm surprised he didn't have a song, because that felt. like it should have fit right in, especially knowing that like...

This was the greatest show. And he's the greatest showman. He's the greatest show in 2017. Yep. It felt because Dogadio is very artistic and it's a very different way of performing magic than I would. He's very much about emotion and story and all of this stuff. So it does make sense to me when you're like, Hugh Drummond is a lot. It's like, yeah, no, but I see where that could have come from easily.

Okay. So it sounds like they matched their energies. well. Big time. That's cool. Okay. Did you find their respective performances convincing or like passable as actual convincing magicians? If there was an equivalent of a Bechtel test to how magicianie is this actor, it would have a 10 out of 10. Like everybody in this was like down to the the jealousy, the silliness, the like often slightly

immature way of responding to things, feel. very familiar. So yes. Incredible. Okay. Yeah. So we're seeing this magic show that Robert Angier is performing. And then another magician, Alfred Borden, played by Christian Bale, sneaks backstage during

the show and sees Angier fall into and be trapped inside of a large glass tank of water where he presumably drowns because we cut to a courtroom where Borden is on. trial for murdering Angier. And then testifying in court is Cutter, the Michael Kane character, who is an engineer, the engineer, the designer of magic tricks and builder of the apparatus that makes them possible. And he was doing this for Robert Angier leading up to his death. Borden is convicted of this murder and sent to prison, where he is approached by a solicitor who represents someone named Lord Caldwald or something, and this man is looking to buy the rights to Borden's most valuable trick called the transported man.

There's also mention of Borden's young daughter being taken care of. movies in some ways about fathers and daughters, except, you know, not really. Except not really. Not really. But Borden is hesitant to play ball, to play with his rubber ball, that is. But anyway, we flash back a few years to Robert Angier, arriving in Colorado Springs. He is hoping to be granted an audience with Nicola Tesla, who Angier wants to commission to build him something. We're not totally sure what, but Tesla's assistant, Ali, played by Andy Circus,

says, no thanks. Tesla is not interested. Always a pleasure to see Andy's circus acting in human form. And not in Ghalm or whatever. Ape. Star Wars. A ape. Ape. Yeah. Yes. I randomly met Andy Circus a couple years ago. Oh, cool. It was one of those times where you're like, oh, I really, respect this man and at the same time I made a fool of myself and it was great he's so nice and it also is weird when he's like you go oh yeah he sounds like a normal person I'm so used to him sounding so different my precious yep but he's super sweet you also met him jamie yeah yeah it's still I think one of my favorite interviews I've ever done just like the coolest nicest guy ever that's awesome I didn't meet him but I saw him from afar on the Warner Brothers law

when I was an intern at Conan, like 11 years ago. Wow, we've all had close encounters of the circus kind. Well, yes. Okay, so then we flash back even further to when Angier and Borden were working together, along with Angier's, his wife, Julia, played by Piper Parabo of Coyote Ugly fame, or, as she's also known, Pidi Poppo. Yes. And they are doing a trick at a show that involves tying Julia up and dropping her in that large glass tank of water that we saw earlier, which she has to escape from. And one night during a show, the trick goes wrong. Julia is not able to escape from the tank and she drowns. And so Angier blames Borden for killing his wife because Borden may be tied a different night. not than usual that Julia wasn't able to escape from, but Borden can't remember which not he

tied. So this is the end of the Borden and Gere professional relationship and the beginning of a huge rivalry between them and them being huge bitches to each other. This is probably one of my favorite sequences in the movie. And we have to say one of the worst sequences for women. because it is just a classic Nolan fridging the wife to move the, you know, and I know this is based on a novel as well. So, you know, who was the first to fridge? I'm actually not sure. I did not read the book, but. But it says something that Nolan was drawn to this project.

He loves a dead wife. I would just be so nervous. If I were Emma Thomas, who is, I mean, they seem very happy. Whatever. Okay. I love the sequence with Hugh Jackman, just bawling. his fist up and being like, what not was it? It's like, I know it's really serious because a woman has died, but he's being so funny. He's like yelling at his journal. Like, what was it? And then

they do the thing where I guess over the course of years, I'm also like not sure the time, the amount of time that passes in the course of this movie. It's kind of confusing. But occasionally one will just show up in a fake ass beard and be like, do you want to know my trick? And then like, shoot the other one. And then you're like, wow, that was. That was intense. And then someone else shows up in the, they're just showing up in various facial hair. It's just,

it's so dramatic. I love it. It's awesome. Okay. So the rivalry is born. And sometime after this, Borden is working on his own act with this guy named Fallon, who is Borden's enjeune.

And they're working on a bullet-catching trick, which Borden's wife, Sarah, played by Rebecca Hall doesn't like because she thinks it's too dangerous. And she's like, what if you die? I can't raise this baby on my own. That's right. I'm pregnant. And he says, okay, I'll tell you my trick.

That's the only way to learn his trick is to get pregnant. It's just to get pregnant with his baby. Yeah. High stakes. He insists that it's mostly safe. But one night, as Borden is doing the bullet catch trick and giving the gun to an audience volunteer, which, why would you do that? There are too many variables involved. But anyway, he gives it to an audience volunteer who turns out to be Angier, who wants to

kill Borden. Sorry, pause. Kayla, authenticity check. Great question. So thinking about the water tank, that is very dangerous and could easily go wrong effect. I used to be a very troy show called Champions of Magic and the show has an escape artist and he did the water tank and there was one night where it did go wrong and it dropped the curtain and I'm like the next performers who have to walk out and be like hey and so it's it is very dangerous it can go wrong quickly so super authentic that that would be somebody's demise also very authentic that because at the time there was a woman who was very well known for being an escape artist which I'll get into more of that shortly, but her name was Nerva and she was a very famous escape artist.

So it does make sense that that would be something a woman would do because that was very accurate to the time. And same with the bullet catch is there are over 10. I don't actually know the number at this point. It's got to be 10 or 12 magicians who have died from the bullet catch. So it is a very dangerous thing. It's not like that anymore. Too many safety things have now gone into play. But it would have been conceivable that they would have given the gun to an audience volunteer to pull the trick.

Now it is not done, but yeah, it is a very authentic thing. Interesting. Okay. That was something, yeah, that I was excited to hear what you thought about because I was like, I guess I do believe that in Victorian England they were just doing whatever. Like, I certainly believe they were killing birds, like, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. Yep.

And I can give you the thumbs up on all of that is very accurate. Okay. Oof. Yeah. All right. Bleak. Okay. So it's Angier who is at the show holding the gun for this bullet catch trick and he sabotages it.

Doesn't manage to kill Borden, but Angier does shoot off a couple of Borden's fingers, which will make Borden doing a lot of magic tricks very difficult. And again, with the Christopher Dolen of it all, I was like, it's so funny that this movie with like this intensity of like tethered rivalry is what comes out immediately before the dark night, which is the movie is about the exact same thing, is about an intense tethered rivalry between men who like want them to die but also need them to survive and rrah-ra-rah. Like it's just, it's his favorite. True. So meanwhile, Angier and Cutter are now working together and they hire an assistant, Olivia, played by Scarlett Johansson. She's like, and she's like, cheerio. Like, I just like,

Govna? It's not great. They're practicing a disappearing dove trick that keeps the dove alive for once, because, as we just alluded to, many previous bird disappearing tricks would kill the bird. And Michael Cain is like, so what? Do you want to be good or not? To be a good magician, you've got to kill a couple birds. That's how he talks. Yeah, exactly.

and Angier is about to perform this updated version of the trick at this big show. But uh-oh, one of the audience volunteers turns out to be Borden. They're always going to each other's shows. And Borden. It's just like, it's just like, please it, the staff must not care for these guys at all. Because I'm like, it's just a beard. Like, surely there's a do not admit this guy. and he's going to be wearing a little outfit.

Yeah. It's so fun. They're not paying close enough attention or something. But Borden goes on stage to be the audience volunteer. He deliberately, again, sabotages the trick and kills the bird in front of everyone, as well as, like, breaks the hand of the other audience volunteer in so doing. And this gets Angier booted out of this venue that he was performing at. So now Angier needs a way to redeem himself.

And he seems to be getting closer to meeting with Tesla. Although I think the gap of time between these two events is like several years, not sure. I really don't. Yeah, I have no clear. I'm sure that it's like in the novel. It's like clarified. It doesn't super matter. But everyone's just so frequently disguised.

And there's so many time jumps because Christopher Nolan is also obsessed with a little time jump. He loves time. I don't even know. I mean, it takes place. at least over, okay, it takes a place at least over the course of the daughter's life. So we're covering at least she's what, six, five, four, five, six, seven maybe, yeah. So at least half a decade. But it is, it is a little confusing.

For sure. Yeah. But the whole thing with Tesla is that he built a machine for another magician, presumably Borden. And this one can do quote unquote real magic, not just illusion. and misdirection, but wizardry. And Angier wants a machine like it. And he finally meets with Tesla and asks him to build a specific machine,

although we don't yet know exactly what it's supposed to do. Pausing again, Kayla... Are there machines that do real magic? Just kidding. And I guess specifically, historically, I was not able... like Tesla did not collude with magicians. Is that correct? As far as I know, yeah, no, not at all. I think there's a really easy thing that happens a lot with movies that are about magic,

where they just are like, well, magic, like real magic is just science. And it's like, oh yeah, I guess a Tesla coil, if you don't understand how it works, it does look very magical because it's unexplainable. So I think it's an easy thing to be like, oh, yeah, magic make real equal science. Like, that's, that's it. So as far as I know, Tesla's not also a magician or isn't friends with or wasn't friends with anybody. So I don't think so.

I think it was just an easy tie-in. I thought it was like kind of, I was curious, but yeah, because I thought it was like, it's so, it's kind of ludicrous, but it's also clever where it's like, Tesla did famously always run out of money. And so you're just like, oh, this is a world where he would accept a magician's bribe to continue his experiments. It's just so silly. I guess also in the book,

the rivalry between Tesla and Edison is played up a little bit more to sort of mirror the rivalry between Angier and Borden, but that gets scaled back on. It's still there in the movie, but it's lesser than its presence in the novel. Okay, so Angier has finally got his meeting with Tesla.

Then we flashback again, I think, Again, the chronology of events are confusing, but I think we're further back in time. Angier goes to watch another show and sees Borden's new trick, the transported man. And it's the best magic trick that Angier has ever seen. I love. I love it. He's like, ah, that should have been my trick. So how this trick works is, or how it appears on stage.

least, is that Borden goes into a door on one side of the stage, then a second later, Borden steps out of a different door on the other side of the stage, as if he was magically transported to the other little cabinet. And again, this is like the most amazing trick that Angier has ever seen, but Borden is not a great showman, and certainly, again, not the greatest showman. It's not the greatest showman, which is, by the way, I think I know that that movie has, has a huge following and is beloved by many people I love and respect. I'm just like, that movie has an evil aura to me.

That movie is so diabolical. It's a turd. I thought it was nasty. It's just a diabolical movie. Okay, so Borden is bad at showmanship. So Angier thinks that if he can figure out how to replicate, aka steal, this trick, that he can use his showmanship to really, sell it and get the audience excited about the trick.

So accuracy check, this is so accurate. It's so deeply, deeply accurate. So in magic, you have people who are really good at inventing things, so they're coming up with the methods and creating the trick. And then a lot of times they will sell the trick and anybody can buy it, right? Or, for example, if you think about David Copperfield did this illusion where he seemed to fly on stage. And it genuinely looks like,

flight. It's incredible. And then somebody will be like, okay, I want to buy that and he'll hold on to it for a little bit. And then a couple of years ago, he was like, okay, it's for sale. And then it could be for one person. It could be for multiple people. So people might, like how there was kind of the discussion in this movie about, oh, can I buy your tricks? That's very common. I've been approached by multiple people being like, can I buy this? Can I buy this? So that is a thing. So if you're a good inventor of magic, you are often making a lot of money selling things you come up with. I would say that it's a fair assumption that if somebody is mainly a product creator, they are not also a good performer. So there is kind of like a very distinct inventor or performer type of magician.

It doesn't mean that many people can't blend the two, but you do tend to see like, oh, like, I'm not a good inventor of magic. That's just not what I do. I'm a good entertainer, so that's where my focus is. So I'm the person buying the effects and then making them my own, but doing them in a fun and entertaining way. So it does make sense that somebody would be like, I came up with this brilliant trick, but man, I cannot sell it on stage as much as I want to. It's pretty legit.

Okay. Follow up question. The way that if you're writing a novel or any book or screenplay or anything like that, you copyright it to protect it. And then if you're like perhaps trying to adapt a book to film, you would like sell the rights to it. Is there a similar kind of thing where like you copyright a magic trick or like how do how do those things get protected? They don't. You cannot copyright magic. Yeah. Legally you cannot copyright magic. So how it works if you want to do somebody else's material is a magician could create something. So Teller is a good example of Penn and Teller who created

this really amazing piece called Shadows, which is worth a YouTube watch at some point. It's very beautiful. He does that. Some magician, I don't remember where he's from, but a different magician, not from the U.S., seals the routine, but hypothetically is doing it in a different way. So you don't know how tellers. Trick is done. He's never sold it. There is mystery to the method.

So this other magician does it, but it looks the same. It's just done in a different way. way. So Teller was able to copyright the script and the choreography around the routine, which meant what this other magician was doing. Teller was able to sue and ultimately win that case because this other magician was doing the thing that was copyrighted. I see. Oh, okay. Right. But if it's method, no, there's nothing you can do. The same way that you can't copyright an idea for a story, you can only copyright like written text if you have written the story down.

Yep. Exactly. How do you and how does like how does the magic community feel about that? Is that like a net positive or is it a polarizing thing? That's so fascinating. So it's a bit polarizing but I think everybody does kind of come to the same general ending place, which is it would be great if we could do that. There was a bill that went to Congress at one point that was trying to make magic classified as an art in terms of law. But ultimately, It didn't go anywhere, unfortunately. I don't know why that happened, but it just went to a different committee and then ceased to exist. And so the way the magic community kind of goes about doing this is just, it's a small community.

So if somebody steals your stuff, we're all going to know about it. Especially if you steal somebody's stuff that, like, we all know. Oh, yeah, we watch this guy all the time. Right. And then all of a sudden somebody else is doing it, we're like, wait a minute. And it is very easy for somebody to sort of get. blackballed for a bit in the magic world. It's like jokes stealing, right, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And we're like, if you do a new stand-up set, but it's not filmed or recorded, and then somebody else does those jokes,

you have to kind of be like, well, I know those are mine, but how do I prove it? I don't know. So it's exactly the same with magic is like, unless you have proof, unless you have video or anything that shows that you did it, it's very difficult to be like, wait, that's mine. So it is very much a like, the community holds you morally responsible for doing things, but that doesn't mean it's stoppable. Right. God, that's so frustrating. Yeah. So it does, I don't know, feeds into a problem that drives me personally up a wall about live performance right now, which is like that it's so because there is such a pressure to be constantly filming and documenting and having proof that it makes it really hard to like workshop something and like refine material which

well whatever I'm like changing this but like which in comedy is why I think crowdwork is so popular right now because you cannot possibly work on it and the directive of the algorithm is to just produce as much as possible and not actually like refined material god well that is very I'm I feel like I'm going to fall down a research rabbit hole about copywriting magic tricks. That's really interesting. Unfortunately, it will be the shallowest rabbit hole you've ever been down because there's just nothing. There's just no things. I will say that like, especially with the internet now, it's very helpful.

So this just happened to a friend of mine and without naming any names. Like it happened. His stuff got stolen. He is very well loved in the magic world. And he tried to handle it internally and quietly and it didn't happen. And so he just went on Facebook and went, this is what happened. And now the people that stole his stuff, they've lost work. Like, they're gone.

So it's like, yep, that's the magic community will for sure hold you responsible. That, of course, has plus or minuses. Somebody could make an accusation that's false. So like, eh. But like these divas who are constantly sabotaging each other. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

That is very, that's why I'm like, yeah, this is a very similar and accurate thing when it comes to the personality of magicians. Yeah, it is. It really is. Yeah. Wow. It's great. Fascinating.

Yeah. Fascinating. So Borden has just done his transported man on stage for the first time. And Angier is like, how do I steal this? And the only way that Cutter can think that Borden must be doing this trick is by using a double, a lookalike, that comes out of the second door. So they get to work on finding a double who looks like Angier. And they hire this guy named Mr. Root, who is also played by Hugh Jackman,

who is just theater kidding out during these sequences. He's having so much fun. I feel like Hugh Jackman was like, hey, listen, I need this guy to be drunk to have a mix of multiple accents. and I need you to let me play him as if there were 2,000 people watching. Good? And now here we are. And it's just beautiful to see a theater kid having a great time. I do love, not every Hugh Jackman performance is for me,

but I do love how consistently he just like, you know, he's versatile. He can do something serious, but it's not his preference. He would rather be doing something silly. He would rather be wearing tap shoes. and I love that quality in a person. I love that he and Sutton foster together to, like, just link up of the century. I love them. Wow.

So they find Mr. Root and they perform their version of the transported man and the audience loves it. The only trouble is that it's Root who comes out of the second door as Angier falls through a trap door on stage. So it's Root who gets all of the applause and recognition. So Angier is not satisfied with this. He tells Olivia, his assistant, who he is now also smooching, to go work for Borden so that she can discover Borden's secret and tell it to Angier so that he doesn't have to

keep relying on the drunken Mr. Root, who is becoming more and more unreliable, which, it turns out, Borden is behind because Borden has been going to Mr. Rout and encouraging him to make demands and blackmail Angier, because Borden is still hell-bent on sabotaging Angier and his career. It is so fun that Root's character is made to seem so, like, thick that he needs to have the idea to sabotage be given to him by another character. I thought that was very funny. Yes. Like it's a very broad performance and like I think in a different movie it would be like, well, how are we portraying addiction? But that's just like so far from what the goal of this movie is that it's like we're looking at a cartoon character.

And I'm smiling. Same. This is also one of those things that's like, wow, this is oddly accurate in terms of like sabotage, especially for the time period. So Minerva, who I mentioned earlier, was an escape artist and she was very famous for. this thing called a milk can escape where basically it's like this, you know, kind of mini water torture tank, but you can't see through it. So not the one that was seen in this movie, but little. And so you have to get inside and then you got to get out somehow. And annoyingly at the same time, Harry Houdini was very well known for that effect, but not as well known as Minerva.

And although the proof is very much up to interpretation, it is understood that Houdini had some guys go and rig her milk can escape so she could not get out of it. Very similar to how like the knot might have been tied incorrectly like that. So she did almost die like a small handful of times hypothetically due to Houdini paying some guys to go do it. So it's for sure a big thing, especially in the mid, the late 1800s, early 1900s, for sure. This was like the idea of magician sabotaging each other. It was just like the game. It was just, oh, if you're going to do this as a career, get ready. Someone's going to try to mess with you. The stakes are high. You might die. Was this period of time, like, it seems to me, and this is also, I'm pulling from, like, doing a lot of research on spiritualism and, like, Houdini's weirdo relationship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and like that whole thing. But, like, is this, this appears to me, or is this a media? thing. Appears that Victorian England is a specifically popular time for magic. Is that true? Or is that just how we see it in media? No, it's very true. So like kind of going, let's just say, between 1850 to

1910. It was super popular. Magic was very much on the rise. And it was very common for magicians, like a solo performer to be touring the country or even the world in some aspect. I think what is often kind of missed here is you had a lot of performers like so dante was where i believe they got the name that um hugh jackman chooses the great danton yeah okay the great dante was like a that was a guy that performed magic at that time um you have houdini you have keller and thurston but the one thing that they're missing most media is missing is the extent of women that were equally as famous as all of the guys during the shows and so you've looked at like spiritualism so the Fox sisters

that's massive they were excellent magicians yeah excellent magicians and like yeah incredible story my spiritualists are going to kick me in the head but yes excellent magicians yeah and what's also just kind of crazy is a lot of time I will get asked oh hey

what like do you have some sort of psychic power are you connected to another realm is that how you can do what you do it's like no but if you if you show me a psychic or if you show me anybody that kind of pretends to do that, I can replicate it equally as convincing. So the Fox Sisters, and I know that folks that are in this spiritualism movement, yeah, for sure they're going to, they would get mad at me saying that.

And that's okay because that is just a thing I can do. And so the Fox sisters were of that same time and they admitted that everything was wrong, that they didn't do anything. Oh, this was all magic. They were incredible meditions, which they did open up a gigantic, gap for other women to do very similar things or just like adjacent things. So for sure the Fox sisters have like contributed a lot to magic. There was another oh my gosh. I think Mina Crandon was another character that was really associated with the spiritualist movement but was sort of

revealed to be an excellent magician who also was beefing with Harry Houdini. Harry Houdini just was beefing with anyone and everyone like inventing additional hours in the day. But she was doing, she was kind of doing some like pussy magic. She was doing some, some weird stuff. Yeah. She was like, oh, this is from your dead husband. And then pull something out of her, put you're like, yep, it was a lot.

Oh, literal pussy magic. Yes, yes. Pulling things out of her vagina. Yeah, no, I'm not. That's not a euphemism. It was just like what she was up to. I was like, what do you mean by that? And now I get it.

Magic of the pussy. Oh, wow. Yeah. I guess I'm like, for what is worth, if anyone listening is interested in spiritualism, I'm not disowning it. I do believe in elements of it, but just early spiritualists, there's a lot of, you know, bells and whistles and no need to deny it, you know. Yeah, don't hate us. Because it's impressive. It's impressive. It's impressive. You know, like sometimes for women to get by, they had to start a religion. Check out Ghost Church for more. information. Yeah. Okay, so, so Borden is now sabotaging Angier's transported man trick because he's upset about Angier having stolen it. And Borden hires Olivia, kind of at Angier's insistence, but there's all this like she's kind of flip-flopping all around. But she goes to work for Borden, and she steals Borden's diary and gives it to,

Angier, but it's a cipher written in code. So Angier's like, I don't know how to read it. It's going to take months to decode and I don't even have the secret keyword. So he kidnaps Fallon, the mysterious man who's the designer of Borden's tricks, but Fallon refuses to talk. And so to get Fallon back, Borden gives Angier the keyword to decode his cipher diary and the keyword is Tesla. Okay. And that is very, that feels very the Da Vinci Code is Apple to me. Yes. But much like Da Vinci Code, I'm nodding. I'm like, yes. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. So this is what prompts Angier to go to Colorado and commission Tesla to build him a magic machine.

And while he's waiting for it to be completed, Angier finally finishes decoding Borden's diary, only to discover that Borden wanted Angier to have his diary, to taunt him and be like, my secret's not in this diary, you bitch. And oh, do you think that's the last time this is going to happen in this movie? No, not even close. Yeah. So Tesla, meanwhile,

has been testing out the machine that he has built, but it doesn't seem to work because it zaps a top hat or a cat, but whatever the result is supposed to be, it's not working or doesn't seem to be working until Angier goes outside and sees a pile of top hats and a couple spare cats. The cat scene cracked me up that, like, in most ways this movie, ages very well looks wise but the Tesla coil effects are are like oh oh 2006 like clearly just a cat sitting in front of like a green screen or something and then seeing like you see a cat getting electrocuted it's alarming but but funny it is goofy looking it is fun so we see all of these replicas of the hats and the cats and we realize that the machine duplicates whatever you put in it it's just

that it shoots out the replica at the wrong place. So now Tesla just needs to make some adjustments to fix that. And he does, and he gives the machine to Angier, who starts testing it out on himself for his transported man trick. We cut back to Borden in prison, where he is awaiting execution, and he decides to give up his tricks, or at least part of them, to that solicitor who represents Lord Coldlaw, who we find out is like a collector of magic secrets and paraphernalia.

Then we flash back to Borden and his wife, Sarah, who is emotionally tormented that Borden seems to only love her half of the time, and she can't take it anymore and she dies by suicide. this is an evil choice we've already killed off one wife to further the plot and now we have done it a second time we'll talk more about Sarah because I feel like she she and Olivia are both characters

I thought had a lot of promise and could have I mean first of all I mean I just love Rebecca Hall also and I think like her performance is one of my favorites in this movie but the fact that it's like it's kind of can't be but also really deeply sad that it's established from the first time this character appears. She's like, you know it's wild? You don't love me sometimes.

And that is just the reality that she lives with. It's paid off, keep listening, but it's so depressing. And you're like, wow, that is sometimes what it feels like to be in a bad relationship as a woman. You're like, well, what can you do? It's like 18, whatever, I have no options in the world. So I guess I just have to deal.

with this i don't know if you've ever dated a comic or someone else you know of the of the dork arts you're like this more than me seriously you know i've been on both sides of that what can you do what can one do just dump them don't date a magician don't date magicians don't date comedians don't date comics don't date actors yeah we are toxic people stay away from us leave us to fuck each other to death and peace. Yeah. Okay, so meanwhile, Angier is staging one last show where he will perform the quote unquote real transported man using the machine that Tesla built for him, which zaps him with electricity, duplicates him and then shoots the duplicate out into another part of the theater. and he does the trick for the first time in front of a big audience and the crowd is loving it,

which infuriates Borden because he and Fowlin not only have had their trick stolen, but they can't figure out how Angier does this version of the trick. So Borden starts investigating, and then we see the scene that we saw at the beginning of the movie where Borden sneaks backstage and sees Angier fall into the, water tank and drown. Only this time we see Borden try to save Angier. So it would seem as though Borden did not kill him. Then we get a reveal that Angier did this to frame Borden and ruin his life because Angier is alive because he got duplicated by the machine and he's living in secret as the

mysterious Lord de Caldlaw who pays a visit to Borden in prison. And Borden is like, wait a minute, this is the man I was convicted of killing. So if he's alive, I'm not guilty. But no one gives a shit. They're like, whatever. Too bad, bitch. Which is true of the justice system in general. Yeah, absolutely.

Then we get another reveal that Fallon and Borden are identical twin brother. where one would live as Alfred Borden, the magician who was married to Sarah and has a daughter, the other as Fallon, the engineer who wore a disguise to obscure the fact that he looks exactly like the other Borden, and they would take turns and switch places and kind of both live these double lives. Yeah. And this is how they did such a convincing transported man trick. and this is also why Borden only seemed to love his wife half of the time. I know.

And it's like he's like a magician never reveals his secrets. And I was like, but like you can do it. Reve it to your wife. Just once. She's good for it. You know she's never, she's never leaked. Olivia, she's leaky. She's leaky.

But look, she's just trying to get by. Another character who very much is jettisoned from the movie kind of in the third act. you're like where did she go? Where's Olivia? But well, the reveal, what do we think of the reveal? I think by that point, I've just been so like run over by the truck of the plot of this movie that I'm like, yeah, sure. Nice.

The first time I saw the movie, I was like, holy fucking shit. I didn't see that coming at all. But now looking back on it, I'm like, that is the goofiest reveal of all time. Like, of course they're twins. Like, the doy. It seems so silly and obvious now It's clear this movie was not made For magicians to like it

Because for so many reasons But that was the first thing that I thought The first time I watched it was like twins Oh they're twins Because that's a real thing that magicians do So it's like oh yeah, that makes sense Is it not twins? Oh it's twins Okay cool

It meant nothing Twins are common in magic Yeah I mean Are a lot of magic twins? No, do magic who have a twin make their twin do magic? Yes.

Wow. Whoa. Whoa. Yep. I can think of three right now that I've like personally watched use their twin.

Do people know that they have a twin or is that part of the secret? No, that's part of the secret. They try to keep that under wraps as best as possible. Whoa. Yeah. Also it's it's, it's, I'm just like,

I'm so curious of like, man, you've really got to maintain the relationship with your twin for that to work. Like, hope you guys don't get in a fight. or one of you is unemployed. I mean, same with like, if you have an assistant, you better treat that assistant real well. True.

Are they're going to do to you what Root does to Angier and sabotage his little tricks. Okay, so we're almost done. We get the reveal that there are two Bordons and they're both living dual lives as either Borden or Fallon. one of the Bordons is executed while the other one approaches Angier and shoots him, the Angier that did survive

the transported man trick. But don't forget his dying word is abracadabra. Bordans is, yes. Yes. I hate it. So goofy. I hate it so much. They're like, any last words?

And then a pregnant pause and then abracadabra. That is like executing a comic And then having to be like, is this thing on? And then getting dropped. Like, yeah, I have to imagine as a magician, you got to be like, come on, guys, come on. We're not like that. Yeah, there were a couple other options that they thought would have been nice. But yeah.

Al-a-Kazam, for example. No, I'm kidding. It's an option. I did laugh a lot at the part where there's this guy who runs a venue that has given Angier, like a week-long run to prove that he's got what it takes. And during the first show, that's when Borden comes on stage to sabotage him and kill the bird. So the venue runner has to like boot Angier from the venue.

And he says, like, I've hired a comedian to replace you. You know, I hate comedians. And I was like, ha-ha, exactly. Yeah. Okay. So we've gotten all these big reveal. the remaining Borden shoots Angier, and in Angier's dying monologue, he's like, oh, my God, what? I can't believe it. And then he reveals that every time he did his transported Mantric, he would murder the duplicate, the one that wasn't part of the prestige.

So he has killed various clones of himself. And then Angier dies. and Borden, the remaining Borden, returns home and reunites with his young daughter, Jess, who, again, Angier had stolen when the other Borden was sent to prison. He had to do what he had to do. Yeah. And so this Borden coming back, reappearing again, is the prestige of the movie. Wow.

The end. So let's take another. quick break and we'll come back to discuss. New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt and I'm Joel. We are from the how to money podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to

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That's who you named after. I just was like, damn, that my fucking I swear. Rocky offers a window into not only a boundary-breaking artist, but as a man committed to fusing creative ideas, community, and remaining unapologetically himself. Have you ever gotten roasted for any of your outfits?

For sure. Some people don't be getting to vision. Look, they could roast me, they could cook me, they could deep-fried meat, they can saute, whatever they want. It's nobody who can be with my fashion sense and my taste is impeccable. I'm just like, I impress myself a lot.

It's an amazing conversation. One, you definitely don't want to miss. So listen to the Questlove show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This show contains information subject to, but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This is your boy, Nav Green from the Broken Play Podcast. Look, it's the end of the season, the playoffs of here. But guess what?

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Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation? You should be in it. Listen to Broken Play with Navgreen from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or whatever you get your podcast. The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question. What do I want my life to look like now?

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Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. We're back. Caleb, where would you like to start this discussion? Because I'm curious in hearing more of the history. But yeah, what jumps out to you? So there are two main elements of this movie that from a magician's perspective, I'm like, no. One is, I forget Hugh Jackman's.

wife's name from the beginning. Julia. Julia. Julia. Immediately, I didn't understand why she was the escape artist doing this incredible thing, but she never spoke. And this other magician took all the credit for just, like, walking around the box, which is a very common theme in magic.

Like a lot of times the assistant who needs to be quite small, often flexible, to do the secret of the trick, he was the one doing all of the work. And the magician is just walking around making poses. like look at this, moving boxes and then taking the 90% of the applause. But I was just like, well, this isn't just an assistant thing. This is like, oh, no, she's doing an incredible skill. Right. And getting so little from it.

The movie, like, it's one thing for, yes, like that happens in real life all the time where an assistant, a woman, does a bunch of labor and gets no credit for it. but that's something you could comment on, which the movie does not do. The movie just acts as though she's not a magician. Also, she hasn't really done anything. She doesn't deserve any recognition, which was very disappointing. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, and we get a symbol or, like, I don't know. Yeah, I think that truly that's one of the areas where you're like,

all Christopher Nolan knows how to do is kill a wife. because the story opportunity is literally right there and then instead her death is the inciting incident for the story instead of... So when the Scarlet Johansen character came along, Scarlet Johan, we talked to... I forget what movie we lost saw her in, but Unrepented Zionist sucks.

But when the Scarlett Johansson character comes along, it almost felt like, oh, well, here, you know, it's a Christopher Nolan movie. I know he's not going to take the opportunity, but here is an opportunity to maybe... rectify how Julia's character was treated because she is also presented in an assistant capacity to begin with, but she's got opinions on things, which Julia didn't really seem to have.

She is sort of trying to play these divas against each other and to benefit on her own. And it's like now knowing what you're saying, Kayla, is that like this was a time where a woman could, it would have been difficult, but could conceivably have been a very famous magician. that's like, I mean, it's a different movie, but that's, like, I think that there is room to ingratiate Olivia into this complex, bizarre plot. And, like, she would have been a useful red herring for a lot of stuff in this movie. But she kind of just slowly disappears. And then you see what often happens in movies of this time in Christopher Nolan movies where it says, like, she becomes a plot device. She becomes a reflection of the dead wife.

She becomes, like, the reveal. involves her but mostly as it relates to sexual deception she's been enduring for years and doesn't know but it's such because it felt like Olivia was as like Olivia and Sarah both have interior lives but only to a point and the point is the men it would it would have been I think a much more interesting story even if they included just a small portion of this so there was a magician of the time her name was Adelaide Herman and she was married to Alexander Herman, who was the super famous magician. Adelaide was the assistant, but also a circus performer.

She did a lot of stunts. But she really didn't do much magic. And then her husband died very suddenly. And she went, okay, I'll just learn the whole show. And did and became super duper famous, like super duper famous. More famous than Houdini, more famous, like massively famous touring the world. That could have been an interesting story to like hear about. a little bit of a subplot of her learning more of the show or like anything that would have just made her more than what she was would have been great.

And like I said, there are tons of magicians of that era that it would have been great to just add in a little bit of their true life to know. Oh, okay, she's actually like a really good magician. Right. Yeah. And it's like, I mean, from that perspective, it's like the fact that, well, I do like in some ways think it's like kind of funny and clever that they're. pulling in Tesla as it being involved in this plot. It's like, well, why bend over backwards to involve Tesla when there were so many, like you're saying, like so many real life figures that would have been like more realistic and also actually plausible and authentic to what was

going on at this time? And that just, I mean, at very, very least, like, Olivia should be perceived as a threat to these guys, as a potential professional threat. And I, I feel like there's a version of this movie where maybe she, you know, because she knows both of their acts. So doesn't that stand to make her one of the most, like, whether it's dishonest or not, like one of the most successful acts in the world. But instead she's like, I love him. And him being both of them, because basically her role in the story eventually just gets relegated to being the romantic interest of both Angier. And then one of the, boardings and she just kind of gets shuffled back and forth between the two it's hard for the

audience to know exactly where her loyalties lie or what that even means for this story i was kind of losing track of like who does she love who is she loyal to if anyone like what is going on there yeah what did you think about the line that cutter says Kayla where he's like where they hire olivia part because she's attractive and then Cutter says, a pretty assistant is the most effective form of misdirection. Thoughts? I mean, it's accurate. Like, 100%.

I mean, a lot of magicians will, there are multiple reasons why you want to hire an assistant that is captivating, regardless of gender. Having an assistant that is truly captivating is key. So a lot of magicians hire dancers because they can grab the attention. And it doesn't necessarily need to be while something secret, like the method to the trick is going on. It can literally mean just the assistant is really drawing the audience in to, you know, stage right. Well, one prop is being wheeled off and another on that we just, you know, who wants to see that? So the assistant does a small dance routine and then we go on to the next illusion.

So it could be as simple as that. So it is definitely a useful tool to have an assistant. that really captivates attention. It is more than likely. So there's a historical inaccuracy in this movie that I'll mention in a second. But it is more than likely that now an assistant will be a woman because you need somebody who is small in stature and flexible to do a lot of the routines. So that tends to be the route. Even if it's a woman who's the magician, they might often hire a woman assistant just because of the stature necessities.

So that is possible. An element that is historically inaccurate in this movie is that there would not have been women doing things like sawing a person in half illusions because that only started really by P.T. Selbit who invented the sawing a woman in half. That's the title of the trick. During the women's suffrage movement. Direct. Yeah, very direct. But it is direct. No kidding.

It directly correlates with women gaining the right to vote. Whoa. No kidding. Good Lord. It's so interesting. Yeah. There's a magic historian Jim Steinmeyer. He's massive in magic.

He's created tons of illusions and he is the backbone to things like making the Statue of Liberty disappear and the flying carpet during the Aladdin Broadway musical. So like massive. And so he wrote a book and in that book it very specifically states that the reason for the explosive popularity of sort of. sawing a woman in half was due to its specific timing and culture. And he doesn't really elaborate on that. But if you start to look at it, you're like, oh, so you're telling me that the time where we gave women more rights in society was the time where a magician went, I'm going to take those away if only for this 10 minute routine.

Right. Like it's a fantasy act out. Yep. That is, we should be talking about that every single day. Yeah. That is agreed. So fucked and so interesting. It's really interesting because that really opened up, like, all these illusions that were done in the 1800s that were often done.

It could have been a woman. It could have been a guy. Like, it could have been a kid. You know, it was just a whoever could fit in the box was the person that did it. Like, Robert Hudan, who was a very famous illusionist, did it with his son. You know, all this stuff, right? But really the opening up of, like, any woman getting put in a box immutilated and put back together, that. only started in the 20s, 1920s.

So it's a little, it's a little bit inaccurate in this movie, but also just really interesting to know that like, oh, magic is, magic's weird. I think that it's, again, like something that you are more aware of than most people, Kayla, but the fact that like all popular media and all entertainment is a mirror to the time is coming out of. And that is a fascinating, egregious example. That is nuts. Wow. Angela Sanchez, who is a brilliant magic historian,

they really dove deep into this in like a collegiate paper that they wrote. And reading that paper, I was like, everything in magic makes sense now, but now I'm upset. And it's just a lot. And so kind of reading their work and hearing them talk about these things is like, oh, shoot. Yeah, I didn't even think about, oh, let me look at, let me look at, at this illusion or this popularity of this one magician or anything and compare it more culturally, you really start to see a lot of that come about.

Yeah. There is another moment that I want to talk about, but I want to make sure that we are done talking about this thing. I just felt my brain went transition and then it, I don't know if it happened. No, please. You're in the driver's seat, whatever you want to move along to. I'm honored. Thanks for letting me drive.

This is great. So there's a moment where they are talking about it's. when they're all done with the first show and we watched the water tank escape and they're all talking and yelling at each other in the basement, right? And there's a moment where Michael Kane goes, you need to go to this theater. There is, and I'm not going to say the language because it's wrong, but there's a man from China. A man from China who's performing and he jukkwin's like, Chungling Sue. And then they go and they watch this magician perform. And you see like, yes, this man is likely.

of Asian descent. So, okay, cool. Wrong. So Chongling Su, his real name is William Ellsworth Robinson. Oh, that's a real figure. Okay. But not Asian. Okay.

Good Lord. Right. So, of course, in this movie, you can't be like, should we discuss cultural appropriation? Because it's in the 1800s. Like, no, it's not. I understand that that would be a weird subplot to just throw into the movie. but there's somebody else that we can mention. So Chung Ling Su, William Robertson, he had a rivalry.

And it was very interesting that that was the magician we decided to name in this movie because the rivalry is very similar to the rivalry in this movie, where there was a magician named Chingling Fu, actually from China, who was brought to the U.S. for the Omaha World's Fair. Okay. And Fu was the first, like, celebrity in America because he was so famous doing his act that he would be performing at a theater that across the street was a movie theater, one of the first movie theaters. And it was playing a video of his act because it was cheaper to go to the movie theater. So if he didn't have a lot of money, you could go watch his act at the movie theater while he was playing across the street.

That is the level of fame that Fu had. And then he put out this challenge being like, if you can figure out how I do any of my material, then I'll give you money and et cetera. And William Robinson, he recreated Fu's act. And Fu was like, okay, you did it, but you didn't do it correctly. Like you didn't use my method. One of those things was producing a massive fish tank like in this movie. Okay. And William Robinson was like, yeah, but I did it.

You didn't tell me I had to do it exactly correct. I still replicated it, give me money. And Fu went, no. And that was it. That was all that was needed to become this massive rivalry that changed magic forever. Because William Robinson started dressing up and calling himself Chungling Su and was doing Fu's act. But in America, everyone went, you're not actually Chinese. Like, we know that you're not.

Like, we know that Fu is actually Chinese. You're in a racist costume. Yeah. Uh-huh. We can smell that because we've been adoring Fu for years. So we don't like you. And so William Robinson went, okay, then I'm going to go somewhere where Fu hasn't been yet. So he went to England.

And by the time Fu got to England, everyone said, you're not the real Chinese magician. This guy is talking about Robinson. Yeah. So Fu did not have a career in England. Oh. And that became this massive rivalry. but Chung Ling Su also never grew to be this 70-year-old man that they are showing in the movie.

William Robinson was one of the many magicians that died from a bullet catch. So he died on stage during a bullet catch in his 50s. And so it was just a really interesting way of, it was really interesting to put William Robinson as Chungling Sue in this movie when you could have easily made this into Fu. That character could have been Chingling Fu easily. Right.

And why wouldn't it have been? Yeah. Because up until recently, and by recently, I mean 2020. Okay. People did not know magicians, magic historians, did not know Chingling Fu existed. Wow. Okay. So it was only in, I believe, 2019, 2020 that a book came out by a historian, not a magic historian, who lives in China, who discovered the life of Fu.

And he wrote a book. The book is amazing. And then magicians went, who's... this and there was a there's supposed to be a debate between a very well-known magic historian and the writer of this book and the magic historian said because there's always a debate unlike is what rilliam robinson did wrong for that time period not for now but for the time period and many like myself say yes but many say no it was just how you had to have a career i hate the debate so much uh welcome to my soapbox um but they we're going to have a debate

and the magical story and said, I can't believe you wrote a whole book on this guy because the most I've ever been able to find is like four paragraphs. How did you find out more information? And the writer of the book said, I went to the library. Robert Eggers' vibes.

That was the end of the debate. It was incredible. Whoa, he's like, I tried reading a book, you dusty bitch. Wow. That, okay, so theoretically, and this isn't to, because if the answer truly was as simple as

I did some research. That is so indicative. I have so much lost history. But theoretically, like, so this would have been not as bizarre a choice as it would now seem in 2006. Or is it still a bizarre choice?

Because he was known to be a white man and yellow face in 2006, right? Correct. I didn't know that before this recording. Because Chunglingu is played by a Chinese American actor, in this movie. It's his last film appearance. Shout out Charlie Chi, who is also in

a bunch of other very popular American movies, including Joy Luck Club, including Batman the animated series. Like, all sorts of fun stuff. But why choose this magician, specifically if it is so well known that he was fraudulent

in all these ways? My guess is, and I don't know who would have decided that this was the magician that they wanted to talk about. I don't know if this was in the book or if this was a decision made by the writers, Chris Rennelan, maybe the magic consultant. But the questioning of cultural appropriation in magic or even just the discussion of it did not happen until about 2018, 2019. And there are still in 2025, there are still magicians dressing up and pretending to be not white of some Asian ethnicity to benefit the trick that they want to do or using

props that have an artistic just rendering of Chinese characters. So it is a, it is a very common thing in magic and the fact that it's really only been questioned. And I can tell you when it started questioning it because I'm the one that did it. So I know what it happened because that didn't happen until I went, what's up? why are we doing this? Yeah. And then started doing all this research of that time as well.

There were a lot of magicians pretending to be Indian for their benefit. So it just was a very common thing of the 1800s. The first magician to ever do it was oddly a woman in the early 1800s. But it is a very common thing. And it just really didn't start being discussed until the last seven or eight years. Until you started the conversation. Which is, it shouldn't be me. Like, that's, why is that, why did it take that long?

Somebody before me should have said something. But, you know, I had a podcast discussing mostly like the diversity and inclusion, lack there of in the magic community. And because of that, I think a lot of people started looking into, oh, this is weird. And I had on the author of the Chingling Food Book, Sam Nel Porteus, and we discussed a lot of things on that topic. And it's a fascinating element of magic history that really nobody. has talked about even now.

It's more talked about now, but it is not widely enough spoken about. Well, we even see Angier in the movie when he's first presenting the version of the transported man trick when he's using a double. And he says, like, the next thing you're going to see isn't even an illusion. This is real magic known only to a select few. It comes from East Asia and it's like real witchcraft wizardry kind of thing. The way that so often any non-white culture will be mysticist. Exactly.

And I can't even imagine how much that was exploited in magic for centuries. Yeah. And extensively because when Chingling Fu gets brought over and becomes this massive celebrity touring the U.S. and multiple times, magicians in the U.S. or magicians in England who can't, a lot of people can't easily access going to East Asia. So it's so easy to give yourself some cred and say, I just came back from China, from Japan, from wherever, and said, I picked this up when I was traveling. And now immediately the audience is like, oh, tell me more. You must be a big deal if he's been able to go.

travel to these places and you must have money or somebody paid for you. Like you are now celebrity in my eyes. And it was just an instant way to get people to love you and to think you were amazing. And unfortunately, even though all of the reasons why that happened are no longer applicable, it's still very much a thing that happens in magic. I mean, when I was a kid, I had, I mean, this is kind of crazy, but I had a long piece of paper that was deemed the Chinese laundry ticket. And it was this idea that you drop your laundry off at a dry cleaner and you received this ticket, but it's in, it's not in English. And then you tear it up and you restore it. And like, that was a trick I did for years as a kid. Like, wait, why did I do that? That makes no sense.

It was normalized. It was normalized. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's a product you bought from the magic shop. Right. Right. And again, like, it's just like a reflect in the same, you know, a very different example, but like just as the woman being sought in half as a reflection of the politics of values of the time and just a reflection of how history is preserved. I'm like I'm right. What was the name of the author who wrote that book again? About Chingling Fu? Yes.

Samuel Porteus. I think it's P-O-U-S. P-O-U-S. That sounds. I can't spell, but it'll pop up. You're a performer. You don't have to know how to spell. Thank you.

And neither they hear that. Every, all performers should be told that. But yeah, I mean, just speaking to how, you know, as technology develops and as, you know, there are far more ways to preserve history does not mean it is being done better. It just gives a larger platform for centuries old misinformation to sort of persist. That's, that's, I'm so glad that book was written. Yeah. Wow.

I was not expecting that side quest in this episode. Thank you for. It's maddening to me. So as soon as that came up, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. And I like paused the movie. I had to just wait a second because I was like, you can't tell me this is, oh, it's happening. Okay. It just is one of those things that like, if it were done more historically accurate, totally different.

If they had said like, oh, yeah, this, this performer is not actually Chinese, but he's been living. Because they say like, oh, he's been living like this. He walks like this old man with a back problem, like all of these things. And if they also had just thrown in there, like, that. that man's from New York. He's a white man and he is he's just been living this way to perpetuate this character. Then that's legit. Like, okay, you all did it.

But I just think nobody knew. I really think just nobody knew to even think about it, to say it, to discuss it. To go to the library. Nope. Too hard. That's really. Yeah, because I mean, I guess it's like we can't know. But it seems like, you know, again, even the like horrific read.

of what really happened of like this guy kind of like Rachel Dolazold like he like lived as another race in order to deceive others for years that's I feel like is also very much in line with

it is a far more racist version of what the two protagonists are doing so why like in a world where we have to have the historical figure of Chungling Sue in this movie it's like almost foreshadowing to acknowledge that he is so committed to the deeply troubling bit that like his life is kind of fucked the life of his and others are fucked as a result because

that's what happens in the third act of this movie is just yeah well and the movie starts to explore this theme of like well how much sacrifice are you willing to make for your magic career year. When the Chung Ling Su character shows up on screen, again, the movie isn't acknowledging that he But they sort of just make up another thing. They make up a physical disability. Right, right. And, but that is the beginning of this thematic under, like under or overcurrent of the movie as far as like, and to what lengths is anyone willing to go to for the sake of their craft? And, you know, as a performer, when are you on and when are you off? And what if you're always on?

And what if your whole life is basically a lie to maintain a specific illusion? And that becomes like such a huge part of the Borden character. At which point, I'm like, he shouldn't get his kid back at the end. We shouldn't be clapping for that. So we will do, we have no reason to believe he will not do this again. Well, he doesn't have a twin to do it with anymore. But he's going to fuck this kid's life up. Oh, absolutely.

But yeah, my whole spiel with this is, you know, we learn that there are these two Bordons, these identical twin brothers who share a life and one of them is Borden part of the time and one of them is Fowen part of the time and they switch back and forth. But this is all happening at the expense of one of the Bordons marriage with Sarah who thinks that her husband doesn't love her. half of the time and thinks that he's perhaps cheating on her with Olivia and this leads her to die by suicide. Which so I'm just like and this is I think actually a reflection of like a lot of men's behavior in real life, their willingness to destroy their lives and other people's

lives under the guise of quote unquote sacrifice for their craft. But really they're just hurting all the people around them. And this is actually something we talked about on the men being bitch's matrion theme that we did recently where we covered the banshees of Inneshirin and Amadeus, but this is very much happening with Borden as well. And the whole time I'm just like, poor Sarah. And there's a moment where Borden tells Fallon, aka the other Borden, but we don't know that yet, that Sarah knows something is amiss. she can tell that her husband only seems to love her half of the time.

And that's like her how we're introduced to her, which is like clever in the corniest way possible. But like it's so, it's so silly. Right. I'm like, God, women are, women are just socially conditioned to settle for so little. It's like, sad but true. She's like, well, at least this makes me feel good the days that you do love me. I was like, oh, right. Cope.

It's cope. Sarah's coping so hard. But toward the end of the movie, when she's like really had enough and she's like, I can't take much more of this. Borden asks Fallon. We're not sure which one is married to Sarah at this point. But he's like, hey, Sarah realizes something is not right. I need you to do whatever you need to do to reassure her that Borden loves her. And so we think, okay, maybe we're going to see more intimacy between them or more emotional nurturing or something. But instead, the next time other Borden is with Sarah, they have a fight. He is verbally and emotionally abusive toward her. She's saying, like, all I want from you is to be honest with me and to give me the affection and love that I deserve. And she's like,

do you love me? And he says, not today. And this seems to be the catalyst for her taking her own life. Which I think, you know, not that this has never happened in history, anything like that. I, like, I guess I'm curious what you both. I mean, I just thought that was an incredible selling out of this character. Like I, well, I absolutely like, while people have taken their own lives over issues like this, it, I just, it doesn't quite square with the character we know to me. It's like, this is someone who while she is clearly heartbroken and is like, I think we see that she's drinking a lot to cope with the gaslighting and the stress, this is just not someone who I think would abandon their child like that. I just, I feel like she's got a lot. I mean, again, it's like,

I don't want to get into like a toxic pattern of like she has so much to live for it. But it just felt like, she's killed in this really tragic way to raise the stakes more than to remain faithful to the character that we've met. I agree. Yeah, I think that Christopher Nolan just did what he does best, which is kill off a woman. Or, I mean, or the novelist, you know, because this is based on a book by Christopher Priest. A different Christopher could be responsible for this crime. But, yeah, I just found it very frustrating and, like, typical of how. you know, men are quick to, yeah, I think that this is essentially like a glorified fridging moment where we haven't killed a woman since the beginning. So let's get a second dead wife in the mix. And, and the scene is just, I thought, so like overwrought with like corny symbolism

and the, the caged birds and the blah, blah, blah. And like, it just, I don't know, It was not a worthy departure to this character who our sympathies are with. And in the same way, I mean, again, she and Olivia are very different characters. But like, I think there's one scene where they might be in the same room. Yeah, they're at dinner together, the two women. But they do not speak to each other. And you're just like, I don't know. I don't know.

I just, it was, as with every Christopher Nolan movie, in history, basically, the treatment of the only women in the movie was dismissive and frustrating. Mm-hmm. Which we talk at length about on the, I think both the Inception episode and the Dark Knight episode as far as like Nolan's... Safe to assume every Nolan movie we've ever covered, we've had a version of this conversation. For sure.

But this one too. Sorry, Kayla, what were you going to say? I was going to say in magic, we kind of created the magician form of a, uh, the, the Bechtel test, which is, we call it the table test, which is if your woman assistant can be replaced by a table, then... Oh, I remember you talking about this on the Now You See Me episode. I've talked about this. Yeah.

And I think in many ways, the women in this movie could easily be replaced by a table. Like, you know, there's a lot of sad death, but besides that they're a table. Right. And that's it. Like, so it is very indicative of how many magicians treat assistants. where they're merely a prop to be manipulated and used for your own gain. So it does feel a lot like, oh, yeah, this is like legit. This is how a lot of magicians are. So the movie and the treatment of the women characters are very much similar to how magicians would treat assistance.

With that in mind, I'm curious, your thoughts about Olivia and how she's characterized throughout the film. Is Olivia Scarlett-Johanson? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Honestly, it just locked in for me. But yes, the Skirl of Jay has the character.

Yeah, how did you feel about how she was characterized? Yeah, I really should have written down their names, but they were said so minimally that I didn't remember what really anybody, what their names were. And when the whole cast is movie stars, you're like, yeah, we know. Yeah. I think in many capacities, like just going back to sort of any Houdini-based rival, like, thinking about Houdini and the spiritualism movement at the time and his weird relationship with it, kind of you brought that up earlier, Jimmy, is like there was a lot that was done with rivals in the late 1800s, early 1900s that would be sending an assistant to get some

information or find out more information, like any sort of manipulative tactics to mess with your rival was for sure done, even if it was like close to murder. So it does, feel like a thing that would have been done, but there's another element of just like magic and as it's whole. And I'm going to say this. This is my theory. There are absolutely exceptions, but I really believe that all magicians are one of two diagnoses and they're either neurodivergent. So I have ADHD. It helps. It's my superpower on stage. It's great. A lot of magicians are autistic, neurodivergent in any capacity. It makes sense because we're super nerdy and there's a lot of hyper focus on things.

But also, like, for me, my brain is so all over the place that performing, it really lends a lot to my way of performing in the comedic sensibilities I have, etc. But then there is a small subset of magic that is more manipulative and potentially narcissistic. That tends to be what comes out for a lot of magicians. And to me, in that moment, Hugh Jackman was like, no, no, no, this is all about me. I don't actually care about you at all This is about me Go get the secrets

And so it just It really just tracks for a lot of behavior that you see Especially at that time period In the magic world So it wasn't so surprising That she would have been Manipulated in that way

And then also gone and like Fall in love with two different magicians Like there was just a lot there That was like oh yeah I've seen this from people In the magic world I've seen this from women In the magic world

Farmer Yeah it feels it feels accurate It didn't need to happen in a movie but it does feel some way. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, yeah, I would just go back to like, again, this is changing the movie we have,

but it just felt like because of, there's like historical precedent for women to become more powerful in this world. I wish that she had developed into, like, I don't even care that, you know, she's like hooking up with the various magicians. You're like, yeah, that's, you know, based in any horny arts community,

like that's going to happen. But it just felt like that was where a lot of her plot relevance stopped as time went on, which is frustrating because it didn't feel like she was introduced that way. I'm not sure if maybe there's more of a story for her in the novel or less. But yeah, it just felt like by the end she was a table. You know, she was a warm body to move the plot forward. And that's a shame. It is.

I'd like to pitch if they ever decide to remake this movie, which I guess it could happen. and they're remaking Harry Potter and everything. So it's possible there could be a reboot. I would like to pitch the idea that actually at the end, when everything is like all the people have been murdered and all of the deception has been completed. And obviously these two male magic any time, too. And that actually we get to see this great spotlight on Scarlett Johansson

as a super famous magician doing magic that doesn't involve twins. and deception, like any, you know, outside of the norm sort of magic deception, any sort of personal deception. And she's just some super famous magician touring the world and everybody loves her. Like, that would be great. She'd be thriving. That would be a fun, like, even just like a fucking post-credits scene or something. Like, that would be cool. And again, like, fits with the themes of the movie where it's like, well, did she get all this success by and, you know, doing it the most ethical way possible?

know, but that's not what show business is about, baby, blah, blah, blah. You gotta get your hands dirty. Yeah, I feel like there could have easily been a subplot where Olivia, while Borden and Angie are so focused on trying to prove who's the better magician and they're sabotaging each other and they're going to each other's shows and they're shooting each other and stealing from each other and taking their diaries and blah, blah, blah, blah, this stuff. while they're distracted with that while they're misdirected perhaps Olivia is over here like learning all of their tricks yeah developing all the skills and then yeah rising to prominence

without either of them that would have been cool I wanted to go back to Sarah Borden's his wife because okay so after she dies you would think they're would be a scene where Borden discovers her body or like some aftermath of learning that she has and it's presumably his fault or he was the catalyst for it. But we do not see this on screen at all. Like why isn't there a scene where he's like, oh my God, my beloved wife is dead? Like, right, which is because we get plenty of that from Hugh Jackman at the beginning. We get multiple long shots of him like punching the wall being like what not was it he he's trying to drown himself it seems at one point oh my god yeah he's so he's so dramatic right instead what we see bored and do is tell

olivia that he never loved sarah he never loved his wife he loves olivia blah blah blah and i would say at least to the story's credit olivia says like how are you so cold sarah was your wife She was an important part of your life. Now she's gone and you don't seem to give a shit at all. And it's at that point of the movie where I think Olivia kind of disappears from this story, but at least she calls him out for this. But also, yes, the Borden we're seeing right there is not the one who's married to Sarah. But that Borden still had a relationship with Sarah.

She was his sister-in-law. He pretended to be her husband half of the time. surely he had some connection with her and some affection for her. And surely he would be upset that she died, even if she wasn't his wife. But like he is so callous about her death. And so what the fuck is that? And then also, if the movie wants to hit this theme harder of like the sacrifices you have to make to be a great artist or a great performer or whatever, in the movies trying to examine like, sure, these types of things usually mean some

sort of sacrifice, but at what cost? The movie doesn't care about the cost it takes on their relationships. It really only cares about the cost of like their own lives because most of the men end up dead by the end of the story. And it's like, well, those are the stakes. But it's also like, well, the stakes are also your meaningful relationships. in your life and several of those happen to be with your romantic partners, your daughter. And like the movie just, it doesn't seem like it cares about that that much. Yeah. I feel like I, I mean, I'm not going to like cut it any side, but it feels like for the

end to pay off, you have to like ignore certain character dynamics for it to be authentic. And like Sarah is the first person on the chopping block in terms. terms of like her death making any coherent sense. And again, it's like they should have just made a different, a different decision with that character. Like there are equally upsetting like, you know, in a world where Sarah, and I know this would have been less common at the time, but like a world where Sarah left him and took the daughter instead of killing her off in this really gruesome, I think, underthought way. And then like you're saying, Caitlin, like not show the characters react. And it also, that chafes a little bit.

bit with like who I understood Borden to be. I think that like what we're supposed to think in the moment and what I assumed because I forgot the twist at the end. I was like, oh, he's so, you know, like poisoned by fame and he has this like bad goatee now and he's blah blah. Like he's, he doesn't care what happens. But it's like, yeah, again, theoretically, if we're like cinema sinsing the plot a little bit, like this would be a big problem. between Borden and his brother. This would be a huge problem. Right.

Like you forgot to convince my wife that I love her and now she's dead and now I hate you, bro. Yeah. The jig. And we already know how like, whatever, Borden has ended a longstanding relationship over a very similar issue before, a dead wife problem. But that spoils the reveal and all this other stuff where it's like, yeah, for the, for the, For the plot of the movie to work, you just sort of have to like, it's interesting who the movie assumes that you will ignore and forget about. And it's the women characters who they've underwritten the entire time.

Right. Yeah. Not to mention the movie doesn't even acknowledge the abuse inherent in not telling your wife that sometimes you're a different guy. Yeah, that's, the amount of manipulation and lying and gaslighting. That is full assault and abuse. and like why wouldn't they tell them? Right. Why?

If I were a twin, it would be weird to be like, hey, could you actually go to my home today? I don't feel like it. Why don't you do it? That's weird. Yeah, right. That makes no sense. Yeah, can you kiss my wife today?

I'm tired. I'm busy. I'm busy. Yeah, you're like, what is the reason? Yeah. What is the reason that's like, sacrifice? But you're like, but that seems. more complicated than just going home.

Yeah. And whose daughter is it? Like what? There's just, it's, it's, it's, I just have so many questions. Right. So the twins, I think that it's, it, I guess we're to believe that she is reunited with her biological father. Yeah.

That is confirmed. Yeah. The biological father of the little girl whose name is Jess. But you're just, I'm sort of like, what Michael Kane raised her? Like I, you know, it seems like her, the odds would be. better for her. Not that Michael Cain seems like an ideal caretaker, but

like he's... He's better. He hasn't... As far as I know, he's only killed birds. I don't think he's killed people. Yeah. So... No twin. No twin. He doesn't know twin that he's

switching off his life with. Yeah. There is a narrative that happens, and this is not only to the magic worlds, but it's a narrative that exists everywhere. But I just know I've heard it a lot. If you go to a magic convention, the chances of like a 60-ish-year-old white guy just complaining a lot about how his wife doesn't understand him as a magician. And therefore, she won't come to conventions anymore because she hates magic and she doesn't like that I do it.

And I've taken over our guest room with all of my magic stuff. And my wife hates it. And my wife, my wife. It's so, and I know that's everywhere, but it is like a really interesting thing to be like, oh, there's your wife. Are we exploring the fact that your wife just doesn't understand that this is who you are and what you do? Or what is this? And I think ultimately it's just nothing. It's just let's move the plot.

It's a plot point. But it is just a thing to be like, oh, yeah, that's right. A lot of people complain that their wads don't understand them and their magic tricks. Then she won't pick a card for me anymore because she's sick of it. I get it. I'm sick of it. I get it. I think that there is especially in, and this is like a lesson that I've.

again like I've been on both sides of I'm assuming we kind of all have is like it's especially it's like creative like if if someone if you're creative and someone's dating you like I almost I'm like it's weird if they're coming to every show like there should be boundaries in place and it's like there's there's a line between like I feel supported it would be it would be it would make me feel sad if my partner came to no shows ever sure but I would also be kind of like it's not I don't know when someone's like my my wife comes to every show you're like that's beautiful I am sort of like what does she need to and are you going to every single one of her things whatever she's got going on what yeah how are you how are you reciprocating I mean again to each their own but I think like yeah it's I mean speaking to that dynamic Kayla it's like I want you know Sarah I would imagine Sarah is not as interested in it might not even be that she's not interested, she's probably just raising their child, which he is not doing in spite of the fact that

there's two of him and one kid. He actually should be present more, you would think. Right. And if they're in a committed relationship where they love and trust each other, why wouldn't you tell your wife that you have a two-in brother and say, hey, make sure to don't tell anyone else. Like, this, maintaining this secret is crucial to the integrity of my career. But, I guess integrity is a funny word there, but like to maintain my illusions, my magic, you have to keep this under wraps because like being in an intimate relationship with someone does, there is a level of trust that you have to agree to do with each other. And it seems like they probably had that, or at least that Sarah was willing and able to be

a trustworthy partner for him. But as it's so often the case, men have trouble reciprocating the honesty and vulnerability and emotional labor that is necessary to maintain a relationship. Yeah, which just means more of like the table of it all. The like the women of this movie are more like stakes machines than someone who's like interior life is really being thought about, which again is just like as much as I love a lot of his work, the least surprising thing to hear about a Christopher Nolan movie that you could possibly here.

Like, I guess he sort of tried to write a woman in Oppenheimer, but like, it's just not going to happen at this point. And I don't, at this way, I'm like, I don't even want him to. I don't even want him to. I don't want to know after like 500 years what he's like, wait a second. I'm like, I don't want to know what he thinks we're thinking. Right. That's none of my business.

Well, speaking of Christopher Nolan. So he directed the movie, of course. He co-wrote the screenplay with his brother. Yeah, Jonathan Nolan. Who he works with all the time. Who he works with all the time. They co-write a lot of scripts together. But the joke I was trying to like craft in my head was like,

what if there's a reverse prestige thing happening with these two brothers where we think they're brothers, but it's really just one man because has anyone even seen Jonathan Nolan in public? Wow. Okay. Have we seen them together? Are there even two men? I think it's just Christopher.

and poor Jonathan catching astray. So does that mean that like they both have partners that only one of them is actually married to both of them? One man is married to both of them. They're both married to Emma Thompson. No. That's, I don't know. I don't know what's messy or the movie or that plot. Like it's great.

That's just my little head canon, but it's probably not true. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about? We've been talking for the runtime of the movie. Yeah, I think let's call it. Let's call it. Unless, Kayla, unless you have more to get into. That was everything I had. There's always so much of a rabbit hole I could go down with weird magic history.

But today is, we've talked enough. We get it. Magic's weird. It's great. This is awesome. Rabbit hole pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Is that anything? Fish bowl.

Fish bowl. rabbit hole. Yes. So sit with that listeners. Yeah, think about that. That's really why we're all here today. The movie does not pass the Bechal test, as we said. There is a scene where Olivia is telling one of the Bordons. She's like, the day before Sarah died, she told me that she wanted to meet with me, but I chickened out and I didn't end up meeting with her.

and then Olivia wonders what Sarah might have said. So there's sort of like a speculation of a conversation that could have happened between two women. Does it pass the Bechtel test if a woman thought about talking to another woman and then ultimately didn't? Well, the conversation. By the way, that would have been about men. Yes. For sure. Yeah.

So no. So no. But rating the movie on the Bechtel cast Nipple Scale where we rate from a scale of zero to five nipples, based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. You know, this gets a half nipple. Because, because I would say we see Julia, the first fridged wife who gets killed during the magic trick. We see her do magic. We see her.

We see an escape artist act from her. She's barely acknowledged as doing such by the movie. but you know we're see here we see here there's visibility so because of that a half nipple and i give it to the duplicated cats who are just kind of running around in the snow at tesla's headquarters i loved it i loved it i've got to i've got to say it's a little it's a little harsh for a movie i enjoy so much but i got to go zero i got to go zero i what i really appreciate is i i was really looking forward to this conversation because I knew Kayla was going to have some incredible background. And sure enough, you did not disappoint.

Yes. You once again delivered. You always do. And thank you for giving. I'm like more excited about what you told us about historically. And I'm going to think about a woman being sought in half because of suffrage for so long. So it's worth the ride. It's a fun.

It's a fun movie. I enjoy it. I like, I still really enjoy it. But no nipples. No nipples. Women appear. but mostly to be fringed or caught up in a twisted assault-based sexual relationship. So, yeah.

Kayla, how about you? I would have. I think, like, inherently, I also would have got a half a nipple because of Julia, who did, in fact, do, like, a very difficult escape. But then there was an immediate minus of half nipple with the Chungling Sue situation. Yeah. And so I think ultimately it's zero, but if I were to give it to anybody, I would want to give it to Andy Circus, who really had to act his way into convincing everybody how great Tesla was. So in an American accent, no less.

Yeah. I love to see him walking up. I just was so, I forgot that Caitlin, you reminded me Andy Circus was in this and I had like had a little squeal. I love him. He should get to be people more. Well, I don't know. He should do whatever he wants. Yeah. His body of work, his choice. Yes. Sometimes, if there's one thing he's going to do, he's going to put the dots on.

He loves to put the dots on. And I, and no one puts the dots on like him. Benedict Comberbatch tried. True. Benedict Cumberbatch is the other actor who plays a main character in the current war, 2017. Wow. Never forget. It all comes full circle. Kayla, thank you so much for joining us.

What a magical conversation. Where can people follow you? Tell us more about your venue and your shows. Yeah, so you can follow me. My Instagram and everything is magic in heels. Heels like your shoes, not like a doctor. I do have to say that now for reasons. Double E to be clear.

And the venue that I now co-owned with my partner Harrison is called Cosmic Underground Theater, which is also our social media handles. You can see us perform every weekend, Fridays and Saturdays in Chicago. So if you're in Chicago, we want to come to a cool show, come. We'd love to have you. It's great. Thank you both so much for having me. This is great.

I always love being here, so thank you for having me again. Thank you for coming back. I just always learn a million new things that I'm fascinated by every time we talk. You can find us in all the regular places, aka our Patreon, our Patreon. a.k.a. our matrion, where for $5 a month, you can get two bonus episodes with just Caitlin and myself on a theme usually of your choosing. Sometimes we disrespect democracy. And as well as access to our entire back catalog of nearly 200 episodes, which includes more men being bitches to each other. It's true. This is an important entry to the canon, and I'm glad that we got around to it as we

work our way through the men being bitches subgenre. Yes, absolutely. Yes. And with that, we're going to disappear. Abercadabra. Bye. Then we die. Okay. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of IHeart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtenen. And edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them? That's me. And our logo and merch and all of our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus, ever heard of her? Oh my God. And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan. With vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski.

Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast. You know, Roald Dahl. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. but did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Dahl, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either.

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