tykjen wrote: But in my opinion The Dark Knight was predictable like Avatar in comparison to The Prestige. At least I knew Two Face was in the making with Rachel being his girl, I knew The Joker was not to be messed with from the opening scene. Batman was still in the making a year later after Begins, and far from a fully fledged super hero crime fighter..and he accepted in the end that he had to sacrifice himself for his crazed obsession of crime fighting. Being a vigilante is never the answer.

This has nothing to do with the themes of the movie, and you didn't really reference my post in anyway. I'm not sure how to respond.

theweatherman wrote:

tykjen wrote: But in my opinion The Dark Knight was predictable like Avatar in comparison to The Prestige. At least I knew Two Face was in the making with Rachel being his girl, I knew The Joker was not to be messed with from the opening scene. Batman was still in the making a year later after Begins, and far from a fully fledged super hero crime fighter..and he accepted in the end that he had to sacrifice himself for his crazed obsession of crime fighting. Being a vigilante is never the answer.

This has nothing to do with the themes of the movie, and you didn't really reference my post in anyway. I'm not sure how to respond.

Nothing to do with the themes? Sorry if you see it that way (evil vs good). But the discussion that the smart Ballerina, Harvey, Wayne and Rachel had at the dinner table, was a [pivotal] foreshadowing to me on the movie's themes of obsession and sacrifice (getting kind of overly used by Nolan now I gotta say) and what was going to happen. Batman could not be Batman FOREVER! He would need someone civil to take over for his crazed and obsessive crime fighting. But not without sacrifice as he spawned THE ultimate psychological villain who did not care for the civilized world. (blow up a truck full of soldiers and nobody cares, compared to a truck with politicians, was one I liked)

Samsara17 wrote:Thanks, I enjoyed reading your posts as well.

My only point was this, you said it was wrong for people to have different views on what themes are present in a piece of literature, I say that with literature, whether it be a poem, a novel, or a screenplay, it is ALWAYS open for interpretation, and always allows people the chance to find new themes that are present in the story that another person may have previously overlooked. If people’s views played no factor in determining what themes are present in a novel, we wouldn’t have scholars today still trying to discover new depth in the works of classic writers.

And with The Prestige, my point was that perhaps you haven’t analyzed the film enough to see the presence of themes such as Hate, Loss, Infidelity, etc. I’m not arguing whether you consider them themes or not, or what defines a theme, I’m arguing that you haven’t noticed the themes that are clearly present in the film. It’s not a matter of arguing what a theme is, because I agree with your definition on a theme entirely, my point is that you’ve only seen these “themes” as simply elements of the film, but as I said before, literature is about interpretation, if people here are able to see how these elements present themselves as themes that can be applied to the whole story, then there opinion is justifiable, and so far, many people in this thread feel this way.

You don't understand that literature has nothing to do with movies.

Those themes exist in The Prestige but they are not main themes and they are barely even secondary themes. They are just a shade of a theme. A theme refers to something put in general. You talk about details in a movie. Love which is no more than 15 minutes added up in the whole movie. Infidelity is not even explored much. So how could something that's BARELY EXPLORED in a 2 hours movie be a solid theme? Are we talking about the themes in a movie or about what SUBJECTS it approaches? I have a feeling you're thinking too much about literature. This is a movie. In filmmaking there are some "rules" or the filmmaking is guided by some principles... You cannot consider a theme something that's barely approached. Like I said... in a movies there are barely approached more than two solid themes... Because a movie is shorter than a piece of literature. It cannot provide enough time to develop each theme. For a movie to have 8 to 10 themes like you say then the movie must be also 8 to 10 hours long lol...

Don't confuse the screenwriting and the themes in a movie with the themes in literature and in the writing of a novel... These are two different things.

Based on your example and some others that think the same then for each scene you would have a separate theme because each scene must mean something. Oh yeah, so now the meaning of that scene or the meaning of a couple of scenes is now defined as a theme in a movie? Since when?...

A theme is a container... those scenes, the meanings, the various subjects approached, the various sub-themes or whatever you wanna call them are just content... And every movie has a lot of content. I can look at Armaggeddon and say it's as complex theme-wise as The Dark Knight and The Prestige based on your judgment.

Best case I ever saw of children playing

Please give us a lecture in Armageddon based on your opinion on themes. Can't wait.

The discussion is totally pointless IMHO ... what has deepness of a movie to do with the NUMBER of themes it explores? I would always tend to the contrary ... the more different themes / topics / subjects / whatever are addressed, the shallower the approach must be because of the limited time. I always found the biggest problem with TDK the lack of focus. The movie tried to make statements on so many different things. There were whole plot lines that could have been left out without hurting the movie; on the contrary.

For me, a movie is deep if it shows me many different angles of the subject it explores and if it's thought-provoking. In that discipline, Prestige beats TDK by a mile IMHO.

Alex wrote:The discussion is totally pointless IMHO ... what has deepness of a movie to do with the NUMBER of themes it explores? I would always tend to the contrary ... the more different themes / topics / subjects / whatever are addressed, the shallower the approach must be because of the limited time. I always found the biggest problem with TDK the lack of focus. The movie tried to make statements on so many different things. There were whole plot lines that could have been left out without hurting the movie; on the contrary.

For me, a movie is deep if it shows me many different angles of the subject it explores and if it's thought-provoking. In that discipline, Prestige beats TDK by a mile IMHO.

Well put again. :shh:

Alex wrote:The discussion is totally pointless IMHO ... what has deepness of a movie to do with the NUMBER of themes it explores?

&

Alex wrote:For me, a movie is deep if it shows me many different angles of the subject it explores and if it's thought-provoking. In that discipline, Prestige beats TDK by a mile IMHO.

Alex wrote:
The discussion is totally pointless IMHO ... what has deepness of a movie to do with the NUMBER of themes it explores?

I'm not arguing that deepness means amount of themes, I'm arguing that RIFA is disregarding some aspects of the Prestige, and that he seems to have a very strict idea of what themes are. A theme is merely a broad idea, message, or moral explored through a written work, therefore there's a lot of breathing room to say what is a theme.

RIFA wrote:You don't understand that literature has nothing to do with movies.

A screenplay is literature, it is a work of fiction that is written, and Nolan spent about 5 years writting the screenplay for the Prestige. He put a lot of effort into adapting this story, and to say his work isn't literature seems like an insult to Nolan imo.

Literature: the art of written works
Screenplay: a written work that is made especially for a film

So yes, it is literature.

Those themes exist in The Prestige but they are not main themes and they are barely even secondary themes. They are just a shade of a theme. A theme refers to something put in general. You talk about details in a movie. Love which is no more than 15 minutes added up in the whole movie. Infidelity is not even explored much. So how could something that's BARELY EXPLORED in a 2 hours movie be a solid theme? Are we talking about the themes in a movie or about what SUBJECTS it approaches? I have a feeling you're thinking too much about literature. This is a movie. In filmmaking there are some "rules" or the filmmaking is guided by some principles... You cannot consider a theme something that's barely approached. Like I said... in a movies there are barely approached more than two solid themes... Because a movie is shorter than a piece of literature. It cannot provide enough time to develop each theme. For a movie to have 8 to 10 themes like you say then the movie must be also 8 to 10 hours long lol...

Don't confuse the screenwriting and the themes in a movie with the themes in literature and in the writing of a novel... These are two different things.

Based on your example and some others that think the same then for each scene you would have a separate theme because each scene must mean something. Oh yeah, so now the meaning of that scene or the meaning of a couple of scenes is now defined as a theme in a movie? Since when?...

A theme is a container... those scenes, the meanings, the various subjects approached, the various sub-themes or whatever you wanna call them are just content... And every movie has a lot of content. I can look at Armaggeddon and say it's as complex theme-wise as The Dark Knight and The Prestige based on your judgment.

Read more: http://www.nolanfans.com/forums/posting ... zz1RAuUgtX

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Again, you aren't giving the "themes" the credit they deserve. The "themes" mentioned in the Prestige encompass the entire story, all the actions, the character developement, and characterization, they act as the very essence of the entire film, it simply seems like you haven't seen it from a certain perspective that would allow you to notice these elements as themes. You're argument is that they don't appear in the story enough to qualify them as themes, my argument is they do in fact appear enough to give them the title of themes. These themes were explored very deeply, at times directly, at times very subtley. They really shine within the motives and psychology of the characters.

I agree with you that something only explored in a movie for 15 minutes shouldn't be considered a major theme, but things like Hate and Loss are explored throughout the entire story of the Prestige, represented through the actions and dialogues of the characters, and drives the plot foward. So why should we disregard them as not being themes? As I said before, I honestly don't want to explain how things such as Hate and Loss are justified as themes in the Prestige, but if you want you can always watch the film again, analyze it with them in mind, and try to see how they present themselves in the story of the characters.

@Alex you're right about the depth. great post. a theme or a number of themes have barely anything to do with the deepness of a movie... Why? Because like I said... a theme addresses the general and not the details. Details give depth in a movie.

Samsara17 wrote:A screenplay is literature, it is a work of fiction that is written, and Nolan spent about 5 years writting the screenplay for the Prestige. He put a lot of effort into adapting this story, and to say his work isn't literature seems like an insult to Nolan imo.

Literature: the art of written works
Screenplay: a written work that is made especially for a film

So yes, it is literature.

1. There's no disrespect to Nolan. Stop bringing Nolan into this like his name means something in this debate... You think Nolan is the only one who spent 5 years writing something? And let me tell you that Nolan didn't spent 5 years writing a screenplay. I think if you add the hours he spent writing that screenplay you don't get more than 1 month. It's just that in that time of 5 years he built the story for The Prestige. He had other movies in development in that same time, he had to write stories for other movies in that same time etc. So don't tell me that he spent 5 years like it's a big deal. For your knowledge there are writers, real writers, that spend 5 years writing a book and they write daily for hours... That is literature. That is hard work and 5 years spent on writing a novel. It's like people thinking that Nolan really spent 10 years writing the screen for Inception. lol. He never said that.

2. You bolded that fits your theory but left unbolded the part that fits mine. Here's how I would bold those definitions...

Literature: the art of written works
Screenplay: a written work that is made especially for a film

It's not the same approach in writing. You can't say a novel and a screenplay are the same. They are not. They have tons of differences. They are not even written in the same way and using the same style.

Samsara17 wrote:Again, you aren't giving the "themes" the credit they deserve.

There's no credit that they deserve. If there is a theme in that movie it is, if not, then it isn't. It's that simple.

Samsara17 wrote:You're argument is that they don't appear in the story enough to qualify them as themes, my argument is they do in fact appear enough to give them the title of themes.

No they are not. Just because you felt a little emotion and you felt like "oh.. nice way of approaching love here" doesn't mean they are themes.

Do you really don't understand the concept that based on your judgment ANY movie will have 20 themes? What message impresses you in a story doesn't necessarily mean it's a theme...

Samsara17 wrote:but if you want you can always watch the film again, analyze it with them in mind, and try to see how they present themselves in the story of the characters.

I watched the film. Trust me, The Prestige touches a lot of areas and issues, however not all these areas or issues are themes.

I don't complicate things, on the contrary I make them easier. I don't go that deep to say a movie has 10 themes because It's not possible and it would just provide chaos and recklessness in my mind because then any movie will have a million themes because I felt they touched 100 different sensitive or smart areas or issues. I don't do that. I keep it easier and "by the book".

Stay close to the format and don't lose yourself into details unless it's required to.

There's no disrespect to Nolan. Stop bringing Nolan into this like his name means something in this debate... You think Nolan is the only one who spent 5 years writing something? And let me tell you that Nolan didn't spent 5 years writing a screenplay. I think if you add the hours he spent writing that screenplay you don't get more than 1 month. It's just that in that time of 5 years he built the story for The Prestige. He had other movies in development in that same time, he had to write stories for other movies in that same time etc. So don't tell me that he spent 5 years like it's a big deal. For your knowledge there are writers, real writers, that spend 5 years writing a book and they write daily for hours... That is literature. That is hard work and 5 years spent on writing a novel. It's like people thinking that Nolan really spent 10 years writing the screen for Inception. lol. He never said that.

First, I don’t appreciate you making demands, I was trying to have a polite debate with you, there’s no need for that here. And secondly, lol obviously Nolan didn't spend 5 years straight writing The Prestige, nor would I expect anyone to do that for a screenplay. My point was that for 5 years, the Prestige was in his mind, and he was often working on it extensively. He put a lot of work and emotion into making it, that's all I meant. And of course a writer spending 5 years writing a novel isn't that crazy, there’s a lot more to write with a novel, a hell of a lot more than a screenplay. And I see no problem with mentioning Nolan, this is his film we are discussing, and the writer of any written work is always important in knowing the context of which it was made in.

It's not the same approach in writing. You can't say a novel and a screenplay are the same. They are not. They have tons of differences. They are not even written in the same way and using the same style.

I never said a novel and a screenplay are the same, I said a screenplay is literature, which it is. Literature is any work that is made through writing, which is exactly what a screenplay is. The definition I provided also backs up my earlier claim that literature is indeed an art form.

No they are not. Just because you felt a little emotion and you felt like "oh.. nice way of approaching love here" doesn't mean they are themes.

Do you really don't understand the concept that based on your judgment ANY movie will have 20 themes? What message impresses you in a story doesn't necessarily mean it's a theme...

I watched the film. Trust me, The Prestige touches a lot of areas and issues, however not all these areas or issues are themes.

I don't complicate things, on the contrary I make them easier. I don't go that deep to say a movie has 10 themes because It's not possible and it would just provide chaos and recklessness in my mind because then any movie will have a million themes because I felt they touched 100 different sensitive or smart areas or issues. I don't do that. I keep it easier and "by the book".

Stay close to the format and don't lose yourself into details unless it's required to.

I'm not sure what to tell you, I, as well as many people on this forum, are able to see the Prestige as a film rich in many aspects, themes being one of them. If someone was to ask me how things such as Hate and Loss are themes of the Prestige, I would have no problem thoroughly proving how they encompass the entirety of the story. I also never said any movie has 10 major themes, so I don’t know why you keep bringing that up to me.