Shadows, Street Lights, and Confessions

One of the most common forms of narration in film Noir (French for black film) is the main character telling their own story. This is sometimes done by talking directly to the audience. In Detour (1945) the main character speaks to the audience as if they perceive him as the villain. This mellow approach gives the audience the idea that he is possibly only a victim in the situation, and not the criminal he's perceived to be. Less direct approaches can be seen in Double Indemnity (1944), where a man begins the film by talking into a recorder. This helps to give the audience a third person perspective of the film and discombobulate their perception of reality. The film ends where it begins by continuing on after the man's confession is complete. Many modern day films have adapted these narration techniques and use them quite frequently. A few of these films are The Prestige (2006) and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1999).

At the beginning of The Prestige, a man is drowned in a tank during the final act of a performance. It just so happens that his adversary is caught behind the stage and is expected to have killed him. The plot line then becomes extremely choppy and discombobulated as scenes mixed with random thoughts and memories come to life in a non-sequential order. As the story unfolds and the plot begins to make some coherent sense, it approaches the movie's opening scene. Through this mechanism we see the director able to better manipulate reactions from the audience.

Jack talks to himself, throughout all of Fight Club, this man truly makes you ponder his sanity. Most of his nights he spends thinking about sleeping (suffering from Insomnia) and going to meeting for drug and sex addicts because they boost his self-esteem. He narrates the events throughout the movie by talking to himself (or perhaps your supposed to be his subconscious interpreting events). This method of storytelling makes Jack an unreliable source of information for events because you can obviously tell he's insane. Eventually the author uses this shortcoming to throw in a literary twist, (which I won't ruin) I've never seen before in movies.

Throughout many modern day films we can see the older black and white films leaking through. Some of what may seem extremely original, then becomes not so original when you understand its origins. The film the prestige takes many of its discombobulated narrative techniques from the film Noir genre. Fight club also uses these tweaks with Jack telling the story from the end to the beginning as a reflection in his conscious. Through a better understanding of the original films, we better grasp the usage and development of them.

The Prestige Trailer