The Prestige: The Immersive, Meta Cinematic Effect/ Momentum in Film Narrative Yasser Owino College

As a filmmaker, Christopher Nolan always wants to walk a fine line. If there's one fundamental theme that suffuses his entire filmography is that cinema as a shared narrative can be a hugely powerful cultural force. I'm far from the first to notice or mention that many of his films reference film itself. For example, the “Inception” team bears a strong resemblance to a film crew. Interestingly, though a lot of his work could be called meta cinematic, Nolan is extremely careful about avoiding meta cinematic images in his work. For example, in the established Batman continuity, Bruce Wayne and his parents are out to see “The Mask of Zorro” film before the fateful double murder that insights the Dark Knight's whole saga. In “Batman Begins” however, Nolan's retelling of that origin; the Wayne's are out to the opera “Mefistofele” instead. That change is a purposeful one as Nolan has said, “We didn't have young Bruce Wayne going to see Zorro because a character in a film watching a film is very different from a character in a comic book watching a film. It creates a deconstructionist thing that we were trying to avoid.” The reason Nolan tries to avoid this is that over and above everything, his cinema has always been about immersion....