What Does The Ending Of The Prestige Really Mean?

4. The Ending

the prestige oscar€œWhich hat is mine?€ €“ Angier to Tesla When the credits roll the first thing the typical viewer will do is revisit the movie in their mind and arrange the series of twists, turns and misdirections in chronological order. We then begin to understand that Angier was actually always Lord Caldow, but he adopted the alias of Angier/ The Great Danton so that he would not bring shame on his well-to-do aristocratic family, and so that he could perform his magic without anyone knowing who he truly was. When his wife was killed in a stage accident, he set out on a course of revenge against the man he believed was culpable- Borden. Angier€™s version of €œThe Transported Man€ utilised Nikola Tesla€™s machine, which duplicated his body each night. The key here is that the duplicated Angier would take over from the previous version of Angier every night of the performance, whilst the previous version of Angier would be drowned and killed as the unseen part of the trick- the duplicate would retain the memories of the previous version of Angier up until the moment that Tesla€™s machine duplicated him. Borden in actuality had a twin brother, and each of the twins would take turns being the man we know throughout the movie as Borden. When one brother was Borden, the other would play the part of his ingénieur Fallon. Borden€™s version of €œThe Transported Man€ used the €˜double€™, which was exactly how Cutter relayed to Angier that the trick had been performed all along. One of the twins loved Sarah, the other loved Olivia; one of the twins was jailed and killed by hanging, the other twin explained his secret to and then shot Angier, before being reunited with Jess. There are rafts of clues presented throughout the movie to show us the reality but, testament to Nolan€™s genius, these only become apparent on subsequent viewings. The key clues** for each character are as follows:
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