Obsession

Obsession is defined as the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc. This being said, there is at least one case of obsession in every film we've seen so far. In The Dark Knight, the Joker is obsessed with causing chaos and Batman is obsessed with finding the Joker. In Singin' in the Rain, they were obsessed with making a movie that talked. In High Noon, Kane is obsessed with his job. In Proof, you could say that Catherine is obsessed with her father. Finally, in The Prestige, there is obvious obsession in Angier's life.

The Dark Knight is a very peculiar film when it comes to obsession. Most of the characters in the film are somewhat obsessed. Batman is obsessed with stopping the Joker and trying to get rid of the Batman. Batman's intentions are good and some good did come from stopping the Joker eventually. However, he used a rather weird method to finally bring an end to the Joker. He had Fox spy on the whole city using a giant sonar system, just to find his enemy. This might be seen as taking it a little far but he did what he thought he had to do. The Joker was definitely obsessed with causing chaos and fighting Batman. He shows this when he is being interrogated by Batman. He said, "You just couldn't let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won't kill you because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever." You could also say that Harvey Dent is obsessed with justice. He goes maybe a little overboard trying to find answers when he threatens to kill someone if the coin landed wrong, shown in the picture below. Before that, he stole an ambulance with the man who shot Gordon in it. That was where we started to see Harvey go from good to bad.

Singin' in the Rain is a great film about movie making and you don't really notice obsession in it unless you think about it. When the idea of talking in movies was introduced to the characters in the movie, they were shocked and claimed that it would never catch on. Very shortly after they said this, they were, in fact, attempting to make a talkie. In doing so, they had some issues and they became obsessed with fixing them. Don Lockwood, was obsessed with making sure Kathy got her chance at being a star. Together they came up with the idea of making the movie a musical. Since Lina wasn't a good singer, they came up with the idea of Kathy covering the voice of Lina so it would sound good. Good definitely came out of this obsession as Kathy was discovered as the true singer. For Lina it wasn't good, but she was seen as the "bad guy" in the movie so we view it as okay.

In High Noon, it is pretty easy to pick out the obsession. It's Kane's obsession to his job and with that, protecting the town. He's so obsessed that he loses his partner and all of the towns support. Even though no one in the town agrees with him, he still decides to take on four villains all on his own. Also, in the beginning when Kane and his new wife were leaving town, he told her that he had to go back. She told him she'd leave him if he did go back. Despite this, they still turned around so Kane could protect the town. I'd say that that's obvious obsession because he risked his relationship with his new wife just to do his job that was relieved from him. He is also set on the idea that Frank Miller must die when he got there. This is why he tries to get deputies but his efforts come up short. He goes to the point that he knows he is likely to die, shown in the first 30 seconds of this video, but he still goes through with it.

In Proof you have to look a little bit harder to see the obsessions. Catherine, as I see it, has an obsession with her father. When Catherine is going to college, she loses contact with her father and calls Claire to see if she knows what's wrong. When she finds out that Claire doesn't know, she no longer wants to talk to her. She then made a relatively short road trip to her fathers house that was thirty minutes away just to see that he was okay. He claimed he was too busy to answer the phone and that it was a distraction. This shows that he was obsessed with his work even if it didn't make sense to other people. Catherine also lived with him for a long time to make sure that he was okay. When he died and Claire came for the funeral, she seemed set on taking Catherine back to New York and maybe seeking help for her sanity. She was so sure she'd bring Catherine back with her that she went ahead and sold the house that Catherine had been living in for the past few years. While all of that is happening, Hal is pursuing his obsession of finding out if Catherine's proof is a proof and if she really wrote it. This obsession did lead to good because we are led to believe that it is indeed a proof and that she did write it. We see this at the end when they start going over it together.

Finally, we come to The Prestige. The Prestige has the most obvious obsession out of all these films. Angier is most definitely obsessed with seeking revenge on Borden and eventually finding the secret to Borden's "Transported Man" trick. He demonstrates his obsession several times. When he was seeking revenge, he went to Borden's show and shot Borden. This wasn't enough for him though. When he saw the transported man, he wanted to do it as well but better so he could steal the fame. At first he was successful because of his showmanship but because of his obsession, he had to make it real. He brought Fallon's life into the problem and buried him alive to ask Borden what the secret was. He traveled to America and spent an enormous amount of money to get the real thing. This caused him to kill himself every time he performed the trick. Because of this, Borden is accused of murder and Angier just let it happen instead of letting him live. This turned out for the worse for Angier because he didn't know there was two of Borden and the one that survived killed Angier. This is an example where no good came from the obsession. This video demonstrates Angier's obsession quite well when it comes to finding Borden's secret.

At least one of the characters in every one of these films had a domination of their thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, or a desire. Obsession played a huge role in most of these films and without it, they wouldn't be very good at all.

The Prestige

When Borden tells Sarah's nephew that secrets impress no one, the first time I watched it I had to disagree. I did so because I found myself searching for the secret throughout the entire movie. Later on, however, as I watched it again, I have to agree with Borden. The secret is the part of the trick that everyone looks for but when they find out the trick has no meaning and won't impress anyone. I'd say that the line has a double meaning as well. While he is talking directly to Sarah's nephew, he is also talking to the viewers. He is telling us not to tell anyone the secret if we figure it out. I think Christopher Nolan didn't intend for this but it still applies because of the way the plot thickens and is set up. I also feel like Angier feels differently about secrets. The way he pursues Borden's secret suggests that he values the secret to the trick much, much more than the trick itself. I think he feels this way because he is naturally a better showman than Borden so he doesn't worry about building the trick up to the climax because it comes naturally. This would help explain his obsession for the secret, in my opinion.

High Noon

Most of the town was against Kane's position to fight Frank Miller when he came to town. A few of the arguments they made were good arguments. The best one I heard was in the church. It was when the guy gave the speech on how the government was almost ready to send the town money to build factories and businesses. If there was a fight in the streets then the government wouldn't want to send them money. I think that this is a very good argument. At the same time, however, I believe that when Frank got there, they wouldn't be able to let him come without a fight. From what we heard about him in the movie, I had the idea that he was a criminal and that's how he brought all the business to the hotel and the bar. If this is true, then the fact that the government would send them money if there wasn't a fight is false. They still wouldn't send them money because there'd be crime in the town. I'd say that in this case, one fight in the streets leaving four criminals dead in the street is better than just letting them come in to town and with them, bring a bunch of criminal activity.