If you've yet to see Nolan's masterful, magical mystery film, "The Prestige," it is set largely in turn-of-the-century London, and finds a pair of gifted magicians (portrayed by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) locked in a fierce battle of wits and wills as they obsessively attempt to upstage one another with the perfect illusion. That battle gets more twisted, and far deadlier, than either man likely would've expected. And yes, it gets wonderfully weird about halfway through the action, when Jackman's character makes the journey from London to the mountains of Colorado in search of a scientist who can build a complicated machine capable of aiding him in his magical endeavors.
That man turns out to be none other than legendary real-life inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, who indeed spent considerable time conducting radical experiments with electricity and wireless technologies in Colorado Springs circa the late 1890s and early 1900s (per PBS). And without spoiling anything for those who haven't seen "The Prestige," the machine Tesla ultimately makes does something that can only be described as unexpected.
As for Bowie's appearance as Tesla in "The Prestige," it was every bit as unexpected for many viewers, as it was not widely publicized ahead of the film's release. Likewise, the artist's entrance into the world of "The Prestige," was as electrifying as it was utterly unforgettable. So, too, was Bowie's performance, with the actor skillfully internalizing Tesla's rich emotional states while still deftly conveying the restless intellectual workings of his beyond fertile mind.
