‘Prestige,’ ‘Illusionist’ explore magic differently
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By MELISSA OLSON
Thursday, January 25, 2007 1:52 PM CST
Special to the Herald
Ten years ago, FOX decided it was about time to pull the curtain away from the business of magic tricks. They found a not-so-famous magician, put him in a mask, and produced four specials called “Breaking the Magician’s Code:Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed.”
As the title suggests, these specials exposed the secrets of famous tricks like sawing a woman in half, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, escaping a straitjacket, and so on.
No more wonder. No more curiosity. Just the oh-so-satisfying mechanics of how to fool people.
And, to no one’s great surprise, there was quite a backlash. The Masked Magician, as he was known in the specials, was banned from every magician’s organization in the United States.
Even Hollywood, that unparticular home of the world’s best and worst of everything, refused to touch him. And magic, in whatever form it had been before, faded from the American culture.
It has gone the way of David Copperfields and Blaine, more about stunts than beliefs. And we don’t think about it that much anymore. You can’t un-know something, after all.
But in that time, where the old-fashioned magic has faded into the background, a new magic has exploded into our world.
Every weekend, on thousands of screens across the country, we can see Superman fly. We can see — and with Dolby Digital Surround Sound and IMAX screens, even feel — monster houses try to eat children, and talking cars fall in love, and velociraptors attacking a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Special effects have gotten better and better, to the point where a few years ago a nice young man with an unruly beard managed to convince us all that hobbits and elves can win against treacherous villains and an evil presence.
Movies are the new magic, and it is very, very good.
It is fascinating, then, that in the last year we’ve had not one but two movies set in the world of old-fashioned magic, of top hats and rabbits and abracadabra.
“The Illusionist,” starring Ed Norton as a magician in love with the fiancé of his worst enemy, came out last October, just a few weeks before the higher-profile “The Prestige,” featuring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival magicians trying to outdo one another.
Both films were set in the 19th century. Both had beautiful young starlets and famous character actors, designer lighting and eloquent speeches.
But most importantly, both use magic as the battleground for a war between two men.
I won’t go deeply into the plots of these movies here — it’s too easy to spoil movies about incredible mysteries. Just know that both films are probably worth seeing. “The Prestige” is twisty and clever, with all of the shiny flash-bang gorgeousness that modern film can provide.
Time jumps back and forth, there are deaths and betrayals and affairs and tragedy, all packed tightly in their glossy package. But despite all its convolution, the whole film is about the mechanics of the trick: which trick is best, which is most difficult, and, most importantly of course, how they are done.
Director Christopher Nolan gleefully shows us every trap door, every trick knot, every planted participant, until the story is reduced to an empty, obsessed battle between two empty, obsessed men. In a movie about men trying to come up with the greatest possible magic trick, we are left with no magic to believe in.
“The Illusionist,” on the other hand, is much more in love with its subject matter. Adopting the warm dusty browns of its time period, this film still respects the idea that maybe it’s better not to know everything after all. Eisenheim, the lovestruck magician, can summon ghostly apparitions and grow orange trees from an empty hat, but no one ever knows how, including us.
It really is about illusions — Eisenheim wants his audience — meaning us, too — to think about more than just trap doors. As he explains onstage, he wants us to examine the soul, time, destiny, death — in short, he just wants us thinking about magic.
There’s a lesson here, and it has a lot to do with why we no longer believe that assistants are actually sawed in half, or rabbits can live top hats, or tall men in black capes can disappear in boxes.
How closely do we really want to look at the things that amaze us? How much do we really need to know?
Watch “The Illusionist” and “The Prestige” on your own. Make a night of it, even. And then decide for yourself.
Melissa Olson was born and raised in Chippewa Falls. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in film and television, and works for a television production company in Madison.
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