The Illusionist, 2006, directed by Neil Burger, starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell.
The Prestige, 2006, directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine and David Bowie.
Here is something I posted on an Internet forum about The Illusionist a few months ago:
The Magic…The Tricks…The Secrets…
Spoiler warning.: Plot and/or ending details followThe central character of this film is not Eisenheim but instead Inspector Uhl, most of the film is actually a story told by Uhl and thus what we see is actually what Uhl thinks he saw.All the magic tricks in this film could be done in real life, they might not appear to be as spectacular, but they could be done.Uhl is a romantic, who wants to believe in the magic but also our guide into how the tricks are done, listening to what he says is very important.
The tricks:
* The handkerchief: easy trick and could be done.
* The orange tree: a mechanical device (as was shown at the end).
* The plucked oranges: the oranges are balloons, when the performer pluck them he crush them in his hand and throw a real orange to the audience the whole trick could be done.
* The butterflies: Uhl gives us the solution, they are done with wires; he dismisses this as “too obvious”, could be easily done.
* The mirror: the crown prince solves this one, could be easily done (notice the chemicals in Eisenheim’s workshop, probably used to produce ‘spirits’), and could be done.
* The sword: easily done with induction-magnets, one in the centre to hold the sword and magnetize it and others on the side to hold it upright (I suspect the crown prince was in on this trick, as some kind of propaganda for his coup).
* The dead woman: notice how Uhl doesn’t examine the wound but instead studies the hand, instead of the ‘obvious’ he is searching for the hidden.
* The spirits: This one is the easiest trick and once again Uhl actually discovers how it’s done, with projectors and smoke. What about the Asian assistants, these guys are not from the Far East instead they are from the Far West, from California! Eisenheim himself admits that it is a trick in front of everyone and yet Uhl, the ever dreamer, does not realize that the Duchess is still alive when she appears in on stage.
When people go to a magic show they become like Uhl, dismissing the obvious and looking for the incredible and when they don’t find that they become baffled.
Although I have no training in magic I’ve never been baffled by a magician, take David Copperfield’s big stunts for example: every trick he does has exactly the same secret, everyone is in on it! Copperfield doesn’t perform his big stunts in front of a live audience; everyone you see on screen is working with him, the ‘obvious’ is the secret.
Most of the discussion on the forum where I posted the above centred on comparing The Illusionist with The Prestige; I didn’t join the discussion because I had only seen one of them then, and when I saw the other my opinion was that the films were so different in essence that it was not possible to compare them.
Although a direct comparison is not possible, in my opinion, nonetheless it is possible to compare how each one succeeds in its goal of being a film. I will explain with the following analogy: The Illusionist is a small rifle while The Prestige is big howitzer, the scientific and technological principles are the same for both (i.e. both are films) but the difference in calibre (i.e. the budget) is so big that an essential difference separates a small rifle from a big howitzer.
Yet we can say that both are products of industry to be used in war and so can be compared in that way, the rifle might be small but robust and easily maintained, the howitzer might be many time more destructive but cumbersome to use and to maintain.
In this manner I can say that The Illusionist is a moderate success, while The Prestige is a complete failure. The former is a literary film; the latter is an entertainment film. The former is an intellectual film; the latter is a pretentious film. The magic in the former serves the film; the magic in the latter is served by the film.
A viewer might like or dislike The Illusionist but he won’t be insulted, but any viewer who wants his intellect to be respected will be, no matter how much entertained, insulted by The Prestige.
The Prestige is one big magic trick; magic depends on the credulity of the public. When people understand the world they live in their credulity declines and their interest in magic declines. It was thought, mistakenly, that after the scientific revolution people will never be credulous enough to believe magic, but then (ca. 1870) science advanced much more than the common understanding and confusion set in. People confused what is scientifically possible with the impossible (just like they used to confuse what is naturally possible with the impossible), in that confusion thrived magic for entertainment.
By the 1930’s common understanding and scientific knowledge increased and so the magic shows declined, until the 1970’s when advances in science and technology outstripped (by many magnitudes) the common level of knowledge and at the same time advanced technology became ubiquitous, people lived in a world beyond their understanding; that’s when a new age of magic entertainment started.
The Prestige exists in that dark area of confusion, it works only because people don’t know who Tesla is, or what he did. I knew who Tesla is, I knew that tesla is the SI unit for magnetic field, I knew that the Earth’s magnetic field is four thousands of a tesla and that a five tesla field would be so strong it would destroy the magnet, I knew that there were ideas to distribute electricity without using wires (when the cost of wiring whole cities blocked electrification planes) and I know why that doesn’t work, I knew all this and more importantly I know that you can’t duplicate an object with a big jolt of electricity (otherwise trees struck by lightening would duplicate instead of splitting) and hats in a forest aren’t enough to make me wonder.
Nolan’s film is just a cheap trick that only impresses small children and credulous people; this is not a surprise, his first film Following and second Memento are, also, cheap tricks, the latter more so than the former. Even Batman Begins is turned into a card trick, a three villains trick. The problem is that all these tricks are done for the sake of tricks only, no inner meaning, nothing profound.
