M&M: Prestige

Dear reader,

today I want to introduce you to a movie with magicians and about magic. No, of course not Harry Potter! Probably everyone knows that magician already, even those among you, who didn't read the books or watched the movies know enough for me not to write about him in my blog.

The movie “Prestige” is from 2006 with Christian Bale as Alfred Borden and Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier. Borden and Angier work together at first. Although Borden is the younger magician and more a helper or stooge playing an audience member. One day an escapology act goes terribly wrong though and Angier's wife, who is bound underwater in a watertank dies. Since Borden as an audience member tied the important knot, Angier makes him responsible for the death of his wife. Needless to say that they go their separate ways after that. Although not quite, because both spend a lot of time to bust the other and being the better, if not the best magician.

Both develop a number: they go into one cabinet and seconds later, the step out from a second cabinet. That's the main principle of the big number they both have. Is Borden using a double? But Angier, in one of his bustings hurts Borden that he actually lost fingers on one hand and Borden stepping into the cabinet as well as the one stepping out are missing those fingers. Angier on the other hand (no pun intended) is travelling from great britain to america to meet the physicist Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). Tesla really existed and was famous for unusual inventions. To this day it's not known how some of his inventions he presented actually worked. In “Prestige” we see that he hands Angier a light-bulb which then lights up in his hand like that. But are feats and inventions like that enough to give Angier a second man?

Angier wants to destroy Borden desperately and definitely. That means that he has to set him up. During a performance Borden gets to enter the backstage area and sees Angier seemingly trapped in the watertank. The top lid can't be opened anymore. Angier drowns. This leads to a trial. Borden, meanwhile with a wife and a daughter, faces a possible death sentence. His life up to that point is the main part of the movie. In prison, waiting for his execution, Borden gets a visitor. Only when that man tells Borden that he'll take care of his daughter from now on and is about to leave, does Borden recognise that man. It's Angier! So Borden is no murderer!

At the end both magicians paid a high price for their big number and they know the secret of the other ones trick and what that trick has cost him.

For me “Prestige” is something special, because I'm interested in magic and do a bit of magic myself. I guarantee you that almost all tricks are real and possible, the way they are presented. The tricks are actually learnt and performed in front of the camera by the actors, quite unlike “The Illusionist”. “The Illusionist” is very disappointing in that regard, because many things would be real, but were quite visibly, at least for me, done with “film tricks”. “Prestige” is as real in the magic it shows as it can be with a movie like that.

My top favourite scene of all in the movie is when Borden is in prison and gives the warden a wipe. He does that with a combination of two main principles. He shows the warden a ball and throws him in the air. Once. That's supposed to be a magic trick? A second time. Okay, we get it now. On the third throw we look up and often the magician doesn't throw the ball really at that time. The human eye is used to the routine of the ball in the air, it looks like the ball vanishes in thin air. The second principle is to seemingly let the trick go wrong. The magician looks like an idiot. When Borden throws the ball a third time, he doesn't catch it and the ball drops off the table. The great magician is in prison for murder and can't even escape like Houdini, and then he can't even catch a ball properly.The warden likes that, of course, up until...

A couple of magic notes and anecdotes for those interested:
- Teslar isn't the only real person in "Prestige". In a performance Borden sees a chinese, Chung Ling Soo, who deceived the world (including Harry Houdini!) In reality he was an american by the name of William Ellsworth Robinson. But the first and only english words he ever spoke on stage would be shortly before his death, "My God, I've been shot."
- He was shot performing the so called "Bullet Catch", a classic magic trick, which Borden will perform in the movie, too. Robinson is one of the 11 magicians, who didn't take enough precautions, which cost them their lives.
- Other classic magic tricks performed in the movie are: the water tank (made famous by Harry Houdini especially), the "chinese linking rings", coin magic, the bullet catch. I don't know what the trick is called, but Angier tries to do one once where different objects are revealed from the long coat of the magician, usually ending with the revelation of a huge bowl filled with water and a gold fish in it.

I admit I haven't seen the movie in a long time. So I can't think of any more notes and anecdotes just now. Probably I missed some. If I should think of more, I'll add them here later. Anyway, the movie is a real pleasure for me to watch as someone interested in magic and sort of performer in magic myself, I love it for the relation to reality and because almost all of the tricks can be done that way, as you see them.

Also I like the soundtrack by David Julyan a lot.

The movie was made on the basis of the book by Christopher Priest with the same title. Like so often the case, the book is different from the movie. Angier and Boden never worked together. Angier's wife never died, but was pregnant and lost her baby because of Borden. The book is separated in different parts as diary entries which one reads and the rivalry goes on for several generations. The history of magic is more fleshed out. The background story of what life was like for the two magicians before they were on stage performing can be read. The book is different. Film and book are just two different media with their individual ways of story telling and creating suspense.

Until next blog,
sarah

Good morning!

Dear reader,

how many different meanings can the seemingly simple statement of "Good morning!" have?

When Bilbo Baggins wishes the wizard Gandalf that in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", instead of an expected greeting back, he gets a stream of interpretation possibilities.

"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning? Or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning? Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?"

Confusion or surprise can be one way to induce a trance. Even moreso because Bilbo didn't expect those questions. Your fault, Bilbo. Precise wording and language is very important and sometimes defining.

Bilbo, smart as he is, answers to the many questions Gandalf has, with what I would think to be the only possible answer that makes sense, "All of them at once, I suppose."

Until next blog,
sarah

The magician, who unleashed the world

Dear reader,

on Halloween 86 years ago, october, 31 1926, the magician and escapologist Harry Houdini died. Many people know little or nothing about that name today. Although he achieved quite big things actually, not only in the field of entertainment as a magician and escapologist. I want to take the opportunity today to write a bit about him.

What many people don't know is that Harry Houdini wasn't his real name. He was born in Budapest in 1874 as Erik Weisz. His family moved to america when he was still young, they ended up living in New York. The family changed their name to "Weiss" and Erik called himself "Ehrich". When he was 17, he started doing magic shows and used the name Harry Houdini for himself. There are different theories why it was "Harry" as a first name. On the english wikipedia-page you can read that friends already called him "Harry". On the german wikipedia-page it reads that the magician Harry Kellar was is idol and he took the first name of him because of that. The name "Houdini" came from another magician-idol: Eugène Robert-Houdin. A friend of Houdini's told him that in french when you add an "i" at the end of "Houdin", it would mean "like Houdin". That's actually not the case, but makes a nice story about how he came to the name, I think.

He worked in a circus and traveled not only in america, but also europe, including germany and also russia. He's certainly most known for his escapology. Among other things he let himself be tied up and put under water in rivers. He also once was locked up (as part of the trick, not because he had done something wrong) and tied up in the Tower of London and was able to free himself. But he also did magic in different ways and for example he wrote a book on paper magic. He describes techniques to fold things out of paper. (Essentially how to do something like origami.) I heard he was quite good and skilled with card magic, too. He's known today for his escapology though. In a documentary on Harry Houdini that I saw, they said that he did his escapology at a time when the people in america felt captivated/imprisoned. To see that he unleashed himself was more than a mere entertainment act then. It was a symbol of freedom for themselves.

Harry Houdini was a mama's boy and when she died, he was very sad. At that time there were many people, who claimed they could get contact with the dead. But Harry Houdini with his own knowledge about magic, was smart and saw through the tricks of those people. Since he knew about the pain of this loss through the death of his own mother, he spent the rest of his life debunking charlatans and to safe moaning people from con artists. Because you can very well make pretty good money that way, if you're "skilled" enough and know how to do it. But I have absolutely no respect for those people. My point of view is that they really use this pain and make money from that. It's one thing if a funeral parlour wants money for the coffin, the memorial and funeral and all that. But to say that one can talk to the dead and in reality it's all just an act, that's clearly crossing a line for me. Maybe some of those people believe, that they truly can talk to the dead. But I believe that most of them know very well that this isn't reality and that what they do is simply a disrespectful tall tale.

The american magic duo Penn & Teller have a tv series where they investigate things we take for granted and let experts talk about that. The series is called "Bullshit" and the first episode was on talking to the dead. At the beginning Penn is standing in front of a grave stone with Harry Houdini's name and dates on it and talking to him. That even after so many years and his attempts people still talk to the dead. Then he turns to the camera saying, "See? Anyone can talk to the dead. Getting an answer, that's the hard part."

Harry Houdini's death is pretty mysterious. They say this is what happened: He had some blind gut or belly problem prior to october, 31. A student came to see him october, 22 to test Houdini. He had claimed that by contracting the muscles, he could be hit by someone and feel fine and be unhurt. So this man came and hit him in the belly. It's said that Houdini later claimed the belly problems came from the hitting and he, Houdini, didn't have enough time to prepare for the hitting. The belly problems got worse after that. A doctor diagnosed him with appendicitis. Houdini did his final show october, 24, went to the hospital after that and died there october, 31, aged 52.

Houdini and his wife thought up a code word. After one of them was dead, that person would try to make contact with the one still living. That word would be the proof that the connection was genuine. The code word was "Rosabelle believe". Up until 10 years after Houdini had died, his wife held an annual séance, to get in contact with her husband. This never happened at any time though. After the final try, she commented, "ten years is long enough to wait for any man."

Until next blog,

sarah