Old magic themed movie posters

Magicians in Film

The writer Sonny Arifien asked me to contribute to his blog Privilege of Legends. It explores the art of cinema and film as an art form. His latest post ‘Sleight of Hand: The Magic of Deception’ looks at how cinema grew out of the world of magic. It explores some ways how cinema has kept engaging in the subject of magicians in film ever since. Here’s my magician and film chat with Sonny…

Sonny: Films about magicians aside, for starters. Why do you think magic generally continues to capture our hearts and imaginations?

ON WHY MAGIC ENDURES THROUGH THE AGES

Christopher: I think magic answers to basic desires in the human condition. Imagine how it would be for example to change something in the world with a click of your fingers, to instantly transform something about yourself, to appear somewhere else, to know what people are thinking, to be invincible or to escape difficult situations. We’ve all yearned for and imagined these things. Magic’s wonder continues to capture us because it makes all these things appear to be possible. What would you do if you had magical powers for a day? For sure you have some good answers.

ON THE CHANGING FACE OF MAGIC

Sonny: Do you believe that the public’s perception of magic has changed over the years, and if so in what way?

Related articles:
Do you know these 13 types of magicians?
Learn some secrets of The Magic Circle.
Adventures in Hollywood at The Magic Castle.

Christopher: How the public perceives magic is always a product of the time. We can look at three different periods to see how the public has regarded magic differently. Let’s start in the sixteenth century. In 1584 Reginald Scot published Discoverie of Witchcraft. It was an expose to reveal the tricks behind and debunk the belief in what many people then considered to be witchcraft. Curiously the formal study of magic grew out of this book. He published it to show it’s not real.

Discoverie of Witchcraft book is part of our discussion about Magicians in Film.

Now let’s skip forward to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to the Golden Age of magic. At that time magic was one of the most popular forms of entertainment. Magicians packed vaudeville theatres and music halls on both sides of the Atlantic. They toured with shows the world over. The public’s imagination lit up in this tumultuous time of social, industrial and scientific change. There was a visceral excitement about what’s possible and magic played right into this. Magic’s Golden Age came to an end with the advent of cinema. The variety theatres emptied out. They emptied in favour of a new kind of magic that was found on the silver screen. Magicians in film seemed the way of the future.

Magic has, nonetheless, continued to endure and adapt. Today in the early twenty-first century magic is of course performed not only on stage. It also appears in films and other media as well. It’s also a prolific form of close-up entertainment. In our contemporary sceptical age where people know neither politicians, nor media nor advertising can be taken at face value, magic too is embraced as an entertaining diversion. I think live magic is also popular these days in spite of the abundance of digital entertainment exactly because it is not digital.

ON MAGIC ETHICS

Sonny: Do you think there is an ethical line that should not be crossed when concerning the magic trick or illusion?

Christopher: It can be very easy to convince some people that magic is real. I’m not sure of the connection to magicians in film. Nevertheless I’m still impressed when I receive occasional emails from some person (usually in a faraway country) who found me online to request that I ‘do magic on someone.’ I explain point blank to these people that what I do is a deception of their senses intended for entertainment yet they choose not to believe me. Their desire for real magic short-circuits sound logic. One of the most likely areas of magic for the question of ethics to arise is mentalism. A magician can quite easily persuade someone s/he has gotten into someone’s head. So there are certainly ethical lines that should not be crossed in regard to this.

ON THE MESSAGE BEHIND IT ALL

Sonny: Generally speaking, what, if anything, would you most like your audience to go away with at the end of your act?

Christopher: Sleepless nights maybe? (Just kidding) That’s an important question for a magician. The answer directly informs the material you choose to perform and the way you perform it. My answer varies depending on the show I’m doing. My parlour magic show is a contemporary take on a classic format of magic performance. With this show, I’d like to give the audience a sense of wonder and possibility. My act Norvil & Josephine is a sort of reinvented vaudeville style show. When I perform it I’d love my audience to leave with a sense of happiness and escape into their imagination.

Totally different still, my intention in my theatrical Seance magic show is to give the audience an awareness of how easily we deceive ourselves. Some magicians just set out to ‘fool’ the audience in some suicidal battle of wits but for me it’s much more interesting if other intentions are at play instead. – CH

Post script: Thanks Sonny for this interview on your magician film exploration. Readers can see the full article about magic and magicians in film at Privilege of Legends. It’s full of info on films about magicians films and I can recommend his blog generally which is full of cinema related musings.

Say hello and drop me a note in the comments below. Thanks for coming along with me and I hope to see you again after a few more turns in the trail.

1 thought on “Magicians in Film”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *