Are You Watching Closely?

“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called 'The Pledge'. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called 'The Turn'. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call 'The Prestige'." ~ Michael Caine, The Prestige

There were two really great films about magic and magicians in late 2006. This one, The Prestige, and The Illusionist. I saw the latter first, starring Edward Norton, and thought it incredible. I loved it and planned to tell my brother he should see it. I was surprised when he replied that he had just seen a great movie about two magicians called The Prestige. He was not wrong.

All my brothers and I grew up intrigued by magic. Maybe a lot of kids do, but our dad brought home tricks whenever he was on the road, and we collected such an assortment of gadgets and card decks that we could, and did, put on whole shows.

I didn’t practice enough to be a great showman, but certainly did well enough to entertain nieces and nephews at a birthday or Christmas gathering. When you’re on it is really fun. As noted in the film, the best part of doing a good trick is seeing the look on their faces.

Michael Caine, as Cutter in The Prestige, had some great lines. One favorite... “Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it because you're not really looking. You don't really want to know the secret... You want to be fooled.”

An especially fun surprise was seeing David Bowie as Nikola Tesla in a role that had some illuminating historical elements thrown in. Here’s a line from Bowie: “You're familiar with the phrase ‘man's reach exceeds his grasp’? It's a lie: man's grasp exceeds his nerve.”

Enjoy the show!