The Illusionist (PG-13), directed by
Neil Burger, opens Friday, September 1, at Pittsford, Regal Henrietta 18, and Tinseltown.
The magic of the cinema
In a telling moment in The Illusionist, a police technician
operates a crude, noisy movie projector — it takes place in the late 19th
century — in an attempt to show how the title character performs one of his
most astonishing tricks. The attempt fails, but the scene suggests the important
relationship between the art of magic and the magic of art, and of course, the
wonders of the cinema, that most magical and illusionary artform
of all. The filmmaker, like the magician, employs misdirection, deception, and
fakery to produce an utterly fantastic but wholly convincing effect of reality,
emotion, and immediacy, despite the fact that even the purported movement of
the motion picture is itself a trick, an illusion.
Narrated in something like an official report by the
Viennese Chief Inspector of Police Walter Uhl (Paul Giamatti) to Crown Prince Leopold of Austria (Rufus
Sewell), the movie shows the life and work of a stage magician known as Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton). The inspector
initially weaves a fantastic tale, in which as a young boy, Eisenheim,
the son of skilled cabinetmaker, encountered a wizard whose tricks inspired him
to follow a career in magic. After traveling through Europe and Asia learning
his craft, the performer arrives in Vienna
to amaze the citizens, among them Uhl, a dabbler in
sleight of hand himself.
In addition to wealth and fame, Eisenheim
finds his childhood sweetheart, Sophie (Jessica Biel), now a duchess betrothed
to Leopold, and the two lovers resume their affair. The jealous and conniving
Leopold, who believes a marriage to Sophie will cement the loyalty of Hungary
in his plan to overthrow his father the Emperor, orders Uhl
to conduct a close surveillance of the lovers. When Eisenheim’s tricks humiliate Leopold at a private
performance in the royal palace, the prince commands the closing of the
theater, forcing the magician to improvise an ingenious response to his
persecution and to invent ever more remarkable illusions, including the
apparent resurrection of the spirits of the dead.
The summoning of the spirits, the mystery the police try to
solve with the movie projector, lands Eisenheim in
even deeper trouble with the prince, who wants him charged with blasphemy and
treason. Inspector Uhl, the sympathetic observer
caught between the power of the prince and his admiration for the magician,
must arrest him. To escape punishment, Eisenheim
announces to his angry supporters, to whom he seems an almost godlike being,
that his acts are only tricks, performed with mechanisms and mirrors.
The prince’s ambitions and his jealous rage incite him to an
act of violence, a murder that threatens to topple the empire itself. Eisenheim in effect solves the case on stage by summoning
the spirit of the victim so that his audience can determine the truth for
themselves. In his own investigation, Inspector Uhl
discovers an even deeper truth, the solution to some of the mysteries of the
magician’s act and life, the method and purpose of his illusions, the real
meaning of his performance.
Part costume drama, part love story, part mystery, The Illusionist weaves together a most
complicated and occasionally implausible assortment of threads of plot and
character, ending with a clever if somewhat fanciful conclusion. If the
detective reaches his final solution to all the puzzles in an extremely rapid
montage of visual recapitulation, he nevertheless affirms the significance of
the magician’s art. The film itself suggests not only the beauty and potency of
illusion but also the illusory nature of reality, so that the illusionist
triumphs over the empty construct of ambition and power, and his tricks prevail
over the grand, tragicomic illusion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Illusionist effectively blends the magic of its subject and method, not only through the
wonders of the cinema but also through the remarkable acting of its cast.
Although Rufus Sewell simply chews up a considerable amount of his empire, both
Giamatti and Norton, in contrast, behave with genuine
intelligence and enormous restraint, creating some terrific effects with the
most commonplace and understated inflections and gestures. The solidity of
their performances, paradoxically, supports the magic of the picture’s effects
— whatever their considerable success in the past, neither man has ever done
better work, or appeared in a more unusual movie.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.
