Unqualified Offerings

How I Failed to Spot the Trick

17 Responses to “How I Failed to Spot the Trick”

1. Comment by Jim Henley —
   October 30, 2006 @ 7:29 am

   Toward the end of the movie, I figured it would turn out that the dead body was that of the actor, Root, who played the double of The Great Danton. The real Danton (Angier), I figured, had secretly hired Root again, promising him anything, so that he could have his double revenge on Borden AND Root.

   This solution rested on the assumption that Tesla was scamming Angier all along and that Angier had figured it out, that the pile of hats and the second black cat were themselves prestiges of Tesla’s own illusion. I failed to reckon with one of the most rigorously observed laws of drama:

   No story involving Nicola Tesla will present him as any kind of charlatan in any aspect but only as an authentic visionary/wizard who would have brought the Singularity two centuries early if society had only let him.

   I’ll try not to make that mistake again.

2. Comment by Camera Obscura —
   October 30, 2006 @ 8:49 am

   Yes, I enjoyed it too. But I was willing to wait and let the movie tell me the secret. And altho it did drop huge hints, they weren’t so blatent that I didn’t have a good time getting to the end of the movie.

   My non-spoilerific review at my place.

3. Comment by Camera Obscura —
   October 30, 2006 @ 8:50 am

   Really, you didn’t think Hollywood would take on Tesla, do you? They pander to the Lowest Common Denominator, most of whom had never heard of Tesla before this movie.

4. Comment by theophylact —
   October 30, 2006 @ 10:16 am

   Ah. Then you didn’t read Christopher Priest’s novel, which was really very good. But I’m glad to find that the filmmaker didn’t change the blowoff.

5. Comment by Keifus —
   October 30, 2006 @ 11:00 am

   It’s been quite a while since I read the book, but I recall that Tesla’s invention was very much not a sham in Priest’s version.

   A shame too, as I thought it was a damn silly idea.

   (I don’t know why it is, given that I read a lot of speculative fiction, that when presented with magical ambiguity, I always root for the physics we know.)

   K

6. Comment by Rasselas —
   October 30, 2006 @ 11:34 am

   I thought the movie overegged the pudding with some of the exchanges about the desire to astonish the audience that, supposedly, Angier had but Borden lacked.

7. Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
   October 30, 2006 @ 11:48 am

   I really, really disliked the book. It failed in the way that only a book by a good writer can fail.

   It’s a book about two competing magicians, both of whom do a teleport trick. There is a lot of development, and finally you find out that the first magician does his trick in a realistic, understandable, and interesting way. The second … really teleports, through a pseudoscience black box.

   How completely ruinous to the book. If the guy can really teleport — in a strange and broken way that leaves copies behind — why not just change all of society? I mean, how absolutely without imagination would the magician have to be to look at his teleport device and think “Wow, now I can really beat that other guy’s stage trick?”

8. Comment by Michael Sullivan —
   October 30, 2006 @ 12:09 pm

   I haven’t read the book, but they do address the “why not change the world” argument fairly extensively in the movie. Perhaps not convincingly, but the issue is not ignored.

   Personally — and I know that this is somewhat ridiculous on the face of it — I found Borden’s trick harder to swallow. I knew a pair of identical twins fairly well in college, and within about three months of casual friendship with both of them, I could so confidently identify each of them at a single glance that I remember being confused when someone said to me, “Is that Emily or Maggie?”

   Obviously, the premise that identical twins would look truly identical is less fantastical than the premise that one can copy-teleport, but familiarity with the subject matter makes it ring false to me.

9. Comment by Mr. Obscura —
   October 30, 2006 @ 1:42 pm

   I had tipped to the Borden reveal quite early in the film. There was a scene in the courtroom where Borden’s assistant (name?) turns the daughter away and from the shape of his face it suddenly became apparent to me that it was Christian Bale. It took me longer to figure out Angier’s trick - I tipped to that when Borden saw them wheeling the water-filled box away after a show (I thought they were dumping it, which would make somewhat more sense than the big reveal at the end). I enjoyed the movie, but overall it left me flat. I didn’t really care about either one of these unlikeable characters.

   Question for discussion: Does knowing how the illusion is done spoil it for you? In the past I was a fan of the late Doug Henning (it’s *magic*!). At a show where I was sitting far to the side of the stage I saw how his signature “Metamorphosis” trick was done. (Note that the missus, who was also there, does not believe my assertion to this day). I left the theater disillusioned, so to speak, and have had no desire to go to a stage magic show since.

10. Comment by Jim Henley —
    October 30, 2006 @ 3:39 pm

    Interesting question. I appreciate the skill and ingenuity of stage magic, so I don’t think it quite ruins it for me.

    I was having a related discussion with my kids last month. Their school had a magician for back-to-school night. The guy did a couple instances of a class of card tricks where cards get folded, spindled, mutilated and recombined, and I wanted to get my kids thinking about how the key to the trick is that the magician has to let you THINK you’re picking “a card, any card” while making sure you actually pick the one he wants you to have. But even there, the specifics of the pass weren’t quite detectable.

11. Comment by Alex Knapp —
    October 31, 2006 @ 12:02 am

    Question for discussion: Does knowing how the illusion is done spoil it for you?

    No, so long as the magicians are named Penn and Teller.

12. Comment by Tom B. —
    October 31, 2006 @ 1:48 am

    A commenter wrote:
    I mean, how absolutely without imagination would the magician have to be to look at his teleport device and think “Wow, now I can really beat that other guy’s stage trick?”

    —–

    My recollection is that the novel makes clear that Angier does indeed lack imagination. Despite being a good showman, he had difficulty seeing how tricks were accomplished. It doesn’t surprise me that he couldn’t see or wasn’t interested in its uses beyond the stage illusion.

13. Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
    October 31, 2006 @ 9:18 am

    A good point, Tom B., but as I recall, he was also using the copying function of the teleporter to copy gold coins. How many gold coins do you have to copy before you realize “Hey, why don’t I just copy enough gold to get really really rich? Hmm, I need another machine to copy enough. Why I don’t use the gold that I do copy to buy supplies to make another machine?” From there, I think that you’re well down the road to the stage magic becoming a hobby, with your money buying you the best tricks, and the public esteem that is such a motivation for Angier coming from other sources.

14. Comment by Greg —
    October 31, 2006 @ 4:37 pm

    I figured out both of the twists pretty early. It actually made me think of that book “Everything Bad is Good for You” about how pop culture is making people smarter. I was totally fooled by The Sixth Sense, but now seven years later, I can figure out a much more complicated story.

    It makes me think that filmmakers and tv writers should just stop with the trick endings. They usually work one of three ways.(Copious hints at spoilers follow) The first is the like The Prestige, Matchstick Men, or The Sixth Sense, where the writer pays scrupulous attention to every little detail and makes sure that everything makes sense both on initial viewing, and in light of the trick. The second is where they try to do the first but cheat, so the film doesn’t really make sense retrospectively in light of the new information. Fight Club is an example of that, but most movies that have a twist ending will be of this type, mostly because most writers are either stupid or think we are. Then there’s the third type where the ending simply denies the basic reality of everything that preceded it, like The Wizard of Oz, Mulholland Drive, The Usual Suspects, or eXistenZ.

    All three have their pitfalls. The first can be narratively unsatisfying, because they’ll usually give you enough evidence to figure everything out, if you want to. The second is unsatisfying because it usually reveals a gaping plot hole. And the third is annoying because it’s just so damn lazy (though a good writer can make it work).

15. Comment by Matt Weiner —
    November 1, 2006 @ 2:45 pm

    I realized the next morning that I could’ve figured out one of the twists by thinking about the cast list. Which of the names that flashes up at the beginning is Fallon?

    Jim, your alternate ending is very nice and would be superior qua twist, but I think it would take away from some of the things Nolan is trying to do. Angier’s obsession is more terrible if it drives him to commit atrocities against himself (or his duplicates) than if it drives him to revenge against Root as well as Borden. Root would’ve pretty much deserved it.

    One of these days I intend to post some philosphical reflections on the movie on my blog, as part of an occasional series on movies about magicians that raise philosophical issues that can’t be discussed without giving away the ending.

16. Comment by washerdreyer —
    November 1, 2006 @ 10:31 pm

    I was on the “It’s Root who dies” theory from the time Scarlett’s character leaves Angier almost until the end. But I was also on the utterly incorrect theory Angier’s wife’s death was faked, for some reason that I hadn’t yet puzzled out, for most of the film. Finally, I “figured out” who Fallon was when Fallon and Borden talk by the carousel, but pretty much felt that was a nearly explicit reveal of that mystery. Wasn’t it?

17. Comment by Avram —
    November 6, 2006 @ 11:15 am

    I finally saw it last night, and was in a similar position to Jim. I’d figured fairly early that Root was the dead man, up till we’re shown the duplicator, and then I spent most of the rest of the movie trying to figure out what genre it was.

    Rich, doesn’t Angier become rich? Copying gold coins would explain how he could set up an alternative identity with a big mansion.