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So by now, I've seen both trailers for Now You See Me, along with a number of clips that have been posted online. I really want to see this, and I probably will, even with the knowledge, the certainty, that it is going to make me very, very angry.
I love magic. I've studied its history and practice on a casual basis on and off since I was a kid, mostly book-learnin' for stage illusion, but with some actual practice for close-up sleight of hand stuff—nowhere even remotely near professional level, but good enough to fool children and drunk adults a lot of the time. I have my heroes in the field, first and foremost card genius Ricky Jay (the documentary on him, Deceptive Practice, is even higher on my list), and end up in endless U.K. televised magic binges on YouTube when I can't sleep. Sometimes I can determine, or at least theorize, about how an illusion is done, but even when I can't I can drink in what effect the moment has on me, and how the magician can help bring that about through demeanor, patter, timing, and the presentation itself. I know how magic feels.
And that's why Now You See Me is going to make me mad: because if the trailers and leaked scenes are any indication, the filmmakers not only have no idea how magic feels, they don't flipping care.
Some of that I can overlook for the sake of the film. Some of the tricks we glimpse are clearly outside the realm of what current technology can pull off, but hey, this is magic, where everything is outside the realm of technology until the secret is explained. Jesse Eisenberg plays a street magician who doesn't have the demeanor of a contemporary street magician (too much smug, not enough engaging), but then again I would have thought the same of David Blaine at one point. At the end of the leaked opening scenes we see a stunt that, assuming it's deliberate, would likely cause a riot, but since we're trying to create cinematic suspense it's not too far over the line. But there are moments, small ones, that miss the mark so radically and in such a particular Special Effects Extravaganza!!!! way that I'm left cringing.
The big one, for me, starts at the 23-second mark of the second trailer, and ends only a few seconds later:
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Did you see that? The magicians fling blue silks into the center of the stage, and a giant metal frame appears, the apparatus for the blockbuster final trick! Wow! You've never seen anything like it!
You know what? You never, ever will. Here's why: A trick needs to be grounded before it can fly.
Some believe that the idea of magic is to create a world where anything is possible. The problem is that if you genuinely create a world where anything is possible, or seems to be, then every action is equal, and nothing is amazing any more. Pull a live full-sized zebra from your nostril, levitate fire, raise the dead, it all loses punch if you go in believing that these things and everything else can be done. If the trick isn't grounded in this world, this very solid, predictable world, then we have no room for surprise and wonder.
So here's where those few seconds of film get this detail all wrong:
1) Magicians have used waves of cloth to produce or vanish objects before over the years, and when it's done in the real world it can be breathtaking; find the Pendragons' version of Houdini's Metamorphosis for an example. Part of that effect is that this ordinary thing, this piece of silk, suddenly does something extraordinary, so that this cloth is part of our recognizable lives, and now it's obeying rules we don't recognize at all. In the clip, though, the silks have no mass, no substance at all (Isla Fisher barely even follows through with her wrist when she tosses hers), and they move like…well, like CGI. And the last thing we want in a magic show is something that looks like CGI, because CGI can do anything. And yes, I know that's because it is CGI, but it's clear that the thought was, "Hey, how pretty and cool can we make this look?" and not, "How would this play out in an actual magic performance?" Even if you ignore the question of how the trick is done, it's valid to ask how it'd look in human hands, not in the hands of a computer. What we see isn't Houdini, it's Merlin. Very different creatures.
2) Another problem: the trick is completely impractical when it comes to angles. The majority of preparing a new illusion is making the trick as foolproof as possible, by rehearsing relentlessly, anticipating possible problems or glitches, and removing any random elements that can reasonably be removed. Swishing a few swatches of thin cloth around in thin air like that—in a theatre-in-the-round, no less!—is a magician's nightmare. All it would take is one small updraft, one person sitting at the right angle to catch a glimpse between the silks, and the whole effect is screwed.
3) The point of this effect isn't the effect itself, of course, but as a means to produce the Big Prop for the Big Trick, instead of just wheeling it onstage. No, no, no, no. Rolling out the frame, or the wooden chest, or the milk can, or what have you, communicates something very important to the viewer: it's real. It's solid. The audience may not be convinced that it's not rigged in some way, but again, it grounds the trick in our world. Here's my chair, and there's the stage, and on the stage is the frame. All part of the same continuum here on good ol' planet Earth. By plucking the thing out of thin air like that, we doubt its solidity somehow, which makes us doubt anything that follows. Sure, someone vanishes from it later, but how much do we know about this frame, anyway? It could just be special effects, right?
And that's the biggest problem of all, I think: that we in modern-day media-saturated America have drawn a line between "magic" and "special effects," even when we're dealing with a stage show. If we register what's happening before us as "special effects," we respond differently, even if they're achieved with the same tools and techniques as "magic." Magic makes us go, "Oh, cool! How did you do that?" Special effects make us go, "Oh, cool! I wonder how much that cost?" (And no, the fact that this is a movie with special effects doesn't automatically trigger that response. Plenty of other magician-based movies have used special effects for their magic scenes, but still pull off the "magic" response: The Escape Artist. The Prestige. The Illusionist. But then again, these all used professional magicians as consultants. Not coincidentally, it was Ricky Jay for all three.)
4) One last thing: the bigger the lead-in illusion, the more anti-climactic the finale, especially if the one doesn't lead organically into the other. Enough said.
Like I said, I do want to see Now You See Me. There's plenty in the trailers and scenes to like. The cast is wonderful. I like the idea of a team of four magicians performing together, something I've never seen before. Eisenberg performs some genuine, recognized slights (the snap change at the beginning of the trailer, for instance), and does them well. But I'll need to put away the thought that this is a movie about magicians, even as I'm watching, because I have the sinking feeling that the moment I try to sink into it as a magic fan, I'm going to be reaching for my trusty pack of Bicycle blue-backs and flinging the cards at the screen, one at a time.
I love magic. I've studied its history and practice on a casual basis on and off since I was a kid, mostly book-learnin' for stage illusion, but with some actual practice for close-up sleight of hand stuff—nowhere even remotely near professional level, but good enough to fool children and drunk adults a lot of the time. I have my heroes in the field, first and foremost card genius Ricky Jay (the documentary on him, Deceptive Practice, is even higher on my list), and end up in endless U.K. televised magic binges on YouTube when I can't sleep. Sometimes I can determine, or at least theorize, about how an illusion is done, but even when I can't I can drink in what effect the moment has on me, and how the magician can help bring that about through demeanor, patter, timing, and the presentation itself. I know how magic feels.
And that's why Now You See Me is going to make me mad: because if the trailers and leaked scenes are any indication, the filmmakers not only have no idea how magic feels, they don't flipping care.
Some of that I can overlook for the sake of the film. Some of the tricks we glimpse are clearly outside the realm of what current technology can pull off, but hey, this is magic, where everything is outside the realm of technology until the secret is explained. Jesse Eisenberg plays a street magician who doesn't have the demeanor of a contemporary street magician (too much smug, not enough engaging), but then again I would have thought the same of David Blaine at one point. At the end of the leaked opening scenes we see a stunt that, assuming it's deliberate, would likely cause a riot, but since we're trying to create cinematic suspense it's not too far over the line. But there are moments, small ones, that miss the mark so radically and in such a particular Special Effects Extravaganza!!!! way that I'm left cringing.
The big one, for me, starts at the 23-second mark of the second trailer, and ends only a few seconds later:
[Error: unknown template video]
Did you see that? The magicians fling blue silks into the center of the stage, and a giant metal frame appears, the apparatus for the blockbuster final trick! Wow! You've never seen anything like it!
You know what? You never, ever will. Here's why: A trick needs to be grounded before it can fly.
Some believe that the idea of magic is to create a world where anything is possible. The problem is that if you genuinely create a world where anything is possible, or seems to be, then every action is equal, and nothing is amazing any more. Pull a live full-sized zebra from your nostril, levitate fire, raise the dead, it all loses punch if you go in believing that these things and everything else can be done. If the trick isn't grounded in this world, this very solid, predictable world, then we have no room for surprise and wonder.
So here's where those few seconds of film get this detail all wrong:
1) Magicians have used waves of cloth to produce or vanish objects before over the years, and when it's done in the real world it can be breathtaking; find the Pendragons' version of Houdini's Metamorphosis for an example. Part of that effect is that this ordinary thing, this piece of silk, suddenly does something extraordinary, so that this cloth is part of our recognizable lives, and now it's obeying rules we don't recognize at all. In the clip, though, the silks have no mass, no substance at all (Isla Fisher barely even follows through with her wrist when she tosses hers), and they move like…well, like CGI. And the last thing we want in a magic show is something that looks like CGI, because CGI can do anything. And yes, I know that's because it is CGI, but it's clear that the thought was, "Hey, how pretty and cool can we make this look?" and not, "How would this play out in an actual magic performance?" Even if you ignore the question of how the trick is done, it's valid to ask how it'd look in human hands, not in the hands of a computer. What we see isn't Houdini, it's Merlin. Very different creatures.
2) Another problem: the trick is completely impractical when it comes to angles. The majority of preparing a new illusion is making the trick as foolproof as possible, by rehearsing relentlessly, anticipating possible problems or glitches, and removing any random elements that can reasonably be removed. Swishing a few swatches of thin cloth around in thin air like that—in a theatre-in-the-round, no less!—is a magician's nightmare. All it would take is one small updraft, one person sitting at the right angle to catch a glimpse between the silks, and the whole effect is screwed.
3) The point of this effect isn't the effect itself, of course, but as a means to produce the Big Prop for the Big Trick, instead of just wheeling it onstage. No, no, no, no. Rolling out the frame, or the wooden chest, or the milk can, or what have you, communicates something very important to the viewer: it's real. It's solid. The audience may not be convinced that it's not rigged in some way, but again, it grounds the trick in our world. Here's my chair, and there's the stage, and on the stage is the frame. All part of the same continuum here on good ol' planet Earth. By plucking the thing out of thin air like that, we doubt its solidity somehow, which makes us doubt anything that follows. Sure, someone vanishes from it later, but how much do we know about this frame, anyway? It could just be special effects, right?
And that's the biggest problem of all, I think: that we in modern-day media-saturated America have drawn a line between "magic" and "special effects," even when we're dealing with a stage show. If we register what's happening before us as "special effects," we respond differently, even if they're achieved with the same tools and techniques as "magic." Magic makes us go, "Oh, cool! How did you do that?" Special effects make us go, "Oh, cool! I wonder how much that cost?" (And no, the fact that this is a movie with special effects doesn't automatically trigger that response. Plenty of other magician-based movies have used special effects for their magic scenes, but still pull off the "magic" response: The Escape Artist. The Prestige. The Illusionist. But then again, these all used professional magicians as consultants. Not coincidentally, it was Ricky Jay for all three.)
4) One last thing: the bigger the lead-in illusion, the more anti-climactic the finale, especially if the one doesn't lead organically into the other. Enough said.
Like I said, I do want to see Now You See Me. There's plenty in the trailers and scenes to like. The cast is wonderful. I like the idea of a team of four magicians performing together, something I've never seen before. Eisenberg performs some genuine, recognized slights (the snap change at the beginning of the trailer, for instance), and does them well. But I'll need to put away the thought that this is a movie about magicians, even as I'm watching, because I have the sinking feeling that the moment I try to sink into it as a magic fan, I'm going to be reaching for my trusty pack of Bicycle blue-backs and flinging the cards at the screen, one at a time.
