An important aspect
why movies or magic shows or any work of fiction like stories and poems succeed
in entertaining us is the idea of
"Suspension of Disbelief". It is expected from the audience that they
would let go of their perception of reality in order to enter and appreciate a
fictional world and connect with characters in that world. We know that
fictional worlds of ,say, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Star Wars are a
figment of someone's imagination but we are willing to accept that these worlds
are real for the time we are watching or reading about them in order to be
entertained.
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| Diving into an imaginary world. |
Same is the case with magic tricks. We know that the woman who is being sawed in half right before our eyes is in fact safe and it is an illusion. It is the mystery of how it was done and the showmanship of the performer that enraptures us.
Now it easy for the
audience to ignore reality for enjoying a movie or a magic trick, but when a
magic trick is being performed in a movie or on TV it is really pushing the
envelope in terms of expectations from the audience. A magic trick in a movie will never create the same sense
of awe as a live one because so much is hidden from the audience. Movies
featuring magicians or magic tricks will always face this issue.
Movies like 'The
Prestige' or 'The Illusionist' make it work because they offer the audience
something more than the sleights-of-hand featured in the movie. Their focus is
the characters and story or the illusions are so clever they can still create
awe even if they are prerecorded. Magic adds to the experience. 'Now You See
Me' ,it seems, is focused entirely on the illusions. Apart from a lazy plot and poor characters, there is a lot of use of CGI to create magic tricks. Some of
the CGI is bad and it inhibits the suspension of disbelief. If magic tricks in
a movie is pushing the envelope the magic tricks in a movie created using bad
CGI is like a final nail in the coffin.
The closer I look
the more I don’t want to.
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