And so we begin to glimpse something of the true essence of illu~ Magic Movies, Theater, Television

sionistic magic and its huge power to fascinate: its ability to make us be . (and Close-up Magic)
genuinely present, at least for the duration of suspension of disbelief, in
of my first more-or-less theoretical articles (written over forty years 0
the experienced environment of dreams and desires.
I said that illusionistic magic didn't work in movies. lt produces no
Therein lies, in part, its specificity within theater, movies and other 1
t. Hitchcock had already said this. 4
arts: to see our most wanted dreams and wishes ma~e possible in reality.
One reason to explain this is that the people in a movie audience feel
We are talking about the magic of desire.
think, for obvious reasons, that there will be camera tricks: cutting
We are talking about the magic of dreams.
editing, special effects, CGI, etc.
Finally.
Furthermore, in fictional movies, we know and feel that what we are
...·,,.,.,.n,,ncr is a set story,.events that were not genuinely happening at the time
.u..1..L• .........
0
( unlike documentaries) and that never happened. We're viewing
work carefully and laboriously crafted through many days or months
shooting, with images later manipulated and edited. The impossible
cannot survive this process and our knowledge of it. It disappears imme-
diately. It is not even presented.
We can see that the same thing can happen to magic on television.
Camera and editing tricks are too easy to believe.
And yet magic on television does reach us and touch us, sometimes in a
powerful and lasting way. The best-known magician of recent times is David
Copperfield, thanks to his television specials. Two of my favorite stage illu-
sionists are Richiardi, Jr. and Kio. Another two are the Pendragons and
Moretti. I have been touched by them, I have felt the fluttering of mystery,
the extremely strong impact of the fascinating It's not possible. And yet, I
haven't had the joy of seeing any of these performers live. Nevertheless,
the memories of their wonderful and powerful miracles (Richiardi Jr. 's
Vanisrung Lady and Broom Suspension, Kio's Telephone Booth and The
Lion) live in me, and every time I recall them, I feel a deep and delicious
chill down my spine. Such wonders! Such beauty!
4. Hitchcock/Truffaut by Frarn;ois Truffaut, 1966, Simon and Schuster: New York
Since my first encounter with this book, I have consistently recommended it to
magicians, for its monumental teachings, imparted by "the magician of suspense".
The concepts of suspense, a rigorous script, artistic honesty, control of attention
on screen, control of interest, etc., are perfectly defined. It is an essential text.
 36
Another example is the enormous number of people who have been
touched by Lavandian magic-only through television.
So magic on television does reach and touch people, while in movies
it doesn't. Why?
And in theater? Magic within a musical comedy-such as Beauty and
the Beast, with its magnificent effects (The Talking ~ead, the transforma-
tion of the beast into a prince), brilliantly solved by Jim Steinmeyer-are
perceived as special effects within the play. No one perceives them as
something impossible. 5 They are simply integrated theatrical effects; they
are part of the drama, of the story and, although we don't know how they
are done, we don't wonder about it. We are not there to respond to the
logical challenge, to the challenge of reason. We are there as passive spec-
tators ("watchers"), not as active spect-actors.
The question persists: In movies, why doesn't magic touch us, why
doesn't it reach us? And why is it received, as are magical effects in a
theater play, with I don't know how it works and I'm not interested now
because I'm absorbed in the story?
In the case of movies (the representation of dreams) this happens
because, as I said earlier, 6 there is nothing impossible in the realm of
dream, the kingdom of anti-logical transformations.
Besides that wholly sufficient reason, there is another that movies and
theater share: Our magic is a presentation of the impossible in reality. But
movies and theater are representations, the former of dreams, the latter of
reality. Magic, then, would be, within them, a presentation within a repre-
sentation, which is to say a re-representation, distanced a second or third
level from reality. It is a severely weakened reality.
And the ,impossible within a near nonreality has no power, it doesn't
move us, doesn't se~m impossible to us, but is only a representation of
the impossible. I will analyze this point of magic and theater, magic and
5. See the very interesting analysis by Iurgi Sarasa in his essay about magic
viewed from the standpoint of social psychology, published in the Circular of
the Escuela Magica de Madrid, Feb. 1999, p. 73.
6. See "Dreams of Magic", p. 29.
'27
UI
. more depth in the section on "Conflicts in Magic and Their
' 1Il
of Interest" (p. 239). I refer you there.
Television, in turn, is only a means: an instrument to see reality, much
sophisticated than, but not essentially different in its use from, a
opera glasses. Television brings us near somethin$ far away. We
0f . '
·ve it as a transmission, not as a representation. Even -When we know
the program we are watching (not a fictional work, not a series and
a movie) is not being broadcast live, we perceive it ,as being in the
t or at least"as a preservation of something recorded live. We look
UJ.ll:;;.::,.._..u)
at reality through the television and that's where, in that reality, that the
,tmpossible can hit us. Needless to say, we need to be able to trust that
·neither the magician nor the director is using camera tricks.
This is why trust is necessary in magic on television; but no more so
tltan in live performances, where we need to take for granted that stooges
are not being used. Otherwise, how interesting can half of our impossible
· tricks seem, especially those in the category of mental effects? This leads,
'
in a lateral way, to another related theme: close-up magic. Now we can
better understand the strength of the impossible in close-up magic, the
real close-up magic, which takes place not only close to the spectators
but among the spectators and with the "spect-actors". This close,..up magic
has, as we have all tested as performers and spectators, a huge impact,
incredible, brutal at times.
Here I am talking about the true close-up magic, 7 which utilizes and takes
advantage of all the options and features of this specific art wit~ the art of
magic: maximum proximity of all spectators, the capacity for spontaneous
participation,
,.,, spectators' physical contact with the objects in, or with, which
the magic is produced. Sometimes they experience even physical contact
with the magician; they touch the miracle maker, the one with "the power",
the prodigious one. Close-up magic can allow them to be a "live stage" on
which certain "miracles" occur: The coin changes in a spect-actor's hand!-
They tell you what you 're thinking!-The cards in a spect-actor's pocket
7. Or parlor magic that turns into close-up magic when the magician moves
around and performs among or with the spectators.