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A few months after The Prestige appeared in cinemas, Edward Norton starred in another brooding period tale of magic and intrigue. The Illusionist was received well by critics, especially for a performance by Norton brimming with "trademark intensity". Although it didn't break any box office records, the film turned a healthy profit and writer/director Neil Burger is pegged as a director to watch.
A Not-So Grand Unveiling
As Norton tells it in a Making Of featurette, the story is anchored by the question "What is real?" For him, the attraction of Eisenheim is that for much of the film he "plays his cards close to his chest" challenging the actor to keep the audience engaged in his plight. Burger talks about adapting the short story by Steven Millhauser although he doesn't get into this deeply. Instead, there's an emphasis on the research undertaken to make sure all the magic tricks performed in the film are authentic to the period. Disappointingly, not much is revealed in terms of the backstage mechanics of those illusions.
Creating A Diversion
Burger gets a chance to expand on the nuts-and-bolts of the magic tricks in a commentary for the film as well as the process of fleshing out Millhauser's short story. He explains that the key to this adaptation was giving Inspector Uhl (Paul Giammatti) a bigger role in narrating the story and, through him, allowing the audience to reflect on what might be going on inside the head of the inscrutable Eisenheim. Early on he says that it was trying to figure out the method behind David Blaine's madness that first inspired him. He also talks about the arresting visuals, describing how he wanted to achieve "a hand-cranked quality" with sepia tones to give the film an ethereal feeling of something from the silent era.
The Illusionist is hiding one other trick on DVD - well, five actually. Click on the locket in the main menu and you'll uncover a text-based tutorial in beginner's magic, including a breakdown of card levitation and the 'quick coin vanish'. This is a nice touch, but overall the extras package is hardly jaw dropping. The film remains the big draw, which is of course, as it should be. It makes for compelling viewing on the small screen, especially in a television age where a man sitting in a giant fishbowl for seven days qualifies as entertainment...
EXTRA FEATURES
The Illusionist DVD is released on Monday 9th 2007.
