The Illusionist - Music, Mustaches and Murder

The Illusionist

Director: Neil Burger

I saw remarkable things. But the only mystery I never solved was why my heart couldn't let go of you.
–Eisenheim

Perhaps there’s truth in this illusion –Inspector Uhl

Everything you have seen is an illusion: a trick. –Eisenheim

I let the opening menu cycle through as I typed the words printed on the Netflix envelope:

With his eyes on a lovely aristocrat, a gifted illusionist named Eisenheim uses his powers to win her away from her betrothed, a crowned prince. But Eisenheim’s scheme creates tumult within the monarchy and ignites the suspicion of a dogged inspector. Set in early 1900s Vienna, this lush period drama from writer-director Neil Burger earned an Oscar nod for Best Cinematography.

That is why it is the music I noticed first. The beautiful, somewhat haunting yet hopeful melody playing through the menu’s loop expands into a moving orchestral piece during the opening credits, as the picture offers glimpses of what’s to come. They are tiny snippets of the most artistically beautiful pieces of the film… which of course I didn’t fully realize or appreciate until replaying the opening after the close.

This movie opens, as many do, near the end. We must witness this fragment of the present before being taken to the past, where the story’s ending truly begins.

While I watched the movie unfold, several thoughts crept through my head, some of them based on predispositions toward actors, some of them based on moments of the acting. The first is that because of previous roles Edward Norton has filled, I find his face untrustworthy, despite the character’s temperament. Though I suppose that is the very reason why he should be cast as an illusionist, whose very goal is to manipulate the trust of his audiences.

The second thought I had was that the actress who portrayed the young Sophie looks very similar to adult Jessica Biel. Another bit of exceptional casting, as I am often distracted when children in flashbacks look nothing like their “present-day” version except in hair color. I applaud the casting director as well as all those involved in the musical score, which continues to be – throughout the movie – absolutely brilliant.

Another thought – more pertaining to the plot of the movie – was that she could not possibly be dead. I refused to believe it, even as they dragged her body from the river and both doctor and inspector examined her pulse and found none. While I don’t feel that all movies deserve to end happily, I couldn’t help but believe that this one should.

At the end of the movie, which is really the continuation of the beginning’s end, I don’t know how he created every illusion and I don’t want to. It is more fulfilling to believe in the magic. I do, however, applaud Inspector Uhl for piecing the puzzle together; and I do understand.

Aside from the score and the casting – Paul Giamatti was magnificent as Uhl, and I enjoyed Eddie Marsan as Josef – the most enchanting and most distracting feature of the movie was hair. While Paul Giamatti’s face is made for facial hair, to the point that I consider him a much more vulnerable and naive character without it, the shapes that they have chosen for his Inspector Uhl are perfect. It’s well-kept, yet looks slightly longer than a fashionable or high-class man’s would, which is quite befitting of Uhl’s meager upbringing and desperate hold on the Crown Prince’s royal coattails. Similarly, I adore the oil-slicked and slightly curled mustache of Josef and the triangular version sported by the Crown Prince. However, I found myself constantly distracted by the Illusionist’s hair: the hair on his face was too well-maintained and the hair on his head far too… fluffy. It just didn’t seem right.

I tried to figure out what this movie was saying to me… what it wanted me to know, to learn. And I think I eventually figured it out…

My takeaway: the truest love is not lost to distance; the best illusions are lost without it. And music really does make a movie.

Citizen Kane - The Rosebud Movie

Director: Orson Welles
Release Date: 1941

I think it would be fun to run a newspaper. –Charles Foster Kane

You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man. –Charles Foster Kane

No, I don’t think so. No. Mr. Kane was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn’t have explained anything. I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life. –Jerry Thompson

Did you know Citizen Kane was black and white? I didn’t. Clearly I walked into this one knowing nothing about it. I was so excited to start my project that I popped the movie in without even reading the Netflix description. About 30 seconds into the movie, I paused it to read:

Orson Welles reinvented movies at the age of 26 with this audacious biography of newspaper baron Charles Foster Kane, which, in essence, was a thinly veiled portrait of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. Welles’s complex and technically stunning film chronicles Kane’s rise from poverty to become one of America’s most influential men – and it’s considered one of the best movies ever made.

I felt like I learned more about Welles than about his movie’s content. But, I pressed on. And then the first word was spoken: “Rosebud.” I exclaimed to an empty room, “Oh, the Rosebud movie!” It’s one of those spoilers I’d heard about but had no idea what exactly was being spoiled. I suppose I won’t give it away here, though let’s face it, likely you already know who or what Rosebud is.

While the plot of the movie was interesting, it was the cinematography and the editing that drew me in. I found it visually breathtaking. I don’t know who deserves the credit for things like this – the director, editor, lighting guys, set directors… The use of shadow and light, of fade-ins and –outs was beautiful. A few of my favorite parts of the movie would have had the same affect with or without sound: the sad and ominous opening and closing, depicting the forlorn Xanadu, the cheerless crow and unmoving gate; the solitary minutes when Mr. Thompson sat in Thatcher’s library hall, thumbing through the deceased financier’s journal; and the moment when Kane stood to his full hulking height over the seated Susan Alexander, surrounded by her unflattering newspaper reviews, to demand that she continue singing despite the public reaction and her own desires to quit.

My favorite character was Mr. Bernstein, whose voice I could listen to for days, for no real reason other than his cadence. In contrast, while I feel that Dorothy Comingore is quite beautiful, the character of Susan Alexander thoroughly annoyed me from beginning to end.

After watching, I don't feel like my life has been significantly changed; however, the two hours I spent on the movie don't feel like a waste of time.

My takeaway: Money can't buy happiness; but it can buy a palace full of statues and artwork and two of every animal. If no one knows about the one thing you loved the most in life, you die a lonely man. Also, if you want people to remember you, make your final words cryptic.