HIDDEN IN PL AIN SIGHT Volumes in the Techniques of the Moving Image series explore the relationship between what we see onscreen and the technical achievements undertaken in filmmaking to make this possible Books explore some defined aspect of cinema—work from a particular era, work in a particular genre, work by a particular filmmaker or team, work from a particular studio, or work on a particular theme—in light of some technique and/or technical achievement, such as cinematography, direction, acting, lighting, costuming, set design, legal arrangements, agenting, scripting, sound design and recording, and sound or picture editing Historical and social background contextualize the subject of each volume Murray Pomerance Series Editor Wheeler Winston Dixon, Death of the Moguls: The End of Classical Hollywood Murray Pomerance, The Eyes Have It: Cinema and the Reality Effect Colin Williamson, Hidden in Plain Sight: An Archaeology of Magic and the Cinema Joshua Yumibe, Moving Color: Early Film, Mass Culture, Modernism HIDDEN IN PL AIN SIGHT An Archaeology of Magic and the Cinema Coli n W i lli a mson Rutger s Un iv er sit y Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Williamson, Colin, 1984– Hidden in plain sight : an archaeology of magic and the cinema/Colin Williamson pages cm — (Techniques of the moving image) Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978–0–8135–7254–3 (hardcover : alk paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7253–6 (pbk : alk paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7255–0 (e-book) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7256–7 (e-book (web pdf)) Trick cinematography—History Cinematography—Special effects— History Magic tricks in motion pictures I Title TR858.W63 2015 777—dc23 2014046208 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Colin Williamson All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S copyright law Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America For my parents, Jim and Diane, and my wife, Ariel CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Watching Closely (De)Mystifying Tricks: The Wonder Response and the Emergence of the Cinema 20 Quicker than the Eye: Science, Cinema, and the Question of Vision 46 Second Sight: Time Lapse and the Cinema as Seer 70 The Enchanted Screen: Performing the Cinema’s Illusion of Life 100 Digital Prestidigitation: The Eclipse of the Cinema’s Mechanical Magic 129 Through Digital Eyes: Reanimating Early Cinema 155 Conclusion: Other Obscurities and Illuminations 185 Notes Index 195 223 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book began when I was an undergraduate student in film studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where I developed an interest in the cinema’s relationship with animation, science, and technology That interest has changed in ways that continue not only to surprise me but also to remind me how much I owe to a group of people whose encouragements, insights, and criticisms made it possible for me to turn an interest into a book My undergraduate adviser, Peter Bloom, supported this project from its earliest stages to its completion I am grateful for his guidance and his enthusiasm, and for the fact that over the years we have become good friends My mentor at the University of Chicago, Tom Gunning, is a vital part of my research on and understanding of early cinema, particularly in my dissertation, and it is to him that I owe the biggest debt for helping me bring the idea for this book to life Similarly, Jim Lastra was most influential as a benchmark for the kind of balanced and careful scholarship I have pursued here Very early on, Miriam Hansen, Edward Branigan, Jennifer Wild, and Judy Hoffman showed me how to focus my interests in ways that are still guiding my work Karen Beckman at the University of Pennsylvania generously read and offered illuminating commentary and edits on drafts of several chapters, and Matthew Solomon at the University of Michigan inspired and guided many of this book’s central aims I am particularly grateful to Stephen Prince for his incisive and extensive feedback on the final drafts of this book Suzanne Buchan and Oliver Gaycken provided me with valuable feedback that placed my forays into animation studies and the history of science and technology on more solid ground My research and writing have benefited tremendously from the spirit and rigor these individuals bring to their own work and the expertise they generously extended to mine At Rutgers University Press, I would very sincerely like to thank Leslie Mitchner for her interest in and support of this project when it was far from resembling a book She, Lisa Boyajian, and India Cooper were crucial to helping me navigate the challenges of publishing, and I am grateful for their ix Notes to Pages 145–154 217 38 Sergei Eisenstein, Eisenstein on Disney, ed Jay Leyda (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1986), 21 39 Lauren Rabinovitz, “From Hale’s Tours to Star Tours,” in Virtual Voyages: Cinema and Travel, ed Jeffrey Ruoff (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 44 40 Software is commonly referred to in these terms in popular discourse The distinction is made primarily with reference to the more tangible “hardware” systems that provide the material basis of software operations 41 Peter Lamont, “Magic and the Willing Suspension of Disbelief,” in Magic Show, ed Jonathan Allen and Sally O’Reilly (London: Hayward Publishing, 2009), 30 See also Paul Ward, “Dark Intervals, Mechanics, and Magic: Animated Movement as the Illusion of Life,” special talk, Centre for Humanities and Holland Animation Film Festival, University of Utrecht, 23 September 2011 42 Rodowick, The Virtual Life of Film, 15 43 Michael Heim, Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing, 2nd ed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 128, 132, 133 44 Heim, for example, points out that this explaining unavoidably proceeds along metaphorical lines and ultimately remains a process of “making operational guesses at the underlying structure [of the electronic system] These are not, of course, explanations in any strict scientific sense.” See ibid., 133 45 Alden Graves, “A Rabbit That Should Stay in the Hat,” Bennington Banner, 18 January 2007), n.p 46 Steven Millhauser, “Eisenheim the Illusionist,” in The Barnum Museum (New York: Poseidon Press, 1990), 228–229 47 Christopher Priest, The Prestige (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1995), 317 48 Caroline Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York: Zone Books, 2001), 72 49 A O Scott, “Two Rival Magicians, and Each Wants the Other to Vanish,” New York Times, 20 October 2006, E12 50 Vivian Sobchack, “Animation and Automation; or, The Incredible Effortfulness of Being,” Screen 50, no (Winter 2009): 386 51 Sobchack gestures preliminarily to discourses on the posthuman and cybernetics, specifically with regards to ideas about the computer’s relation to autopoiesis and artificial or synthetic life She is interested in the way that autonomy carries with it a sense of terror and the sublime, which Scott Bukatman calls “nightmarish,” and which distinguishes the digital from the uncanny and the automaton on the basis that in these other cases the human hand exerts a dominating influence over the phenomenon being witnessed so as to keep it from becoming autonomous See Scott Bukatman, “Disobedient Machines: Animation and Autonomy,” in Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science, ed Roald Hoffmann and Iain Boyd Whyte (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 128–148 For an incisive discussion of the posthuman, see N Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) 52 Bukatman, “Disobedient Machines,” 141, 146–147 218 Notes to Pages 155–161 Through Digital Eyes: Reanimating Early Cinema I am borrowing this from Werner Nekes’s film series Media Magica (1995–1997) Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (New York: Scholastic Press, 2007) I have been unable to verify the date or source of this photograph I am, however, very grateful to Matthew Solomon for helping with my research in this vein Erik Barnouw lists the photograph’s date as 1930 and references the Museum of Modern Art in New York See Erik Barnouw, The Magician and the Cinema (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 104 The same photograph is also credited to the Bibliothèque du film in Jacques Malthête and Laurent Mannoni, eds., Méliès, magie et cinema (Paris: Paris-Musées, 2002), 30–31; and to the Cinộmatheque franỗaise in Brian Selznick, The Hugo Movie Companion: A Behind the Scenes Look at How a Beloved Book Became a Major Motion Picture (New York: Scholastic Press, 2011), 255 The photograph appears in Selznick’s book on pages 84–85 André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” in What Is Cinema? vol 1, ed and trans Hugh Gray (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 14 See Siegfried Zielinski, Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006) Selznick, The Hugo Movie Companion (cited in note above) I am borrowing the phrase “artefactual remains” from Vivian Sobchack, who uses it to refer to the collection of wonders that WALL-E, the antiquated robotic main character from the animated film WALL-E (2008), keeps in the dump truck that he has made into his home Sobchack also refers to the robot’s home as a curiosity cabinet See Sobchack, “Animation and Automation; or, The Incredible Effortfulness of Being,” Screen 50, no (Winter 2009): 387 Simon During, Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 66–67 On the concept of intermediality, see in particular André Gaudreault, Film and Attraction: From Kinematography to Cinema, trans Timothy Barnard (Paris: CSRS Éditions, 2008); André Gaudreault, “The Diversity of Cinematographic Connections in the Intermedial Context of the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” trans Wendy Schubring, in Visual Delights: Essays on the Popular and Projected Image in the Nineteenth Century, ed Simon Popple and Vanessa Toulmin (Trowbridge, UK: Flicks Books, 2000), 8–15; and André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion, “A Medium Is Always Born Twice . . ,” Early Popular Visual Culture 3, no (May 2005): 10 During, Modern Enchantments, 171 11 Barbara Maria Stafford, “Revealing Technologies/Magical Domains,” in Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen, ed Barbara Maria Stafford and Frances Terpak (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2001), 12 Zielinski, Deep Time of the Media, 34 13 Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (New York: Verso, 2002), 153 Notes to Pages 162–171 219 14 Tom Gunning, “Phantasmagoria and the Manufacturing of Illusions and Wonder: Towards a Cultural Optics of the Cinematic Apparatus,” in The Cinema: A New Technology for the Twentieth Century, ed André Gaudreault, Catherine Russell, and Pierre Véronneau (Lausanne: Payot, 2004) 15 Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 110 16 Sean Cubitt, “Observations on the History and Uses of Animation Occasioned by the Exhibition Eyes, Lies and Illusions Selected from Works in the Werner Nekes Collection,” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 3, no (2008): 53–54 17 Michele Pierson, Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 111 18 Stafford, “Revealing Technologies,” 19 Stephen Heath, Questions of Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), 221–235 20 My research in this area has benefited greatly from Ian Christie’s insightful analysis of automata, wonder, and the cinema in a paper titled “A Scientific Instrument? Animated Photography among Other New Imaging Techniques,” which he presented at the 2014 International Domitor Conference 21 David Channell uses the case of Chaplin’s automation in Modern Times to elaborate his concept of the vital machine, and I invoke it here similarly to point up how this scene is performing the idea, as Channell explains, that in the case of automated machines, “we can no longer distinguish where the human or intelligent aspects begin and where the mechanical aspects end.” See David Channell, The Vital Machine: A Study of Technology and Organic Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 117, 125 22 For more on the topic of the “vital machine,” see Alan Cholodenko, “Speculations on the Animatic Automaton,” in The Illusion of Life II: More Essays on Animation, ed Alan Cholodenko (Sydney: Power Publications, 2006), 486–528; and Channell, The Vital Machine 23 Gaby Wood, Edison’s Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2002), 183 24 Sobchack, “Animation and Automation.” 25 Cristy Lytal, “Working Hollywood: It’s All in the Mechanics: Dick George and His Crew Made the Automaton for the Director’s Hugo Draw like Clockwork,” Los Angeles Times, 27 November 2011, D8 26 See ibid 27 Steve Snyder, “Maillardet Automaton (Cat #1663),” personal e-mail, 18 October 2012 28 Jacques de Vaucanson, An Account of the Mechanism of an Automaton or Image Playing on the German-Flute, trans J T Desagoliers (London, 1742), 23, quoted in David M Fryer and John C Marshall, “The Motives of Jacques de Vaucanson,” Technology and Culture 20 (1979): 264; see 264–267 for more on the “explanatory mode.” 29 Andrew Baron, “Report on the Restoration of the Maillardet Automaton,” Franklin Institute Science Museum (2012): 29–30 Baron has also claimed, “In Maillardet’s case, 220 Notes to Pages 172–180 the apparent goal was to mystify the audience, as any good illusionist hopes to do, blurring the line between mechanism and life Even the words of the automaton’s poems are composed to strike a personal note with its audience By contrast Scorsese’s automaton (and Brian’s to some extent) convey the wonder of mechanism for machinery’s sake.” Andrew Baron, “Maillardet Automaton (Cat #1663),” personal e-mail, 24 October 2012 30 On the myth of initial terror, see Tom Gunning, “An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator,” in Viewing Positions: Ways of Seeing Film, ed Linda Williams (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 114–133 31 The echoes of the title of Tabard’s book with Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams (1899) are intriguing, especially given the ways in which Scorsese’s interest in the cinema’s past not only manifests in a discourse of dreams but also takes the form of a kind of fetishization of the artefactual remains of early film history I am grateful to Tom McDonough for drawing my attention to this connection 32 See, for example, Mekado Murphy, “Making Marvels: A World for Hugo,” New York Times, January 2012, MT12; and Selznick, The Hugo Movie Companion, 54–55 33 For more on the production of this TV episode, see Jean Oppenheimer, “A Trip to the Moon,” American Cinematographer 79, no (April 1998): 64–68, 70, 72, 74–77 34 Michael Koresky, “Back to Basics,” Film Comment 48, no ( January 2012): 45 Hugo’s cinematographer, Bob Richardson, used a digital camera prototype called the Alexa, which was made by the Arri Group and developed throughout the production of the film to accommodate shooting every shot in digital 3-D See Mark Hope-Jones, “Through a Child’s Eyes,” American Cinematographer 92, no 12 (December 2011): 54–67 35 Ian Christie, “The Illusionist,” Sight and Sound 22, no ( January 2012): 39 36 Koresky, “Back to Basics,” 45 37 Mark Kermode, “Magical—However You Look at It ,” Observer (London), April 2012, 30 38 On the novelty of media, see Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey Pingree, eds., New Media, 1740–1915 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003); and David Thorburn and Henry Jenkins, eds., Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004) 39 Tom Gunning, “Re-Newing Old Technologies: Astonishment, Second Nature, and the Uncanny in Technology from the Previous Turn-of-the-Century,” in Thorburn and Jenkins, Rethinking Media Change, 47 40 Christie, “The Illusionist,” 39 41 There are actually two cameramen filming simultaneously on two separate cameras set side by side in the studio The setup is likely a reference to Méliès’s practice of filming with two cameras to produce nearly identical negatives, one of which he would have copyrighted in New York See, for example, Jacques Malthête, “Les actualités reconstituées de Georges Méliès,” Archives 21 (March 1989): 9–11; and Elizabeth Ezra, Georges Méliès (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000), 66 42 See Pierson, Special Effects, 137–168 43 Annette Michelson, “From Magician to Epistemologist: Vertov’s The Man with a Movie Camera,” in The Essential Cinema: Essays on Films in the Collection of Anthology Notes to Pages 181–193 221 Film Archives, vol 1, ed P Adams Sitney (New York: Anthology Film Archives, 1975), 95–111 44 Gunning, “Re-Newing Old Technologies,” 47 45 Barbara Robertson, “Magic Man: Visual Effects Artists Push Deep into Cinema History to Help Martin Scorsese Create Hugo,” Computer Graphics Magazine 34, no (December/January 2012): 24 46 Philip Rosen, Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 155–161 Conclusion: Other Obscurities and Illuminations For more on the lightning sketch, see Donald Crafton, Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898–1928 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 35–58; and Malcolm Cook, “The Lightning Cartoon: Animation from Music Hall to Cinema,” Early Popular Visual Culture 11, no (2013): 237–254 Scott Bukatman, The Poetics of Slumberland: Animated Spirits and the Animating Spirit (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012), 135–163 See Matthew Solomon, “Magicians and the Magic of Hollywood Cinema During the 1920s,” in Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, ed Francesca Coppa, Lawrence Hass, and James Peck (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 61–84 “No 3: Deception,” http://rickyjay.com/text003.htm Ricky Jay, “A Curious Passion,” Threepenny Review 103 (Autumn 2005): 15 Charles Isherwood, “Ricky Jay: On the Stem,” Variety 386, no 13 (13 May–19 May 2002): 32; Ginger Gail Strand, “Review of Ricky Jay: On the Stem,” Theatre Journal 55, no (2003): 352 Strand, “Ricky Jay: On the Stem,” 352–353 “Q & A: Ricky Jay, a Man Who Believes More in Magicians than in Magic,” New York Times (September 21, 2002): B11 Simon During, Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 131 10 For more on Robert-Houdin in particular, see Murray Leeder, “M Robert-Houdin Goes to Algeria: Spectatorship and Panic in Illusion and Early Cinema,” Early Popular Visual Culture 8, no (May 2010): 209–225 11 Matthew Solomon addresses this at length in Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010) Alison Griffiths also explored Houdini’s relationship with violence in the cinema in “Edison, Houdini, and the Electric Chair,” which was her keynote address for a 2011 conference I co-organized at the University of Chicago titled “The Powers of Display: Cinemas of Investigation, Demonstration, and Illusion.” 12 During, Modern Enchantments, 130–134 INDEX 3-D: education and, 177; historiography and, 159; Hugo (2011) and, 6, 16, 175–178, 220n34; and The Mad Magician (1954), 191 aesthetics: aesthetic of astonishment, 35, 195n2, 199n28, 211n21, 220n30; media change and, 44, 177; view aesthetic, 139, 215n20; visual effects and, 123–125, 213n47; wonder and, 38–43 See also operational aesthetic Anderson, John Henry, 25, 30–31; blow book (the Magic Sketch Book), 112 Animated Flowers (Les fleurs animées, 1906), 86 animation: anthropomorphosis and, 75; automata and, 80; computer animation, 16, 80, 98, 123–128, 135, 145, 176; definition and etymology of, 102; hand of the artist and, 97–98; illusion of life and, 101–102; labor and, 98; quick change and, 114–115; still and moving images, 116–123; stopmotion, 163–164, 186, 209n27; theory of, 210n3; time-lapse photography and, 75, 78–79, 84–85, 90–91; trick films and, 86–87 See also illusion of life Arrival of a Train at the Station (1895), 35, 101, 116, 166, 172, 173; Maxim Gorky and, 41, 117 Artistic Creation (1901), 32, 212n36 The Artist’s Dream (magic trick), 120–121 attention: Alfred Binet and, 50, 54; cognitive science of, 59, 60; Hugo Münsterberg and, 203n22; misdirection and, 54–55, 60–62, 202n4; psychology and, 205n35 authenticity: historiography and, 183; The Illusionist (2006) and, 138; The Prestige (2006) and, 143; re-creation of magic tricks and, 134–140, 141 automation: animation and, 128; automata and, 83; special effects and, 119–122 automaton, 12, 82; animation and, 153–154, 217n51; clockwork and, 169; digital effects and, 124–128; eighteenth- and nineteenth-century magic tricks and, 82; Hugo (2011) and, 156, 163, 165–172; The Illusionist (2006) and, 135, 141, 145, 150 See also Jaquet-Droz, Pierre and Henri-Louis; Leschot, Jean-Frédéric; Maillardet, Henri Bale, Christian, 132 Barnouw, Erik, 12, 131, 147, 185, 188; and phantasmagoria, 35, 107 Barnum, P T.: and Fiji Mermaid, 142; and hoaxes, 36, 37, 40–41; and La valise de Barnum (Velle, 1904), 114; and operational aesthetic, 216n35 Baudelaire, Charles, 155, 157, 162 Baudrillard, Jean, 83 Baum, L Frank, 126, 213n48 Bazin, André, 34, 138–139, 158 Beckman, Karen, 190 belief, 4, 19, 23 See also suspension of disbelief Benjamin, Walter, 57 Berck, Albert Michotte van den, 118 Bergman, Ingmar, 20, 23, 24, 43, 193 Binet, Alfred: chronophotography and, 50–69; 203–204n22 Blackton, James Stuart, 102, 116, 186 Black Velvet Art method (magic trick), 32–33 blow book: animation and, 111–113, 119, 120, 125; histories of, 211n10; proto-cinema and, 110, 122; trick films and, 108–109, 114–116 223 224 Index Brown, John Seely, 148 Bruno, Giuliana, 161 Bukatman, Scott: and automaton, 128; and autonomy and animation, 122, 153, 187; and CGI, 154 Bull, Lucien, 78 Bynum, Caroline: and history of wonder, 3; and investigation and wonder, 153; and theory of wonder, 39 Case of the Missing Hare (1942), 187 change blindness, 62–63, 205n46 See also edit blindness Channell, David, 166, 213n54, 219n21 Charcot, Jean-Martin, 52 Cholodenko, Alan, 101, 117, 166, 212n26, 219n21 Chomón, Segundo de, 5, 42, 102–104, 116, 129, 185 Christie, Ian, 176–180, 219n20 chronophotography: Alfred Binet and, 50–59, 61; Étienne-Jules Marey and, 33; nontheatrical film and, 65 See also Binet, Alfred; Muybridge, Eadweard; Regnault, Fộlix-Louis Cinộmathốque franỗaise, 162, 171; Georges Franju and, 173; Georges Méliès and, 174; Henri Langlois and, 172 cognitive film theory, 62–63, 65, 205–206n46 computer-generated imagery (CGI), 6–7, 32, 196n8; animation and, 127–128; anxiety about, 153; Hugo (2011) and, 163, 168, 175; The Illusionist (2006) and, 81, 121; immateriality and invisibility, 131, 133, 142–145, 149; metamorphosis and, 126–128; and system opacity, 148; trickery and, 130, 136; uncertainty and, 123, 141, 146, 154 See also digital effects; special effects continuity editing, 5, 63, 205n45, 206n48 Cooke, George Albert, 25, 29, 120–121 The Countryman’s First Sight of the Animated Pictures (1901), 103 Crafton, Donald, 98, 121, 186 Crary, Jonathan, 163 Cubitt, Sean, 126; and Werner Nekes, 163 curiosity cabinet: media archaeology and, 160–161; Werner Nekes and, 162 Curtis, Scott, 202n11 cybernetics, 51 Daston, Lorraine, 17, 39 Death Defying Acts (2007), Deceptive Practice (2012), 188 Deceptive Practices (consultants), 188–189 Demenÿ, Georges: Alfred Binet and, 50, 52, 65, 66; Étienne-Jules Marey and, 52 Descartes, René: theory of wonder, 38–39 Dessoir, Max, 203n15 detective: Harry Houdini as, 199n26; The Illusionist (2006) and, 16, 149; The Mad Magician (1954) and, 191; modern magic and, 4, 22, 37, 55; modern museum and, 34; P T Barnum and, 40–41; scientific investigation and, 51; The Wizard of Gore (1970) and, 191 Devant, David, 26, 29, 120–121, 134, 214n18 devices of wonder, 9; automata and, 82; early cinema and, 30; Hugo (2011) and, 161; media archaeology and, 201n53; modernity and, 48; proto-cinema and, 155; Werner Nekes and, 162, 184 Dick George Creatives, 168 digital effects: animation and, 126–127; denigration of, 136; detection and, 141–146; fear of, 149–154; handicraft and, 130, 135–136; and historiography, 155; labor and, 130–131; loss of wonder and, 140; nineteenth-century stage magic and, 123; nostalgia and, 137; reality effect and, 124–125; scholarship on, 7; sleight of hand and, 130; uncertainty and anxiety about, 143; wonder and, 137–138, 140–141 See also special effects Duck Amuck (1953), 187 Dulac, Germaine, 70, 73, 86, 88 During, Simon, 25 Dynamic Images and Eye Movements (DIEM) project, 61–63 Index ecstatic observation: definition of, 73, 207n3; optical devices and, 79–80; time-lapse photography and, 84, 88 edit blindness, 63, 205–206n46 See also change blindness education: automata and, 82; educational entertainment, 9, 66; modern magic and, 23, 29–37, 69; wonder and, 38–41 effects assemblage, 164 “Eisenheim the Illusionist” (Millhauser), 150–151 Eisenstein, Sergei: and animation, 101–102, 119, 126–128; computer-generated imagery and, 145; ecstasy and, 207n3 Elsaesser, Thomas, 197n23 enchanted painting films, 102 Enchanted Portfolio (magic trick), 112–113 the Enlightenment: critiques of superstition and the occult, 24, 25, 27–29, 34, 198nn8,9; modern magic and, 36; philosophical toys and, 77, 82 Epstein, Jean, 49, 57, 70, 71–72, 73, 84, 119 Everett’s Game (Rosen), 182–183 eye-tracking camera: and psychological studies of sleight-of-hand magic, 60, 62, 64–65 F for Fake (1974), 10–12, 180, 192 Fairyland; or, The Kingdom of the Fairies (1903), 173–176 Fairylogue and Radio-Plays (1908), 126, 213n48 Fantasia (1940), 74–77, 89 Fawkes, Isaac, 53, 82, 135 Festival of Magic (1957), 188 films of tricks, 66, 67, 138 See also nonfiction film and magic Fischer, Lucy, 190 The Flower Fairy (La fée aux fleurs, 1905), 86–87 Foucault, Michel, 18 Franju, Georges, 158, 173 Franklin Institute, 170–171 Freedman, James, 134–136, 154 Freud, Sigmund: Interpretation of Dreams (1899), 220n31; the uncanny and, 117, 181 From Bud to Blossom (1910), 87–88 From the Earth to the Moon (1998), 174 225 Gaudreault, André, 18, 113, 122, 144, 160, 218n9 Gaycken, Oliver, 78, 207n8 Gertie (1914), 126 Gilbreth, Frank and Lillian: and cyclegraphic studies of surgeons, 51, 202n11 Gitelman, Lisa, 19, 197n25, 220n38 Gorky, Maxim, 41–42, 117–118, 212n24 Le Grand Méliès (1953), 158, 173 Griffiths, Alison, 191, 195n4, 221n11 The Grim Game (1919), 191 Gunning, Tom, 15; “aesthetic of astonishment,” 35, 39, 41, 116, 124, 195n2; and animation, 105; “cinema of attractions,” 87; “cultural optics,” 162; and the emergence of the cinema, 17–18; and magic and the cinema, 37, 40, 48, 160; and trick films, 113, 114, 206n48; “view aesthetic,” 139; and wonder, 44, 177, 181 hand of the artist, 98, 121, 123, 154, 186 Harris, Neil, 37, 40–41, 142, 170, 216n35 See also operational aesthetic Hayles, N Katherine, 217n51 Heim, Michael, 148 Helmholtz, Hermann von, 53, 55 Herrmann, “Professor” Alexander, 53 Hobbes, Thomas, 27, 198n9 Hokus-Pokus (blow book), 112, 113, 115, 118, 125 Houdini (2014), Houdini, Harry, 5–6, 138, 139, 191, 199n26, 221n11 House of Wax (1953), 191 Hugo (2011), 6, 16, 156; curiosity cabinet and, 161–164, 175; archival materials and, 172–173; automata and, 165–172; digital 3-D and, 175–177; historiography and, 159; media archaeology and, 182–184; substitution splices and, 105, 178–181 Huhtamo, Erkki, 17, 74, 160, 163 Hume, David, 27 Illusion (1929), 6, 187 illusionism, 5, 13; narrative and, 14, 15 illusion of life: automata and, 84; in cartoon animation, 101–102; cinematic movement and, 101, 109; time-lapse photography and, 99 226 Index The Illusionist (2006), 6, 16; critical reception of, 138; explanation and special effects in, 147–151, 153; and the Orange Tree trick, 80–81; and the phantasmagoria, 105–107; profilmic tricks in, 134–135; violence in, 192–193 The Illusionist (2010), 186 An Impossible Voyage (1904), 172 intermediality, 9, 16, 18, 160, 218n9; magic and, 189 invisible editing, 62–63, 205n45, 206n48 See also continuity editing; edit blindness Jackman, Hugh, 132 Jaquet-Droz, Pierre and Henri-Louis, 170 Jastrow, Joseph, 52–53, 54, 55–56 Jay, Ricky, 134, 188–190, 211n10 Jentsch, Ernst, 83, 126, 209n21 Kammatograph, 78 Kellar, Harry, 53 Kircher, Athanasius, 26 Klein, Norman, 133, 134 Kracauer, Siegfried, 74, 79 Kuhn, Gustav, 59–61, 63, 64 labor: automata and, 171; and mechanical and electronic devices, 98, 127, 153, 168 See also hand of the artist Lachapelle, Sofie, 52, 203n12 Langlois, Henri, 172 Last Action Hero (1993), 125–126 The Last Performance (1929), 6, 187 Leeder, Murray, 15, 196n18, 221n10 Leschot, Jean-Frédéric, 170 Life (2009–2010), 75, 93; “Plants” and, 93–97 lightning sketch, 186, 221n1 Line Describing a Cone (1973), 107 machine interest, 74, 164, 172 The Mad Magician (1954), 6, 191 magic See modern magic; secular magic magic assemblage, 160 Magical Maestro (1952), 186 The Magic Book (Le livre magique, 1900), 110–111, 114–115, 118, 119–120, 122–123 The Magic History of Cinema (2015), The Magician (1958), 20–25 magic lantern, 9, 26–28, 155, 162; and The Magician (1958), 23–24; and Pepper’s Ghost, 32–33; and the phantasmagoria, 35, 107 Magic Sketch (or Scrap) Book (magic trick), 112 Maillardet, Henri, 170, 171, 219–220n29 The Man from Beyond (1922), Mangan, Michael, 198n3 Mango Tree (magic trick), 81–82, 84, 208n15 Mannoni, Laurent, 17–18, 36, 160, 163, 197n22, 199n32, 202n9, 203n13, 218n3 Manovich, Lev, 130; and digital effects, 145, 213n51; and digital simulation, 141 Man with a Movie Camera (1929), 10, 119, 180–181 The Man with the Rubber Head (1902), 32, 173 Marey, Étienne-Jules, 33, 50–53, 67–68 The Marvelous Album (L’album merveilleux, 1905), 107–108, 111, 114, 116, 119–120, 122 Maskelyne, Nevil, 25, 26, 29, 120–121, 134 The Master Mystery (1919), 5–6, 191, 199n26 McCay, Winsor, 126 media archaeology, 17–18, 155–156, 159–161, 163–164, 183, 189, 201n53 media change, 44, 220n38; demystification and, 44; magician and, 45 See also wonder Media Magica (1995–1997), 162–163 Méliès, Georges, 5, 16, 30, 110–112, 115, 120, 123, 201n52, 206n48, 220n41; Alfred Binet and, 50; and the early cinematic archive, 160–164, 172, 176, 178–181; at the Gare Montparnasse, 157–159; Hugo (2011) and, 105–106; and the substitution splice, 63, 144; and the trick film genre, 42, 129 The Melomaniac (1903), 172–173 memory theater, 160, 172 The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906), 172 metamorphosis: animation and, 113, 115, 120–121, 127–128; CGI and, 141; movement and, 101, 105; quick change and, 110–112, 119, 122, 125; time lapse and, 73, 78, 80–85; and trick films, 87 Index Metz, Christian, 47, 68 Michelson, Annette, 119, 180 misdirection, 4, 47, 54–55, 202n4 mise en abyme, 10, 103, 105 modern magic: difference from supernatural and occult, 15; education and, 29–43; explanation and, 13; history of, 22–29; live and represented, 144; science and, 25–26; self-consciousness and, 22; uncertainty and, 37; violence and, 190–194 See also Binet, Alfred; operational aesthetic; time lapse Modern Times (1936), 166, 219n21 Moore, Rachel, 15 Morin, Edgar, 100, 115, 118, 127 Münsterberg, Hugo, 54, 203–204n22 Musser, Charles, 18, 26, 28, 42 Muybridge, Eadweard: chronophotography and, 51–52 Nature’s Half Acre (1951), 90–92 See also Ott, John Ndalianis, Angela, 6, 123–127, 196n8, 213n47 Nead, Lynda, 102, 119 Nekes, Werner, 155, 162–164, 184, 218n1; and Getty Museum, neuroscience, 60; the arts and, 63; scientific studies of illusions and, 63–64 new film history, 197n25 new media, 177; CGI and, 141; novelty and, 19, 119, 197n25, 220n38; uncanny and, 44 See also media change nickelodeon, 5, 25 nonfiction film and magic, 64–69, 138, 187–188 See also films of tricks North, Dan, 6; and special effects, 7, 130, 195n4, 215n26 nostalgia, 137, 145, 176, 183–186 Now You See Me (2013), 6, 13, 15 operational aesthetic, 38–43, 88, 116, 119, 121, 134, 142, 164, 170, 200n47 See also Harris, Neil; wonder optical devices, 9, 18, 28, 49, 51, 57, 62, 80, 162–163, 201n53; and education, 65–69 See also devices of wonder 227 optical unconscious, 57 Orange Tree (magic trick), 80–83, 135, 141, 145, 150, 189 Ott, John, 89–93 The Palace of the Arabian Nights (1905), 178–179 Parikka, Jussi, 17 Park, Katharine, 17, 39 Pepper, John Henry, 32–34 Pepper’s Ghost (magic trick), 32–34; Charles Dickens’s The Haunted Man and, 34 persistence of vision, 47, 202n3 phantasmagoria, 28, 34–37, 107, 111, 126, 131, 199–200n36 Philidor, 35–36, 199n32 See also Philipsthal, Paul de Philipsthal, Paul de, 34–36 philosophical toys, 9, 22, 32, 156, 171 Pierson, Michele, 6; and digital simulation, 141; and special effects, 7, 164, 178–179, 196n8 Pingree, Geoffrey, 19, 197n25, 220n38 plasmaticness, 126–128, 145 Porta, Giovanni Battista della, 18 posthuman, 217n51 prestidigitation: definition of, 130 The Prestige (2006), 6, 131; detective narratives and, 16; mechanical vs digital effects, 136–140, 142, 147–154; violence in, 192 Prince, Stephen, 14, 195n4, 215n28 pro-filmic tricks: credibility and, 138–139; The Illusionist (2006) and, 134–137; The Prestige (2006) and, 136–137 proto-cinema: field of, 4, 8, 18, 23, 52, 155, 162, 182, 197n25; intermediality and, 19; time lapse and, 77, 122 Raynaly, Edouard-Joseph: chronophotography and, 49–52, 55, 57, 59 reality effect: of CGI, 125, 127; of the cinema, 41, 102, 126, 210n5 The Red Spectre (Le spectre rouge, 1907), 102–104, 116 Regnault, Félix-Louis: chronophotography and, 52 228 Index Robert-Houdin, Jean-Eugène, 25–26, 31, 82–83, 112–113, 134, 135, 145, 190 Robertson, Étienne-Gaspard, 34–36, 107 Rodowick, David, 147, 153 Rosen, Philip, 182–183 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 29–30 Royal Polytechnic Institution, 31–35, 59 Sadoul, Georges, 207–208n8 Scientific American, 42, 201n52, 205n40, 215n22 Scot, Reginald, 28, 53 Scott, Henderina, 78, 208n9 screen practice, 18, 26, 42, 103, 116, 197n21 Secrets of Life (1956), 75, 90–92 See also Ott, John secular magic, 1, 12, 22, 23, 25, 29, 39, 69, 82, 160, 193 See also modern magic Sherlock Jr (1924), 103 The Show (1927), 187 Siegel, Lee, 82, 208nn15,16 skepticism, 14, 21, 69, 149 sleight of hand, 27–28, 53, 59, 68, 141, 202n4; Alfred Binet and, 50; the cinema and, 48, 122, 129–131, 133, 139, 144; definition of, 47 Sobchack, Vivian, 98, 122, 127, 131, 153, 168, 202n5, 218n7 Solomon, Matthew, 5, 7, 18, 160, 187, 191, 199n26, 208n14, 213n52; and films of tricks, 66, 138, 139; and Méliès, 201n52, 206n48, 218n3 sound: films about magicians and, 6, 187 special effects, 2, 5, 8, 43, 130–133; difference from visual effects, 195n4; materiality and immateriality and, 143–144, 147–154; time lapse and, 93–99; trick films and, 7, 16, 87, 102, 176–177, 183–184; visible and invisible, 140–146, 148; and wonder, See also digital effects the Sphinx (magic trick), 31, 33 Spiritualist movement, 160, 187; and spirit photography, 70 Stafford, Barbara Maria, 9, 63, 91, 160–161, 164, 201n53; and magic, 28, 69 Steinmeyer, Jim, 32 sublime, 63, 128, 217n51 substitution splice, 82, 113–115, 122–123, 133, 143–144, 178–181, 206n48 suggestion, 54, 203–204n22, 205n35 suspension of disbelief, 14, 199–200n36; in modern magic, 146; neuroscience and, 63–64, 146 Talbot, Frederick: and substitution splice, 120; and time-lapse films, 78, 85 Le tempestaire (1947), 70–73, 81, 97 Terminator 2: 3D Battle across Time, 124–128, 213n47 Terpak, Frances, 9, 201n53 Terror Island (1920), 6, 191 Tesla, Nikola, 132, 151, 152–154, 192 Théâtre Robert-Houdin, 173 theme parks, 107, 124–128 thick description, 19, 197n25 time lapse: as animation technique, 78–79; automata and, 80–81, 82; cartoon animation and, 74–75, 90; computer animation and, 98; digital effects and CGI and, 94–97; film theory and, 74, 75, 84, 88; Loïe Fuller and, 99; nature, power, and, 91–92, 97; operational aesthetic and, 88; popular science films and, 75, 77, 87–89; trick films and, 86–87; uncanny and, 83–85 See also Ott, John Tim’s Vermeer (2013), trick film, 5, 7, 42, 102, 113–114, 120, 123, 133, 148, 201n52; and theatrical magic, 16 See also Chomón, Segundo de; Méliès, Georges; Velle, Gaston A Trip to the Moon (1902), 16, 156, 166, 172–174, 206n48 uncanny, 6, 116, 145, 153, 217n51; Ernst Jentsch and, 83, 126, 209n21; the fantastic and, 37; intellectual curiosity and, 9; optical devices and, 9, 48, 49, 57, 73; Sigmund Freud and, 117, 181; time lapse and, 71, 79, 83 uncanny valley, 145, 216n36 uncertainty, dialectic of, 37, 41, 46, 54, 127, 139, 146, 151 Index Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show (1902), 103 The Untamable Whiskers (1904), 105–106, 172 Usai, Paolo Cherchi, 134 Vaucanson, Jacques de, 170 Velle, Gaston, 5, 86, 90, 107–108, 110–116, 118, 120, 129 violence, 190–193, 221n11 See also modern magic vision: modernity and, 48; sleight of hand and, 27, 46–49, 59; technology and, 55–58, 61, 65–66, 70, 74, 88, 204n32, 207n3 See also persistence of vision visual and cognitive illusions, 53–54 vital machine, 166, 214n54, 219n21 229 Weber, Michael, 134–135, 188 Welles, Orson, 1–2, 10–11, 19, 100–101, 126, 180, 188, 192 Whissel, Kristen, 14 Winter, Alison, 204n22, 205n35 The Wizard of Gore (1970), 6, 191 wonder: astonishment and, 39; definitions of, 38–40; early cinema and, 41–43; education and, 38; investigation and, 153; new media and, 43–45; operational aesthetic and, 40 Wood, Gaby, 167, 203n13 You Never Know Women (1926), 187 Zielinski, Siegfried, 17, 18, 159, 160, 161, 163 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Colin Williamson is a visiting assistant professor of film and media stud- ies at Franklin and Marshall College He has published essays on early animation, science and the cinema, Walter Benjamin and film theory, and special effects ... Congress Cataloging -in- Publication Data Williamson, Colin, 1984– Hidden in plain sight : an archaeology of magic and the cinema/Colin Williamson pages cm — (Techniques of the moving image) Includes... never letting me forget what a wonderful thing it is to love the movies In undertaking this project I could not have asked for a better friend HIDDEN IN PL AIN SIGHT INTRODUCTION Watching Closely... the magician in the cinema as more than providing entertainment and reflecting the wondrousness of motion picture technologies The Hidden in Pl a in Sight third involves using the figure of the