[This coming weekend marks Harry Houdini’s 150th birthday! So this week on the blog I’ll perform some AmericanStudying magic of my own, leading up to a special post on that legendary prestidigitator.]
On a pair
of magicians who help us think about both competition and collaboration.
I’m one of
those film buffs who think that Christopher Nolan has gotten a little overexposed
in recent years, but I’ll stand by many of his early films as truly
groundbreaking and great in equal measure. That’s especially true
of Memento (2000), which as I
wrote in that post occupies a spot very high on my list. But not too far below
it is The Prestige (2006), a
very intricate and clever historical drama that also happens to be for my money
the best film about magic ever made (as well as very much a magic trick in its
own right, and if you haven’t seen it I won’t spoil the trick!). And while The Prestige is about many things within
and around the world of 19th century magic (including electricity as
its own magic trick, courtesy of David Bowie’s performance as
Nikola Tesla [some SPOILERS in those clips]), at its heart it is a story of
a lifelong conflict and competition between two equally talented magicians and
showman and equally bitter rivals, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden
(Christian Bale).
Late 19th
century America was home to its own famous pair of rival magicians, Howard
Thurston (1869-1936) and Harry
Kellar (1849-1922). As I highlighted in yesterday’s post, both Thurston and
Kellar claimed to be the true heir to the origin point for 19th
century American magic, the Fakir of Ava; Kellar literally worked for years as
the Fakir’s apprentice starting at the age of 12, so he might well have the
better claim, but as with all things magic the question is at least a bit shrouded
in mystery, natch. And in any case, the competition between the two men went
beyond their relationship to this professional progenitor, with both for
example claiming to be the true master of a very famous specific illusion known
as the “Levitation
of Princess Karnac” (neither man seems to have originated the trick, as
that honor apparently goes to English magician and inventor John Nevil Maskelyne). As
Nolan’s film nicely explores, the world of magic is often defined by these
questions over what performer truly “owns” a particular illusion, both in the
literal sense of proprietary concerns but even more in terms of mastery, and
Thurston and Kellar embodied that competitive conflict in spades.
Or was it
all just an act? (Not in Nolan’s film, to be clear—again, no spoilers, but
those two characters really, really don’t like each other.) After all, Kellar
was a generation older than Thurston, served in at least some ways as another
mentor to the younger performer, and the two men toured together for many years
with their Thurston-Kellar
Show (which as that advertisement reflects billed the act as “Thurston,
Kellar’s Successor). While any performer faces genuine questions about their
legacies after they’re gone, questions which would certainly be connected to
who “owns” a famous illusion, every performer also and perhaps especially wants
an audience while they’re alive. Both of these magicians unquestionably learned
from the Fakir about how to generate publicity, not only in one moment but
across a long career, and presenting themselves as rivals (even, if not particularly,
when they shared a stage) was quite possibly an elaborate way to do just that. As
with any great magic trick, we’ll never know the answer for sure!
Next
MagicStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Magicians or magic histories or contexts you’d highlight?
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