Comedian Daniel Chesterfield makes fun of histrionic stage magicians (you've seen him in those funny Hummer H3 TV ads), and some Georgia parents want magic out of their kids' school libraries, but magic is serious business this fall at the movies. Not Harry Potter or hobbit magic -- supernatural spellcasting has always been a reliable way to put butts in multiplex seats, and we'll be getting our usual holiday dose of that with the boy-and-his-dragon flick Eragon, at Christmastime.

No, I'm talking about performing conjurors, entertainers who pull rabbits out of hats and saw ladies in half and spin clever deceptions for our amusement -- they are treated royally in The Illusionist [my review], about a Vienna stage magician who pulls off his boldest trick ever, still going strong in limited release, and Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated The Prestige, about two warring stage magicians who appear (at least in the trailers) to come close to calling upon actual, dangerous supernatural powers, opening next week. (Closer to Chesterfield's tweaking of stage magicians are the antics of Woody Allen's modern vaudevillian in Scoop, from earlier this year and out on DVD in November; it coincidentally also stars The Prestige's Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson.) I haven't seen The Prestige yet -- though I'm as deeply psyched for it as I was for Nolan's last film, Batman Begins [my review], which did not at all disappoint -- but I'll be very curious to see if it works in the same way that The Illusionist does: at least partly as an expression of the grand cultural battle between reason and superstition that began in earnest in the 19th century and still is not resolved today.

That's what makes it so intriguing that both films are set in the late 1800s (Prestige) or at the cusp of the 20th century (Illusionist), as the increasing prominence of scientific thinking -- perhaps represented most importantly by Darwin's theories on evolution -- was beginning to trump, in the larger culture, thinking influenced primarily by ancient religions or basic human irrationality ... not that that trend isn't still railed against by more than a few people. Setting these stories a hundred to 125 years ago sets up the question: Are we any more enlightened today than these magicians' audiences were then?

The answer? I dunno. Maybe we are (see Penn and Teller's Bullshit!) ... and maybe we're not (see Jesus Camp) ....

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MaryAnn Johanson
author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride
minder of FlickFilosopher.com

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