The Illusionist

Neil Burger’s film follows Eisenheim (Edward Norton), a stage magician in late nineteenth-century Vienna, and Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), who watches him for Crown Prince Leopold. The source is Steven Millhauser’s story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” from The Barnum Museum, but in the production notes Burger says he invented Leopold and his fiancée Sophie and expanded Uhl, who gets only a few mentions in the story. The romance and palace plot that carry the film are not Millhauser’s. Burger says the telling follows one rule: everything we see is something Uhl witnessed, heard from his agents or at times imagines. Uhl recounts Eisenheim’s youth to Leopold, and the resolution arrives as Uhl’s own conclusion after rethinking events, not as a neutral reveal. Burger adds that most of the tricks are based on real illusions of the period. It was shot in Prague and Tábor in the Czech Republic, with a Philip Glass score. At the 79th Academy Awards Dick Pope was nominated for Cinematography; Guillermo Navarro won for Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Prestige, another film about stage magicians, was nominated in the same category. A good fit if the story forming in Uhl’s head interests you more than how each trick works. Not for readers expecting a faithful Millhauser adaptation; the prince, Sophie and the murder plot were added.