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The original was posted on /r/movies by /u/ChungLingS00 on 2024-04-09 01:55:40.
Original Title: Christopher Nolan's The Prestige is one of my favorite movies. Here's some magician's insight into the movie and maybe it will help you appreciate it a little more. The story behind Chung Ling Soo, the bullet catch, and performing magic for children.
Chung Ling Soo is mentioned briefly in the movie, but the real secret is that a lot of the aspects of the movie itself revolve around Chung Ling Soo's real life.
William Ellsworth Robinson
In New York, there was a man that went by the name of William Ellsworth Robinson. He was a magician, but not famous at the time. A more successful magician named Ching Ling Foo came to town with an impressive magic trick. He announced publicly that if anyone could show how he was able to accomplish his signature trick, he would give them $1,000. The trick was that he would produce a large bowl of water on stage. Robinson announced that he knew how the trick was done, but Foo feared that the trick would be exposed so he withdrew the challenge, refused to meet Robinson, and never paid any of the money.
The Chinese deception
William Robinson was pissed off, and rightfully so. He shaved his head, put on a wig and became the magician Chung Ling Soo, probably to get revenge and create confusion about the other magician's name and tricks. And it worked. Chung Ling Soo had his wife pretend to be Chinese as well, but she was able to "translate" for Soo. People would ask the magician a question, she would mumble Chinese-sounding gibberish, he would mumble Chinese-sounding gibberish back, and then she would pronounce in broken English what the magician had said. While performing, the magician Soo never spoke on stage, doing everything in pantomime like the modern day magician Teller.
The magician Foo was angry that the magician Soo was stealing his act, and protested, but in the end, Soo was a better magician, and no one cared.
The Bullet Catch
Chung Ling Soo performed a bullet catch trick during his show. A very dangerous trick. It was a trick that was known to kill magicians even when performed safely. As in the movie, people would put things in the barrel, and other stuff could go wrong. In Chung Ling Soo's performance, he would have a spectator fire a bullet at him and he would catch it on a plate. He had a prop rifle built that had two barrels in it. The bullet would be loaded in the top barrel, but the charge would go off in the bottom, hopefully clear, barrel. Unfortunately, after years of use, the separation between the bottom barrel and the top barrel became weak. One night the gunpowder blew a hole and released pressure into the top barrel firing out a very real bullet. It hit the magician on stage in the middle of his act. The now-wounded Chung Ling Soo said the only words he would ever say on stage: "Oh my god, something's happened. Lower the curtain." The magician would die the next day.
The Real Deception
Like in the movie, Soo's real deception was the two lives he lived. One as a caucasian, the other as the world-famous Chinese magician. Anytime he was in public, he had to be in full costume along with his wife. (To add to the intrigue, William Robinson was having an affair leading the police to believe that the wife had somehow arranged for her husband to be killed. But investigation of the gun cleared her of the crime.)
Children and Magic
One strange and really well-observed scene in the Prestige is when Borden is helping a magician perform the disappearing and reappearing bird trick. The audacity of Nolan is absolutely incredible here. In that scene, he tells you the secret of the entire movie while you're looking right at Alfred Borden. There's no transportation: there's just two birds. He lays it all out there for everyone to see, but no one does except for a child. Children have an ability to see things more clearly than adults do. But often when they do, no one listens to them.
Here's a link that has pictures of Chung Ling Soo as well as Ching Ling Foo. I may disagree, however on all the information in the article.
One more neat thing, the actor who plays the magician performing the fatal water escape is Ricky Jay. He was a tremendous actor, but also one of the greatest magicians of modern history. Look up Ricky Jay and his 52 assistants, if you're interested in seeing him perform magic.
I hope this helps you appreciate the movie even more. Personally, I think it's the best movie Nolan ever made. But I may be a bit biased.