In order not to spoil the illusion for first-time viewers, I won’t offer an explanation here in the text. Someone can add in the comments a note about the obvious “defect” that appears in this classic video.
Those interested in this subject may also want to view Penn and Teller’s report on the illusion.
Via Reddit.
jazz on your face (female)
Isn’t the child supposed to be cut into pieces at he top and have his limbs fall down and then magically be put together again?
Per
If it is indoors, they sometimes hook the rope to a wire going across the stage. Outdoors, they may do the same, or – as here – use a pole. It is all for the benefit of the movie/tv audience, of course.
Geekazoid
Jazz, from what I read years ago one of the versions was that a kid was cut into pieces. But according to wiki I’m not even sure if this Indian Rope Trick ever even existed, but is something that ‘caught on’ later as reports of it spread:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rope_trick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKnfseEmgwE
SliVe
My question is, how do they set up this rod in front of a live audience?
I mean, this pole can’t appear out of nowhere…
Per
The audience either has to see it from a particular angle (similar to when David Copperfield vanished the Statue of Liberty), or they are in on it(as they were when he vanished a train).
Jill
Duh…the “audience” is obviously “in on it”.
No way they can miss the pole
ali
The shot where he “throws” it up in the air and it stays is clearly reversed.
ted
This is an early Criss Angel trick. Early, since the audience isn’t the usual batch of actors he hires.
people
This looks like it’s being played backwards too. Just look at the stilted, unnatural movements. At least from the point that the rope is “thrown up” (i.e. falls down).
Phil Thompson
The key is the origin of the rope. Why does this trick need an empty canister, or an excessive pile of rope at the center? Thinking about this led me to a possible solution:
The rope is interchangeable with a rope/pole combo positioned underground. An unseen individual watches/listens to the magician from a point underneath the bundle of rope/canister/something above him (and at the center of the trick). When the magician throws the rope into the air, the underground assistant pushes the pole/rope combo into the air, from a point underground (obviously rather deep, to accommodate the long pole/rope combo), while the magician quickly drops the not-attached-to-a-pole rope into the empty canister or whatever is at the trick’s center.
I could be wrong, of course, but this seems to be the mechanism behind the trick.
Ben Eshbach
The trick is simple – the rope is a magic rope. That way, you don’t need a pole or an audience of stooges or any other tricks to make it work.
JamesM
“SliVe
December 26th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
My question is, how do they set up this rod in front of a live audience?
I mean, this pole can’t appear out of nowhere…”
The people being filmed aren’t the audience intended for playback… otherwise you wouldn’t need so much editing and film reversing. The standing audience is in on it. The ‘trick’ is for those watching it in a movie house.
David W
Something else: the shot of the rope going up has been reversed; it’s actually a shot of the rope coming down.
Another piece of evidence to suggest that it was put on for the cameras.
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SamT
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Max
