The Lady Vanishes: Women, Magic and the Movies

Author(s): Lucy Fischer

Source: Film Quarterly , Autumn, 1979, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Autumn, 1979), pp. 30-40
Published by: University of California Press

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 LUCY FISCHER

WOMEN, MAGIC AND THE MOVIES1

"Woman is the other, she is all man aspires towould conjure women out of flames and in Extra-
be and does not become. .. Therefore he ordinary Illusions turn them into men. From film
endows woman with her nature; the Other- to film the superficial persona of the male magi-
opposition whom he can touch, conquer, cian figure would tend to vary-from the tradi-
possess, take comfort from, be inspired by, tional nineteenth-century stage magician in Ten
and yet not have to contend with. She is Ladies in an Umbrella (1903) to the Roman god
mystery. " in Jupiter's Thunderbolts (1903)-but his func-
-Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex tion would remain the same: to perform feats
of wonder upon a female subject.
In October and November of 1896, Star Film Though we are all accustomed to crediting
Company's first year of production, GeorgesMelies with the birth of film magic, the implica-
Melies shot a film entitled The Vanishing Lady, tions of that genre for the image of women have
which is credited as displaying the director's first
not been examined. In addition to being the
use of a cinematic "substitution trick."2 The "father" of film fantasy, Melies may also have to
"plot" of the film is simple: a lady, in fullstandVic- as the inadvertent patriarch of a particular
torian garb, is seated in a chair, against the cinematic
back- vision of women.
ground of an ornate, elaborately-molded wall. In all fairness to Melies, however, his personal
A magician (played by Melies) drapes her body role in authoring such a vision is highly qualified.
with a fabric cover. When the cloth is removed, For, as we know, many of the screen creations
the lady has disappeared, and much to our associated with Melies are, in truth, derived from
horror, in her place is a skeleton. the antecedent tradition of theatrical magic.
Though the occurrence portrayed is, of course, Melies, himself, was a stage magician; prior to
extraordinary, there is nothing exceptional aboutmaking films he had purchased the Theatre
the film. It is one of hundreds of such magic Robert-Houdin in 1888. Thus it is to the legacy
films that Melies produced between the years of theatrical magic that we must turn to find the
of 1896 and 1912, films that were imitated roots by of this cinematic image of woman-a vision
Pathe in France and by Edison in the United which Melies and others eventually "grafted"
States. onto the screen.
It is, in fact, precisely the commonplace quality When one begins to examine the history of
of the film that is at issue-its status as a cine- stage magic, one finds that the situation of male
matic archetype, or even cliche. By 1896 the trick magician and female subject-so common to the
film paradigm had been established: such works trick film genre-is simply a convention borrowed
would involve a male magician performing acts of from theatrical magic. In the course of an entire
wonder upon a female subject. To make a lady book on the history of stage magic (The Magic
vanish was, after all, Melies's first idea for a Catalogue by William Doerflinger) only two ex-
substitution trick. In subsequent films he would amples of female magicians were ever cited.3 One
elaborate upon this basic situation. Thus, in involved a woman named Adelaid Herrman, who
Apparitions Fugitives (1904) Melies would levitate
originally served as magician's assistant to her
a female subject and in Extraordinary Illusions husband Alexander, and then assumed his role
(1903) reconstitute her out of a mannequin's when he died. The other reference was to Dorothy
parts. In L'Enchanteur Alcofrisbas (1903) Melies Dietrich and Celeste Evans, a team of magicians

? 1979 The Regents of the University of California 0015-1386-79-040030+10$00.50

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 Top: Melies's THE VANISHING LADY (1896): the cinema's first
"substitution trick." Top left: PIERROTS PROBLEM (Biograph
1902). Bottom left: Melies's TEN LADIES IN AN UMBRELLA. [All
photos in this article courtesy The Museum of Modern Art and
The Library of Congress. Most of the films discussed here will
soon be available, on a single reel, from the Circulation
Department, MOMA.]

specializing in "dove illusions." Clearly, this text politics, is a speculation-a working hypothesis
does not constitute a definitive study of stage that must be tested through an examination of
magic, and one would assume that other female magical practice.
magicians have, indeed, existed and performed. To begin that investigation, let us return to
But the paucity of references to women magicians the basic archetype of male magician working
at least makes clear the exceptional nature of wonders upon the female subject, and commence
that status, and the tenacity with which the to read it for its implications. Perhaps the act
model of male magician and female subject is most typical of trick films is that of simply con-
maintained. juring a woman. In Edison's Mystic Swing (1900)
It is precisely the dominance and immutability a series of women are made to appear on a mov-
of that paradigm that makes one begin to suspect ing trapeze; in Biograph's Pierrot's Problem
that sexual role-playing is itself at issue in the (1902) a clown-magician produces two girls from
rhetoric of magic, and that perhaps in performingbehind his voluminous pantaloons. In Ten Ladies
his tricks upon the female subject, the male in an Umbrella, Melies makes women appear
magician is not simply accomplishing acts of and disappear with the help of an unlikely prop;
prestidigitation, but is also articulating a dis- in The Ballet Master's Dream (1903) a sleeper
course on attitudes toward women. conjures women as part of an oneiric fantasy.
In approaching the phenomenon of theatrical Accustomed as we are to this particular magi-
and cinematic magic in this fashion I am making cal trope, it is easy to accept it as a mere "given"
certain assumptions. Like Roland Barthes in of the rhetoric of magic, and therefore to neglect
his studies of boxing and striptease in Mytholo- to pursue its implications. But if we regard it
gies, I will assume that the conventions of magic as meaningful and begin to consider its signifi-
are not simply arbitrary, incomprehensible actions, cance, various issues come into focus.
but rather elements in a coherent social "sign On the most obvious level, the act of the male
system" that can be read for its cultural meaning.4 magician conjuring women is simply a demon-
The notion, however, that the significance of stration of his power over the female sex. Woman
magic involves a submerged discourse on sexual has no existence independent of the male magi-

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32 THE LADY VANISHES

cian; he can make her appear when he wants It is in response to that question that I must
her and disappear when (to paraphrase de Beau- advance another speculation. Might it be that in
voir), he wishes no longer "to contend" with addition to demonstrating the male sense of
her. Woman is thus afunction of male will. power over the female, the practice of magic
In the rhetoric of magic the conjured woman also evinces certain deep-seated male anxieties
is also a decorative object-to be placed here and concerning the female 's power over him? Accord-
there like a throw pillow or a piece of sculpture. ing to this reading the male magician is not so
Thus, in countless trick films (like Jupiter's much attempting to demonstrate his potency over
Thunderbolts) women appear in tableaux "ar- the female, as he is to defuse or exorcise her
rangements"-like dried flowers or fruit. potency over him. What aspects of magical prac-
On another level, the act of conjuring and tice might corroborate such a reading? And,
"vanishing" ladies tends to dematerialize and furthermore, what psychological and cultural
decorporealize the female sex-to relegate woman evidence is there to support such a notion of
to the level of "spirit." Thus, to paraphrase demale "anxieties" regarding women?
Beauvoir again, magical practice literalizes the As a starting point for the investigation of
notion of woman as "Other," as unfathomable these questions, it is useful to examine the reverse
"mystery." situation of the magic "paradigm"-that is, the
Often, however, in these trick films, woman's model of a female magician performing tricks
immaterial status takes on a particular inflection. upon the male. As mentioned earlier, in the
Rather than function simply as a spirit, she is history of theatrical magic such female magicians
cast specifically as a figment of the male imagina- are rare, and their occurrence is no more com-
tion. This notion is most apparent in the trick mon in the archives of cinematic magic. Several
films involving the magician as dreamer. In films of this kind do exist, however, and their
Melies's The Clockmaker's Dream (1904), for portrayal of the female magician is most telling.5
example, the main character falls asleep and has There is, for example, a marvelous film of 1905
an oneiric fantasy of a bevy of women who emerge made by Edison entitled A Pipe Dream, which
from a grandfather clock. Similarly, in The Ballet
opens with a medium close-up of a woman
Master's Dream (Melies/1903) a man dreams smoking a cigarette, seated against a black back-
about a series of dancing women. In these films ground. She begins rather playfully to blow smoke
the narrative openly situates the women within into her outstretched hand, and, out of nowhere,
the male imagination, and casts them as sexual a tiny man appears, on bended knees, upon her
fantasies. In other films their status as sexual palm. The little homunculus seems to be pleading
fantasy is less literal and explicit, yet why else
with the woman, as though asking for her hand
would Melies bother to conjure so many ladies in marriage. She laughs at him cruelly, and be-
from an umbrella? gins to close her palm; her homunculus dis-
Thus far, however, our inquiry has only appears. Perplexed, she tries again to conjure
scratched the surface and has viewed the act her little man, but cannot repeat the trick.
of conjuring women as a flexing of the male What is interesting about this film is its char-
sense of power over the passive, ethereal female acterization of the female "magician"-one
sex. But from another viewpoint, the male's need fraught with anxiety and ambivalence toward
to exert his power can be seen as belying the woman. Unlike the camera set-up for most magic
opposite impulse: rather than evince his sense films, that of A Pipe Dream renders the scale
of strength in relation to women, might it notof the woman huge, particularly in comparison to
bespeak his perception of relative weakness? In her diminutive little man. She is a literalization
other words, the gentleman doth protest too of the overpowering female, the Amazon, or the
much. If our male magician is so sure of his own awesome, domineering Mother, as seen by a
power over woman, why must he so relentlessly child-man. Thus, she is a figure of considerable
subject us to repeated demonstrations of his terror. Psychologists might have something to say
capability? about her as well, particularly about how her

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THE LADY VANISHES

depiction evinces certain classic male fears con-

cerning women. In her article, "The Dread of
Woman" (1932), for example, Karen Horney
speaks of the psychic importance of the male
child's anxieties regarding his mother, and Hor-
ney's language seems custom-made for the film.
She discusses the young boy's perception that his
genital is "much too small for his mother's" and
how he "reacts with the dread of his own inade-
quacy, of being rejected and derided." Such, of
course, is the fate of our homunculus.
The film has other implications as well. The
fact that the woman smokes a cigarette marks
her, according to Victorian mores, as dangerously A PIPE DREAM (Edison 1905).
loose and "masculine," and thus invests her
magician-status with a degree of perversity. Fur- In terms of the history of the Christian reli-
thermore, it is significant that when she tries gion,tothe most compelling female "magician"
repeat her trick, she fails, as though her magical is, significantly, the witch-clearly a figure of
powers were accidental, or beyond her control. great terror. Though male witches, or incubi,
Another film of the period, The Red Spectre were thought to exist, the notion of witchcraft
(Pathe/1907) is interesting to examine in this was strongly identified with the female of the
regard as well. The narrative of this film involves species, or succubi. That perverse magical powers
a competition between a male magician (dressed were associated with womanhood in particular
as a devil, in skeleton costume) and a female is apparent in the Malleus Maleficarum, a hand-
conjurer (dressed in courtly attire). Ultimately, book on witchcraft written by two Dominican
the woman magician reduces the male to a folded monks in 1484. According to that influential
costume, and appropriates his black cape. Again, text: "Perfidy is more found in women than in
a certain anxiety regarding the figure of the men . . . since they are feebler in body and in
female magician is apparent, particularly her mind, it is not surprising they should come under
perceived ability to get the better of the male. the spell of witchcraft."7 Furthermore, woman
In point of fact, throughout the history of myth "is more carnal than man as is clear from her
and religious practice, when women have been many carnal abominations." Thus all witchcraft
"granted" magical powers by men, those powers is seen to stem from "the carnal lust which in
have most often been regarded as evil or danger-women is insatiable."8
ous. We rarely find an image of a harmless What these few examples demonstrate is the
female magician, playfully conjuring people and flip side of the male magician/female subject
objects. Rather, she is cast as a figure of great paradigm. In the cases where women magicians
perversity. According to Greek legend, for ex- exist, they are figures of awe and dread. This
ample, the magical Circe turned the companions makes clear the fact that woman is not always
of Ulysses into pigs and wild beasts; and in Vene- perceived as powerless-a passive prop. Rather
zuelan mythology, the love-goddess, Maria Leonza, woman's power is often acknowledged, but it is
turned men into stone.6 Similarly, the legendary viewed as perilous and perverse. Perhaps, the
Sirens were bird-women who played magical male magician is not only performing tricks upon
music on their lyres and lured sailors to a watery the female; he is preventing her from performing
grave. Even in contemporary mythos, the tainted more dangerous tricks upon him.
figure of the prostitute is said to turn "tricks" Thus the rhetoric of magic may bespeak a fear
upon her "johns." Thus, in all of these cases, of the female, rather than the exuberant display
women who practice magic seem to do so at the of male superiority that marks its surface. The
expense of men. male magician's obsessive need to "dematerialize"

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34 THE LADY VANISHES

women by making them vanish, may in fact, betray women are associated with death and skeletal
his fear of female "carnality," as much as it dis- symbolism. In Melies's The Vanishing Lady, for
plays his own sense of power. example, when the woman disappears she is re-
But what precisely are the nature of these placed by a skeleton, an occurrence which also
male fears, and what cultural/psychological evi- happens in Edison's The Mystic Swing. Perhaps
dence is there to support their existence? First this fear of women explains why so many magic
of all, several texts have been written on the films involve tricks in which women are turned
subject: The Fear of Women by psychoanalyst into men, thereby annihilating their disturbing
Wolfgang Lederer, and The Dangerous Sex by sexual status. In A Delusion (Biograph/1902) a
H.R. Hays.9 Furthermore, various psychologists female model turns into a man each time the
have produced essays on the topic, like Gregory photographer looks into the camera lens. In The
Zilboorg's "Masculine and Feminine ..." Karen Artist's Dilemma (Edison/1901) a woman turns
Horney's "The Dread of Woman," and Freida into a clown.
Fromm-Reichmann and Virginia Gunst's "On
Given this basic fear of imagined female
The Denial of Women's Sexual Pleasure."10
powers, it is not surprising to find the icon-
Freud himself spoke of male anxieties toward
women in Totem and Taboo. "
ography of theatrical and cinematic magic plagued
by a rampant hostility toward the female subject.
In most interpretations, this fear of woman
In fact, it is this very aggression that makes the
centers on the female genital. According to
theory of male fear more plausible. If the male
Freud, in his essay "Medusa's Head," the female
magician only wished to "play" with the female
genital posits the threat of male castration and is
subject, why has he devised for her such a cham-
thus viewed with terror.12 In other remarks in
ber of horrors?
Totem and Taboo Freud questions whether the
For instance, in many trick films women are
male fear of woman might not stem from a fear
symbolically dismembered. In Biograph's A Mys-
of being "weakened" by her, as he is in the
tic Reincarnation (1902) a male magician con-
sexual act."3 In much of the writing on the sub-
jures female body parts, then turns them into
ject mythology has served as cultural evidence.
a woman. In Extraordinary Illusions (1903) Melies
Myths, for example, provide the suggestion that
takes out mannequin limbs from a "magical box"
men may also fear women's procreative powers
and through stop-motion photography transforms
because they perceive them as entailing the re-
them into a flesh and blood woman.
verse power of death. Freida Fromm-Reichmann
In other films (like Apparitions Fugitives
and Virginia Gunst cite the following Persian
(1904), L'Enchanteur Alcofrisbas and The Red
myth of creation as proof of such an anxiety:
In that myth a woman creates the world, and she creates
Spectre) women are levitated, an action which
it by the act of natural creativity which is hers and which likens them to corpses in advanced states of
cannot be duplicated by men. She gives birth to a great rigor mortis. In such a posture they also imper-
number of sons. The sons, greatly puzzled by this act sonate the model Victorian wife-whose sexuality
which they cannot duplicate become frightened. They think:
"Who can tell us, that if she can give life. she cantnot also
was entirely dormant. According to H. R. Hays,
take life." And so, because of their fear of this mysterious women of the era engaged in intercourse "in a
ability of woman, and of its reversible possibility, they sort of coma, apparently pretending that nothing
kill her (Italics mine).'4
was happening [since] the slightest sign of life on
Thus, once more woman's sexuality is linked to [their] part would have been a humiliating ad-
mutilation or death: if woman can conceive life, mission of depravity."'5
can she not also take it away? If the womb is a In the canon of theatrical magic tricks, of
bearer of life, might it not also be a tomb? grandiose "stage illusions," we find a catalogue
This irrational fear of female "magic" is appar- of magical misogony. Thus we have such tricks
ent in many of the trick films. In The Red Spectre as "Rod Through Body" in which a sword is
it seems significant that the woman magician placed through a woman's torso, "Dagger Chest"
manages to kill the male devil, reducing him to a in which a series of knives are placed into a box
disembodied skeleton. In several other films, around a woman's head, "Shooting a Woman

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THE LADY VANISHES 35

Out of a Canon," "Sawing a Woman in Half," ditional psychoanalytic theory it is the female who
"Shooting Through a Woman," and finally "The is seen as biologically deficient and envious of the
Electric Chair."16 Such tricks cannot simply be male.
viewed as jovial and naive demonstrations of Early on in the history of psychology, voices
imagined male powers, as a harmless flexing of were raised in protest against Freud's construal of
the masculine ego. Rather they must be regarded sexual relations. And many of those who countered
as symbolic acts of considerable violence. his claims did so by advancing an opposing notion
of the male envy of the female for her procreative,
life-giving powers. Thus, writing in 1926, Karen
Horney states:
But certainly not all of magical practice involves
. . . from the biological point of view woman has in mother-
a thinly disguised hostility toward women. What
hood, or in the capacity for motherhood, a quite physio-
about such trifles as pulling rabbits from hats, logical superiority. This is most clearly reflected in the
or flowers from cones? Though it is true that unconscious of the male psyche in the boy's intense envy
such tricks do not suggest male aggression toward of motherhood . .. When one begins ... to analyze men
. . . one receives a most surprising impression of the inten-
women, they can, nonetheless, be seen as con-
sity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood,
stituting a submerged discourse on male-female as well as of the breasts, and of the act of suckling.18
relations. For when one begins to examine those Similarly psychoanalysts Fromm-Reichman and
sleights-of-hand so characteristic of magic tradi-Gunst state:
tion, one is struck by how so many of them center Men are not only unconsciously afraid of women as child-
on the theme of creation: men pulling rabbits out bearers but many men are also envious of this ability of
of hats, making flowers grow from canes, bring- women . . . We know it from our clinical practice . . . We
hear so much about penis envy but it is not fashionable in
ing mechanical automata "to life." All of these
a patriarchal culture to talk about birth envy, although
acts seem like symbolic representations of birth, many of us know it exists.19
and their occurrence at the hand of the male
In discussing the issue of male envy, many
magician seems to bespeak an envy of what is,
psychoanalysts have felt the need to venture into
essentially, the female procreative function.theSig-
field of anthropology. Thus in 1944 psycho-
nificantly, most of these magical births take place
analyst Gregory Zilboorg wrote an essay, "Mascu-
with the aid of a highly phallic object-a "mystic"
line and Feminine," in which he posited male
cone, or a cane, or perhaps an "enchanted
envy as a determining force in the creation of
candle."
primitive culture:
Since my proposed reading of these tricks pre-
. . . the male who first overcame the woman by means of
sumes a notion of male envy of the female pro-rape was hostile and murderous toward the female . . . But
creative function, it would be well to examine despite all his economic and sadistic and phallic superiority,
that subject before proceeding any further. In man could not fail to discover that woman . . . still pos-
the canons of psychoanalytic literature, we are, sessed a unique power over mankind. She could produce
of course, more familiar with a theory of the
reverse situation, of the female's alleged envy of
the male. According to Freud in his formulation
of "penis envy," during a young girl's "phallic
phase" (3-7 years), she sees a naked man and
realizes that she "lacks" a penis. As Freud would
have it the psychological consequences of the
young girl's perception are devastating and far-
reaching: "She develops, like a scar, a sense of
inferiority . . . she begins to share the contempt
felt by men for a sex which is the lesser in so
important a respect . . . Even after penis-envy has
abandoned its true object, it continues to exist . . .
in the character trait of jealousy. "I7 Thus in tra-

LES APPARITIONS FUGITIVES (1904): Levitation. o

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36 THE LADY VANISHES

expression do not exist, and envy wears more

children . . . Thus man, who hated the woman-mother,
must have envied her too . . .20
oblique disguises.
Zilboorg's assertions are clearly hypothetical, It is my contention that the rhetoric of magic
but many practicing anthropologists have docu- is one of those disguises, one of those cultural
mented concrete evidence of the male envy of the artifacts in which the male envy of the female
female. Margaret Mead, for example, in a chap- procreative powers is manifest. Yet what is there
ter on "Womb-Envying Patterns" in Male and about magical practice that supports such a
Female demonstrates how male initiation rituals reading?
of South Sea island societies evince anxieties that I have already mentioned the general emphasis
are suppressed in Western society: in conjuring tricks on the notion of creation or
In our Occidental view of life, woman, fashioned from birth, be it rabbits from a hat, women from um-
man's rib, can at most strive unsuccessfully to imitate man's
brellas, or automata that move. But there are
superior powers and higher vocations. The basic theme of
the initiatory cult, however, is that women, by virtue of many standard magic tricks which evince a more
their ability to make children, hold the secrets of life. overt symbolism. Within the canon of theatrical
Men's role is uncertain, undefined and perhaps unnecessary.
magic there are, for example, a whole series of
By a great effort man has hit upon a method of compensat-
tricks
ing himself for his basic inferiority. Equipped with various
which involve the central prop of an egg.
mysterious noise-making instruments . . . they can get Dunninger's
the Complete Encyclopedia of Magic
lists such tricks as "Eggs Extraordinary," in which
male children away from the women, brand them as incom-
a designated card is found within an egg, "Mira-
plete and themselves turn boys into men. Women, it is
true, make human beings, but only men can make men.2'
culous Eggs" in which a ring is produced from an
Thus, Mead casts male initiatory rites as elabor- egg, and "The Coin in Egg."23 The Magic Cata-
ate, compensatory "magic tricks." logue notes tricks with even more tendentious
Another researcher in the field of male envy is implications. A trick entitled "Human Hen," for
Bruno Bettelheim who, in his book Symbolic example, is described as follows:
Wounds, describes the primitive ritual of couvade,
Egg after egg . . . are produced from magician's (or friend's)
by which the husband of a parturient woman
mouth. They are placed into a clear bowl, or tray in plain
enacts a rite in which he mimics, and even appro- view of everyone. You can make as many eggs as you wish
priates, the child-bearing act: appear. Mouth is seen as empty after each egg is removed.
The [pregnant] woman works as usual up until a few hours Eggs are real and can be cracked open to prove so.24
before birth; she goes to the forest with some women, and
there the birth takes place. In a few hours she is up and Shades of Professor Unrath and The Blue Angel.
at work . . . as soon as the child is born the father takes Other tricks, not specifically involving eggs,
to his hammock and abstains from work, from all food buthave similar birth implications. One entitled,
weak gruel . . . and is nursed and cared for by all the "Baby Trousseau Production" entails a male
women of the place. This goes on for days, sometimes
weeks.22 magician and a male subject:
What these various quotes from psychologistsPerformer shakes hands with person who helped him,
and anthropologists demonstrate is that there notices a ravel on their [sic] collar. When he pulls it, it is
really a tape, and as he continues to pull, audience sees that
exists a body of literature in which male envy of it is a long string of fluttering dolls clothes in all colors.
the female's procreative function is established This causes a big laugh which gets bigger when a baby
and considered a crucial aspect of sexual dyna- nursing bottle seemingly full of milk and complete with
nipples, shows up on the end of the tape line.2"
mics. Given that most cultures are patriarchal,
however, it is clear that such feelings are not In a similar vein, one reads in the history of stage
openly acknowledged, and indeed are concealed magic of a turn-of-the-century Mongolian con-
and suppressed. How is man to maintain and jurer, Chin Ling Foo, who "was noted for his
justify political power over woman if the truth of
production of large bowls of water or small chil-
his awe and envy of the female sex comes out? In from an apparently empty cloth."26
dren
the "primitive" societies described by Mead and While these tricks tend to mimic the procrea-
Bettelheim, this envy is released in the form of tive act, the canon of "escape tricks" evince a
established cultural rituals. In modern Western male anxiety about the birth process itself. In
society, however, such sanctioned avenues of Houdini on Magic, for example, the trick of "The

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THE LADY VANISHES 37

Spanish Maiden" is described in terms that fore- example, a film in which the role of female as
ground those fears: procreator is not suppressed. In an extraordinary
[The Spanish Maiden] is shaped like a human body and Pathe trick film of ca. 1906, entitled Transforma-
the front is painted to resemble a maiden. The device tion, a female magician conjures live male and
hinges open at the side and both sections of the interior female babies out of a series of flowers and vege-
are lined with iron spikes. When you enter the device, you
tables, and ends the film with the children
take a position between the spikes. The front is then closed,
so that the spikes completely trap you within. Padlocks are bouncing blissfully on her knee.29 Thus the sub-
attached to staples on the outside of the Maiden to prevent text of female procreation which seems masked
you from opening the device. Nevertheless, soon after the in most examples of magical practice, is, in this
cabinet is placed over the Spanish Maiden, you make your
escape.27
film, somehow liberated, or brought to the sur-
face.
The history of trick films evince similar asso-
In summary, then, the rhetoric of magic-in its
ciations of magic and birth. The Star Film Cata-
theatrical and cinematic varieties-constitutes a
logue lists such Melies films as Prolific Magical
complex drama of male-female relations. In the
Egg and Marvelous Egg Producing with Surpris- guise of the magician figure, the male enacts a
ing Developments, both of 1902. And in The series of symbolic rituals in which he expresses
Brahmin and the Butterfly (1900) the character
numerous often-contradictory attitudes toward
of a male magician conjures a caterpillar from an
woman: his desire to exert power over her, to
"egg shaped cocoon," which then turns into a
employ her as decorative object, to cast her as a
beautiful princess.
sexual fantasy, to exorcize her imagined powers
Many other films, though devoid of overt egg
of death, and to appropriate her real powers of
symbolism, nonetheless display a submerged
procreation.
iconography of birth. In Pierrot's Problem, for
example, the magician-clown seems to give birth At various points in this essay I have mentioned
to two young women from out of his baggy panta-how the genre of the trick film owes its heritage
loons. (Though he eventually "combines" them to the legacy of theatrical magic. Yet the question
into one huge "Great Mother" of a woman.) arises as to why the conventions of stage magic
Similarly, it is telling that so many magic films
were so easily translated onto the screen. Is there
(like The Red Spectre and L'Enchanteur Alco- something specific to the cinematic medium that
frisbas) employ as their settings caves and grottoes.
makes it appropriate for the conventions of magic,
For according to historians of myth, like Mircea and if so, what implications might this have on
Eliade, these locales have commonly been asso- the issue of women and film?
ciated with the world's womb in primitive Earth- Clearly, the very nature of the cinematic me-
Mother cults.28 Finally, it is interesting to note dium links it with magic, for the photographic
that many magician's props seem to embody process has always held for people a magical
womb symbolism. One thinks of the classic aura. Though grounded in physical realities,
"magic box," so nicely labeled as such in Melies's photography still strikes us as producing an image
Extraordinary Illusions. One notices as well the "conjured" (albeit "developed" in a wash of
countless films (like The Red Spectre and L'En-Kodak chemicals.)
chanteur Alcofrisbas) in which women are con- Historically, motion picture photography had
jured from urns, as though to literalize the notioneven stronger ties to magic. One of the early pre-
of womb as "magic vessel." decessors of the film projector was, of course,
Thus in many magic films, the prestidigitation the magic lantern, a device which projected
performed by the male magician seems to have painted, often animated slides. Clearly cinema,
relevance to the issue of birth. It is as though with its use of photography and its perfection
through magical practice the male can symbol- of the illusion of movement, created even a more
ically imitate, or even appropriate, an aspect of "magical" image of life. As Parker Tyler has
female procreative powers. written:
It is interesting to note in this respect the exis- Camera trickery is really camera magic, for illusion can be
tence of a magic film that runs counter to this freely created by the movie camera with more mathematical

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38 THE LADY VANISHES

accuracy and shock value than by sleight-of-hand or stage level, however, is the primitive association of the
illusion. The very homogeneity of cinema illusion-the
film image itself with a conjured magical illusion.
images of the actors themselves are illusive, their corporeal
Given the "sexual politics" of magic, what
bodies absent-creates a throwback in the mood of the
might the implications be. for the portrayal of
spectator to the vestiges . .. of ancient beliefs . . .30
It is interesting that among the trick filmswomen
of in film, of the association of cinema and
the era are some whose iconography provides a magic? Clearly, this is a complex question that
commentary on the perceived magical qualities of cannot be summarily answered; but several pre-
the film medium. In A Spiritualist Photographer liminary speculations present themselves. There
(Melies/1903), for example, a male magician would seem to be, within the history of cinema, a
appears on stage with a huge empty picture frame.group of male film-makers who strongly identify
He fits blank paper into the frame and stands a the directorial role with that of a magician. Often,
woman before it. As a torch burns beneath her, they are directors who display a great ambiva-
she magically dissolves onto the photographic lence toward women in their films.* Orson Welles,
paper. The magician rolls up the print and the for example, in F for Fake (1973), flamboyantly
flesh and blood woman reappears. adopts the stance of a master conjurer; but in his
This same play with conjuring the image of earlier film, Lady from Shanghai (1949), he casts
women appears in The Red Spectre. As part of Rita Hayworth as a perversely magical ensnarer
the devil-magician's competition with his female of men. Jean Cocteau, in The Testament of Or-
counterpart, he produces not live women but the pheus (1959) flaunts his own and cinema's trick-
image of women on a movie-type screen. Having ery, but in his earlier Orpheus (1949) reveals
done this, he lies beneath the ersatz screen and woman (in the figure of Eurydice) to be the true
peers lasciviously at his nubile creations. source of magic in life and in art. Busby Berkeley,
Several things can be concluded from the activ-of course, is an obvious pledge for this fraternity,
ities portrayed in these two films. First, they conjuring women from safely off-screen with all
establish that the photographic act is seen as athe male bravado that Melies displayed so guile-
kind of conjuring; producing a cinematic image lessly on stage.
is viewed as a "magic trick" equivalent to those There is also the case of a director like Ingmar
one might perform on stage. Secondly, they dem- Bergmar who, though admitting the lure of the
onstrate how readily the magic of the film image cinema's magic, seems more qualified in his en-
was associated with the image of the female. As thusiasm for the conjurer's posture. In his film
theatrical magicians had obsessively made live The Magician (1958) he creates the character of
women appear on stage, so the film magicians Albert Vogler, a rather morose and somber magi-
might conjure their images on screen. cian who stands in contrast to the wry and mis-
Still another film of this era seems to literalizechievous figures cut by Melies or Welles.32 Sig-
the notion of the cinematic apparatus as a magi- nificantly, within the narrative of The Magician
cal device for producing women. In Melies's Thethe issue of the relation of women to magic is fore-
Magic Lantern (1903) we find the characters of grounded. An old woman in Vogler's magic troupe
Pierrot and Harlequin in a children's play room. seems to have more powers than he does and, in
Early on in the film they assemble a huge magicfact, brews all the potent medicines that he sells.
lantern and project its light upon the wall. AfterYet, typically, she is regarded as a witch, and never
a while, however, they become curious about performs on stage. Various male members of the
what is inside the lantern's cavity. They open magic it troupe utilize their association with magic
up and, as though from a mechanical birth cham-to control women. Tubul sells the cook, Sofia,
ber, a stream of women swarm out. a "love potion," and Simson woos the naive Sara
by telling her how "magic attracts women." Most
Thus the legacy of magic in film is twofold. interesting of all, is the fact that for half the film
On the superficial level, there is cinema's histori-Vogler's wife and magician's assistant, Manda,
cal inheritance of the conventions of stage magic,
*An exception is Jacques Rivette who, in Celine and Julie Go
as manifest quite literally in the trick films ofBoating, openly invests the two female main characters with
Edison, Pathe, Melies and others.31 On a deeper magical powers.

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THE LADY VANISHES

is disguised (at his request) as the male, Aman-

a name that is an anagram for "Manda," but
also for the English words "a man." Finally,
another character in the film, Mrs. Egerman,
believes that Vogler has the power to bring back
her deceased child. Throughout the film the
magician's powers are cast in terms that suggest
the cinema. Thus Vogler's act involves magic
lanterns and shadows projected on screens; and
he has the power to summon huge disembodied
faces, which seem like nothing so much as film
close-ups.
Bergman, himself, admits that his own fascina-
tion with cinema began with the childhood gift A MYSTIC REINCARNATION
of a magic lantern, complete with a set of colored (Biograph 1902)
glass fairy-tale slides. But it was the acquisition
film descriptions to ascertain precisely how uncommon female
a few years later of a film projector that had a
magicians were in this genre. Eileen Bowser and Bob Summers
profound effect upon the young director; and of The Museum of Modern Art have informed me that, based
Bergman's recollection of that childhood experi- on the screenings at the FIAF Brighton Conference, female
ence makes clear his almost unconscious associa- magician figures were most common in Pathe films. This has
tion of the powers of women, magic and the been born out by my examination of The Red Spectre and
Transformation, discussed later in this article.
cinema. Thus he speaks of his own first encounter
6. Wolfgang Lederer, The Fear of Women (New York: Har-
with a "vanishing lady:" court, Brace, Jovanovich, 1968), p. 57.
When I was ten years old I received my first, rattling 7. H. R. Hays, The Dangerous Sex (New York: G. P. Put-
film projector, with its chimney and lamp. I found it bothnam's Sons, 1964), p. 141.
mystifying and fascinating. The first film I had was nine 8. Hays, p. 141.
feet long and brown in color. It showed a girl lying asleep 9. Cited in footnotes 6 and 7.
in a meadow, who woke up and stretched out her arms, 10. Gregory Zilboorg, "Masculine and Feminine: Some Bio-
then disappeared to the right. That was all there was to it. logical and Cultural Aspects," in Psychoanalysis and Women,
The film was a great success and was projected every night ed. Jean Baker (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), pp. 96-131;
until it broke and could not be mended any more. Karen Horney, "The Dread of Woman" in her Feminine
This little rickety machine was my first conjuring set. Psychology, ed. Harold Kelman (New York: Norton, 1967),
And even today, I remind myself with childish excitement pp. 133-146; Freida Fromm-Reichmann and Virginia Gunst,
that I am really a conjurer ...33 "On the Denial of Women's Sexual Pleasure" in Baker,
pp. 86-93.
11. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, Gesammelte Werk IX.
NOTES p. 180 as discussed in Lederer, pp. 2-7.
12. Sigmund Freud, "Medusa's Head" in his Sexuality and
1. There are several people I would like to thank in relation Love. ed. Philip Reiff (New York: Collier Books, 1963), pp.
to this article. The first is my aunt, Frances Levine, who 212-213.
encouraged me to write the piece. Bob Summers of The Museum 13. Discussed in Lederer, p. 3.
of Modern Art graciously provided me with the Library of 14. Fromm-Reichmann and Gunst, p. 88.
Congress prints with which to pursue my research. Robert 15. Hays, p. 215.
Haller, of Pittsburgh Film-Makers, gave me the opportunity 16. These tricks are listed in Doerflinger as well as in Dun-
to test my ideas at a lecture there in June. Mark Wicclair ninger's Complete Encyclopedia of Magic (New York: Spring
helped in that presentation by preparing slides for my lecture
Books).
as did Craig Johnson in editing a selection of trick films. 17. Sigmund Freud, "Some Psychological Consequences of
2. Paul Hammond, Marvellous Melies (London: Gordon the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes," in Rieff, p. 188.
Fraser, 1974), p. 30. 18. Karen Horney, "The Flight From Womanhood," in
3. William Doerflinger, The Magic Catalogue (New York: Kelman, pp. 60-61.
E. P. Dutton, 1977), pp. 21, 41. 19. Reichmann and Gunst, p. 91.
4. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New 20. Zilboorg, p. 124.
York: Hill and Wang, 1972). 21. Margaret Mead, Male and Female (New York: William
5. Thus far I have based my research largely on the Library Morrow, 1949), pp. 102-103.
of Congress Paper Print Collection as well as on those trick 22. Bruno Bettelheim, Symbolic Wounds: Puberty Rites and
films available through commercial distribution. Further re- the Envious Male (New York: Collier Books, 1971), pp. 109-110.
search would have to be done into archival holdings and trick 23. Dunninger, pp. 139, 262, 278.

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40 THE LADY VANISHES

24. Doerflinger, p. 123. 31.

31. For
For the
themost
mostcomplete
completediscussion
discussion
of of
thethe
influence
influence
of magi-
of magi-
25. Doerflinger, p. 113. cians
cians on
on movies
moviessee:
see:Eric
EricBarnouw,
Barnouw, "The
"The
Magician
Magician
andand
the the
26. Doerflinger, p. 26. Movies,"
Movies," American
AmericanFilm,
Film,Part
Part
I (April
I (April
1978),
1978),
Part
Part
II (May
II (May
27. Walter B. Gibson and Morris N. Young, eds., Houdini on 1978).
Magic (New York: Dover, 1953), p. 118. 32. My comments on The Magician are, unfortunately, based
28. Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, trans. on the published screenplay, since I was unable to view the
Philip Mairet (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1960), film at the time of writing this piece. See Ingmar Bergman,
p. 117. Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman. trans. Lars Malmstrom
29. Again, as mentioned in footnote 5, it is significant that and David Kushner (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960).
this film is attributed (by Reel Images, its distributor) to 33. Ingmar Bergman, "Introduction" to Four Screenplays,
Pathe. pp. xiv-xv. Most of the films that I have discussed in this
30. Parker Tyler, "Preface" to Magic and Myth of the Moviesarticle will soon be available on a single reel through Film
in Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, eds., Film Theory and
Circulation, The Museum of Modern Art.
Criticism (New York: Oxford, 1974), p. 586.

Reviews specific meetings: a one-night stand with a Ger-

man grade-school teacher, who is looking for a
wife; a brief visit in a train station with the
mother of her former fiance, who still wants
THE MEETINGS OF ANNA
Anna as a daughter-in-law; a chance encounter
on a train Jean
Director: Chantal Akerman. Script: Akerman. Director of photography: with a stranger seeking romantic adven-
Penzer. Editing: Francine Sandberg. New Yorker Films. ture; a one-night stop-over in Brussels with her
mother, whom she hasn't seen in three years;
Chantal Akerman's The Meetings of and Anna (1978)
a reunion in Paris with her lover, whose
is a brilliant, innovative film that challenges
anticipationour
of future disappointments destroys
expectations with a simple clarity thattheir is per- of the present. These five en-
enjoyment
ceptually strong and emotionally compelling.
counters raiseAsexpectations both in the characters
in her earlier work Jeanne Dielman and (1975),
in the its
audience. Whom will she meet next-
radical style forces us to become awarea of filmic
stranger, friend, lover, or relative? What will
conventions that we normally acceptthe asperson
realistic
want from Anna? What role will each
but which actually distort our conception of ex-
be expected to play? What will result from the
perience. exchange?
The plot is minimal. A young Belgian film- these encounters, we learn that
By watching
maker named Anna (Aurore Clement) travels to Anna is a person who tries to minimize her expec-
a German city to appear at the screening of her tations so that she won't be disillusioned, but she
latest film, then returns home to Paris. Though nevertheless is trapped into wanting more than
this may sound like a potentially glamorous situa- she gets. Anna knows her commitment to her
tion, Akerman's unconventional treatment goes art means that she must give up other more
against our expectations. We never see the glam- conventional choices. Despite twice breaking an
orous scene of the celebrity appearing before her engagement and having two abortions, she still
fans; instead, Akerman focuses on what is usually hopes to have children. It's as if Anna knows that
omitted in movies-the detailed physical actions the relationship between mother and child holds
of a character in isolation. Most of the time, we more potential for her both as an artist and as
see Anna alone-walking through a train station, a woman. In fact, her meeting with her mother
riding in a train, staring out a window, or lying is the only encounter in the film that is emotion-
in her bed in a hotel room. She is between films ally satisfying. In her various meetings we per-
and between meetings with other lonely individ- ceive that there are marked differences in expec-
uals.
tations between the sexes and the generations.
The structure of the film is framed by these In contrast to Anna who pursues work and inde-
long stretches of isolation, interrupted by five pendence, the men that she meets yearn for

? 1979 The Regents of the University of California 0015-1386-79-040040+06$00.50

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