Status: Magic trick
On YouTube there's
a video of magician Criss Angel taking the old "sawing a woman in half" trick a step further. He actually pulls a woman in half, whereupon her upper half crawls away in horror while her legs remain behind wriggling. I, like many other people, have been trying to figure out how he does this trick. All I can conclude is that it's achieved by clever editing of the camera footage. (Which, if true, would make it less a magic trick than a special effect, but entertaining nonetheless.) My reasoning is that the (half of a) woman who crawls away at the end is probably not fake. She's likely a woman who, in real life, has no legs. But this cannot be the same woman who initially walks to the table and lies down on it. (No, I don't think she was using robotic legs, or anything like that.) They are two different women. Which means that at some point the camera must have been turned off, and the one woman replaced the other on the table. This also suggests that everyone in the crowd were actors. That's my theory. But I'm actually hoping it's wrong, because it would be cool if he could have done this without turning the camera off at some point. (Thanks to Captain DaFt for the link.) (And I could have sworn I once posted about another Criss Angel trick in which he crawled through a glass window pane, but for the life of me I can't find the post about this.)
Update: Archibold pointed out that
Snopes has a page about this video in which they point out that Ricky Jay has written about a similar early version of this trick in
Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women. Sure enough, he has. Participating in this early version of the trick was
Johnny Eck, a legless & thighless man who starred in the movie Freaks. So I was right about the woman at the end of the video actually being a legless woman. But this leaves the question: was the woman standing in the crowd also the same legless woman? If so, that's amazing. If not, then I still have no idea how a switch could have been made without the camera being shut off. But I've now got to assume that it's a real trick and no camera tricks were employed.
Comments
The contortionist theory doesn't hold up, as the bottom half is ON THE BENCH. Do you expect a person who's already bent in half to be laying on the bench and look like she's flat on the bench?
Also, to support the theory that there is NO switching of a person, notice when the lady first sits and lies down on the bench. Notice that Criss Angel, holds her head and lays her down. This is to support the top half (the legless lady) from suddenly falling down onto the bench.
And i think they ask what the guests have studied in school. I believe these people have not studied in science, where you have a sceptic mind and check out possiblities and so forth.
PS: Also put 'Criss Angel chair' in You Tube and you will see a bunch of people leviatate with the same video quality.
movies/tv shows use paid actors, special effects, and editing all the time w/o calling it "magic", why the hell does this hack get to label the same stuff an "illusion?" his other tricks that need no actors that i have seen are either extremely textbook(slipping a card into a beer bottle, coin tricks, levitation etc) or simply stuntmen work(setting yourself on fire). the only thing that makes this guy original is that he has the gaul to be completely obvious with his "tricks"... three episodes and i hate him already.
Like I said, he has a knack for making you see only what he wants you to. That's the beauty of magic.
If he does it the same way then the top half is infact a legless women.
The bottom half is a midget.
The midget holds the women when they walk up and then lets go when Criss tells the ladies to pull.
There yah go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRXiN-JzWs
its obviously 2 different persons.
look again and tell me...
This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.
There's a horrible trick angel does that's poorly done. where he puts his hand through a guys chest starting from the back. it's obvious that angel puts his arm in between the guys arm and hip which are hidden under the jacket. which has the empty sleeve tugged into the jackets pocket.
No different from Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear in front of "an actual live audience" (bullshit - just actors). David Blane levitating while "unsuspecting people" on the street gawk in amazment (bullshit - just actors). Same with Chris Angel -- yet tv viewers still don't seem to get it. Amazing. That's the REAL mystery...how people can be fooled by tv special fx and actors. Truly amazing.
If you watch the first half the clip is shot from the back side of the bench and when the girl in Red lays down you can see the a camera man on the front side of the bench dressed in Black Shirt and Blue Jeans. After the second lady lays down, when Chris walks around to the back side of the bench, the camera angle switches to the camera man on the front side of the bench and you can now see the second camera man on the back side of the bench wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants.
For this to be a truly unedited clip it would have to be shot all from one camera in one continous take. What ever else is done (switching women, involving the crowd) one thing is 100% fact and that this film was cut and spliced together at least once!
Think about it.
He did do it woth out truing off the camere sjut had one strong midgit and one willing womnen wih no legs. See,Therre is a midget and a woden magne thing or sumthing that holds the girl on top to the wood board. So when hes taping u can hear like hes hitting wood or sumthing then when they pull she runs. The pulleed person is a real perosn with no legs.I forget her name, i think its like rose buts hes on a apge that shows ppl with diseases and disorerds and stuff and thats how they dio it!
I always say "There's nothing to it, they're just playing tricks on us, everything can be explained" - but I didn't have any explanation. I'm glad there ARE several ones, so thanks a lot, folks 😉.
He's entertaining and has inspired ideas - enough said.
Also, the blonde woman is clearly a "plant" (and a terrible actress!)
Cheers!