Film: The Illusionist

The Irvington Town Hall Theater Commission Presents

The Illusionist

Directed by Sylvain Chomet, whose delightful The Triplets of Belleville was an art-house hit and multiple Academy Award nominee in 2004, The Illusionist tells the story of Tatischeff, an aging French magician plying his trade in the disappearing world of vaudeville circa the early 1960s. It’s a world of decaying theaters, drafty dressing rooms, and audiences more interested in the big beat sounds of Billy Boy and the Britoons than in a man who can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Finding work in Paris increasingly hard to come by, Tatischeff eagerly accepts a sozzled Scotsman’s invitation to entertain at his Highland local. While there, our hero meets Alice, a poor young scullery maid in whom he takes a fatherly interest and, after his pub engagement ends, the unlikely couple depart for Edinburgh, where they share lodgings in a hotel populated by other down-and-out music hall entertainers, including a suicidal clown and an alcoholic ventriloquist.

Jacques Tati, who died in 1982, wrote the screenplay for this film but never made it. He intended it for live action. As the story goes, his daughter Sophie Tatischeff still had the script and handed it to Sylvain Chomet.