How Magician David Copperfield Made the Statue of Liberty Disappear (1983)

In April, 1983, 50 mil­lion tele­vi­sion view­ers watched the illu­sion­ist David Cop­consistent with­box make the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty dis­ap­pear, directly into skinny air. In the event you’re north of fifty, you consistent with­haps remem­ber the spec­ta­cle. How did he do it? 40 years lat­er, the YouTube chan­nel Thoughts Blown Magazine­ic Illu­sion demys­ti­fies the large-scale magazine­ic trick, give an explanation for­ing how Cop­consistent with­box dis­tract­ed the audi­ence, rotat­ed the level, and shift­ed Girl Lib­er­ty out of view. That’s appar­ent­ly the gist of the illu­sion. How­ev­er, within the com­ments sec­tion on YouTube, one com­menter provides a lit­tle extra impor­tant element:

You ignored essentially the most impor­tant mis­di­rec­tion. He had a heli­copter with a shiny spot­mild shin­ing at the stat­ue for a con­sid­er­ready period of time dur­ing which he apol­o­gized to the audi­ence and stated they have been hav­ing “tech­ni­cal prob­lems.” Even­tu­al­ly the cur­tain got here throughout and the level started to revolve imper­cep­ti­bly gradual­ly. How­ev­er the heli­copter moved in sync with the level. The beam of sunshine seemed to be sta­tion­ary in rela­tion to the level. When the cur­tain was once elevate­ed they noticed the heli­copter in the similar position however without a stat­ue. The beam of sunshine additionally helped black out the again­floor. Oth­er­sensible the audi­ence would have noticed a dif­fer­ent sky­line. Natural genius!

For Open Cul­ture learn­ers, it’s value males­tion­ing that the leg­endary movie­mak­er Frank Capra (It’s a Received­der­ful Lifestyles, Mr. Smith Is going to Wash­ing­ton, It Hap­pened One Evening) performed an in contrast to­ly position within the professional­duc­tion. In an inter­view with Judd Apa­tow, Cop­consistent with­box remembers how he enlist­ed Capra to assist write the script for the episode:

So then I stated [to myself] “Now the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty goes to dis­ap­pear, however I’ve were given to make this have extra imply­ing.” So I went to vis­it Frank Capra, one in all my idols, and did a type of Judd Apa­tow inter­view with him. I stated, “I’d just like the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty to dis­ap­pear, however I wish to do it as a les­son in loose­dom, how valu­ready loose­dom is and what the sector can be like with­out lib­er­ty.” And Frank Capra checked out me and stated, “David, I like your thought, however right here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to check out and it’s no longer going to paintings; it’s no longer going to dis­ap­pear.” And I stated, “Mr. Capra, I will’t do this.” You realize? [laughs] And I were given to look at Frank Capra, in his 8­ies, in motion.

You’ll watch one of the vital orig­i­nal 1983 photos beneath. Revel in!

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