Penn & Teller MMT INDIA

hi I'm Penn Jillette the one with the hat standing there with my partner teller the one with the hat we've come to India to explore the legend of the Indian rope trick but there's more to India than the rope trip in theory fire walking is easy with dry feet and coals burned - that's the theory I sent teller first little Cathy he's not showing you know why I'm not a god man I don't believe in superstition I'm just a magician from Vegas didn't hurt at all it's Penn & Teller they're on the road together but they're magic carpets just a dirty rug so long las vegas-based contagious and can't effective fog and magic powder around the world town exotic streets to gaze upon amazing and disgusting face then you call his hair he got the cups and balls to stomach blood and guts Andorran or come join them as they travel and the mysteries of Ravel of the magic and mystery to we're in India one of the few places on earth that still has real street magicians doing real street magic it's also home of the most famous magic act the Indian rope trick where rope just goes way up in the air snakes its way up little kid climbs up vanishes magician climbs bathroom slices them up and then throws them back down and little pieces all come back together so it's probably not true but we're gonna be looking for it you know I'm thinking bacon cheeseburger we're not the first to come looking for the Indian rope trick I'll tell you showing which people pizza rope they go nuts and how excited they are about that teller saw the cheat right away when the Rope flies up the film is just being played in Reverse and behind it is a big old steel pole the British officer who filmed this in the 1930s searched India for two years with no luck before he gave up and staged this scam rope trick the legendary rope trick features a child being sliced up but that's never been filmed only reported we believe it's just a myth but we want to figure out how that myth came to be our guide to India's professor lee siegel teller loved his book on indian street magic and asked lead meet us in New Delhi India's capital the main character in the book is Nasim Khan we began studying the ceebs show over 10 years ago now seed has the best act of town it's our kind to show a bloody gory show a life and death drama as Lee explains I think the way to understand an Indian magic show is as a show as a play and what all these in a way dazzles me more than any of the individual scenes or tricks is the way we start out with a some sort of conflict between father and son played for laughs but it's that transition from funny into horror and then out of that for some sort of resurrect and when they're scary that when uh Steve's eyes are burning furiously he's scary and he's a very good actor oh yeah the show has its origins in the guy who is selling his power there cutting up and restoration of deceives sons tongue is bloody reminds us of the myth about the boy being sliced up in the rope trick only money from the audience will bring his son back to life then the seed sells lucky rings to people who just might believe he has real magic powers li took us to meet other street magicians if anyone's gonna know about the rope trick it's these guys they all live in shadow for a makeshift housing colony next to a southern deli busting Paul shaddup or is one of the poorest areas in Delhi but the cream of India's magicians live here in India Street magicians belong to a gypsy caste families traditionally travel to wherever there was a crowd with money only in the last 50 years of the wandering magicians settled down and now they formed their own magician's union with all delhi street magicians living in an area that's just 400 square yards well it ain't the Teamsters hi we were honoured guests back and we can't wash up ya Salam mother yeah I yield on Indy son fella hope this chair holds business of all my weight yeah sure no salt the head of the magician's union is champ Asha Chen Pasha is a well a different kind of okay really hard tight tight again ugly the one mode hey big guy token thank you thank you this is checking to please this is news check no you checking yes ok tight hard hi Gloria this is net this side you're checking to place an idea yeah person are ya you're checking or fiction looking I am talking von phul to me this is not disappear ok biggie biggie and Jim Julie this is net disappeared okay chickie doing it just once like that makes it much more powerful event to just do it on on top of each other you just have that in your hand and vanish it's a much more miraculous trick way I've seen it before is always been a little smarmy and condescending you know you can't even tie a knot type of thing whereas this was presented as a miracle which i think is much stronger and just it's just a handkerchief like all their props you just stuff they handle looking this is Indian basket this is one empty three huh okay this is my boy this is here okay but Jan passion or finish with one of the oldest tricks in India okay thank pass it this is a this is Hong cloud empty channels chemical companies shut us very good this is my boy one two three one two and pay whoa monkey see Connecticut one hand one fingers this is my boy small boy great looking why boom and hey this is a tight you small basket that's my boy okay this is here Chavez and the boy disappeared Chan Pasha restored him unharmed it's the mythical rope trick simple cousin no blood but the same idea it's great yeah beautiful yeah it's it's amazing that's a good trick that's why people doing that trick is done all the time in the States loudly yeah just Indiana clearly a very old trick that would have been done for hundreds or perhaps thousands of Buick he doesn't look that old you know the magicians union includes jugglers next on the bill Rahm Prasad a spinning top juggler Brooke you look I delight Erin kuk-ja jelly all right Carla gonna start our little stop Gillogly RL cook luckily luckily she I do wha I need different names Oh sleep bunhead that's great I loved this guy and one to talk to him but we couldn't with the racket downstairs he went to see naseeb show at the Red Fort in the heart of Old Delhi his act features mutilating and restoring his sons once again echoes are the bloody rope trick stories see this here the red fort was a king's palace magicians have always performed and you know it's a magician because when it's a bear guy or a snake guy it's a circle whereas what the magician he's got the oval because of the two characters the two characters are deceive and his eldest son is n they sit at either end of an oval the oval shape helps with misdirection essential when you're totally surrounded by the ground the seed draws a crowd with some sleight of mouth tricks for the steel balls trick naseeb swallows the first ball then coughs up many more and throws them to his sons even teller couldn't keep his eye off the ball that's good misdirection it has to be the crowd only pay naseeb if they stay to the end of the show hmm next come bowels of sharp thorns you know is that movement from the benign to be slightly disgusting Oh scary a lot of points but before the good bloody part the show's interrupted by the police our translator chips goes with Lee to explain that it's all okay all right our heavy ally is trying to convince the police that we do have the proper permits he can perform and doesn't look like he's getting anywhere meanwhile the show just goes off if an hour part of it the Indian authorities associate the low caste magicians with street crime not entertainment shut up me actors your hair and I just washed my lip yeah but I'm a guy get on a plane the Tyrian acoustical and then make a cruise I have you remember gonna get two metals and the teller we shall make a movie song hyah psychedelic agony over here how you doing what was up there what was going on does that happen often to you oh yeah I say your package as him not very common thing to him that wherever they put up a show sometimes run the show somebody will come in to stop the show usually the police is something and usually what he Santa says the not gentle they always come and try to give them a rap or push them off with force now were they were they were SH because we were there yeah well they sell my marvelous I got an evening with their unique marketing about what he saying is because of the fact that you were then because of the fact there's something going on that is exactly why they do not get beaten up otherwise this is actually they were they would have beaten you again meant for the camera the revolution would have been televised yeah it was because of you being there that the force was you know kept aside you didn't get a chance to sell your ring so you didn't make money off that shows all right this is that even if the cops find any money lying with them in their pocket they take that away from the most oh man I get about Ernie anything else it's gonna get you a broken camera to carry around if you put a fake gammaroid a broken camera in the makeup that is fake a broken they probably put a case number 420 from the Constitution and put them into jail for for five years okay so it's a bad idea I was just blue sky just blue sky and when you see what I can cope with on the top of my head teller and I started out doing magic on the streets but not in India we performed in Philadelphia in the u.s. mostly and and it's illegal there so we had to also deal with peace officers on the beat but we dealt with them by being friendly and getting them to like us there were never any actual bribes they would talk to us after a show and say you can't work here but they never broke up our show and the other chilling thing is of course they would never consider or even threatened to beat us whereas naseeb said that thing that just made my heart skip where he said if we weren't there they would have beaten him so certain things are universal and certain things are very country specific in the street performing scam now seve hadn't told us anything about Indian magicians actually performing the rope trick so we went back to shadow poor magic rings have not brought luxury to the Steve's family he his wife his children and their wives and children live in this small space when they're in shadow for Kasim Saab a sieve and in Teller oh I know I shadow poor is built for normal-sized magicians this ladder is not gonna help here we go told you I'm 6 foot 6 and I weighed 278 pounds after the latter incident I'm gonna sit over here on the cement yeah Iggy I'm sorry about your ladder tell her get down to business right away samba hi bah we wanted to show our respect for now seed so tell them made a prop form in our workshop in Las Vegas I said it would come in handy chips tell him that it might be better to use that on his on his child's neck uh the latest among the sick do is we have the technique of alone the kind of father telling me not be a great [ __ ] fit right in them yeah he took naturally did that slice it off the head of a child did it I was like a duck to water yeah cuz he in the Demon Barber of Chateau poor Vika thank you very much thank you naseeb like the blood in our little magic show I gotta climb up over the look at the Batman he told us that blood worked in his show then he said he'd take us to see his nephew ISA mu Dean ISA mu Dean was trained by naseeb and claims to perform the Indian rope trick I see on the seal of magically mended my pants to get there we had to pass the puppets again I hate the root winds through a maze of tents and perpetually half-finished entertainers halls we weren't prepared for we saw around the next corner chibs told us about the animal handlers performing animals like these are now illegal in India so the beasts are kept tethered to the ground the conditions are grilled in shadow poor every corner holds a new surprise the next one was ISA mu Dean miss Alma Dean who used to work as is assistant a very young you know small assistant better known in Hindi as his jhamora and he works out as he told me on the way he's his nephew well it's the last thing we expect to find here is another magician on the suit oh sit down over here first today my father will perform for you huh he will show you some Indian tourism magic mm-hmm and you do a little more more Western magic than a traditional er and no no I don't want to do Western magic anymore because I want to do my own traditional magic and I want to develop my own magic mm-hmm which is my family professor and it is our very typical Indian magic hmm Toliver gallon abdullah misspoke Allah Issa mu Dean's father Manoj Khan had totnes heed he came out of retirement for us Harmonie : we've been told you to be doing some magic forces all right yes I'm going to perform the baton adopted for you oh really so I'm excited to do my best for you and I hope you will like my magic and we're gonna do the rope trick umm I will do it in behind of Taj Mahal in Agra okay good we look forward to seeing the famous Indian rope trick there's the guy that's gonna do it so we finally found an Indian magician who does the rope trick and they'll do it for us at the Taj Mahal in the city of Agra shaddup or I've never been to a place like that and I've seen stuff like that you know slums on TV where where you're seeing shadow poor as well and being there with that the the filth of the water and the Flies and the hema and the misery and it wasn't just a field trip to see you know how bad poverty can get it was that these were magicians you people we knew we liked people who saw the doing shows and they have all this incredible culture and I would trade of course all the culture for one clean bathroom and a flush toilet but seeing them living like that was was very sobering except the puppet people and they deserve to live like that all over the world while we waited for ISA mu Dean's rope trick we went to see eius on perform he's the Steve's eldest son and heir to the inventory of rings we needed to understand why people buy the Rings there's nothing teller and I hate more than magicians who claim supernatural powers well except puppet people aya-san show is bloody and again has elements of the rope trick the boy the violence the resurrection but no rope only a monkey skull tetanus is the least of his royal Pichai oppression or I go oh what a much that's Rebecca gonna let all open a hot we like it other Angola knocking out I see her talking about old it much it look like real blood the audience was hooked and so are we Johnny gets listed I got y'all anymore open a heart many collectors obvious about money colicky I mean look at torture I get Dugan they do yet go down and up this ski out of the one he gotta get to the bottom I got already dead room oh there was a lot of force yeah and terror yeah I said I would say that that in the u.s. that audience participation would be called assault and battery yeah movie but yeah he's pretty clear pass honey dick what's that egg the whopper damn the knife was taken out Sam jet had his life magically be stored and I have son began the ring selling that gas at Oak Island is iesson just exploiting his audiences fears that said the vodka Edna's on Albany buddy I got you it seemed a bit too close to some religious con surely they were buying the Rings out of fear it didn't feel quite right so I asked Lee about it did they really believe a catchy bar so let's get clear to him but it is and that great powers but it's a good life so they're not really believing this is going to solve their problems they hope it'll help they hope it'll yeah you know when the expensive Rings came out it looked like a few superstitious types we're gonna be swindled out of some serious coin but teller and I were sucked in by the blood we arranged with Lee to help deceive in his next show teller does deli we travel across Delhi to the affluent Khan market area when the scene was performing teller and I were to play tourists watching the show my role was the loud American I'm trying to stretch no one would suspect we're in cahoots with the seed after teller had merged in as a tourist I quietly approached the scene hey Cochise what's the act here what's the deal I'm Swiss about her what do you snake charmer you snake job oh look my clever nephew seems tucked under honey where's you better spikes Oh get a snake gonna play a flute are you doing this for me cylinder diga diga he thinks that he's wiser than me magician cha do you get a tiger I want to be a tiger okay boy go on with your act don't mind me doesn't understand what we're doing you're the complete idiot why me just carry on Donna is brain so far from the ground but there's no oxygen getting up there stand back stand back do you know where you should stand a sip from a soft drink and full of fake blood was the cue for naseeb to throw a curse at me but hit teller instead his voice cut out you will never speak again you're just taking to go now see made more money on account of cursing some foreigners teller and I get a kick out of it at the time we didn't feel so happy on reflection there's so many cultural differences to try to absorb between their style of performing in ours I think we a little bit misdirected I mean the father and something is fabulous how these kids start work on the street when they're four or five years old so uh we like nuh see he's a good guy he welcomed us to his home he's one of the reasons we're here because of his relationship with Lee but you know I think a lot of people are believing the jive about the the magic rings and I I think they are buying that kind of good luck and we couldn't help but having the kind of disquieting thoughts after we left that if he were an American working for an American crowd doing that same level of false information about the world religion and so on we'd be fighting him tooth and nail the seams act always has his son some miracles and some blood maybe over time parts of different tricks were blended together to form the story of the Indian rope trick ISA mu Dean's rope trick of the Taj Mahal was a few days away so we headed 914 miles east to Calcutta in West Bengal it was Bengali magicians who perform the first reported rope trick twelve hundred years ago look at the stop train pull chain it rhymes a penalty for use without reasonable and sufficient cause fine up to 1000 rupees now a thousand rupees is about twenty two dollars if we pull that chain the whole train stops and we have a lot of fun I think we have more than 20 scoops more than $22 for the fun just like that and also what does the mean reasonably sufficient cause isn't shenanigans reasonable and sufficient man who would get so yelled at but it would be so fun as we traveled we had some time to think about the châteaux poor magicians they led us into the culture of Indian magic and made us feel a part of their magician's community we saw shaddup or is more than a slum not quite Vegas but still a magician's town Calcutta 12 million people in gridlock we needed a guide well here we are in Calcutta we're about to meet our translator who is also a bit of a magician and he told us to meet him here and that he'd be all ready for us and that we should keep our eye out for a car of course this isn't a road it's a sidewalk but well oh there's a car terrible hello are you Paul yeah you're a translator yes I'm doing the cut on her tree can somebody move the jack and help me up oh yeah it's a jackpot so what do you got give us shows here in Calcutta here I'm gonna take you around Calcutta and we're gonna see some dental medicine and okay that's far better we can't get back to the hotel music more morning 8 a.m. okay yeah okay bye thank you hello should I stay here you eventually ball called our guide come translator come magician said to meet him in a field where we'd see traditional magic by a Bengali family No our magicians shared some heritage with Messi his show is a dark festival of blood a demonstration of magicians power over life and death the show's roots were the ancient magic of Bengal where magic is said to have first appeared in India every acts in to involve the magician inflicting cruelty on a member of his family it's fun gruesome stuff take the threat of the God Brahma an assistant it's a piece of cotton and has it cut and sucked from his stomach but that's not all the skewers are a play of the aesthetic devotion of Hindu holy men to do this it would have to be devoted or a relative the climax of the show is twin wild men who could be controlled only by the magician Oh failed the guy in a roulade of chicken raw another guy ate a pigeon I had him on a roll these guys are on my side this is Neddy after the show the magician wanted to tell us about all 12 of his gasps members all we cared about were the wild men must destroy loves to show sheesh sheesh loses it's always the ending of the story's always the ink you don't want to follow that wild man thing ya know what are you gonna bring on after that I control the question no once you get the wild man you're out yeah where'd you get your wild man I do easyadmin Oracle genacore need a kia believe it oh yeah this this the two wild man where is Sun in those your brother-in-law's he got it yeah you know I'm in that same position my brother-in-law's a wild man as well did you get your daughter that you set her head on that island in and chicken was like oh that's his wife Oh your wife inky oh if you burn you you burn your wife's head yeah your brother-in-law's eat raw chickens and snakes and your little brother gets skewers to his cheeks so it's the Indian nuclear family you I know that some crybabies in the West are going to be are going to be upset by them ripping apart live live birds of their teeth and some would say that you can rationalize it by saying that it's a different culture we have to expect accept that but I don't think that's winter rationalize it it's a goddamn chicken toughen up it's just a chicken how many chickens are killed a day in just the UK self-righteous son of a [ __ ] it's just a chicken after the wild men's crazy show there was a bit of time to calm down from the Bengal countryside were to travel to Agra to the Taj Mahal to ISA mu Dean's rope trick there's only one way to arrive for a performance of the Indian rope trick behind the Taj Mahal I don't know if I mentioned this or not with us we're in India now from the Indian elephant the Cadillac of beasts and birds well then I still like maybe me the cattle give me an elephant the Cadillac of the Indian elephant the Winnebago of beasts of burden shuttle bus space shuttle of the atlantis of beasts of burden beasts of burdens maybe tonight we brought a bell for the local temple to fact the villagers for letting Isom Udine perform him that was graceful wasn't it how to get down from elephants you don't get down from an elephant we get down from a duck oh here we are holy it is a rope and you can feel it and wrong inside no real rope dildo it is a sailor so ok serious real rope real amp this is here thanks now you give me this and now you will you will stand here at your place thank you brother thank you very much the Indian rock grannies are watching from over here Emily [ __ ] y'all yeah [ __ ] it Cali bus curtain yeah remember the traditional trick has the magician chase a boy up the rope he chops the boy to pieces they fall to the ground that he reassembles the parts bringing him back to life yeah under many Rocketeer yeah hobart or Sabich a decade or sob logged a Giga Yas a judoka say Jota course upload a Giga this is here and something will happen while felicity Brook Joe yeah hamari pakki a crook so tossa yarrow your hair either I'm naked iscandar such a light on or off of the Higa yes poke at the hair Indian rope trick yeah astray see what is faux fur many Papa see hey Baraka who lip waiver yeah it's nice Candice for a mighty legaia licking booty call your hair home either safe Italian gay disco boppers or Papa's reckon Ichabod is go home he has it oscillating then in the middle of a trick at a crucial point something went wrong the Rope didn't reappear yo we waited teller tried to keep the crowd occupied we feared the great Indian rope trick would lose some of its splendor in the dark well being a street magician is not easy over there you see some panicked performers trying to fix the trick that didn't work over there you see the Sun setting in the West time is running out just when it all seemed too late the trick was back on you saw the rope we were still hoping the boy would get chopped up and put back together of course but ask your butcher he's a brother wait lol so this is the new book but Jenny Chanyeol what are your watches hide off with you but you they're handy rope trick in front of the Taj Mahal it's just great the way the kid climbs up at its all and then the fall at the end kill me very nice fall again oK we've done all our research all the clues we'd seen all the mystic stuff they peddle over here it all came together bellisimo Dean performed a great modern version of the rope trick the traditional rope trick is a myth it never happened it's an amalgam of many of the tricks we've seen here in India it was time for Penn & Teller's Indian rope trick our plan is to make people believe the traditional rope trick is real this is complicated so listen up we set up the Penn & Teller version of the trick in a deli courtyard the idea is for teller and I to find a couple of tourists on a nearby street and convince them to come with us to see the trick so we can get their reactions for a documentary film eat [ __ ] Peter and I go outside the trick will never really happen we're just setting it up so it looks like it just did at that time you will run in right into the shot and say they're doing the Rope trick they've already started the crews job is to make like we screwed up and just miss the shot as we run in with the tourists if I the end of the trick playing out chip is in here with Indian extras for play we even recruited a bunch of locals to pretend they just witnessed the trick all set to go Nate we choreographed every detail down to the chopped-up boy blood dripping from his rejoined limbs that that's all that's all we need that's it okay here goes Penn & Teller magicians oh yeah and we're doing a show on the Indian rope trick yeah I've seen it before on the TV but I've never seen it done like never seen live this is a trick where the Rope goes in the air boys scampers up right on cue crew ran in to tell us the tricking started to 2006 after going to go let's go but we going to go just just go stow your it's working it's working Genie I love it enough women nutty [ __ ] evening I'm not into one big holiday de Lima Lima he's saying that in all my eight years of living I've never seen a show like this patrol it was incredible I didn't want to know how it's done it was touristy Austrians that I have had you in yet and you've got amazing they truly believe they missed a performance of a great Indian rope trick he had rope to extends for really all magic and the more we trust in our logic and our powers of observation you know the more you easy we are it's a fool he was out doing street shots of his legged Iseman the boots people were outside the courtyard asking it in word the trick had been performed was getting around already and even some locals believe that the rope trick had it matched a little bit at the forum in order to do that Indian rope trick we needed the everybody involved because that's what the Indian rope trick has to be it has to be a story and the only place the trick happens in people's heads which is the only place that the magic happens ever aneema our myth-making worked I would bet anything that within a week everyone will be saying the rope trick was performed within a month you'll be swearing all the people who know they miss something is saying what did I miss and people are saying the rope trick the prestige of being inside is so great that all the guys that weren't there are gonna say I saw with my own eyes I was there and so the next doctor man believed because the unless he'll be here and it's true after we left the courtyard all the local talk was of the Westerners who had finally filmed the legendary rope trick but you know the real Indian magics in shadow pour the magic of naseeb sham pasa Issa Budin all the cool tricks we saw came out of there and the legend of the rope trick came from their ancestors the original Indian Street magicians goodnight and shadow pours where I first saw those spinning tops and found raw Prasad by spinning top guru sugita i asked Rob Prasad to make me atop but he told me I'd have to accept him as my guru in a ceremony now what the hell mrs. drink thank you so much thank you like chop guru in both senses you

Channel: 770pratik

Views: 875,670

Rating: 4.7991633 out of 5

Keywords: Penn, Tellet, MMT, INDIA, magic, documentary, history, Magic, Mystery

Id: VB0Lexfqm_o

Length: 50min 10sec (3010 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/peter-bone]

The stick spins when he holds the mouth stick at a higher angle. There must be more friction between the mouth stick and the spinning stick when he points the mouth stick down.