© Copyright Eliot Chayt 2007
"Movie Magic" is a video essay about the strange case of a reported on-screen death in the 1931 film Trader Horn. By tracing the path of this story, I tried to convey the mythic aspect of oral history and historiography. How did I achieve this? First, I obtained a copy of Trader Horn, which is more difficult than I thought it would be. Then, I isolated the "death scene," and combined it with images and voice-over to tell the story.