Yeah I get that he's the master of illusions and all but how was it possible for him to be an illusion himself? When it takes the "power" of Eisenheim in order to create the illusion in the first place. Did he duplicate himself or something?
shareI think you missed part of the movie. None of his show was "real" it was all tricks, done with state of the art trickery of the day, like the special lanterns and projectors.
shareHe did it using candles and mirrors, the crown prince explains it in a scene.
shareYeah it's best not to think too hard about how the stuff could've been accomplished because the movie took real illusions of the day and presented them in an impossible way. The best way to appreciate this movie is to accept what you are seeing can't be duplicated in a real world situation and just enjoy it.
A good example of this is the orange tree illusion. The orange tree is a real illusion but it involves only the oranges "sprouting" from the buds and not the entire tree growing. It also has two very mechanical butterflies that are much less spectacular than what's seen in the movie. Here's a presentation of the actual orange tree illusion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZb4nw7_hGY