How do the hat tricks work in BENNY AND JOON?

Cafe Society
1

Something I’ve wondered about since seeing it when it first came out:

In the movie Benny and JoonJohnny Depp plays Sam, a dyslexic who’s obsessed with silent comics. During the movie he re-creates several classic comic bits such as Chaplin’s roll dance and several of Keaton’s slapstick bits, but one of the most demanding bits of the movie takes place in a park where he does a routine involving an uncooperative hat. YouTube (specifically the part starting around :30).

So, the movie is very quirky but there’s nothing supernatural implied (i.e. it’s not a movie like Harvey where you think there might be a little quirky supe agency helping). Sam doesn’t have any great technological know how, and since the bit in the park is impromptu he doesn’t have any accomplices that we know of to help him move the hat, so… is there a simple device (one that a dyslexic with little money would have access to and be able to use) or is there some type of simple stage magic at play or what here?

How does he get the hat to move when he’s not touching it at all? Would it be possible for somebody without accomplices to do this routine, or would there have to be some sort of set-up with strings and what not beforehand? (Assume they’ve had all the time in the world to rehearse, that’s not an issue, but…)

2

As far as I can tell, he’s simply kicking it?

3

Initially perhaps, but not after the 1:00 mark.

4

Keep watching. He kicks it a few times, but then there’s a bit where he’s three or feet away from it, and the hat skitters back when he takes a step towards it. He’s very clearly too far away from it to be touching it. It does this twice, and then he dives on it, and moves onto a different shtick not involving the hat.

The only thing I could think of is that he’s palmed some sort of device that allows him to shoot a blast of air at it, but he seems to be too far away for something like that to work, unless it was reasonably high-tech. I don’t think a palm-sized air bulb would be strong enough.

5

Or he’s just really good at gauging the gusts of wind, and can tell just when the wind is picking up enough to scoot it a bit.