Genres

Visitors Review

beltezam 2012-05-20 11:17:48

Book was much better

I loved the gorgeous Greek scenery but the story, which is notsomething you can follow anyway, was even harder to follow in themovie. I cannot imagine how anyone watching the movie can get any kindof grip on it if they have not read the book, and then, like me, theywould probably wonder why Australian Allison turned into French Anne,and many other seemingly pointless changes in the story. The mysteriesin the book seemed to be chopped up or left out in the movie. I saw itwhen it first came out and had the same problems with it then, since Ihad read the book several times. I recently watched it with mygranddaughter (very intelligent at 20 and usually into movies I like)who was mostly amazed at how young Michael Caine and Candace Bergenwere in it, but otherwise could not imagine why one would watch itexcept for the scenery.

2012-05-20 00:42:56

The Let Down

The revised edition of John Fowles novel,The Magus, is one of the best works of fiction I have ever read and contend it as one of my all-time favorites. Have it in my library. Seeing the movie without reading the book is meaningless. But the DVD is worthwhile because of the young performers namely Michael Caine and Candice Bergen. A two hour movie does not do justice to the novel itself. Buy the book or get a copy from the library. The revised edition preferably.

MARIO GAUCI 2012-05-09 18:06:47

THE MAGUS (Guy Green, 1968) **

Being an arty psychological puzzle - and one which might well be notjust incomprehensible but also meaningless - I'd always been interestedin checking this film out; the fact that it was a critical andbox-office failure made it doubly fascinating. Still, what must haveseemed like the turkey of the year when new has, with time, acquired acertain charm all its own! On the surface, the film is certainlygood-looking (shot by Billy Williams in numerous European locations,mainly a sunny Greek island) and boasts a fine score by JohnnyDankworth (which, in keeping with the film's theme, seems oddlyunsuited to what's going on); the star cast responds competently to themystifying plot (structured like a Chinese box - where past events areconstantly re-enacted, identities exchanged and, of course, nothing iswhat it seems). Still, while Anthony Quinn may be everybody's idea of aGreek larger-than-life character, here he is saddled with an unbecomingPicasso hairstyle and, underneath it all, Michael Caine may well havebeen mirroring the bewilderment felt by his character since, in hisautobiography, he singles out THE MAGUS as his worst film ever (thoughI personally would beg to differ and choose THE ISLAND [1980] for thatunenviable spot)! Actually, it all reminded me of L'INVENZIONE DI MOREL (1974) - anotherobscure island-set drama where a man intrudes upon a remote communitysharing an exclusive fantasy existence: incidentally, that film waspartly shot in my native country and also featured Anna Karina (who inTHE MAGUS has the rather thankless role of Caine's jilted girlfriend -though her performance is quite good and his callous treatment ofKarina has a strong bearing on the main character's ultimate personalgrowth) as the mystery woman who captivates the hero; with this inmind, as I lay watching the film under review, I wondered at thepossibilities had Karina exchanged her role with that of Candice Bergen(who's too young for her role but great to look at nonetheless).Then again, the subject matter was far more congenial to a Joseph Loseyrather than the journeyman Guy Green...and one can only surmise howdifferent - and more significant - the film would have been in theformer's hands! As it stands, there are some undeniably compellingpassages but also a lot of shallow modishness (the skin-flick withBergen and Julian Glover[!] at the climax is plain risible) and lamemoralizing (the WWII flashback scenes, featuring a bizarrely buteffectively cast Corin Redgrave as the Nazi Commandant, beingespecially maudlin).At several points towards the end, it feels like the story is coming tosome sort of conclusion but it just goes on and on, peeling off yetanother layer to the meandering enigma; to get an inkling of what thefilm is like, just imagine watching two of the more cerebral episodesof the cult TV series "The Prisoner" (1967-68) back-to-back! Inhindsight, the film's epitaph may have been delivered by none otherthan Woody Allen who once remarked that, if he had to live his life allover again, he would do everything exactly the same...except watch THEMAGUS. As for myself, I wouldn't mind taking another look at it infuture: by then I'd be over the initial "shock" and could perhapsappreciate it better...

johnb-26 2012-05-09 15:33:44

What's all the fuss?

This film came out when I was a senior in college, and I loved it at thetime. I thought it was really innovative and thought-provoking. It wasalso my first introduction to Eliot's famous fragment, which remains aparticular favorite. It may be a difference in perceptions that is therootof the film vs book controversy because personally I can't stand Fowler asan author. I think he's extremely pretentious, not to mention boring.Butthat's just me. Other's like the book and hate the film because of theirown perceptions. See the film and judge for yourself. I think it'sdefinitely worth it.

2012-05-05 01:27:26

The movie is a characature of the book

Reflecting on the movie while on the mid-watch on a naval ship in the South China Sea in 1969 was an experience that has never left me. The constant turning inside out of what Nicholas Urfe believed was going on, through the leap from stories told by Conchis at the dinner table becoming either reality or staged reinactments that tested Urfe's belief and sense of morality fed my hunger for thought provoking dialog. I had to buy the book and read it. I went on to "The French Leutenant's Woman", and "The Aristos", soaking up Fowle's philosophy.Later, attending an interview with John Fowles in San Francisco with my Daughter, he said, "I didn't think 'The Magus' was very good". I wanted to stand up and say, "But I named my Son Nicholas!" I think he got tired of answering the questions about what it meant, when it really wasn't intended to give answers. Like someone else said in a review here, one of his favorite themes was "An answer is a form of death".Candice Bergen said one time that as her third movie appearance she thought is might be her worst. She might be right. I loved the movie for where it lead me at the time, not as something that would entertain me again and again. Skip the movie, or see it for the novelty, but read the book if you want the experience that Fowles meant you to have.

zies-2 2012-05-04 11:46:43

It caused me to become interested in Fowles

I saw this first in the evening aboard a naval ship, before going up tothe bridge for the midnight to 4AM watch. It was a very interesting 4hours, after which I had a real interest in reading the book. As withmost novels, it would be very difficult to re-create on screen. Themovie though, gave enough of a flavor of the continuous surprise twiststhat it draws you in to the mystery of trying to figure out what isgoing on. I have most of it on a video tape somewhere, and don'tremember it as being very good. John Fowles agrees with me. He alsosaid in an interview that he didn't think much of the book, but manypeople disagree with him on that. It was at least another version ofthe theme, and visually very interesting. I rated it high because itcaused me to think and explore Fowles works further, for which I amvery grateful.

bryancrow 2012-05-04 05:46:49

Anthony Quinn as Freudian Pygmalion to Caine's Galatea.

I don't like many movies at all, I feel pretty dumb for rating a movieI haven't seen for 37 years, and I seldom like one so much that I runout and but the book. But I did, and I liked it too.Without giving away the ending, I think it's safe to say this much: Idespise stories based on the supernatural or mysteries that remainunsolved. Let me just add that this movie makes you wonder what magic abenevolent psychotherapist might work if he could cheat in the serviceof salvation--if, for the sake of delivering a man from himself, noholds were barred.I was 29 years old when I saw this movie, and things were different in1968, but I still like movies I can easily follow. It surprises me toread that _The Magus_ is vague or confused. If I got it, anybody would._The Ipcress File_ had introduced me to Michael Caine in 1965, but I'mnot sure I'd seen Candace Bergen before. She was never so beautiful.

2012-05-04 04:15:28

What Might Have Been

One of the reviewers mentioned David Lynch. I recall waiting with anticipation for the film adaptation of _Dune_, hoping that the movie in my mind would be realized, and discovering through the film flaws in the book that my adolescent mind had not noticed when I fell in love with it. Something like that is true of _The Magus_ as well. It *is* fairly faithful to the book, and many of the more embarrassing scenes of dialogue are taken directly from it. So my first reaction to seeing this film is a troubled sense that I was wrong to love this book.What's missing? Three things: time, the narrator, and a realist texture. For a sense of what I mean by the third, see Minghella's _Talented Mr. Ripley_ to see how this film should look, should feel (indeed, how, if it were remade today, it could even be cast--all that's missing is Ben Kingsley as Conchis). But what makes the book work is that the fascinating and bizarre events are made plausible by their embedding in a realistic frame: Nicholas' life away from Conchis' universe is utterly real by being largely veiled autobiography. He is the typical callow young man as would-be writer, struggling fitfully to overcome his narcissism and join the human race, while desperately clinging to that same narcissism in the knowledge that only this will allow him to become the artist he would betray himself by not becoming. The Conchis Masque is but the externalization of Nicholas' "therapy" as he sorts through this paradox, grows up and becomes a Real Writer. For every Real Writer is perilously close to a merely Failed Human Being.In the book, Nicholas experiences Bourani (the site of Conchis' manipulations) the way people experience affairs: as what seems for a time an endlessly fascinating distraction from the intolerable experience of being who they are. On this level, the book is essentially the story of an affair, and Nicholas' guilt is an essential part of him finding his way to resolution. But the film so compresses the events that we get only Conchis, only the affair, and almost none of the narcissism, tedium, failure and self-doubt of Nicholas, or the process by which he comes to terms with them through his guilt over how his self-importance and thirst for experience harm the women in his life. And yet it is this which makes the book seem real (especially to the many young Nicholases who read it) and thus confers reality on the otherwise incredible, and incredibly silly things that transpire on the island.I remain convinced that this film could've been done, but there must be much much more of the ordinariness of Nicholas, so that the fantastic stands out that much more. _French Lieutenant's Woman_ gives us some inkling of how a very free but literate adaptation can be penned, and _Talented Mr. Ripley_ gives us some notion of how it could be shot. But it must be *much* longer, and that length should be devoted to showing what the novel shows: how we grow through love.

pljewkes 2012-05-03 05:36:28

Conundumb?

Since THE MAGUS is a confusing puzzle that really has no solution, oneshould sit back and enjoy the scenery. Set on a "remote Greek island,"it stars a very uptight Michael Caine as a teacher working at a schoolfor boys who gets caught up in mind games with local wacko/mystery manAnthony Quinn and his daffy girlfriend Candice Bergen. Quinn, lookinglike Pablo Picasso with white hair and striped sailor shirt, isactually pretty good but Caine looks like he's ready to explode.Bergen, although stunning, should NOT put on a British accent EVER.She's not very good at that type of thing. Guy Green's direction isfine, but unless you have infinite patience with the circular logic ofthe film, you will not enjoy it. A real sour note is the casting of theeffervescent Anna Karina in the completely joyless role of Caine'sgirlfriend. After seeing her in the likes of A WOMAN IS A WOMAN and ABAND APART, her presence here is quite jarring.

2012-05-02 12:10:16

This Movie Was Weird In 1968 And It Is Still Pretty Weird Today!

I remember seeing this movie when I was 8 years old on late night TV because even back then I liked beautiful women such as Candice Bergen.Anyway enough about my Youthful Raging Hormonal Desires. The plot of this movie seems to be about this English guy who travels to a mysterious Greek Island where nothing is what it appears to be. This kind of reminds me of the "Promise " of Enlightenment and Education that they said I would get in College. I give this movie 5 stars because Ms. Bergen doesn't even have to take her clothes off in it to look really hot!

2012-05-01 14:38:26

Why Novelists Should Never Write Their Own Screenplays

This review is from: The Magus (DVD) This film is intriguing at first, and it's beautiful to look at, but it's a bit of a mess. The problem is simple: John Fowles, the author of the famous novel, decided to write his own screen adaptation. He apparently hated the screen version of his other novel, THE COLLECTOR, three years earlier, and he didn't want Hollywood to botch THE MAGUS. Well, they did botch it--and it's entirely his own fault.THE MAGUS is a novel of ideas, not action. The flimsy story and symbolic characters (Urfe rhymes with "earth," Conchis is pronounced "conscious" which means "alive," the lily in Anne's lucky paperweight becomes "Lily," the girl on the island, etc.) are only there to serve up a large dose of Fowles's philosophy--basically, that life is a dream and love is the only reality. But it isn't exactly photogenic, and Fowles the screenwriter has taken Fowles the novelist entirely too literally. What we get is a page-by-page adaptation of a talky, elliptical, difficult book. If Michael Caine (Urfe/earth), Anthony Quinn (Conchis/life), and Candice Bergen (Lily/love) look uncomfortable, or even downright confused, who can blame them? They were asked to play symbols, not characters, and to say and do things that couldn't possibly make sense to anyone unfamiliar with the novel. A film is not a novel, and vice versa.Bottom line: read the wonderful novel, then tackle the film. Or skip the film entirely. The screenwriter doesn't seem to understand the novelist, despite the fact that they're the same person. And that is why we have professional screenwriters. I'm glad Fowles allowed Harold Pinter to do the screenplay for the film of his next novel, THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN. Now, there's a movie that does justice to the source material. But as for THE MAGUS, well....

pawlo-3 2012-05-01 08:33:26

Bad score, nice view

As other commentators I didn't quite know whether to expect the worstmovieever or an undiscovered pearl. Well, it is neither. For lovers of thenovel,I feel the film is quite adequate and interesting. Hard to imagine how thefilm impressions someone who hasn't read the book. In my mind this couldhave been an excellent film, but for two aspects: the score is awful(especially in the mountain climbing sequence with Anne); the final"trial"is totally botched, filmed as a dream-sequence instead of reality, as itshould be, and featuring a ridiculous robot. I wish I could do are-make.

2012-04-25 03:40:59

Hey. It was the '60's!

---I first saw this movie at the theater my second year of college (1968-69) in Texas. At that time, it being the late 1960's, it seemed perfectly normal to me that it was complex and confusing. It was psychedelic. How can anyone who enjoyed the Beatles "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Magical Mystery Tour," and the "White Album," not to mention The Doors' "Strange Days," or Iron Butterfly's "Inagodadavida" (sp?), complain about a movie that is confusing? ---Nicholas Urfe (Michael Caine) accepts a job as an English teacher at a private boys school on the idyllic Greek island of Phraxos. As he settles into his room, he finds a cryptic note left in a drawer by his predecessor who had committed suicide. The note reads "beware the waiting room." On the weekends Urfe explores the far side of the island and discovers the villa of the mysterious Maurice Conchis (Anthony Quinn) who invites him for weekend visits where Conchis entertains Urfe with his life story. In these stories of his past, Conchis presents to Urfe major dilemmas where the choices are life-changing. Subsequently, in a series of "Twilight Zonesque" time shifts, Urfe finds himself trapped into reliving these same stories and being forced to make the same life-changing choices. The effect is, well, "mind-blowing," both for the character Urfe, and for the viewer. Is Urfe hallucinating or dreaming, or is this a well-planned masque, directed by the "master-manipulator" Conchis, where Urfe is unwillingly cast as the central character? ---I guess my take on it is that the mind-blowing nature of the film fit very well with the zeitgeist of the late 1960's. The film itself may be lacking, but the greater story, only partly told in an abbreviated version in this movie, is much, much better than could ever be captured on film. Instinctively, I knew this and sought out the book in the Fall of 1969. I found it at Doubleday Bookstore in New York City while visiting for the Texas A&M vs. Westpoint football game. The book helped me survive the long, cold, rainy winter of 1969-70, as I was manipulated into making life-changing decisions -- school vs. Vietnam, girls vs. grades, polyester vs. cotton, Santana vs. Led Zeppelin, etc. etc. etc. As Nicholas Urfe rode the roller coaster of his life, so did we.---I'm glad to see that the movie is in video.

magus4444 2012-04-24 17:53:49

perplexing,paradoxical-yet visually pleasing

A puzzle within a paradox of a film - as was intended by theauthor.Caine dismissed it as one of his lesser films.Central is a quotefrom T.S.Elliot's Little Gidding reflecting on the meaning of existence( We shall arrive at where we started from,and yet know the place forthe first time)The film spirals around the central character'sconvoluted conversations with the Magus (Quinn)without obviousresolution.Yet once reported ( supposedly by Fowles) that Bergen'scharacter was the sister of Ann and the meeting with the Magus intendedto highlight to Caine's character his selfish treatment of her whichled to her demise.

Ismar Tirelli 2012-04-24 06:09:57

I Dare You...

As much as I adore complex films, and philosophy, I dare you to watch thisfilm and understand it to it's fullest - if you haven't read the novelyet,that is.The unforgettable insights offered by John Fowles' book are completelygone,as the film turns into an empty allegory, aiming towards an arty approach,that backfires miserably. I guess the producers of 'The Magus' thoughtthatart translated soft porn sequences, senseless dialogue chanted byawkwardlymiscasted actors and poor editing.Nevertheless, Anthony Quinn was quite good as Conchis, and Anna Karina wasfair as well... if given more time, she would give a knockout of aperformance ( 'Yes Or No... Yes Or No... YES OR NO!" )... at least theybalanced the horrendous performances of Michael Caine ( "To Hell WithAnne... ") and Candice Bergen ( "No... To Hell With Nicholas!" ) . I saythat because I have recently finished an acting course, so I wouldunderstand more thoroughly acting itself, and I realize how hard it is toACT... but anyone could do better than that!But some good points that deserve notice are the stunning camera work, andthe lovely soundtrack by John Dankworth.Well, all things considered, this movie found me rather puzzled, yet,unmoved, and irritated. A glimpse at John Fowles' beautiful writings willmake you want to smack the producers' faces even more.:)Well... you've been warned.

2012-04-23 15:35:55

T. S. Eliot on the beach: history and psychiatry on a Greek Isle

This is one film, based on the excellent existentialist novel by one of the greatest British authors since Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence, that should have been a success. After all, author John Fowles wrote the screenplay himself. Fowles admitted that he greatly admired Lawrence, and it is, therefore, a pity that this film version of his novel didn't turn out as well as film versions of Lawrence's SONS AND LOVERS and WOMEN IN LOVE.I read the novel before I even went to college and discussed it with some of my newspaper colleagues. I didn't know anything about existentialism or the meta-theatre at the time, but I was still able to enjoy it as a compelling mystery-adventure in which the author took us through a labyrinth of twists and turns that seemed to come to life on the page because of his mastery with visual images. This novel, the first version printed a decade before his revised version, was, I thought, the best literary effort I had read since the American novelist Thomas Wolfe's LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL. Let's face it. Some novels -- as well as some films -- just hit us that way. Sometimes we don't even know why. When the film was released, I saw it with a friend who managed a small movie theatre in St. Charles, Missouri. He was totally lost by it, and like many others whose reviews appear on this page, slammed it mercilessly. I did enjoy the wide-screen vistas and the stunning DeLuxe Color cinematography of the Greek setting. I was impressed with how the scenes with the fake Nazi soldiers were contrasted with the scenes, from Conchis' memory, of the real Nazi soldiers, and of how the mystical figures from arcane mythology were brought to life for Urfe, played by Michael Caine in his salad days. I didn't hate the film as many others have, including Woody Allen. I just saw it as something different from the novel.The extent to which readers are invited, or even required, to participate in a novel may actually be detrimental to a film adaptation. A novel such as THE MAGUS, which emphasizes participation in the narrative more than explanations and literal interpretations -- which involves readers experientially as well as intellectually -- creates its own deep impressions. Where these impressions are caused by the novel's imagery, conflicts may arise when the reader contrasts his/her mental image with the actual image produced on the theatre screen. If, for example, we agree with critics who feel that director Guy Green's straightforward point of view provides an objective, documentary realism, then we might find his filming of Fowles' script to be an odd mix when combined with the subjective flashbacks. One flashback, in fact, combines Conchis' reminiscences of his meeting and courting Lily (played in typical stiff fashion by Candice Bergen) -- told in silent images with Anthony Quinn's voice-over narration -- with images of authentic-looking enlistment posters superimposed over black-and-white drawings and newsreel-type footage of the First World War.Other reviewers have compared this to a David Lynch film, and it does create an entertaining moment or two for us to speculate on what Lynch might have done with the material. At the time, the late sixties, someone even wondered what the film might have been like if Byron Forbes had directed this film, instead of Guy Green, in the style that he had directed DEADFALL about the same time -- with its flourishes of quick cutting and inter-cutting, beautiful images of Spain, and its soundtrack lushly filled with John Barry's haunting music. Maybe Forbes and Barry would have improved this film, and maybe Lynch could, today, give it the quirkiness that Fowles blueprints for us, but this isn't want happened. Critic John Russell Taylor even wonders what a Federico Fellini would have done with the complex story.Green may resist throwing a circus of special effects at us, spicing up the complex tale with surrealistic wide-angle shots and zoom shots, but his point of view is hardly objective. Those critics who fault his point of view should not forget that Urfe's narrative in the novel is chronological, particularly as it details aspects of his early life. Only Conchis' installments of his early life, which exist as descriptively delineated stories within the larger story of Urfe's experience, disrupt the narrative structure. Green's film, in fact, dispenses with the book's lengthy beginning in London and uses flashbacks to deal with the necessary exposition. Immediately in the film we are shown a few 1960-ish quick cuts to show Urfe's thoughts, and though this technique does not occupy the majority of the film, it is effective as a tantalizing beginning. Perhaps I defend this film THE MAGUS because I waited a long time for it, as well as Forbes' DEADFALL, to appear on DVD. Finally, long after I needed it for my dissertation on John Fowles, which later became the book POINT OF VIEW IN FICTION AND FILM: FOCUS ON JOHN FOWLES (sorry for the shameless plug for a work that is no longer in print), the DVD appeared. Seeing it on a sharp-imaged, wide-screen DVD after many years -- even after Fowles revised his own novel in the last 1970s long after the film version that was based on his first version -- was thrilling. It was fun to see Urfe (Caine) again read the quote from T.S. Eliot from a book conveniently left on the beach with a ribbon indicating a significant passage for him; it was fun because I had studied Eliot in the intervening years and now had a new appreciation for why this one quote was significant to Urfe's (Caine's) character.Maybe someday the BBC will film a longer version and add the necessary scenes that were omitted from this version, but this is outside speculation. We must, in a true existential sense, deal with what we have. After all, we have seen countless other films that received higher praise that probably did not deserve it. We have seen garbage movies thrown onto a DVD for no visible reason other to make a buck or two. THE MAGUS, at least, whatever its perceived faults, is a classy production with a young Michael Caine, the always superb Anthony Quinn, and the lovely Anna Karina (Mrs. Jean-Luc Godard) who plays Urfe's original love interest as French instead of the Australian air hostess that she is in the book. But if the BBC doesn't make a satisfying version of this modern classic, call David Lynch.

Threedee 2012-04-19 10:40:40

A film that's better than its reputation

I've read the Fowles novels-- including the original and the "new,improved"versions of The Magus (BTW the "new, improved" version was a bad moveJohn,you should have left the damn book alone with its ambiguities intact), soitain't like I are illiterate or somethin'...Seems to me a lot of people expect a movie to be a book, and it doesn'thappen. If you have a deep connection with the print, you have to be abletotemporarily wipe the preconceptions from your brain and deal with it as adistinct presentation of material, or you're not going to like it.I'm pretty sure this is what happened amongst the literati who wereexpecting to see the book version of The Magus on screen. So they did asnobbish hatchet job via criticism.IMHO, this is one of Anthony Quinn's best screen appearances. I can'tthinkof anyone else who could have filled the role as well. Green's directionkeeps the film moving right along. The location settings are wonderful.Gotno problems with the script. Michael Caine plays a terrific self-servingexploiter of women and relationships-- but in fairness Anne is a gutlesswimp asking to be exploited-- incapable of making her own decisions (atleast as rendered in the film). Candice Bergen does a very credible job inthe schizo role of Lily.This movie deserves restoration into its original aspect ratio andre-releasing on DVD. And maybe, like Eliot said in the bit from LittleGidding used in the flick, you might arrive where you started and know theplace for the first time.

2012-04-18 18:20:08

Not for everyone, but a rich treat for some

After decades of believing I was the only person in the world who likes this movie, I was shocked to discover that I am not unique. I had assumed that my copy was the only one in the world, snatched in the dawn of the VCR age from a very late night local airing. What IS unique is this movie. It clearly is not for everyone. It doesn't follow any safe formula, and seems to be cliche-free. The Magus appeals to people who think with bona fide independence, the kind who write in their choice for President, knowing that it is extremely unorthodox to do so. I was shocked and still marvel over Anthony Quinn's lament when he explained that answers KILL. They do. They kill the mystery in life. The successive reversals in the movie keep the newness fresh, each offering a new way of interpreting the events thus far. Before watching the movie, give your left brain the night off and let the wonder of the movie splash over you, augmented by that charming theme by Corelli. Quinn's consummate acting propels this movie to one that can be savored like a glass of fine wine. Why not five stars? Blame it on the NAZI's.

2012-04-16 12:12:07

Mostly for fans of the novel

Although this film came out in 1968, it has only recently become available on DVD. Until then, you had to wait for the rare occasions it was shown on TV to see it. I would mainly recommend this film to people who have read the novel and are very fond of it. The Magus is one of my favorite books and the fact that the author, John Fowles, wrote the screenplay for the film, not to mention the interviews that are included in the DVD with people who knew him, make the movie well worth seeing. I have to admit that the film, taken by itself, is not great and might not even make much sense to anyone who hasn't read the book (or has read it but wasn't crazy about it). Still, I'm not sure why some critics seemed quite so harsh towards it. To me, it falls into the vast category of movies that are neither terrible or great. I was mainly disappointed with it relative to the merits of the novel.Out of all the performances in The Magus, the only one I really liked was Anthony Quinn, who perfectly captured the enigmatic Conchis. Michael Caine and Candace Bergen are both good actors (and seem improbably young in this 1968 film!), but neither really stood out in this film. Caine as Nicholas, the young man who gets ensnared in Conchis' deceitful web on a remote Greek island, never seems to be experiencing any real confusion or torment. While the novel evokes a profound sense of existentialist dread, the film seems more like a bizarre theme park.The premise of The Magus is a fascinating one. On the surface, it's about a rather aimless and self-centered young man, Nicholas, who is teaching on a Greek island and meets a mysterious older man, Maurice Conchis. As Conchis relates events of his life, people and scenes appear to Nicholas, making the island a kind of stage setting. Nicholas falls in love with a young woman who may or may not be a co-conspirator in Conchis' plot (in the novel, there are twins, which makes the whole situation even more complex). It soon becomes apparent that nothing Conchis says can be taken at face value. He may be a doctor, a film producer or simply a sadistic madman who likes to torment victims. Nicholas becomes completely trapped in a world where nothing is what it seems and reality is unknowable. I think the latter sums up what The Magus is really about --the basic mystery and ambiguity of identity, experience and life.The basic theme of The Magus can be seen in much later films such as The Matrix and Dark City, though these rely much more on special effects to get their messages across. Probably the film that best captures this theme (actually a much better film than either The Magus or The Matrix) is The Stunt Man, which uses a movie set as a brilliant metaphor for the ambiguity of life. So, once again, the film will mainly be of interest for those who can't get enough of the book.

2012-04-16 02:41:39

The Magus

This review is from: The Magus (DVD) If you've read John Fowles's book The Magus, you will definitely enjoy this movie. Don't expect it to follow the book in sequence or in details. This does not seem to do the story an injustice, rather, it still manages to capture the intriguing story of Nicholas Urfe, an English teacher, who finds himself teaching students on a small Greek island only to become enmeshed in a dangerous, psychological game instigated and controlled by a wealthy Greek recluse, Maurice Conchis, who lives on the island. Nicholas, an invariant liar, particularly to women he wants to seduce, becomes upset with the lies he perceives are being told and enacted upon himself, and as this game called "the godgame" becomes more dangerous, he begins to wonder what is real and what is not and whether Conchis is a magician or merely enjoys manipulating people for his own entertainment.