The Magus

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DVD details

Actor: Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed)
Format: Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-10-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox

DVD Reviews of The Magus

DVD Review: A slightly cracked but glittering gem
Summary: 4 Stars

There are certain works of art that are enormously flawed, because their creators take ridiculous risks that don't always succeed, glorious leaps that sometimes end with inglorious splats on a very hard floor. Yet at the same time, that willingness to fail on such a large scale also leads to something dazzling & compelling.

And so it is with "The Magus."

Let's agree that the film is so much less than the book -- how could it be otherwise? So let's simply look as the film as a film. It's a sun-drenched puzzle with a few crucial pieces missing, and others that never quite fit together. Granted, that's not entirely a bad thing, as the god-game of the trickster Conchis is to constantly unmoor Nicholas Urfe's sense of mundane reality & then expand it. Urfe is left confused, bewildered, angry, but eager to learn more -- and so are we, although we also want more when the film ends. Again, not entirely a bad thing.

The film has to walk a narrow line, and it stumbles on occasion. If it gives too much information, lays out things too explicitly, it succumbs to rigidity & mere didacticism. But if it lets things get too loose & fluid, then it can't do any better than disconnected glimpses that don't cohere on a deeper level. The film never quite reaches the perfect balance between the two. To be honest, I don't know that it ever could.

So is it worth watching?

I think so ... with a couple of caveats. It's definitely a film of the 1960s, which may be the deciding factor for some prospective viewers in itself. For those who want to understand how the 1960s felt, how some people viewed & experienced the world, it's a kaleidoscopic window on a disorienting landscape. For those who enjoy Big Questions & surreal situations, you'll certainly get your fill ... if not complete satisfaction. For those who want specific answers, though, or a stronger narrative hand at the wheel, it's likely to be disappointing -- and with just cause for complaint. And those who loved the novel will need to lower their expectations considerably!

Michael Caine has said that nobody on the set understood what the film was about, which is why it failed. Even so, he gives a wonderfully befuddled performance as a very smart (but emotionally shallow) man, one who learns that he isn't quite as smart as he thought. Anthony Quinn is bursting with energy, laughter, menace, and hidden wells of sorrow -- he's a presence that overflows from the screen. And Candice Bergen, while in an underwritten role, is the right choice for an impossibly beautiful figure of desire & mystery.

Not for everyone, obviously -- and even those who like it will have some reservations. But if you're in the mood to try something different, this is a great place to take a chance!

DVD Review: The Magus
Summary: 5 Stars

I was at Treasure Island in California in 1969, waiting for my orders to go to my ship. A friend that was going through this time, told me I had to watch this movie. We saw it and to this day, I will not forget this movie!!! It has such great actors. You will not forget it either.

DVD Review: A Good Film for the 60's
Summary: 3 Stars

I stole the title of this review from another reviewer here who made the point that the style and themes of this film were hot in the 60's. "Nothing's what it seems to be...Life is just a dream, etc." With some sex and nudity thrown in.

I read the book when it first came out and was entranced by it! 'Don't think I've ever seen the film till now...if I did, it didn't make much of an impression on me. I found the beginning to be quite interesting. Michael Caine plays the callow but possibly-talented underachiever very well. Anna Karina is beautiful and gives her usual soulful performance. Anthony Quinn is perfect for his role, which is more of a type than an actual person. Candace Bergen looks good and her rather wooden style of acting is ok for this part.

The story is really interesting and I have the feeling that (again, to quote another reviewer) it could have been a wonderful film. What that would have taken I don't know. Perhaps it's presented in too literal a style for a tale that is about not taking things so literally? I'm not sure, but whatever it would take, this version didn't deliver it.

We are presented with one version of "reality" after another. Just when we think that the previous versions were not real and the present one is, then another skin of the onion is peeled off and we are perplexed again. The problem I had was that I just lost interest in the whole game way before the conclusion.

The ideas presented are worthy of thought. I particularly liked what Anne, the French stewardess, told Niko, that there was something in the core of everyone that has never been touched by anything horrible. This is pure Course in Miracles and I was happy to see it mentioned here. It is certainly meritorious to see the callow Niko come to terms with his past behavior, but I wasn't really convinced that he actually changed. The ideas are bogged down by so much hokey "magic" and visual shlock that I could no longer care what the heck was going on. The film seemed awfully long to me, too.

It's worth a watch if you don't expect too much. Shot in Greece there are gorgeous views of the sea and there are all those pretty movie stars to look at.

DVD Review: The Magus From Hell
Summary: 1 Stars

The person who gave me this film said it was based on the life of Aleister Crowley & very witchy & metaphysical. If all these wonders are contained within THE MAGUS, then they must be absolutely & totally B-O-R-I-N-G!

Really, this movie has zilch to offer.

It's like a bunch of people were forced to get together in order to make a film because they were trapped in a contract they couldn't get out of. There was no passion, dull sex & an idiotic worst of "New Age" script, and a director who never showed up.

DVD Review: The movie is a characature of the book
Summary: 3 Stars

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.

Description of The Magus

Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 10/17/2006 Run time: 117 minutes Rating: Pg

From a screenplay based on his own novel, John Fowles's The Magus is another mildly intriguing big budget Hollywood bellyflop that caves in on its own lofty ambitions. Viewed as a late 1960s time capsule, The Magus is somewhat enjoyable fare replete with grade school level symbolism, and Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, and Candice Bergen doing their best with the hokey dialogue. Michael Caine plays a school teacher running away from a clinging lover who falls under the spell of Anthony Quinn on a remote Greek Isle. Is Quinn a magician, a psychiatrist, a filmmaker? Who cares? Fowles was so disappointed with a previous adaptation of his work (The Collector with Terrence Stamp), that he insisted on writing the screenplay himself. He should have left that job to the professionals. The film score by Brit-jazz legend Johnny Dankworth is lovely, however. --Kristian St. Clair

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