The Magus
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DVD details
Actor: Anthony Quinn, Michael CaineBrand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed)
Format: Color, Dubbed, DVD, 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
Product features:
- This unusual fantasy stars Michael Caine as Nicholas, a teacher who arrives on a Greek island to begin a teaching position. He soon makes the acquaintance of the mysterious Conchis (Anthony Quinn), and his wife, Lily (Candice Bergen). Nicholas becomes fascinated with them, but something is amiss: the previous teacher who held Nicholas's job committed suicide under vague circumstances, and Nich
DVD Reviews of The Magus
DVD Review: Credible Attempt
Summary: 3 Stars
For 40 years this film has had to stand as testament to the worst that the industry can concoct, which is constantly reinforced by THAT quotation from Woody Allan. I came to the DVD re-release of `The Magus' like many people, having last read the book quite a few years previously, and with this reputation had fairly low expectations, but in the event viewed the film with interest, and at this distance in time believe there is a case for a reappraisal.
The book is probably impossible to film, certainly within the context of a 2 hour feature, but the production was obviously constructed to be a major work, especially when the author, John Fowles himself came on board as screen writer. The greatest obstacle is that the film is almost incomprehensible to those who have not read the book, and those who know the book are disappointed; the atmosphere and subtlety of the book are not carried through into the film. But at best it couldn't, it's like saying Mozart's 40'th loses depth when rendered down into a pop single using synthesizers.
However the film contains all the essential elements of the book, there are no savage edits to the written material, even the execution scene is well presented. Take it on face value with an open mind. It's probably the only film treatment that will ever be made of The Magus, so make the most of it - consider it as a collection of parts which comprise the main elements of the book, some fit well, other less so, some are downright embarrassing. It is technically well filmed, and for the most part the scenery and staging fits well well with the book. Perhaps the worst aspect is the ludicrous light jazz background music that fouls up the atmosphere that should be coming through - simply re-editing to remove the music, replacing it with something subtle and unintrusive would help the film enormously.
Another problem that was born with the film was the critical barrage that hit it forced all involved in the production to close ranks and vilify their own work for the sake of preserving their professional credibility. Surely after 40 years enough time has passed to look at The Magus in a more benign light
DVD Review: T. S. Eliot on the beach: history and psychiatry on a Greek Isle
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
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.
Description of The Magus
This unusual fantasy stars Michael Caine as Nicholas a teacher who arrives on a Greek island to begin a teaching position. He soon makes the acquaintance of the mysterious Conchis (Anthony Quinn) and his wife Lily (Candice Bergen). Nicholas becomes fascinated with them but something is amiss: the previous teacher who held Nicholas's job committed suicide under vague circumstances and Nicholas himself is now exhibiting strange behavior. When his girlfriend (Anna Karina) comes to visit tragedy strikes and when Nicholas confronts Conchis he makes a surprising discovery.System Requirements:Running Time: 117 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre:?ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating:?PG UPC:?024543377429 Manufacturer No:?2237742From 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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