Mago, O Falso Deus

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

A couple of years ago someone I worked with had a copy of this film and I dubbed a copy for myself. He mentioned the Woody Allen quote about the film which made me laugh, but I guess it also made me a little wary about watching it. I finally pulled it out last night and popped it my VCR. When I wasn't confused there were certain scenes that grabbed my attention. Oddly enough I have a copy of the novel which I haven't read (I say oddly because there are very few books that enter my sphere that go unread, so I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually). As the movie was playing I'd pick up the novel and think, "Boy this sure is a thick book. I bet there are all sorts of thoughts and ideas the characters have in it that aren't finding their way into the film." This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I don't think movies based on literature have to be a dedicated recreation of their source material, but the film had an overall vague feeling to it. I'm guessing that many people who detest "The Magus" probably don't care for the ending. I know it left me feeling less than satisfied in relation to all the scenes that preceded it. It seemed like what with all that Michael Caine experienced during the course of the movie that a more profound conclusion was in order.

This movie received a critical mauling. Even the celebrities hated it, one of them (possibly Woody Allen) saying that if he had to live his life again he would do everything the same except he wouldn't go to see The Magus! However, I don't think it is that bad. It certainly isn't particularly good, but it carries a certain fascination in the way that it unpeels a multi-layered plot in a gleefully playful way. The main shortcoming is that some plot points are dealt with unclearly, making it a bit tricky to figure out exactly what is going on. The ending in particular seems to be a bit confusing. However, on the plus side, there are some powerful visuals. There are also strong leading performances from Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn, as well as a memorable turn from Anna Karina as one of Caine's ex-lovers. Candice Bergen gives a terrible performance, but perhaps the character she is given to work with was unplayable anyway. Don't listen to the critics. See this one for yourself and judge it on your own terms.

Being an arty psychological puzzle - and one which might well be not just incomprehensible but also meaningless - I'd always been interested in checking this film out; the fact that it was a critical and box-office failure made it doubly fascinating. Still, what must have seemed like the turkey of the year when new has, with time, acquired a certain charm all its own! On the surface, the film is certainly good-looking (shot by Billy Williams in numerous European locations, mainly a sunny Greek island) and boasts a fine score by Johnny Dankworth (which, in keeping with the film's theme, seems oddly unsuited to what's going on); the star cast responds competently to the mystifying plot (structured like a Chinese box - where past events are constantly re-enacted, identities exchanged and, of course, nothing is what it seems). Still, while Anthony Quinn may be everybody's idea of a Greek larger-than-life character, here he is saddled with an unbecoming Picasso hairstyle and, underneath it all, Michael Caine may well have been mirroring the bewilderment felt by his character since, in his autobiography, he singles out THE MAGUS as his worst film ever (though I personally would beg to differ and choose THE ISLAND [1980] for that unenviable spot)!

Actually, it all reminded me of L'INVENZIONE DI MOREL (1974) - another obscure island-set drama where a man intrudes upon a remote community sharing an exclusive fantasy existence: incidentally, that film was partly shot in my native country and also featured Anna Karina (who in THE MAGUS has the rather thankless role of Caine's jilted girlfriend - though her performance is quite good and his callous treatment of Karina has a strong bearing on the main character's ultimate personal growth) as the mystery woman who captivates the hero; with this in mind, as I lay watching the film under review, I wondered at the possibilities 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 Losey rather than the journeyman Guy Green...and one can only surmise how different - and more significant - the film would have been in the former's hands! As it stands, there are some undeniably compelling passages but also a lot of shallow modishness (the skin-flick with Bergen and Julian Glover[!] at the climax is plain risible) and lame moralizing (the WWII flashback scenes, featuring a bizarrely but effectively cast Corin Redgrave as the Nazi Commandant, being especially maudlin).

At several points towards the end, it feels like the story is coming to some sort of conclusion but it just goes on and on, peeling off yet another layer to the meandering enigma; to get an inkling of what the film is like, just imagine watching two of the more cerebral episodes of the cult TV series "The Prisoner" (1967-68) back-to-back! In hindsight, the film's epitaph may have been delivered by none other than Woody Allen who once remarked that, if he had to live his life all over again, he would do everything exactly the same...except watch THE MAGUS. As for myself, I wouldn't mind taking another look at it in future: by then I'd be over the initial "shock" and could perhaps appreciate it better...

I saw The Magus in 1968 in Tokyo, Japan where I was stationed in the Air Force. I was with four other airmen who were bored looking for something to do in one of the world's largest cities.

One of the guys in our group had apparently read the book and suggested we go see it. "It will be a wild ride!", he said. By the time we walked out of the cinema we were,

1. In love with Candice Bergen.

2. Totally confused what point the movie was trying to convey.

The guy who had read the book? "I, uh, didn't really understand the book either. I was kinda hoping the movie would clear up my confusion."

It failed.