The Magus (1968)

The Magus From Hell

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. February 22, 2008

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. February 1, 2008

The Magus. A below average film.

Not much to say. A simply below average film. Stick to the book, which is really superb. September 28, 2007

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. August 30, 2007

Redeemed by Bio-Pic

There is a John Fowles bio-pic included in the extras with this DVD that makes it damn near worth the going price. Still, really, no matter how much you want to see how flawed movies-from-books can be, you're far better off donating the money to the Humanists instead. This is painful. August 29, 2007

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