Peter Viney's Blog

The Magus
1968

Adapted from the novel by John Fowles
Screenplay by John Fowles

Directed by Guy Green
Music by John Dankworth

CAST
Michael Caine as Nicholas Urfe
Antony Quinn as Maurice Conchis
Candice Bergen as Lily
Anna Karina as Anne

Continuing a series of reviews of films I loved in the late 60s and am revisiting on DVD (or here, Blu-ray), and following on from interest in my review of I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name …

 Back in 1968 my diary records my three favourite books as Lord Of The Rings, The Magus and Catch 22. The Magus is the only one I haven’t re-read subsequently. Fowles shifted the plot for the 1968 film, then produced a whole Revised Version in 1977. I have the Revised Version, but it’s on my “I keep meaning to read” list.

There is always the film / book issue. If you love a book, and subsequently see the film, chances are the film will disappoint you. This becomes more likely if the book was recent … I read The Magus in 1967 and the film was 1968. This was true for contemporary critics in 1968 and the film was widely reviled. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin suffered similarly to my chagrin. I’d read all three of Louis de Berniere’s earlier Latin American trilogy, buying the second and third in hardback. So I bought Captain Corelli’s Mandolin the day it came out. Just before the film’s release, first editions were going at auction for £400. A few weeks after the film flopped, the price of first editions had dropped to £150. Both The Magus and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin take place on Greek islands. Both feature WW2 Germans v partisans with reprisals.

SYNOPSIS

Nicholas Urfe (Caine) has left London and his girlfriend, Anne (Anna Karina), to take a job as an EFL teacher on Phraxos, a Greek island. He can’t commit and wants escape her. He can’t teach either, I’ll add, simply chanting a class through structures.  The girlfriend in the book was Australian, but switched to a French air hostess in the film, probably because they wanted to cast Anna Karina in the role. He meets Conchis (Anthony Quinn), a wealthy recluse and Lily, (Candice Bergen)  his companion / girlfriend / muse / employee / hired actress. She might be some or all of those.

Urfe (Michael Caine) and Conchis (Anthony Quinn)

Urfe has weird experiences on visits to Conchis.  Is Conchis a psychiatrist? Magician? A Film producer making a movie with hidden cameras? Was he a Nazi sympathizer? Most are to do with Conchis’s history, culminating in a flashback to his role as Mayor of the island during the German occupation. Cretan partisans arrive and shoot some bathing German soldiers. Conchis has a “Sophie’s choice” which is to beat them to death publicly, or eighty hostages will die, twenty per German soldier killed. Time bends. Urfe is presented with a similar choice of whipping a bound Lily. Or not. Anna arrives. Or doesn’t. And dies. Or doesn’t.  It all ends up with Urfe on trial.

Nicholas Urfe (Michael Caine) on trial

When Woody Allen was asked whether he would make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied he’d do “everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus.
(The Independent, 8 November 2005)

The cast didn’t like the film much either.

Candice Bergen as Lily

Candice Bergen says there was no direction, so like the film’s viewers she had no idea whether she was just Conchis’s girlfriend, the goddess Diana or was supposed to be a professional actress employed by Conchis.

I didn’t know what to do, and nobody told me. I couldn’t put together the semblance of a performance. Candice Bergen

Lily (Candice Bergen) and Nicholas (Michael Caine)

Michael Caine reckoned it was one of the worst films he was in, along with Ashanti and The Swarm. He loathed Quinn, who was surrounded by a sycophantic entourage. Quinn sent a minion to the set each day to announce his mood and warn the cast to be aware of it. Caine pointed out that no one ever asked his mood, and wanted to leave halfway, and was forced to return.

‘I think it was almost impossible to make. They told me it would come right in the cutting room – but it didn’t. It was a contract picture, and I was told I had to do it or I would be taken to court. Michael Caine.

No wonder Caine looks so good at being pissed off and resentful.

Michael Caine as Urfe

We watched Michael Caine’s very good 60s documentary My Generation a couple of days before watching The Magus. He recalls auditioning for Zulu and being asked if he could speak any accent other than Cockney. He pointed out that after nine years in provincial rep, he could do any accent they wanted. Not a lot of people know that.   In the Sight and Sound review of the DVD re-release, John Fowles’ letters are quoted from 1965, when he met Michael Caine and described him:

A Cockney boy made good… He can’t act, but takes himself very seriously; hot for birds, for the dolce vita, for prestige. Very ugly, these new ultra-hard young princes of limelight. John Fowles

The review goes on to say ironically how pleased Fowles must have been to have Caine cast as the lead …

I wouldn’t take that ironically though, because it describes the character Caine is playing very well, and as screenwriter and copyright holder of the story, Fowles surely had a major say.  Fowles even did a Hitchcock-style cameo as a boatman. In spite of Michael Caine’s own distaste for the movie, Karen reckoned he had never looked so vulnerable or interesting onscreen before. The novel and film are about re-educating Urfe to see the world differently. Well, probably. Both novel and film had those meaningless descriptions “post-modern” and “metafiction” applied to them. I only understand “post-modern” when applied to architecture.

Fowles blamed the director for the critical reception, though it was nominated for a cinematography BAFTA. It was filmed mainly in Majorca, rather than Greece, though some scenes were shot in Greece. The Military Junta (“The Colonels”) had seized power in 1967  and were producing weird laws banning beards, long hair and short skirts.  So wanting to avoid neo-fascists, they filmed in … hang on … Franco’s Spain. Michael Caine’s unwise avoidance of sun block must have given them continuity nightmares as he reddens, then pales, then reddens.

The fifty years since have seen more beautiful portrayals of Greek landscapes, most recently in The Durrells TV series, but also in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. The shifting reality is no longer unusual – take Patrick Melrose. Nor is the uncertaintly about time shifts and flashbacks. The violence and the sex  scenes are restrained by 21^stcentury standards.

The novel still makes it regularly onto those “Best 100 Novels” lists. The issue was translating the soft-edged shifting reality of what our imagination takes from the page and visualizes, into the hard set lines of crisp realistic film. Mostly people didn’t make the shift.

Anna Karina as Anne in The Magus

Was it pretentious? A bit, I suppose. They quote the character Anne on IMDB:

Oh, Nicko, this is life, not an existentialist novel.

Or maybe a post modern metafiction. They certainly chose Anna Karina to hook up with French art house film … why not? She’s great. Candice Bergen may have lacked direction, but she looks “right” in the role. Quinn, as a manipulative overbearing bastard, is brilliant and menacing. But according to Caine, he was simply playing himself. As with Anna Karina, his casting was deliberate reference, in his case to Zorba The Greek (1964), a role so cemented onto his public image that most people still don’t realize he was Mexican.

It’s far better than those 1968 reactions suggest, but sadly, not a lost masterpiece. It was an enjoyable re-watch though. John Dankworth’s musical score is hugely impressive though you wouldn’t put it on a relaxation tape.

SEE ESPECIALLY  Deadfall (1968) AS A COMPANION PIECE

MICHAEL CAINE
The Ipcress File (1965)
Alfie (1966)
The Magus (1968)
Deadfall (1968)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Performance (1970)