The Magus

"I said I'd play, but not unless I know the rules"

This isn't one of the more well-remembered films in Michael Caine's ouvre. He made it on location in the late 1960s, prior to The Italian Job and after Gambit. It's a bit of an odd duck, a psychological thriller in the most direct use of the term... featuring an endless myriad of twists as a battle of wills unfolds between two men. These are a teacher/poet trying to escape his past (Michael Caine) and the Magus of the title, a confident trickster played with oily-tongue aplomb by Anthony Quinn. I guess you could call this film a character-study grounded in psychoanalysis, it has its roots in a minor literature classic (also called The Magus, by John Fowles) so you get a sense that the director and writer are struggling to bring the complexity of a multi-layered novel to the screen. I can't say it's completely successful, but we'll get into that later on.

Caine plays Nicholas, a British writer who emigrates to a Greek Island to become a teacher. He seems weighed down by some fresh tragedy in his past, and is given some small measure of happiness by the fact that there aren't really any women the island. At first I thought this would be a tale of a man who isn't living up to his potential, but the true nature of Caine's character isn't properly revealed to us until quite some way into the film. It turns out that he isn't the deep individual we suppose him to be, that he's actually a bit of a self-loathing cad and a cynical misogynist. Shortly after arriving on the island, Nicholas is drawn into a web of intrigue by a mysterious figure named Conchis (Anthony Quinn). Conchis is a once-famous man now rumoured to be dead, a possible Nazi-collaborator, a ghost, a psychic, a therapist, a filmmaker... the possibilities go on. The only thing we're really sure about when it comes to this character is that he's not completely trustworthy. Nicholas and the Magus begin to play a game, with Nicholas trying his best to figure who or what this guy really is, and this guy continuing to lead up a frustrating garden path. Nicholas doesn't have much to do on the island, he's curious and bored so he doesn't mind playing the Magus' games at first - even when Conchis tries to tell him that they're both psychic or that there are ghosts on the island.

"I'd just enjoy it more if I knew what it was all about"
"Man has been saying that for 10 000 years"

It eventually transpires that both these men are haunted by love that they lost. Anna Karina appears as Nicholas' erstwhile love interest, an ideal of purity in a world spoiled by corruption (a corruption that Nicholas is symbolic of), and Candice Bergan rounds out the cast as the girl Conchis uses to manipulate Nicholas. The plot is all a bit nebulous... at first it's about magic and then it's really about psychiatry and then it's really an avant garde film project and then it's a game for crazy millionaires to play with desperate actors and then it's a Nazi sob story and then it becomes a kind of purgatory where the Magus punishes wayward souls. The layers of deception go on and on and it all gets a bit trying after a while, making the ultimate revelation feel a bit silly. I lost interest well before the end of the movie.

Quinn is evidently having a lot of fun playing such a colourful and controlling character. It's the kind of role that suits him, and they do a good job of portraying the age difference between the 1960s version of his character and the WWII version. Caine on the other hand is a bit of a cipher... the more we find out about his character the less sympathetic he becomes and by the end of the film I hated him. Bergan is kept in shadow at first and some subconscious lighting tricks are used to give her an air of ellusiveness, but the awkward dialogue (and her stilted delivery of it) makes her seem horribly miscast. If I had to sum his film up I'd describe it as a thriller-drama that combines Nazi occupation of Greece with film lore, cod psychology and mysticism. There are some elements of it (such as the Nazi stuff) that are played out in a fairly interesting manner, but I couldn't help but feel that they should've just got Caine and Quinn and made a movie about Greece in WWII rather than try and adapt this obviously complicated novel.

DIRECTOR: Guy Green
WRITER/SOURCE: John Fowles, based on his own book.
KEY ACTORS: Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine, Candice Bergan, Anna Karina, Julian Glover

RELATED TEXTS:
- The popular and critically-acclaimed novel The Magus, released in 1966.
- John Fowles had another novel (somewhat more successfully) adapted into a film in the 1960s. This was The Collector, starring Terence Stamp.
- The Enigma of Kasper Hauser touches on similar themes of mysticism and teaching.
- For a better Michael Caine film (and performance) pertaining to misogyny and caddish behavour, see Alfie.

AWARDS
BAFTAs - nominated for Best Cinematography.