The Magician (1958)

Approved.  For a Bergman movie, this one is pretty tame.  The weird part is that I'm saying this with the full knowledge that, not only does a person die, but they are autopsied and their body parts are used to scare someone.  There is a scene of romance that implies premarital sex, but we don't actually see anything and it's just a lot of flirting teenagers.  Once again, people are cruel to one another and that's probably not very nice.  But in terms of stuff that we see in Bergman movies, this one isn't too upsetting.

DIRECTOR: Ingmar Bergman

This is going to be the most unfair blog that I've written in a while.  I did not care.  I didn't want to watch this movie.  I technically watched it without any physical distractions.  But my mind wandered.  Maybe that's a criticism of the movie, the fact that I can just miss a bunch of what happened despite physically watching it.  Maybe it's just that I have too much going on in my mind and sometimes you need to be in the right headspace.  But The Magician was a bit of a slog for me.  I'm going to try my best.  Realize the criticisms that I levy against this movie may be completely unfair and a real blog would rewatch the movie under better conditions.

When you watch a bunch of Bergmans, you start getting used to some tropes and techniques.  I'm really glad that I watched this after The Rite because The Rite and The Magician share a lot of the same DNA.  It might be my reaction to both movies because I keep on thinking on how Bergman is constantly commenting on the frustration of the artist.  I love how, in multiple films at this point, he equates the artist with the confidence games.  Maybe its why we refer to conmen also as con artists.  In oh-so-many stories, we keep having these depressed protagonists who have a need to perform for the world.  They offer something that does not exist.  With the case of The Magician, the protagonist offers the ability of animal magnetism, a term I tried researching on Wikipedia, but was still annoyed enough with the film to quickly give up.  I told you, this blog is going to be trash.  Ultimately, like the American version of the title implies, this is just a magician.  Now, I am certainly glad that I watched The Prestige before watching The Magician because some of the behaivor in The Magician is only amplified by understanding the philosophy and obsessive natures of magicians.  I feel like Bergman is touching on the obsessive nature of artist without really getting there.

Here's my frustration.  Vogler, as a protagonist, uses his character of the mute to create an air of mystery around him.  We don't get a lot from this character.  Instead, we get this character who mostly feels abused by the world around him.  Now, I'd love to say that Manda Vogler is the protagonist.  I'd love to see this woman who lives in a man's world comment on the role that men have versus women. That interests me and provides something new from Bergman's perspective.  But we don't actually get a lot of stuff from Manda either.  She has one scene where she's not being Mr. Aman and that scene she just seems sad.  Once again, Bergman ties the notion of identity to the notion of fidelity or the lack thereof.  Oddly enough, the notion of sexual attraction and fidelity is actually a bit muted in this movie.  Instead, people kind of just hate each other.  Vergerus (a character who would also be a villain in Fanny and Alexander) and the police captain find these people disgusting.  They are borderline performing for these people so that these two can hate-watch their performance.  But there is this animosity that comes between Vogler and Vergerus.  Sure, the movie presents it as intellect and respectability versus the nomadic nature of the travelling.  But it feels incredibly personal.  Once again, Bergman makes a movie about the malicious nature of mankind and it is bleak.

If this is the story of illusion versus reality, there's something upsetting about how this movie ends.  I mean, it's probably the part I like the most of this movie, but it is also incredibly depressing.  One of the big wins for Vogler is the fact that he manages to convince --for a brief moment --Vergerus that Vogler has become a ghost and is haunting Vergerus.  For a guy who has been dismissive of this travelling performer, it's a big win.  But in this moment, we get to see who the real Vogler is.  (I mean, I'm sure that there's an interpretation that the beggar is the performance and the mute is the real Vogler.  That's an interesting read that I just don't buy.)  But Vogler gets on his needs and asks for any money from the tantruming Vergerus.  It almost feels like the real win is for Vogler and his troupe of actors off the premises instead of getting even a modicum of cash.  But that revelation that Vogler is far more human than wizard is slightly disappointing.  I mean, it keeps in line with Bergman's cynicism.  (I know that there are also reads that Bergman is an incredible optimist who believes in the glories of the universe, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em.) 

This blog is frustrating me.  I told you this would be a hard one to write and that's true.  Honestly, there's this aside in the movie that almost feels like Bergman is making a short film about young love with the kids.  That's the part I was way more engaged in.  I'm talking about the part where the old lady, Granny Vogler, and Tubal sell the *ahem* aroused teenagers some love potion.  I don't know why I found this part far more interesting outside any accusations you might have that I'm just gross.  I don't know.  The Vogler plot is so blah and so what's-the-point that any kind of genuine positive interaction seemed far more engaging.  

Maybe that's my big complaint.  I'm going to start closing this up, even if I haven't written too much.  Everything I would write after this is going to be stalling.  My complaint is that this one feels more about vibes and tone than it does actual content.  There are some pieces of high brow art that almost seem like an attempt to mirror the format.  Again, everything that I'm writing here is completely unfair.  But I also know that I'm not the only person who only felt meh about this movie.  I read up on this on Wikipedia before abandoning the "animal magnetism" thing.  This movie was submitted for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and it was rejected.  It didn't even get a nomination.  Now, the Academy has infamously gotten it wrong over time.  But one idea doesn't discount the other.  I want to like this movie.  It feels like it wants to say something concrete.  Instead, we're looking at the same themes that I've seen in other Bergman films, only without being that concrete about the whole thing.  Again, I cannot forgive myself for not being invested in the movie.  But it didn't hit as hard as I wanted it to.