THE MAGICIAN Movie Review

Before David Mamet carved a niche for himself as America's most perceptive and provocative chronicler of modern man as con artist (that's con as in confidence), Sweden's Ingmar Bergman created this dark, scary, and brutally funny portrait of a 19th-century hypnotist/artist/con-man who must wrestle with private demons—as well as the supernatural—in order to regain confidence in himself. Max von Sydow is Vogler, a traveling magician and mesmerist who tours with his grandmother (Naima Wifstrand) and his wife (Ingrid Thulin), who, in one of the film's many examples of things not being as they appear, dresses as his male assistant. Upon the troupe's arrival in Stockholm, a committee of “rational” thinkers sets out to expose Vogler as a fraud. But after witnessing Vogler being killed by a servant (who's been too quickly awakened from a trance), the committee's medical officer (Gunnar Björnstrand) performs an autopsy on Vogler; the “rational” physician can't believe his eyes—or the intensity of his terror—when the magician's corpse comes back to life and pursues him though the house. In the end, the mechanics of Vogler's illusion are revealed to all, and, as with any artist stripped of his ability to astonish, he's ready to throw in the towel. That isn't to be, however, for at his lowest point, the magician is pulled back from the brink by the summons to a royal, command performance. The bleak, unforgiving face of reality can once again be hidden behind the glorious mask of theatricality, at least for one more day. According to Bergman, The Magician (originally titled The Face) was inspired by a similar moment in his own creative career, when his own self-loathing and anxiety over critical rebukes were instantly overcome by the announcement that he had received a grant from Sweden's King's Fund. Anyone who's experienced that common syndrome of feeling fraudulent—that critical, crippling moment of self-doubt—will be mesmerized by Bergman's chilling, ironic, and elegantly witty Gothic fable about the importance of remembering that to create any illusion, you must fool yourself first.

NEXT STOP … The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Miracle (1948)

1958 101m/? SW Max von Sydow, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bibi Andersson, Naima Wifstrand; D: Ingmar Bergman; W: Ingmar Bergman. Venice Film Festival ‘59: Special Jury Prize. VHS, LV HMV, MRV, HHT