The Magus - 'a bizarre and baffling film' 1970

A contemporary piece about this ill-fated movie, which although often slated, most notably by Woody Allen ('If I had to live my life again, I'd do everything the same, except that I wouldn't see The Magus') has become something of a cult. The article was found in PHOTOPLAY (February 1970) a British film and pop music magazine. The long winding part about the plot has been mostly excised.

The Magus - a bizarre and baffling film which winds through a labyrinth of fantastic happenings. 

What is a Magus? According to the best dictionaries it is "one skilled in Oriental magic and astrology, an ancient magician sorcerer."

And so to our story:

Nicholas (Michael Caine), a young Englishman, arrives on Phraxos, a lonely Greek island, to take up duties as an instructor at a school for boys, which is being modelled on the British system. He is also escaping from a love affair with Anne (Anna Karina), an airline hostess, who has sent him as a memento a glass paperweight, symbolic to her of the core of life.

Nicholas learns that the English instructor who preceded him the year before had committed suicide, but any further questions he asks concerning this are met any further questions he asks concerning this are met with evasive answers. On returning from a bathe, however, he finds a volume of T.S. Eliot's poems mysteriously left on a rock.

Later, in exploratory mood, he finds a villa on top of the cliffs. This is owned by an elderly man named Conchis (Anthony Quinn), about whom there is a strange aura of mystery… an aura which extends not only throughout the villa, but also throughout the rest of the film. Nicholas is not unnaturally confused…

Quite a lot of this strange, baffling film will keep audiences guessing… although there is nothing baffling about the picturesque scenes (actually filmed in Majorca). The very beautiful pictorial qualities are obviously due to the directorial hand of Guy Green,

I Hate Producers! (James Mason)

Found in the UK mag Lilliput of April 1946. James Mason's response to recent Ben Hecht book I Hate Actors. A great actor and the best Humbert Humbert so far...look out for his coinage 'hambaiting' in paragraph 5.

  EVERYONE says that Walt Disney is the happiest producer in Hollywood because he does not have to put up with actors around his studio. Further evidence is to be found in in the title page of Ben Hecht's recent book "I Hate Actors." And I am prepared to testify that the feeling therein expressed is by no means peculiar to Hollywood.

  The abhorrence that flickers in a film producer's eye when the sanctity of his script or the ability of his pet director is rashly questioned by an actor is an awesome vision. It is as if the gates of hell swing open.

  For this reason I would recommend to this branch of our art only those aspirants who have exceptional resilience. Those without it are a prey to duodenal ulcers and persecution mania. For tho' the hatred may be mutual the struggle is unequal.

  The average producer's civility towards an actor extends only to the moment when the contract is signed. He is a skillful coaxer, all teeth and cigars, and even permits himself to say nice things about the fellow's acting in an effort to ingratiate. Then, almost before the ink is dry, he seems to say "O.K. We've got his signature. Now let's give him hell."

N.N. Sen on Man Ray

A contemporary review of Man Ray's movie L'Étoile de Mer by N.N. Sen in the first issue of the  literary journal Experiment (Cambridge, 1928). It was edited by William Empson, Hugh Sykes Davies, Humphrey Jennings and William Hare (Lord Ennismore) and Jacob Bronowski.

 N.N. Sen (Nikhil N. Sen) was a friend of Mulk Raj Anand (mentioned in an earlier posting on curries) and moved in the same circles in London in the 1920s. Not much is known about Sen; however, Anand mentions him extensively in his Conversations in Bloomsbury (1981). The Open University site has this on him:

It appears that Sen was already in London when Anand arrived in 1925. Like Anand, Sen was a student at University College, London. He was also a poet and an art lover. According to Anand, Sen studied in the British Museum Reading Rooms and the two often lunched together in University College lower refectory, the Museum Tavern or at Poggiolis in Charlotte Street. Sen's girlfriend was Edna Thompson, who was a student of literature; other fellow students included Mr. Topa and Parkash Pandit. Sen apparently worked at Arthur Probsthain’s Oriental Bookshop in Russell Street, and found work for Anand in Jacob Schwartz’s Ulysses Bookshop.

Furthermore, Sen already knew several members of the 'Bloomsbury Group' when Anand arrived in Britain. Indeed, it was Sen who introduced Anand to Bonamy Dobree, Gwenda Zeidmann, Jacob Schwartz, Harold Monro, Edith Sitwell, Laurence Binyon and Leonard Woolf. Together they met T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence, and they would go to the British Museum with Laurence Binyon. Like Anand, Sen was frustrated by the orientalist views of some members of the Bloomsbury Group and would often argue with Eliot and Lawrence.

Man Ray's film is readily available at ubu.com and on YouTube with added music. It lasts 17 minutes and stars Alice Prin (Kiki of Montparnasse) and Robert Desnos (who wrote also the script.) Ray is seen below with Dali.

L'ÉTOILE DE MER

A POEM AS SEEN BY MAN RAY
     Two figures move on an open road–one sees them as through a haze–a man and a woman. Seems like a distant memory–as though one was trying to receive an old scene.

This haziness continues throughout the whole piece. A similar effect was used in one of Otto Mathieson's films, where the actor sees his whole life pass before him just before he dies.

  One remembers the distortion in Dr. Calighari, the whole production was distorted as seen by a madman's eyes.

  This hazy effect might be used effectively to suggest distant, long-forgotten memories–where uncertain shadows loom out from an old situation. Except for a short while when the hero of the piece is shown in a contemplative mood, the whole film is hazy.

  The man and the woman walk up a flight of stairs and enter a room. The woman undresses and stretches herself in a bed, the man bids farewell and leaves her.

A delightful comedy touch, effective because it is so unexpected.

  I am not so acquainted with the poem that Man Ray has translated into a picture or a series of photographs interposed amongst a series of moving pictures. There is little or no narrative. The only subtitles used are a play of words–

"Sybille," says the hero, "Si belle."