Ingmar Bergman’s 1958 film The Magician (Ansiktet) is one of the director’s lesser known works. Yet for me, it’s Bergman at his absolute best — an illusive, atmospheric, soulful shadow-show on skepticism and spirituality. On October 12th, the film will be released by Criterion on Blu-Ray and dvd for the first time on either format. I first fell in love with the film via an aging vhs copy and later purchased the Criterion edition on laserdisc. If any release would tempt me into rethinking my new dvd-free worldview, it would be this one.
The Magician stars the near-complete stable of Bergman classic actors: Max von Sydow as the impenetrable traveling illusionist; Gunnar Björnstrand as the heartlessly-logical Minister of Health; and Ingrid Thulin, Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson, and Åke Fridell as wayfarers, farmhands, and townsfolk. Sparse on dialogue, the film tells its story through penetrating close ups, painterly black & white cinematography, and the most beautiful shot compositions I have ever seen. Everything is smoke and mirror, shadow, misdirection, and fluttering curtains (inspired perhaps by Bergman’s childhood fascination with magic lanterns). It is to the testament of the absolute beauty of the film that its message — spiritualism over critical-thinking — works for me even though I am diametrically opposed to it.
Albert Emanuel Vogler — illusionist, seller of bottled cure-alls, and head of a group of traveling gypsies — is detained in a small town by the Minister of Health, Dr. Vergerus, who believes Vogler nothing more than a charlatan. Vergerus seeks to expose the magician as a trickster, to publicly denounce him as a con-artist. Of course, Vogler is a charlatan (the John Edward of the middle ages), but that doesn’t stop us from rooting for him as he finds ways to outwit the minister. Skeptics have always gotten a bad wrap in movies – arrogant, stuffy, inflexible, unimaginative blowhards. Vergerus is no exception. But his claim is valid. To paraphrase Jamy Ian Swiss, magicians tell you that they’re about to fool you, and then they do precisely that. Spiritualists use the tricks of magicians yet act as if they have authentic psychic powers. They prey on the credulity of believers. Vogler’s crew cons townsfolk with placebo potions and phony mentalism. And yet, the skeptic Dr. Vergerus is not an admirable character. He’s hell-bent on exposing, uncovering, and demystifying at all costs. Instead of treating truth as provisional — something to be refined as further evidence comes in, Vergerus sees truth dogmatically. Vogler’s worldview is a threat to Vergerus’s hermetically-sealed reality, and it must be destroyed at all costs.
Bergman has a not-entirely-undeserved reputation for bleakness in his films, and The Magician certainly has its share. Vergerus and Vogler exist in a permanent state of angst. But there’s also an overspill of life: nature, natural light, and the playful optimism of young love in the stables. The film exudes a spirit and anima that I discussed in my The Film Talk article The Emerging Genre of Cinema Anima. If death and chessboards are all you know about Bergman, I urge you to check out the upcoming Criterion edition of The Magician, my favorite film.
Suggested Bergman triple-feature: The Seventh Seal, Sawdust and Tinsel, & The Magician.
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Recommended reading: My friend comedian and podcaster Jesse Perry is really outdoing himself with a series of articles on classic film for the Examiner. His writing is thoughtful and engaging with continuing series such as films available at the local library and films treasured by his recently-departed uncle.
Tony Youngblood is the current Foursquare Mayor of the Belcourt Theatre, a film and music snob, and producer of the experimental improv music blog and podcast Theatre Intangible. His favorite films include Eric Rohmer’s The Green Ray, Abbass Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us, Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician, Lee Chang Dong’s Oasis, and Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap.
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