DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY: Ingmar Bergman
PRODUCER: Allan Ekelund
PRODUCTION CO: Svensk Filmindustri
PHOTOGRAPHY: Gunnar Fischer
EDITOR: Oscar Rosander
MUSIC: Erik Nordgren
WITH: Max von Sydow (Albert Emanuel Vogler), Ingrid Thulin (Manda Vogler), Gunnar Björnstrand (Dr. Vergerus), Naima Wifstrand (Granny Vogler), Bengt Ekerot (Johan Spegel), Bibi Andersson (Sara), Birgitta Pettersson (Sanna), Gertrud Fridh (Ottilia Egerman), Lars Ekborg (Simson), Toivo Pawlo (Police Superintendent Starbeck), Erland Josephson (Consul Egerman)

​FESTIVALS: Venice

REVIEW

“With The Magician, an engaging, brilliantly conceived tale of deceit that doubles as a symbolic self-portrait, Bergman proved himself to be one of cinema’s premier illusionists. Max von Sydow stars as Dr. Vogler, a nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions whose magic is put to the test in Stockholm by the cruel, eminently rational royal medical adviser Dr. Vergérus. The result is a diabolically clever battle of wits that’s both frightening and funny, shot in rich, gorgeously gothic black and white.”

– Janus Films

“The Magician is one of Bergman’s most enigmatic films, perhaps his underground masterpiece, one of the keys to his cinema. Traveling actors, maids flirting about, a love potion, a happy ending, and diabolical apparitions – Bergman gives himself to the vertigo of quoting himself. Mourning his past, he makes an inventory of his themes in order to proclaim their end, bringing back all his characters, all his actors, who return for a bow. Everything is there, everyone is there, but beneath, abstraction is at work, mystery rumbles, doubt is gnawing at the whole. For in the center of his moving universe, this baroque forest of signs and symbols, we find a figure, the mesmerist Vogler, Bergman’s first major self-portrait.  It should matter that at this moment in his work he represents himself as – or rather, as wearing the mask of – a mute illusionist who’s lost his faith in his power and knows only how to perpetuate appearances. All that is left for Vogler, the impotent magician who’s unable to invoke his magic, are the accessories of the part: his beard and wig, pathetic subterfuges. It’s the author, devoured by doubt and taking refuge in silence. He’s isolated, having shut himself off, facing his conscience and demons. Facing the secret of his art, which he’s the only one to know doesn’t exist, that there is no secret, that the king is naked.”

​– Olivier Assayas, Cahiers du Cinema

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Whanganui   
Monday, 28 March, 7:00pm

Nelson   
Tuesday, 5 April, 6:00pm

​Palmerston North   
Wednesday, 13 April, 6:00pm

Tauranga   
Thursday, 5 May, 6:30pm

Dunedin   
Wednesday, 18 May, 7.30pm

​​Queenstown   
Tuesday, 31 May, 8.15pm

Auckland   
Monday, 13 June, 6:15pm 
This screening is open to the public, all tickets $10 (AFS members free). Tickets & memberships on sale now at Academy Cinemas

Wellington   
Monday, 18 July, 6:15pm

Canterbury   
Monday, 22 August, 7:00pm

New Plymouth   
Wednesday, 31 August, 6:00pm

Timaru     
Monday, 26 September, 6:00pm

Hamilton   
Monday, 21 November, 7.30pm

SCANDINAVIA THEN & NOW >>