Billy Williams - Did anyone understand the plot of 'The Magus'? (43/172)
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- To listen to more of Billy Williams’s stories, go to the playlist: • Billy Williams (Film-m...
Born in London in 1929, cinematographer Billy Williams shot more than 40 high profile films throughout his career, being nominated for an Oscar for ‘On Golden Pond’ and ‘Women in Love’, then winning the Oscar for ‘Gandhi’ in 1983. He received an OBE in 2009. [Listener: Neil Binney]
TRANSCRIPT: So we shot the whole of 'The Magus' on this beautiful island of Majorca; lovely locations, good... good artists and a good crew, but the problem was that nobody understood the script and quite recently I was with Guy Green and we... we were talking about 'The Magus' and he told me for the first time, he said: ‘I did not understand the story’. It’s a really enigmatic story, and even if you read the book a few times I think it's still equally difficult to know what it's really about. And... and this comes through in the movie I think. You know, we had a wonderful performance from Quinn all the time he was on screen, you know, mesmerising, a great screen actor, but... but we didn't know what it all added up to in the end except that none of us really knew where we were all going. Difficult to give a performance if you don't know what it's about, isn't it? Yes, yes. Except that he was supposed to be mystical and he had this aura about him, which... which was good, but it was a film in which nothing was really what it seemed to be. And... although we had everything going for us, we had a good budget and we shot it again in Panavision, and we had marvellous locations and a great designer and a cast, it didn't succeed and it wasn't a commercial success. - Розваги
...haven't seen the film, but the book's amazing. There are a load of great plots and mysteries and a really good ending. It's a blooming fantastic book. A real work of art. My favorite book...EVER
The slap/walk away in Regents Park, and somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves. Yeah, the Magus is one of my two favorite books (the other being Ellison's Invisible Man).
Which ending?
My top six books ever.
1 The Magus by John Fowles .
I read it every year.
2 The true adventures of The Rolling Stones by Stanley booth.
3 A season on the brink
by Tim Parkes.
4 Germinal by Emile Zola
5 David Coperfield by Charles Dickens.
6 The Master and Margarita by
Mikail Bulgarkov
I spent 2 summers on spetses (phraxos) in the 90's.
The first night I was there me and 3 of my friends were chased by these dogs on a beach called paradise beach which is a 20 minute walk from the town.
The dogs simply disappeared in front of us.
I knew the island was different.
It was only in the winter of 94 I saw this book 'the magus' in a second hand shop.
I had to buy it.
When I read the introduction and realised it was set on spetses I had to read it.
It blew me away.
Even after reading it 9 times.
I'm not gonna say I can make sense of it.
But it deeply reminds of the island with all its magic and mystery and to be more precise if I made sense of it would I really wanna keep on reading it.
It' takes me back to a magical place.
I haven't been back to Spetses since 95.
But I will...
Yes, the kind of book you don't need to make 'sense of' in the normal way.
Just absorb it and go back to it again.
I took it s a much needed awakening for a sociopathic narcissist.
I always though the story of the Magus was quite multi layered... with a series of stories intertwined. Not a story but multiple stories twisted together, like life, and with multiple lines of thought. You can go as deep as you like into any one of the multiple paths...
But the end I think is the most interesting.... you the reader who felt safe reading your book, safe judging the characters and actions, and predicting what ever you though was going to happen, safe not to be effected... and then at the end... You are left out in the cold, you the reader are nothing, you are insignificant ... you are never to know, in fact you never knew anything during the story, like the little statue that had the smile, it knew something Nicholas didn't know, and when the book finished...you are left in the same state as Nicholas... you become ...... the muse, pondering what it all means, but never to know.
Nothing is what it seems... Or what we're taught it is...
The Magus is a beautiful looking movie, the cinematography is stunning, it is a confusing film but whenever I watch it I just enjoy the visuals and some of the key dramatic moments, in terms of story nothing seems to add up but I don't care about that really, the film has a certain something, definitely a visual style that makes it compelling to watch and as Mr Williams mentions a mesmerising performance from Anthony Quinn. Michael Caine often berates this film as one of the duds he made in his career , I think viewed today it definitely has something worth investing time in to watch it, I recently found it on blu ray and it just looks wonderful.
I agree with David Eldred. The book is absolutely amazing. Apparently John Lennons fave book and the inspiration for Hotel California. There is simply nothing else in the world that can compare. Only thing is I think it would work really well as a TV show (such as Game of Thrones). There’s just way too much great content to lose if you just try to condense this great coming of age tale into a 1 hour movie. Who knows, it might happen at some point in the future. I just hope I’m around when it does. My favourite novel for sure
I know The Plot of The Magus. It's about a young man who finds himself, and realizes finally, at the end of his inner journey, that nothing is what it seems to be. You tell us this at time point 1:25.....
I can't remember much about it but at the time I thought the book was a literary critique of Wuthering Heights.
wasn't that the whole point of the book?
Read the book, no clue what happened
I saw the film and have no recollection of the story and only one of the film....MC walking across some rocks down to a beach? The one thing l do remember, is that l didn't have a clue what it was about, which bothered me for a few minutes or so after coming out of the theatre. A few years later, l read an interview with Michael Caine, who said he didn't know what it was about either, so that made me feel better for a few minutes. All these years later, this little anecdote is the only bloody thing l remember of the film....and the future Sir Michael on the rocks of course. Life's journey is full of twists and turns is it not ?!
The movie is intriguing, but still, one of the worst films made of the one the best books ever written in modern times.
The movie was crap. It was like no one involved in the production, from the writer through the caterer, never read the book. Besides which, it was much too complex to be able to translate to 120 minutes on the screen. It was a perfect example of a movie that should never have been made.
Yeah, that movie sucked but the book is by far better.
John Fowles, who wrote the original book, also wrote the screenplay. If the author knew what his story was about he failed to convey that information to the director, actors and film crew. They were all professionals and confessed they had no idea what they were supposed to be doing in the film. Perhaps the author is a fraud or just an artist manqué like his protagonist.
The storyline wasn’t credible and the outcome was disappointing. It was a wasted opportunity, it had so much promise, but failed to deliver
The book is a mind-game about a mind-game. There are no rules of the game. It means whatever you decide it means and you are allowed to change your mind. Obviously, a book based on such premises will enchant some people and infuriate the rest. Are you drinking the water or the wave?
Same here I read multiple times as a teenager and put it down to my immaturity. Though I saw the film in the early 1989’s and it seemed to make more sense. I’m glad that so many have had the difficulty with it. I should have asked my mum as it is her copy that I read.