Word: magician
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Ingmar Bergman has produced another tantalizing film. Hampered by a scenario (as usual, Bergman's own) that is full of tricks rather than the wisdom of Wild Strauberries or The Seventh Seal, The Magician nonetheless has an impact even greater than these better-written works...
However, Bergman has chosen to emphasize the philosophical overtones in confrontations between the magician, who performs the inexplicable, and the skeptical doctor Vergerius, whose only desire is to perform an autopsy on Vogler to fathom his mysterious powers. These mystic, irrational powers constitute a threat to the Doctor's peace of mind...
...good laugh" when a stolen alarm clock in a shopping bag goes off. "Some of the customers are real sharpies who can steal pants from under coats, stuff costume jewelry into their sleeves and pockets, and exchange their own shoes and purses at the rummage counters with a magician's skill...
...description makes Mme. Vuillier blush like a Cub Scout den mother who has been praised for her chocolate-chip cookies. "Please don't call me a magician," she says. "My magic is science. My art is genealogy. A good pedigree reads to me as a Bach fugue sounds to a musician. It's heredity that's winning, not the horse. What difference does it make what the horse looks like, so long as he has the correct genealogy...
...MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN, by Isaac Bashevis Singer (246 pp.; Noonday; $3.50), is a tender, philosophical tale about Yasha Mazur, who makes his living in the circuses and theaters of 19th century Poland. He can skate on the high wire, eat fire, swallow swords, open any safe or lock (if Yasha had chosen crime, they said in Lublin, no one's house would be safe), and, above all, charm any woman. Blithely, he considers himself neither Jew nor gentile: there is a Supreme Being, he decides, but one who reveals himself to no one and gives no indication of what...