The Magician

Summary

Director František Vláčil dedicated his final film to a major figure in Czech literary history – the novelist and poet Karel Hynek Mácha (1810–1836). The screenplay for the 63-year-old maestro’s Mág. (The Magician) was written by Václav Nývlt. Nývlt had also contributed as screenwriter to Vláčil’s drama Dým bramborové natě (Fires on Potato Fields) (1976) and as dramaturge on the director’s adaptation of Josef Čapek’s novel Stín kapradiny (The Shadow of a Fern) (1984). The Czech title of The Magician combines period orthography of Mácha’s most famous work, Máj (May), and the romantic concept of the poet as sorcerer. Mácha is a controversial, none too appealing figure in the film: a wild youth living according to his ideals and causing pain to those close to him – in particular his naive fiancée Lori Šomková – with his indifference, pride and arrogance. At the same time, he lives the consuming, self-destructive life of a Romantic genius for whom co-existence with reality does not come easily. Rather than create a classic biopic Vláčil delivered a poetic stream of images aimed at combining the facts with an artistic conception of Mácha’s view of the world and an evocation of his poems. The director hired the seasoned Jiří Macák as cinematographer. The lead actor – the versatile, relatively unknown Jiří Schwarz, who succeeded in identifying internally with the conception of Mácha – takes the lion’s share of the credit for film’s effectiveness. Vláčil entrusted practically all the other roles, including several tiny ones, to well-known actors. For instance, Petr Čepek, with whom the director worked on Údolí včel (The Valley of the Bees) (1967) and Adelheid (1969), makes a brief cameo as the Litoměřice hangman Ledvina. The part of Lori remains one of Veronika Žilková’s most important dramatic roles. Providing a contrast to Mácha’s boisterous inconsistency is Rudolf Hrušínský, whose perfect diction in a recital of May conjures the concept of immutable cultural values. Vláčil was dissatisfied with the final form of the film and a sense of artistic failure fuelled his decision to quit directing.

Synopsis

Note

The title of the film Mág. [Magician] provides for the transcription of the first edition of the composition Máj [May] from 1836 (according to the contemporary Czech grammar, the letter j was written as g), but it also captures the nature and poetry of the author Karel Hynek Mácha (1810–1836).