Magic at the movies...

[annwfyn]

A hopeful Sally writes:

Can anyone think of any films about witchcraft/wizardry etc other than Harry Potter? Right now, I've got a list of Practical Magic, the Craft, Constantine - what else is there out there? TV shows also acceptable.

Last night pierot and myself got a DVD out. We wound up watching 'the Covenant' which is a fairly tatty but quite entertaining supernatural thriller about a group of teenage boys with magical powers - the back story is their their ancestors made some covenant with dubious forces, and in return the eldest son of every generation gets magical powers.

The film itself was marginally entertaining, but it got us talking afterwards about the ideas of magic in the film. In the film, there was no White Wolf stylee 'society of magic users' particularly. There were references to 'the laws' which Jeremiah suspected could have indicated that there was some kind of authority out there which went beyond these four families, but there was no big society, structure, hierachy and list of Traditions/Litany/Laws. Magic, in that world, was something which happened on a small scale.

We then got talking some more, mostly about the metaphysics of the world the film was based in. The Sons of Ipswich (the Covenant characters) got their magic as part of a compact with some force, by which the oldest sons gained magic, but it prematurely aged them. It occured to us that this didn't have to be the way magic worked for everyone - others could make different covenants. The women in Practical Magic, for example, effectively sacrificed a husband every generation if they ever fell in love. The girls in the Craft, obviously, made different deals. And all those films could, theoretically, take place in the same world.

I'm now looking for other films/books/TV shows which take place in that world. Jeremiah quite likes the idea of the Harry Dresden world loosely fitting in there* - Harry Dresden's mother basically sold him to a fairy in return for power, and it's implied that that is one of the reasons he may have his power too - and I think we both had doubts about the Buffy-verse due to its rather inconsistent attitude towards magic. I'm now running out of ideas, however. Does anyone have any other suggestions?




*there may be spoilers there - highlight if you want to read

Comments

[silver-blue.livejournal.com]

Harry Dresden world of the books rather than the TV series, hopefully. :)

Um...you're right, there's not that many. Witches of Eastwick? Warlock? Not a wonderful selection.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I believe so. pierot is a big fan of the books. I've never read them, sadly, and have only vaguely glanced at the TV series from time to time.

[lawrencegillies.livejournal.com]

Does Warlock count? Its a piece of tat, but its about witchcraft I suppose.

Supernatural is a more general occulty show in a kind've Buffy vein. (I was surprised to find myself enjoying it)

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

I was going to say Warlock :D
So cheesy and good :)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Supernatural is fantastic! I loves it very very much. Tis one of my favourite shows.

[borusa.livejournal.com]

"Charmed" is the obvious TV show. It might be difficult to fit "Sabrina : The Teenage Witch" or "Bewitched" into that world, as they have fairly clearcut hierarchies and witchy police forces and stuff. Also, they're comedies (ish).

The first couple of episodes of "Robin of Sherwood" have some fairly interesting magic stuff in.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Bewitched also has the massive disadvantage of having been re-made into World's Worst Film Ever with Nicole Kidman.

It was a very bad film...

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Well, one idea of magic can be found in Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" and other books. Basic idea that mana is a depletable resource. Probably wouldn't fit in too well with what you've got there.

Lawhead's Pendragon cycle, while set in Arthurian Britain, does contain some kinds of magic. That's about all I've got.

[davedevil.livejournal.com]

You looking for modern day such deals?

Charmed has a consitant, if fluffy, magical approach.

Moviewise:

Witches of Eastwick
Bell Book and Candle
The Village
Sleep Hollow

Books:

The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud deals havily with demonic pacts and the like.

Robert E Howard's approach to magic, its a bad and dark place to be!

Comics:

Lucifer, in entirity
Fables, where the witches apear
Sandman, which teaches us never to make deals with pasty faced goths with unruly hair.
Hellblazer, alllllll of it.

I can think of more but not sure which 'period' you want

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Modern day very much appreciated if possible.

Hellblazer I have never read, something which I have to remind folk around on occasion, when I talk about the Constantine film. For someone with no connection to the comics, it's a much better movie. :p

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Hex, possibly. Though that is very much the 'covenant with the devil' kind of magic.

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

Ninth Gate? That's got occult doom in it :)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oooh..that's quite good, esp if we're accepting all films which imply there is some kind of external forces beyond our world. I wonder if that means that various catholic-magic-mystic stuff is doable?

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Cast a deadly spell... film noir with casual magic use
the worst witch
The sin eater
the addams family
Hellraiser movies

Not many secret societyies of mages out there though

the covenant was awesomely bad

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

The Covenent was quite good fun, I thought, although it was a lot like watching a pilot for a TV series. They even left the ending wide open for the bad guy to come back.

It was no worse than many many other films I've seen, and was daft enough that I didn't cheated into watching it.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Warlock. Fantastic film with Julian Sands. Avoid the sequel.

To Cast A Deadly Spell. Film Noir with magic. Haven't seen it, but I hear it's good.

It's worth noting that magic in Buffy splits into two halves - the "Magic is sinister, dangerous and mostly in Latin" approach of Season 1 - 3, and the "fluffy rhyming women power Wicca" of Season 4 onward. I prefer the former. You probably guessed.

The Prestige. There's one magician, but there's a magician. Anda very interesting take on magic.

Last Call, Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers. If you're thinking about modern magic and haven't read these, it's a bit like thinking about Roman fiction without reading Bernard Cornwell.

The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Jez and I were talking about this last night. I said I kinda felt like the magic in Buffy went through five phases.

1) Magic is basically a craft - anyone can do it (Willow saying "it's like chemistry, but with more eye of newt"), and it involves incantations, mostly in odd languages, invocation of strange gods etc.

2) Magic is Wiccan magic, and mostly comes from within - Willow and Tara hold hands, and suddenly can move large objects with their mind. Telekinesis in general becomes a much bigger theme about now.

3) Magic is like a drug. People can buy magic from mysterious men down dark alleys - suddenly magic goes back to being an externally fuelled thing, and a Very Bad Thing as well that no one should do.

4) Magic is an invocation of external forces again - when Tara dies, Willow tries to bring her back, but is told by a big and powerful voice from somewhere that this isn't the deal - this kind of thing can only be done if someone is killed by mystical forces.

5) Darnit! No one likes Willow nearly as much now she's gone cold turkey. Maybe magic isn't that bad, as long as you're careful? It rather slides back to fluffy Wiccan.

It changes it's mind rather a lot, which vexes me. Jeremiah has a unified theory of Magic In Buffy, but I suspect that's more him determinedly explaining away the writers changing their minds.

Oddly, the slayers themselves work really really well within the paradigm of 'magic comes from compacts' - a line of young girls who are essentially offered up as sacrifices to this powerful spirit of death and destruction, in return for a short period of massive strength and glory during which they can battle and kill evil. Giles works quite well as well in that paradigm - he and Ethan Rayne are the remnants of an old circle of magicians who made some deal, and Ethan is still using that power, whereas Giles tries not to use it, but his magic (which he occasionally uses) could easily be seen as basically all having stemmed from that time in his life.

It's mostly just Willow who has the least amount of internal consistency in that show. (we won't even get on to the 'lesbian who had a quite happy hetrosexual relationship throughout several earlier series' thing)

[castorlion.livejournal.com]

Charmed shows magic on TV
But spells must always rhyming be;
The power of three will set us free
With scansion and rhyme applied irregularly..

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You are an extremely bad man!

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

Neverwhere?

Also, not quite modern magic, but if you haven't read any Robert Holdstock, particularly his Mythago Wood stuff, you really really ought to. It's very you.

King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald has an interesting take on faerie magic IIRC. But it's a long time since I read it.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

Also, Googling for that I found this, which I think is rather lovely.

http://www.horslips.ie/celtic7.html

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oooh...Skeleton Key.

Very trashy, but works in paradigm.

Some more films - put here for my own reference

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

The Ring - parents make a compact with _something_ in order to get a child (I try and ignore the sequel which makes no sense)

Bless the Child - very christian in viewpoint, but more interesting ideas about power being a currency in dealing with other forces.

The Guardian - no magic, but a nice ghost story

The Thirteen Ghosts - all about sacrifices required for power.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

BTW, and totally off-topic, you may enjoy the latest post here - http://www.machinimafordummies.com/

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Wow! That made me laugh out loud.

It is an EASY mistake to make. People should be more understanding, you know...

[astro-dust.livejournal.com]

There's the Silent Hill movie that has fun 'religious cults' that carry no power, but their actions invoke the attention of an external power thing. And the fact that the power can't enter the churche's grounds implies something of a 'true faith' or more appropriately 'blind faith' ideal.

There was a wonderous short lived series called "Brimstone" that involved a cop who went to hell for some reason, and then 500 demons escaped into the world, he made a pact witht the Devil that if he caught them all he could go to heaven. Plus it had Lori Petty as his receptionist so there was much tank girl squeal-age!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oh! I remember Brimstone! I loved the couple of episides I saw and then it all went away.

[blueberrycowboy.livejournal.com]

Night Watch? Either the book or the film. That has magical elements, alongside the vampires and werewolves and what-not.

[iain-a-wilson.livejournal.com]

The Blair Witch project?

[eladriell.livejournal.com]

Lord of Illusions and any Hellraiser film by Clive Barker.
Dark City, Flatliners, Pans Labyrinth, Neverwhere, these all deal with sacrifice, something missing from the crystals and Celt-chic yank shite
thats out there.

theres no magic without sacrifice.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oooh...the Clive Barker films are a good point. I'd forgotten those.

Have you seen Pan's Labyrinth? What did you think of it?

Tis one of my favourite films in the world.

[nothingtoyou.livejournal.com]

Hi Sally, Neill mentioned that you were starting a garden. I have a couple of spare plants if you're interested?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I would definitely be interested. What do you have?

I fear I am very much starting and not-very-good gardener, so I may horribly kill anything you give me yet!

[kittyboo-tastic.livejournal.com]

The Hogfather!
and, well, mmm, the obvious: lord of the rings.

[eladriell.livejournal.com]

Aye i have, No matter what view you take of the story, whether it be faerie tale or a story of mental illness or whatever, it all works, very beautiful.

The thing is that instead of the other puerile rubbish out there, it shows someone changing, and allowing themselves to be changed by making the decision to embrace another way of being, another reality, consciously.

Shamens, sorcerers mystics and magi all have to walk away from the campfire, not knowing what will happen but willing to risk, to take the chance, to surrender themselves to the unknown.

Its that choice that allows for magic. The journey is the goal.

so nhaaaayh! :P

Donnie Darko and Billy Elliot i also recommend for those reasons. odd eh?