The Magic Christian
About this episode
The episode explores the 1969 film 'The Magic Christian', discussing its cultural impact and differing opinions on its merits.
This 1969 anarchic film comedy was based on a Terry Southern novel and championed by Peter Sellers, but it seemed to mark the start of a decline for both their fortunes. We take on Chris's favorite movie, and try to get to the bottom of why he likes it, Charlie doesn't, and everybody agrees with both of us. Sources: https://www.thespinningimage.co.uk/cultfilms/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=145 https://web.archive.org/web/20080115004058/http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/ddb5490109a79f598625623d0015f1e4/0c63a2560495532008256cbb00826ca3?OpenDocument http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0081.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/06/17/specials/southern-magicfilm.html https://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-magic-christian-1969.html https://www.genxculture.com/the-magic-christian-the-most-60s-film-ever-made/20/04/2020/ Flanagan, K. The Road to Excess Leads to THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN: Comedy, Excess, and the Limits of the Body. Dassanowsky-Harris, R. (1992). The Southern Journey: "Candy" and "The Magic" Christian as Cinematic Picaresques. Studies in Popular Culture, 15(1), 95–111.
People in this episode
Host: Charlie
Guest: Chris
Topics covered
- film analysis
- comedy
- anarchism
- 1960s cinema
- cultural critique
Keywords
- The Magic Christian
- Peter Sellers
- Terry Southern
- 1969 film
- anarchic comedy
- film critique
- cultural analysis
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Magic Christian, Candy
More episodes of Supercontext: an autopsy of media
- Deadwood, Season 1
- The Problem With Music
- Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's Twentieth Century
- Something Is Killing The Children
- I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson
- The VALIS Trilogy
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