The Magician, which takes place over one night in 1846, tells of a travelling troupe, The Magnetic Health Theatre, stopped by police at the gates of Stockholm. The troupe consists of Vogler (Max von Sydow), a mesmerist and conjuror; his young androgynous assistant (Ingrid Thulin); an old woman (Naima Wifstrand), and the loquacious director of the company (Åke Fridell). They are humiliated and subjected to severe questioning by three government officials—a skeptical doctor (Gunnar Björnstrand), a gross chief of police (Toivo Pawlo) and the weak-willed consul (Erland Josephson)—in an attempt to reveal Vogler as a fraud.

Many questions are posed in the intriguing tragicomic story, which resembles something out of Edgar Allan Poe or one of the tales of E.T.A. Hoffman. Is Vogler a charlatan or a man with supernatural powers? Is he mute? Is the boy assistant actually a woman in disguise? Is the old woman really a witch? Nothing is exactly as it seems. The original British title of the film, The Face, alludes to Vogler's Messianic face with its false beard and makeup—"an impostor who needs to hide his real face"—and what is taken at face value. In fact, almost every character wears a figurative mask.

Although the film, beautifully shot by Gunnar Fischer, contains elements of a fairy tale with its enchanted forest and love potions, and a horror movie, featuring a living corpse, it is all rationally elucidated. Yet the target of most of Ingmar Bergman's barbs is the cynical doctor, based on a film critic, who was, in fact, married to Ingrid Thulin at the time. "You represent what I hate most of all; that which cannot be explained," the doctor says. He also believes that "science can penetrate all mysteries." A frightening revenge is exacted on him by Vogler, while the police chief, who characterized a certain philistine film producer, is exposed as a fraud.

The Magician came out of Bergman's experience working at the Malmö City Theatre from 1952 to 1959. Players and the theatre exist throughout his work, underlying the constant theme of the duality of the artists in a closed world of illusions, and their ambiguous relationship with those outside. Von Sydow's illusionist is related to the wordless actress (Liv Ullmann) in Persona (1966), also named Vogler. Bergman returned more explicitly to the thesis of The Magician in The Rite (1969), about an acting troupe faced with the incomprehension of a powerful state official.

The title of The Magician, which won the Special Jury Prize in Cannes 1959, obviously refers to Vogler, but it also refers implicitly to Bergman, whom the extraordinary Von Sydow here represents. "My job was to beguile the audience," Bergman explained. "The film also mirrored my longing for pure artistry." It certainly allowed Bergman, the magician, plenty of scope to beguile and display his artistry, as well as enabling him to expound on one of his favourite motifs, the ability of the artist to find truth in both fact and fantasy.