Equus. (15.)
Directed by Sidney Lumet.
Starring Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, Harry Andrews, Eileen Atkins and Jenny Agutter. Out on Blu-ray from the BFI. 137 mins.
Of all the great British thespians, Peter O'Toole was the only one whose movement between the stage and screen appeared effortless. All the others needed to modulate their style to a degree, but O'Toole could stride up to a camera and flap his arms around and project to the gods and be as inherently cinematic as some Stella Addled mumblefish who'd spent a week in his vest getting into character. But wait, you say, what of Richard Burton, a major movie star who could swing between playing war with Clint to treading the boards at the Old Vic with as much ease as the 100 fags and a bottle or two of scotch a day would allow? To which I'd reply, wasn't Burton fundamentally an on-screen narrator? Burton was all about The Voice. He had a rough but decent enough face to go with it, which just required being kept straight while he was talking.
Which leads us into the film version of Equus, a project all about the treacheries and challenges of the passage between stage and film. In it Burton gets to replicate the role as Dr Dysart that he played on Broadway. It's one of his finest film roles; probably because it is basically a series of monologues.
Peter Shaffer's play was a smash hit in the early 70s and within a decade had found a place on the O or A-Level English Lit curriculum. It's about a 17-year-old boy Alan Strang (Firth) who has blinded six horses at the stables where he worked. Handed over to Dysart, the psychiatrist has to use all his wiles and tricks to get to the bottom of the crime in this whyhedunnit.
Having such an archetypal New York director as Lumet in charge of this Hampshire set tale of horsey debauchery may seem odd but Lumet had previously proved himself a dab hand at provincial Blighty seediness with his corrupt copper drama The Offence. He also had quite a bit of experience of putting plays on to the screen, starting with Twelve Angry Men which is perhaps the most celebrated big-screen adaptation of them all. In the mid-70s he was at his creative peak coming off a run of films including Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network. Equus though presented a challenge as the stage production was highly stylised and based on the classical Greek theatre. The use of performers in masks to represent the horses mark it out as an early precursor of The Lion King or War Horse. Lumet's approach, with a few exception, is to go for realism. That's what he was good at; plus any attempts to find film equivalents of the play's artifice would surely end up looking ridiculous.
Still it is an odd fit. The now graphic representation of Strang's crime is way too gory for the film and its intended audience of middle class couple who couldn't make it to the theatre. It comes across as completely gratuitous. More awkward is the issue of whether it is possible to take Shaffer's piece seriously, when done realistically.
Strang's motivation is an equine theology he's devised over the years as a way of reconciling the sexual guilt and religious fervour his mother (Plowright) has drummed into him. OK, nutter is as nutter does, but Dysart's motivation is more mysterious. He's dissatisfied with his job and marriage. He has a fascination with Ancient Greek but is wounded by how timid his Dionysian tendencies are. So much so that he envies Strang's passion. When he is extolled to take away the kid's pain he sees himself as a high priest of normalcy making a human sacrifice. And we are supposed to take his side.
In the Fearta I can see how enough dramatic solemnity could be generated to have us go along with this but on the big screen you think, really? Are we taking this seriously? Hasn't this master psychiatrist noticed that his ennui might be caused less by the deadening normality of contemporary civilisation, and more by the fact that everybody he meets is a thinly drawn caricature. (Though very well acted thinly draw caricatures.) Everything and everyone is a piece in his jigsaw, but when he puts them all together it still doesn't fit.
And yet, as a film it works. Lumet delivers it all with a mighty weight of importance and because he has Burton at his disposal you buy into it. Even if you think it's all nonsense, the gripping solemnity of Burton's delivery gets you. Whenever he has a speech to deliver, Lumet clears the decks so nothing gets in his way.
In recent decades, stage productions have begun to focus more on the Strang role. Daniel Radcliffe and then Alfie Allen have played it. Firth though originated the role and gives it a bit of the gusto Malcolm McDowell gave to Alex in A Clockwork Orange. The role though is basically a marionette and I don't think you get the sense of the burning life force that Dysart is so reluctant to sacrifice. The film also features Agutter in the middle of her sex goddess 70s phase. Many actresses were frequently undressing for the films in the 70s but with Agutter, it was always somehow different. Partly this was because she was one of The Railway Children, partly because she was rather posh, but mostly because she was always bold and uninhibited in her nudes scenes. She did it all with a sense of purpose and duty. She was like a public information message telling adolescents that there was nothing shameful about sex.
Extras.
Audio commentary by film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.
Sidney Lumet Guardain Lecture from 1981. (Audio only)
Peter Firth Interview from 2020. (Audio Only)
Trailer
“The Watchers” a short film from 1969.
In From The Cold? A Portrait of Richard Burton. Tony Palmer's 1988 film.
Religeon and The People. 1941 short documentary about faith in the UK
The Farmer's Horse. 1951 Public information film on the use of horses
Directed by Sidney Lumet.
Starring Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, Harry Andrews, Eileen Atkins and Jenny Agutter. Out on Blu-ray from the BFI. 137 mins.
Of all the great British thespians, Peter O'Toole was the only one whose movement between the stage and screen appeared effortless. All the others needed to modulate their style to a degree, but O'Toole could stride up to a camera and flap his arms around and project to the gods and be as inherently cinematic as some Stella Addled mumblefish who'd spent a week in his vest getting into character. But wait, you say, what of Richard Burton, a major movie star who could swing between playing war with Clint to treading the boards at the Old Vic with as much ease as the 100 fags and a bottle or two of scotch a day would allow? To which I'd reply, wasn't Burton fundamentally an on-screen narrator? Burton was all about The Voice. He had a rough but decent enough face to go with it, which just required being kept straight while he was talking.
Which leads us into the film version of Equus, a project all about the treacheries and challenges of the passage between stage and film. In it Burton gets to replicate the role as Dr Dysart that he played on Broadway. It's one of his finest film roles; probably because it is basically a series of monologues.
Peter Shaffer's play was a smash hit in the early 70s and within a decade had found a place on the O or A-Level English Lit curriculum. It's about a 17-year-old boy Alan Strang (Firth) who has blinded six horses at the stables where he worked. Handed over to Dysart, the psychiatrist has to use all his wiles and tricks to get to the bottom of the crime in this whyhedunnit.
Having such an archetypal New York director as Lumet in charge of this Hampshire set tale of horsey debauchery may seem odd but Lumet had previously proved himself a dab hand at provincial Blighty seediness with his corrupt copper drama The Offence. He also had quite a bit of experience of putting plays on to the screen, starting with Twelve Angry Men which is perhaps the most celebrated big-screen adaptation of them all. In the mid-70s he was at his creative peak coming off a run of films including Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network. Equus though presented a challenge as the stage production was highly stylised and based on the classical Greek theatre. The use of performers in masks to represent the horses mark it out as an early precursor of The Lion King or War Horse. Lumet's approach, with a few exception, is to go for realism. That's what he was good at; plus any attempts to find film equivalents of the play's artifice would surely end up looking ridiculous.
Still it is an odd fit. The now graphic representation of Strang's crime is way too gory for the film and its intended audience of middle class couple who couldn't make it to the theatre. It comes across as completely gratuitous. More awkward is the issue of whether it is possible to take Shaffer's piece seriously, when done realistically.
Strang's motivation is an equine theology he's devised over the years as a way of reconciling the sexual guilt and religious fervour his mother (Plowright) has drummed into him. OK, nutter is as nutter does, but Dysart's motivation is more mysterious. He's dissatisfied with his job and marriage. He has a fascination with Ancient Greek but is wounded by how timid his Dionysian tendencies are. So much so that he envies Strang's passion. When he is extolled to take away the kid's pain he sees himself as a high priest of normalcy making a human sacrifice. And we are supposed to take his side.
In the Fearta I can see how enough dramatic solemnity could be generated to have us go along with this but on the big screen you think, really? Are we taking this seriously? Hasn't this master psychiatrist noticed that his ennui might be caused less by the deadening normality of contemporary civilisation, and more by the fact that everybody he meets is a thinly drawn caricature. (Though very well acted thinly draw caricatures.) Everything and everyone is a piece in his jigsaw, but when he puts them all together it still doesn't fit.
And yet, as a film it works. Lumet delivers it all with a mighty weight of importance and because he has Burton at his disposal you buy into it. Even if you think it's all nonsense, the gripping solemnity of Burton's delivery gets you. Whenever he has a speech to deliver, Lumet clears the decks so nothing gets in his way.
In recent decades, stage productions have begun to focus more on the Strang role. Daniel Radcliffe and then Alfie Allen have played it. Firth though originated the role and gives it a bit of the gusto Malcolm McDowell gave to Alex in A Clockwork Orange. The role though is basically a marionette and I don't think you get the sense of the burning life force that Dysart is so reluctant to sacrifice. The film also features Agutter in the middle of her sex goddess 70s phase. Many actresses were frequently undressing for the films in the 70s but with Agutter, it was always somehow different. Partly this was because she was one of The Railway Children, partly because she was rather posh, but mostly because she was always bold and uninhibited in her nudes scenes. She did it all with a sense of purpose and duty. She was like a public information message telling adolescents that there was nothing shameful about sex.
Extras.
Audio commentary by film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.
Sidney Lumet Guardain Lecture from 1981. (Audio only)
Peter Firth Interview from 2020. (Audio Only)
Trailer
“The Watchers” a short film from 1969.
In From The Cold? A Portrait of Richard Burton. Tony Palmer's 1988 film.
Religeon and The People. 1941 short documentary about faith in the UK
The Farmer's Horse. 1951 Public information film on the use of horses
