"All right! The normal is the good smile in a child's eyes. There's also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills, like a god. It is the ordinary made beautiful, it is also the average made lethal. Normal is the indispensable murderous god of health and I am his priest."
Richard Burton's last truly great performance came in Sidney Lumet's screen adaption of Paul Shaffer's play; reprising the celebrated role that he himself had already wowed critics with on stage.
When a disturbed young man, Alan Strang (Peter Firth), blinds six horses with a metal spike he is referred by the magistrates to the care of psychiatrist Dr. Martin Dysart (Burton). Determined to unravel the mind of his patient and discover the trigger for this most brutal act, Dysart slowly forges a bond with the youth; unearthing, fragment by fragment, a childhood shaped of sexual repression, religious confusion, maternal overload and, of course, a burning equine obsession. However, as Dysart plunges deeper and deeper into Strangs psyche, he not only begins to question his own professional merit but begins to envy the World of passion and fantasy that the youth has retreated into.
Highly regarded for his character driven films, Equus is up there amongst Sidney Lumets very best. The script is extremely intelligent whilst there are a handful of small but eye-catching supporting roles that help Dysart slot the pieces of his puzzle together; most notably from Colin Blakely and Joan Plowright as Strangs parents and Jenny Agutter as the young girl who introduces Alan to the stables where his madness finally spirals into violence. There are also some evocative flashback sequences throughout that are impressively disturbing and yet, at the same time, succeed in capturing the wonder and beauty of Strangs obsession.
However, the film really stands as a two hander between the brooding Burton and the revelatory Peter Firth; a relationship that is light years more nuanced and evolved than the somewhat soft-centred dynamic between Robin Williams and Matt Damon in the similarly themed Good Will Hunting. Firth turns in a wonderfully sensitive performance as the shy, deeply damaged youth who is overwhelmed by his adolescence, repressed yearnings and befuddled sexuality whilst Burton is absolutely terrific as Dysart; his disillusionment with his own sterile existence and unhappy marriage diffusing slowly through his (sexually muted) conversations with his friend (Eileen Atkins) and spilling out in a string of acidic monologues that both narrate events and serve as vents to the emotional conflicts of a man whose career is devoted to unravelling them.
It's a most eloquent and rewarding performance in an eloquent and rewarding film. Equus is a film that asks no easy questions and offers no easy moral judgements. It is a mature, articulate and bruising character study that demands to be seen.
Richard Burton's last truly great performance came in Sidney Lumet's screen adaption of Paul Shaffer's play; reprising the celebrated role that he himself had already wowed critics with on stage.
When a disturbed young man, Alan Strang (Peter Firth), blinds six horses with a metal spike he is referred by the magistrates to the care of psychiatrist Dr. Martin Dysart (Burton). Determined to unravel the mind of his patient and discover the trigger for this most brutal act, Dysart slowly forges a bond with the youth; unearthing, fragment by fragment, a childhood shaped of sexual repression, religious confusion, maternal overload and, of course, a burning equine obsession. However, as Dysart plunges deeper and deeper into Strangs psyche, he not only begins to question his own professional merit but begins to envy the World of passion and fantasy that the youth has retreated into.
Highly regarded for his character driven films, Equus is up there amongst Sidney Lumets very best. The script is extremely intelligent whilst there are a handful of small but eye-catching supporting roles that help Dysart slot the pieces of his puzzle together; most notably from Colin Blakely and Joan Plowright as Strangs parents and Jenny Agutter as the young girl who introduces Alan to the stables where his madness finally spirals into violence. There are also some evocative flashback sequences throughout that are impressively disturbing and yet, at the same time, succeed in capturing the wonder and beauty of Strangs obsession.
However, the film really stands as a two hander between the brooding Burton and the revelatory Peter Firth; a relationship that is light years more nuanced and evolved than the somewhat soft-centred dynamic between Robin Williams and Matt Damon in the similarly themed Good Will Hunting. Firth turns in a wonderfully sensitive performance as the shy, deeply damaged youth who is overwhelmed by his adolescence, repressed yearnings and befuddled sexuality whilst Burton is absolutely terrific as Dysart; his disillusionment with his own sterile existence and unhappy marriage diffusing slowly through his (sexually muted) conversations with his friend (Eileen Atkins) and spilling out in a string of acidic monologues that both narrate events and serve as vents to the emotional conflicts of a man whose career is devoted to unravelling them.
It's a most eloquent and rewarding performance in an eloquent and rewarding film. Equus is a film that asks no easy questions and offers no easy moral judgements. It is a mature, articulate and bruising character study that demands to be seen.