As much a psychological horror film as anything else.
After all, who is ever really able to say for sure what might unfold in their life to create behaviors that others could not possibly understand? Behaviors they may well not really understand themselves.
For example, what could possibly compel a young man to savagely blind six stable horses by piercing their eyes with a metal scythe?
Surely, beyond all doubt, something that neither you nor I would ever do. Could ever do. And yet there is simply no way of predicting beyond all doubt what might motivate any of us to do something that we could not even imagine doing now.
And here there is said to be allusions to homosexuality. And, as we come to understand Alan’s “backstory”, we recognize how few of us will ever be able to…empathize with it? Of course it involves religion and the Bible and God. That’s almost inevitable though, isn’t it? And then that gets all tangled up in sex. And in the manner in which folks like Wilhelm Reich explored it: re the consequences of sexual repression.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
And then the relationship between man and beast. And here [in Alan’s mind] the horse [Equus] becomes Christ; and then Alan becomes Christ; and then that gets all twisted up [in Alan’s head] with the crucifiction of Christ, with the crucifiction of Equus, with the crucifiction of himself. Or it does to the extent that I understand it.
Of course in his own way the shrink is as unfathomable as the patient. And the parents? Surely, their own neurotic contributions here are vital as well.
And then finally what [to me] is a particularly striking examination of dasein:
Martin [to the camera]: A child is born into a world of phenomena, all equal in their power to enslave. It sniffs, it sucks, it strokes its eyes over the whole, uncountable range. Suddenly, one strikes. Then another. Then another. Why? Moments snap together, like magnets forging a chain of shackles. Why? I can trace them. I can, with time, pull them apart again. But why, at the start, they were ever magnetized at all…why those particular moments of experience and no others… I do not know, and nor does anybody else! If I don’t know… if I can never know… what am I doing here? I don’t mean clinically or socially doing, but fundamentally. These whys, these questions, are fundamental. Yet they have no place in a consulting room. So then, do I? Do any of us? This is the feeling, more and more. Displacement. Relentless…displacement. “Account for me”… says staring Equus. “First, account for me!”
All of this then becomes intertwined in the complex psychological relationship between passion and pain: Does one live a “normal” life, or is it better to go off the deep end and embrace life tumultuously – accepting all the emotional turmoil that will come with it?
Anyway, juxtapose this particular rendition [complex and sophisticated] with the complete and utter nonsense forthcoming from the objectivists, the serious philosophers and [worst of all] the Kids here!!
IMDb
[b]Richard Burton had hoped the success of this film would lead to a major comeback in his career, but instead he only received offers for minor films and was never again a big star at the box office.
Many critics believed that the film, like the play, was an allegory for homosexuality.
The film was considered groundbreaking at the time for the amount of full frontal male nudity by Peter Firth. Firth was shown completely nude three times in the film, and the final scene in the stable is one of the longest scenes of full frontal male nudity in any mainstream film. However, Firth’s penis was not allowed to be shown erect at any time.
Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer adapted his play for this film version and wrote the screenplay for the movie. Shaffer, who was on-set watching off camera, was horrified by the way Sidney Lumet directed the final scene in the stables, claiming he had made it like the shower scene in Psycho (1960).[/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_(film
trailer: youtu.be/Tsx5wNyzmRo
EQUUS [1977]
Directed by Sidney Lumet
[b]Martin [to the camera]: Afterward he says, they always embrace. The animal digs his sweaty brow into his cheek, and they stand in the dark for an hour, like a sated couple. And of all nonsensical things, I keep thinking about the horse, not the boy. The horse and what he might be trying to do. I keep seeing the huge head, kissing him with its chained mouth, nudging from the metal some desire absolutely irrelevant to fulfilling its bearing or propagating its own kind. What desire could this be? Not to stay a horse any longer, not to remain reigned up forever in those particular genetic strengths. Is it possible that at certain moments, we can not imagine, the horse can add its sufferings together, the nonstop jibs and jabs that are its daily life, and turn them into grief? What use is grief - to a horse. You see, I’m lost.
…
Martin [to the camera]: What use, I should be asking, are questions like these to an overworked psychiatrist… in a provincial hospital? They’re worse than useless. They are, in fact…subversive. The thing is I’m wearing that horse’s head myself…all reined up in old language and old assumptions straining to jump clean-hoofed onto a new track of being I only suspect is there. I can’t see it, because my educated, average head is being held at the wrong angle. I can’t jump, because the bit forbids it, and my own basic force…my horsepower, if you like…is too little. The only thing I know for sure, is this. A horse’s head is finally unknowable to me. Yet I handle children’s heads, which I presume to be more complicated…at least in the area of my chief concern. In a way, it has nothing to do with this boy. The doubts have been there for years, piling up steadily in this dreary place. It’s the extremity of this case that’s made them active. I know extremity is the point. All the same, whatever the reasons, these doubts are not just vaguely worrying… but intolerable! Forgive me. I’m not making much sense. Let me start properly, in order…
…
Hester: Martin, I’ve just come from the most shocking case l ever tried. My fellow magistrates wanted to send him to prison on the spot. Luckily, I got him remanded for a report.
Martin: Who’s he?
Hester: A teenager. The name’s Strang.
Martin: What’s he done, dosed some little girl’s Pepsi with Spanish fly? What could possibly have thrown your court into such Tory convulsions?
Hester: He blinded six horses with a metal scythe.
…
Martin [voiceover]: What did I expect of him? Very little, I promise you. One more dented little face. One more adolescent freak. The usual unusual.
…
Martin [to Alan after he sings jungles from television commercials instead of answering his questions]: Now, listen. This is not a loony bin. It’s not a prison. If you behave yourself, you’ll have a reasonably all right time. If you don’t, you’ll be packed off to a mental hospital… and you’ll find things much more restricted. So it’s up to you. You’ll be seeing me every day. Your session will last exactly 50 minutes. And l expect you to be absolutely on time. All right? By the way…which of your parents is it who won’t allow you to watch television? Mother? Father? Or is it both?
…
Mrs Strang: I do remember telling him one very odd thing. Did you know that when the Christian Cavalry first appeared in the New World… the pagans thought that horse and rider was one person?
Martin: One person? Yes. Of course. Actually, they thought it must be a god.
…
Martin: Mrs. Strang, is there anything else you can remember you told him about horses? Anything at all?
Mrs Strang: Well, they’re in the Bible of course. ‘‘He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha!’’
Martin: ‘‘Ha, ha’’?
Mrs Strang: The Book of Job. Such a noble passage. Do you know? ‘‘Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha!’’
…
Martin: Would you say that she’s closer to the boy than you are?
Mr Strang: They’ve always been as thick as thieves. I can’t say l entirely approve…especially when I hear her reading that Bible to him night after night, up there in his room.
Martin: You mean, she’s religious?
Mr Strang: Some might say excessively so.
…
Martin: What sort of things did you tell him? I’m sorry if this is embarrassing.
Mrs Strang: I told him the biological facts. But I also told him what I believed…that sex is not just a biological matter, but a spiritual one as well. That if God willed, he would fall in love one day. That his task was to prepare himself for the most important happening of his life. And after that, if he was lucky, he would come to know a higher love, still.
[she then breaks down in tears and anguish]
Mr Strang: There, now, Dora. it’s all right. Come on.
Mrs Strang: You always laugh, as usual.
Mr Strang: No one is laughing, Dora.
…
Martin: You have a special dream?
Alan: No. You?
Martin: Yes - what was your dream about last night?
Alan: Can’t remember - what was yours about?
Martin: I said the truth!
Alan: That is the truth. What was yours about, the special one?
Martin [matter-of-factly]: Carving up children.
…
Mr Strang: You’ve got to tell him. The doctor, I mean. He should know about that.
Mrs Strang: You think it’s important?
Mr Strang: Yes, I do.
Mrs Strang: Why?
Mr Strang: Well, it just could be.
…
Alan [into Martin’s tape recorder about being on the horse]: It was sexy. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?
…
Alan [into the tape recorder]: I’m talking about the beach…that time that l told you about. I was pushed forward on the horse. There was sweat on my legs from his neck. His sides were all warm…the smell…and turning him. All that power, going anywhere you wanted. And then, Dad…
…
Martin: Mr. Dalton? My name is Dysart. I’m a doctor. I’m dealing with Alan Strang. I mean, I’m treating Alan Strang. I know this is an intrusion, but I’d like to have a talk with you. l realize this must be difficult for you.
Mr. Dalton [the owner of the blinded horses]: Difficult? For lack of a word. lf I had my way, that boy would be dead. I should have killed him that night. Of course, now you’ve got him in hospital. Private room, three meals a day…remedial therapy, ping-pong, basketwork. We’ve got to be modern about it. After all, there are no criminals now. We’re all capable of everything. I know. I’ve heard all about it. Forgive and forget…two months of ping-pong and he’s paid his debt to society.
…
Alan [into the tape recorder]: When the horse first appeared, I looked up into his mouth. There was this chain in it. I said, ‘‘Does it hurt?’’ and he said…
…
Alan [into the tape recorder]: It was always the same after that. Every time I heard one clop by, I had to run and see…up a country lane…anywhere… just to watch their skins…and the way their necks twist. The sweat comes in the folds. Words like ‘‘reins’’… ‘‘stirrups’’… ''flanks, ‘’ ‘‘dashing his spurs against his charger’s flanks’’…Even those words made me…The way they give themselves to us. That was it, too. They could stamp us into bits anytime they wanted, and they don’t. They just let themselves be turned on a string all day, absolutely humble. They give us all their strength, and we just give them stripes. They’ll run forever. They’ll gallop till they die, they will…if we don’t say ‘‘stop.’’ They live for us… just for us… their whole lives.
…
Alan [into the tape recorder]: My uncle dressed for the horse, mother says. But what does that mean? Horse isn’t dressed. It’s naked. It’s the most naked thing you ever saw, more than a dog, a cat, or anything. Even the brokenest-down old nag has got its life. To put a bowler hat on top of it’s filthy. Putting them through their paces, bloody horse shows. How do they dare?! No one understands. No one. Except cowboys. They do. But they’re free. They just swing up, and it’s nothing but miles of grass. I bet all cowboys are orphans. I bet they are. No one ever says to cowboys: ‘‘Receive my meaning.’’ Or God. ‘‘All the time, God sees you, Alan. God’s got eyes everywhere.’’ No, I’m not doing anymore, I hate this. You can whistle for anymore. I’ve had it.
…
Martin: Did you have dates with her? Tell me if you did.
Alan: ‘‘Tell me Tell me, tell me!!’’ On and on. Standing there, nosy parker. That’s all you are, a bloody nosy parker, just like my dad. ‘‘Answer this, answer that,’’ never stop.
Martin: I’m sorry.
Alan: Now it’s my turn. You tell me, answer me. Do you have dates?
Martin: I told you, I’m married.
Alan: I know. Her name’s Margaret, she’s a dentist. You see? I found out. What made you go with her, then? Did you used to bite her hands when she did you in the chair?
Martin: That’s not very funny.
Alan: Do you have girls behind her back?
Martin: No.
Alan: Then what? Do you fuck her?
Martin: All right…
Alan: Come on, tell me, tell me.
Martin: That’s enough now.
Alan: I bet you don’t. I bet you never touch her. You’ve got no kids, have you? Is that because you don’t fuck?
…
Martin [to the camera]: Wicked little bastard. He knew exactly what questions to try. Not that there’s anything awful about that. Advanced neurotics can be dazzling at that. They aim unswervingly at your area of maximum vulnerability…which is, I suppose, as good a way as any of describing Margaret.
…
Martin: This boy…with his stare… he’s trying to save himself through me.
Hester: I’d say so.
Martin: What am I trying to do to him?
Hester: Restore him.
Martin: To what?
Hester: A normal life.
Martin: Normal?
Hester: It still means something, you know.
Martin: A normal boy has one head. - A normal head has two ears.
Hester: You know I don’t…
Martin: Then what do you mean?
Hester: Stop it.
Martin: I want to know.
Hester: Look, my dear…you know what I mean by a normal smile in a child’s eyes… and one that isn’t, don’t you?
Martin: Yes.
…
Martin [to the camera]: All right. The Normal is the good smile in a child’s eyes. It’s also the dead stare in a million adults. Both sustains and kills…like a god. It is the ordinary made beautiful. It is also the average…made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable murderous God of health. And I am his priest.
…
Martin [to the camera]: My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I’ve honestly assisted children in this room. I’ve talked away terrors, relieved many agonies. But beyond question I have cut from them portions of individuality repugnant to this God, Normal, in all its aspects.
…
Martin [to Alan who is in a hypnotic state]: Now, I want you to think back in time. You’re on that beach you told me about. You’re six. Above you, staring down at you, is that great horse’s head. Can you see that?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: You ask him a question. “Does the chain hurt?”
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Do you ask him aloud?
Alan: No.
Martin: And what does the horse say back?
Alan: “Yes.”
Martin: What do you say?
Alan: “I’ll take it out for you.”
Martin: And he says?
Alan: “It never comes out. They have me in chains.”
Martin: Like Jesus?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Only, his name is not Jesus, is it?
Alan: No.
Martin: What is it?
Alan: It’s Equus.
Martin: Equus. Does he live in all horses, or just some?
Alan: All.
…
Martin: Now tell me…why is Equus in chains?
Alan: For the sins of the world.
Martin: What does he say to you?
Alan: “I see you. I will save you.”
Martin: How?
Alan: “Bear you away, two shall be one.”
Martin: Horse and rider should be one beast?
Alan: One person.
…
Martin: Now tell me…what is the stable? His temple? His holy of holies?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Will you wash him, tend him…and brush him with many brushes? Yes. And there he spoke to you, didn’t he? He looked at you with his gentle eyes…and he spake unto you.
Alan: Yes.
Martin: What did he say?
Alan: “Ride me.”
Martin: “Mount me, and ride me forth at night”?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: And you obeyed?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Equus showed you the way.
Alan: No!!
Martin: He didn’t?
Alan: He showed me nothing. He’s a mean bugger. Ride or fall, that’s straw law.
Martin: Straw law?
Alan: He was born in the straw, and this is his law
Martin: But you managed? You mastered him?
Alan: Had to.
…
Alan [orgiastically…still in a hypnotic state]: The king rides out on Equus, mightiest of horses. Only I can ride him. His neck comes out of my body. It lifts in the dark. Equus, Godslave. Now the King commands you. Tonight, we ride against them all…the hosts of Bowler…the hosts of Jodhpur… all those who show you off for their vanity…tie rosettes on your head for their vanity. Come on, Equus, let’s get them. Trot! Steady, steady! That’s it, steady. Cowboys are watching, taking off their Stetsons. They know who we are. They’re admiring us. Bowing low unto us. Come on, show them. Canter! And Equus the Mighty rose against all. His enemies scatter. His enemies fall. Turn! Trample them! Stiff in the wind. My mane, stiff in the wind! I’m raw, I’m raw. Do you feel my raw? Feel me on you? On you! I want to be inside you. I want to be inside you, and be you. Forever one person. I love you!
…
Martin [to the camera]: Afterwards, he says, they always embrace. He showed me how he stands in the night…like a frozen tango dancer inhaling the cold, sweet breath. Have you noticed it about horses, the way they’ll stand…one hoof on its end, like those girl’s in the ballet? Now… he’s gone off to rest… leaving me alone…with Equus. I can hear the creature’s voice. He’s calling me out of the black cave of the psyche. I shove in my dim little torch, and there he stands… waiting for me. He raises his matted head. He opens his great square teeth, and he says: “Why? Why me? Why, ultimately, me? Do you imagine you can account for me…totally, infallibly, inevitably account for me? Poor Dr. Dysart.”
…
Mrs Strang: I’m a parent. Of course, that doesn’t count. Isn’t it a dirty word in here, “parent”?
Martin: You know that’s not true.
Mrs Strang: I know it, all right. I’ve heard it all my life. It’s our fault. Whatever happens, we did it. You say to us, “Who forbids television? Who does what behind whose back?” As if we’re criminals. Let me tell you something. We’re not criminals. We’ve done nothing wrong. We loved Alan. We gave him the best love we could. Poor Frank digs into the boy too much, but nothing in excess. He’s not a bully. No, Doctor. Whatever has happened…has happened because of Alan. If you added up everything we did to him, from his first day on earth to this…you wouldn’t find out why he did this terrible thing. Do you understand what I’m saying? I want you to understand… because I lie awake, thinking it out. And I want you to know I deny it absolutely, what he’s doing now. Staring at me, attacking me for what he’s done… for what he is.
Martin: Mrs. Strang!
Mrs Strang: You have your words, and I have mine. But if you knew God, Doctor, you would know about the Devil. The Devil isn’t made by what Mommy says, or what Daddy says. The Devil is there. It’s an old-fashioned word, but a true thing. I only know that… he was my little Alan… and then the Devil came.
…
Martin: Underneath all that glowering, the boy trusts me. You realize that? Poor, bloody fool.
Hester: Please, Martin, dear, don’t start that again.
Martin: Can you do anything worse to somebody than to take away their worship?
Hester: Worship?
Martin: Yes, that word again.
Hester: Isn’t that a little extreme?
Martin: Extremity is the point. What else has he got? Think about it. He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make the world real to him… no paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it…no music except television jingles…no history except tales from a desperate mother…no friends to give him a joke or make him know himself more moderately. He’s a modern citizen for whom society doesn’t exist. [/b]
And then [inevitably] this:
Hester: He’s in pain, Martin. He’s been in pain for most of his life.
Martin: Yes.
Hester: And you can take it away.
Martin: Yes.
Hester: Then that’s all you need to know, in the end.
Martin: No.
Hester: Why not?
Martin: Because it is his. His? His pain. His own. He made it. I don’t understand. I don’t! Hester; There’s no merit about being in pain, that’s just pure old masochism.
Martin: I’m talking about passion, Hesther. You know what that word meant originally? Suffering. The way you get your own spirit through your own suffering. Self-chosen. Self-made. This boy’s done that. He’s created his own desperate ceremony…just to ignite one flame of original ecstasy in the spiritless waste around him. All right…he’s destroyed for it, horribly. He’s virtually been destroyed by it. One thing I know for sure, that boy has known a passion… more ferocious than I have known in any second of my life. Let me tell you something. I envy it.
Hester: You can’t.
Martin: Don’t you see? That’s what his stare has said all this time. “At least I galloped. When did you?” I’m jealous, Hesther. Jealous…of Alan Strang.
And what are the objectivists here other then ossified intellectuals trying to create a fake passion out of words?!
Martin: The “primitive.” I use that word endlessly. “The primitive world,” I say, “what instinctual truths were lost with it.” While I sit baiting that poor, unimaginative woman with the word…that freaky boy is trying to conjure the reality. I look at pages of centaurs trampling the soil of Argos. Outside my window, that boy is trying to become one in a Hampshire field. Every night I watch that woman knitting, a woman I haven’t kissed in six years. And he stands for an hour in the dark, sucking the sweat off his god’s hairy cheek. In the morning, I put away my books on the cultural shelf…close up my Kodachrome snaps of Mount Olympus…touch my reproduction statue of Dionysus for luck… and go off to the hospital to treat him for insanity. Now do you see?
Hester: The boy’s in pain Martin. That’s all I see.
But always the other side:
[b]Hester: I understand, you know. You haven’t made that kind of pain. So few of us have. But you’ve still made other things. Your own thoughts. Your own skill. Skill absolutely unique to you. I’ve watched you do it, year after year…and it’s marvelous! You can’t just sit and say it’s all provincial, you’re just a butcher. All that stuff is stupid, hateful. All right, you never galloped. Too bad. If I have to choose between his galloping and your sheer training…I’ll take the training every time. What’s more, so will the boy, at this moment. That stare of his isn’t accusing you, it’s simply demanding.
Martin: What?
Hester: Just that. Your power to pull him out of the nightmare he’s galloped himself into.
…
Martin: There’s a sea…a great sea that I love. It’s where the gods used to bathe.
Alan: What gods?
Martin: The old ones, before they died.
Alan: Gods don’t die.
Martin: Yes, they do.
…
Martin: What were you thinking?
Alan: It was like I’d been fooled. Like I was the only person who didn’t know. Every man in the street I’ve ever seen, all do it. They’re not just dads. They’re all people with pricks. And my dad, he’s not just a dad either. He’s a man with a prick, too. He’s nothing special. Nothing special at all. Just a poor old sod on his own. He goes off at night and does his own secret thing…which no one will know about, just like me.
Martin: You were happy at that second, weren’t you, when you thought about your dad? Other people have secrets, too. Not just you.
Alan: Yes.
…
Martin: What did you do then?
Alan [of Jill]: I put it in her. I put it in her.
Martin: You did?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Was it easy?
Alan: Yes. Describe it.
Alan: I told you.
Martin: What, exactly?
Alan: I put it in her.
Martin: Did you?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Did you?
Alan: All the way.
Martin: Did you, Alan?
Alan: All the way, I shoved it. I put it in her all the way.
Martin: Did you?
Alan: Yes.
Martin: Did you, Alan?
Aln: YES!
Martin: Tell me the truth. Did you?
Alan: Fuck off!
Martin: What was it? You couldn’t, though you wanted to very much?
Alan: I couldn’t see her.
Martin: What do you mean?
Alan: Only him! Every time I kissed her, he was in the way.
Martin: Who?
Alan: You know who! When I touched her, I felt him. His side under me, waiting for my hand. I refused him. I looked…Iooked right at her, and I couldn’t do it. When I shut my eyes, I saw him at once, the streaks on his belly. Couldn’t feel her flesh at all. I wanted the foam…off his neck… not flesh, hide, horse hide!
…
Martin: And he? What does he say?
Alan: “Mine. You’re mine. I am yours, and you are mine. I see you. I see you always. Everywhere. Forever.”
Martin: “Kiss anyone, and I will see. Lie with anyone, and I will see. And you will fail, Alan. Forever and ever you will fail. You will see me, and you will fail. The Lord thy God is a jealous God. He sees you, Alan. He sees you, forever and ever. He sees you. He sees you. Eyes, white eyes all round. Eyes, like flames coming. God sees. God sees.”
Alan: My God hast seen! No. No more, Equus. Thou, God seest…nothing.
…
Alan [after he blinds the horses]: Here I am, Lord! Find me! Find me! Kill me! Kill me! Find me, and kill meeeeee!!
…
Martin [to Alan after giving him a shot to make him sleep]: I’m lying to you, Alan. He won’t really go that easily…just clop away, like some nice old carthorse. When Equus leaves, if he leaves at all, it’ll be with your intestines in his teeth. And I don’t stock replacements.
…
Hester [in a flashback]: The boy’s in pain, Martin. Yes. But you can take it away. Yes. Then that has to be enough for you.
…
Martin [to the camera]: All right. I’ll take it away. What then? He’ll feel himself acceptable. What then? You think feelings like his can be simply reattached… like plasters stuck on other objects we select? I mean, look at him! My desire might be to make of this boy an ardent husband, a caring citizen… a worshipper of the abstract and unifying God. My achievement, however, is more likely to make a ghost. [/b]
Then back again to the main “theme”:
Martin [to the camera]: I’ll heal the rash on his body. I’ll erase the welts cut into his mind by flying manes. And when that’s done, I’ll put him on a metal scooter and send him puttering off into the concrete world…and he’ll never touch hide again. Hopefully, he’ll feel nothing at his fork but approved flesh…I doubt, however, with much passion. Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created. You won’t gallop anymore, Alan. Horses will be quite safe. You’ll save your money every week and change that scooter for a car…and spend glorious weekends grooming that. You’ll pop round to the betting shop and put the odd 50 pence on the nags…quite forgetting they ever meant anything more to you than bearers of little profits and little losses. You will, however, be without pain…almost completely without pain. And now for me it never stops… the voice of Equus…out of the cave. Why me? Why me? First…account for me. How can I? In an ultimate sense I cannot know what I do in this place. Yet I do ultimate things… irreversible things. And I…I stand in the dark with a blade in my hand…striking at heads. I need more desperately than my children need me a way of seeing in the dark. What way is this? What dark is this? I cannot call it ordained of God! I cannot go so far! I will, however pay it so much homage. There is now, in my mouth this sharp chain. And it never comes out.