Word: firth
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Types of Ethical Theory," Roderick Firth...
Some of the protagonist's prey fare better. Though at times hobbled by accent difficulties, British Actor Peter Firth (Equus) is surprisingly convincing as the title character, a sullen, ducktailed counterboy with vague cowboy dreams of glory. TV's Hal Linden, playing Grant's stuffy suburban husband, makes some thing fresh out of a stereotype, as does Faracy. Unfortunately, these performers must share the screen with Grant and Candy Clark, who turn already hysterical women into harridans. "Filth! Filth!" Grant screams at Gortner, in one of the movie's many unwatchable moments...
...Lumet has stripped the story of its dependence on icon-like imagery and lent the narrative a stamp of realism that is quite appropriate to the special demands of cinema. With considerable assistance from the shining performances of Richard Burton--his finest in recent memory--and the promising Peter Firth, Lumet has successfully carried out the delicate operation of transforming Shaffer's impressionistic play into a full-length strip of celluloid...
...opening portions of Equus unveil the two recurring images that will dominate the film's visual dimension: a close-up of the doubt-ridden psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Burton) musing about the complex case of his teenage patient Alan Strang (Firth), and a darkness-clothed scene of a naked Strang standing beside a horse, the object of his near psychotic obsession. Lumet fills his lens with Dysart's ruminating face, punctuating the narrative with the Shakespearean soliloquies of the confused shrink. At times, these infrequent monologues border on the histrionic, as Burton casts off the necessary restraint of a film star...
...exchanges between Equus 'antagonists are scarcely more exciting. Firth's performance, seemingly so natural in a theater, looks artificial in closeup. Burton provides a curiously bland Dysart who lacks the high-pitched emotional constipation that both Anthony Hopkins and Alec McCowen brought to stage productions. Lumet tries to save the day by flooding Burton's speeches with melodramatic lighting and music, but no such makeshift remedy can cure Equus of its congenital limp. - Frank Rich