恋马狂

Transposing Peter Shaffer’s influential psychosexual play onto the celluloid, Sidney Lumet’s EQUUS notches up Richard Burton’s seventh and final Oscar nomination and puts a young Peter Firth on the map, who has been acted in the role in over one thousand times from Laurence Olivier's National Theatre to Broadway.

Burton plays married psychiatrist Martin Dysart, who works in a hospital for disturbed teenagers, his latest analysand is a 17-year-old Alan Strang (Firth), who, one night, blinds 6 horses in the stable where he moonlights during the weekends on the spur of the moment, and Martin takes it on himself to get the bottom of this misdeed.

It takes some time for a jingle-chanting Alan to open up to him, so Martin visits Alan’s parents Frank and Dora Strang (Blakely and Plowright) instead, to get a rough idea of what is wrong with their child, and one can always probe into a parent’s deportment to trace their influence on their impressible offspring, while Frank is a non-religious nonentity, Dora, the hand that rocks the cradle, has been persistently feeding Alan her Christian fundamentalist belief.

Since his first contact with a horse at the age of 6, Alan believes there is a deity “Equus” (latin for “horse”) inhabiting all the horses, and a fascination eventually morphs into erotic yearning in his adolescence. Although amatory feelings for a horse is too outré a proclivity to elicit empathy from audience, if one can apply Alan’s condition to nativistic homosexuality, surely we can find more common ground in our understanding, and become more appreciative of Martin’s ultimate lamenting of “taking away Allan’s pain and returning him to normalcy by neutering his ‘passion’ which he overtly envies”.

Proffered with profuse monologue to deliver, a slightly haggard Richard Burton revels in his last hurrah with pluperfect elocution and genuine sympathy, fenced within a dead-end marriage and deviled by his Hellenic nightmares, Martin’s professional facade starts to totter when he becomes increasingly bewitched by Alan’s perfervid devotion to his fantastic construct about horses, Burton is rarely that good. But in the event, it is Peter Firth who gives his much venerated co-star a run for his money, not least for his intrepidity to bare it all (both physically and emotionally) in honing up Alan’s stunted development: dazed perplex, infantile petulance, disquieted mindset and unbridled elation, during their respective stages in the whole package of a soul-shattering leading performance (yes, he is Oscar-nominated for the supporting category, a shaft is also given to Burton for his breakthrough role in Henry Koster’s MY COUSIN RACHLE, quarter of a century ago).

Secondary players are also indomitably excellent, Colin Blakely emits arguably the most tormented gaze ever when his Frank inadvertently witnesses his son’s deviation; Joan Ploweright heartrendingly holds court as a mother who cites demonology in her utter despair; Jenny Agutter won a BAFTA more for her moxie of undressing than her underdeveloped character Jill Mason, who has the guts to invite a boy to watch a Swedish skin flick, but cannot sense that he might not be entirely compos mentis; and finally, Eileen Atkins in her very early movie role, as the magistrate who introduces Alan to Martin and has a platonic friendship with the latter, although mostly appears to repeatedly make Martin feel good about himself, her fierce glare and undivided compassion subtly suggests that she is one of his betters.

Alternating between Martin and Alan’s quotidian sessions which often lead to the latter’ss own flashback and Martin’s own quest for truth outside the hospital, Lumet marshals a compulsive treatise not merely about a young man’s suppressed sexuality and profound humiliation of erectile dysfunction, but also mirrors an elder man’s deep-seated trepidation of his diminishing potency, with an audacity rarely seen on the USA screen, for instance, the money shot where Alan performs his ritual in the raw with a horse during the wee hours on a field, is uncannily numinous and perversely beauteous, then there are those in-your-face, fast-edited montage of blinding a horse with a sickle and its bloody coda, never a psychodrama dares to go rapier-like in both its subject and vision, manna from heaven, that is what Sidney Lumet’s EQUUS is.

referential entries: Lumet’s THE VERDICT (1982, 7.7/10), 12 ANGRY MEN (1957, 9.0/10); Brian De Palma’s CARRIE (1976, 8.1/10).

从这组照片看伯顿的演技，伯顿的演技不需要靠视频靠动图才能展现，就和伯顿表达痛苦悲伤从不需要眼泪一样，他拒绝演流泪戏，因为他不需要像其他演员那样依赖泪水，他用表情眼神就能实现比泪水更大的效果。

一个好演员的演技真的能从照片就深刻感受到，即使你不懂表演，但你很难不被这组照片里伯顿的脸部所表达出来的情绪感染。

伯顿是一位表情运用的大师，能够从舞台演员转型为同样优秀的电影演员是非常不易的，能够把舞台上通过声音和肢体传达的戏剧张力转化为电影镜头前用表情和眼睛传达的戏剧张力。

这需要很好的头脑悟性和背地里你所看不到的努力，伯顿说，“我所说的终极目标，是以最小的可见努力获得最大的效果，努力是巨大的，是的，但它是隐藏的。”努力到让观众看不出他正在努力。

这组照片是很好的说明，你完全不会感觉他在表演，而是完全的真实，他正饱受精神世界的折磨与摧残，他正在真实地悲伤、痛苦、困惑、恐惧、滋自我怀疑，自我审问。看完之后我忍不住担心，他会不会因为浸入太深而伤害自己的精神。

伯顿作为一位伟大的演员最直观的体现，就是他所传达的情绪和情感有着自然而然也不可置疑的说服力。巨大的天赋、丰沛的爱、多变的情绪、极度的敏感和共情能力、察言观色和深谙人性、聪明的头脑与你看不到的努力，综合在一起，他把表演变成了一门真正的高深艺术，没有人可以复制理查德伯顿。

“你可以模仿亨弗莱鲍嘉或加里库珀或马龙白兰度或劳伦斯奥利弗或约翰吉尔古德等人，因为他们容易复制，你知道他们说话的方式，他们走路的方式，他们有那样的穿着方式。他们对于社会与时尚有深远的影响，但只对那些简单的头脑有用，不是对合适的人有用。

我不认为你可以复制我，因为我一直都不同。你可以复制马龙白兰度，因为他总是一样的，可以复制保罗斯科菲尔德，他也总是一样的。但我一直在改变。” 放大这些照片看伯顿的绿眼睛，真是奇妙的颜色，有时候是纯绿，有时候是祖母绿，而且还有宝石的剔透与光芒。

有点难懂的片子。

少年逃离了父母虚伪僵硬的教条找到了马，但发现自己不够“纯粹”后只能弑神/马，陷入混乱以求逃避无出路。医生以救孩子为天职己任，但发现自己并不如此纯粹私心己欲与日俱增，彷佛进入受难成魔的异教癫狂深渊……

只能说痛苦的折磨，对绝大多数人来说不是磨砺救赎之路，而更容易引向极端化的、愤世嫉俗的仇恨深渊。

不要崇拜苦难教育，不要对自己及对他人施加过高的标准和要求。

我们只是人而不该奢望当神，求神之路可能导向的是蛇巢。（或许天堂和地狱是同个地方，但大多数到达时受己身所限，看到的多是地狱之境。不是换个角度改变思维就能解决的问题。差异根植于个人本身，由灵肉整体决定）

是否是因为异化的神反而是种囚笼？当你追求一个特定的标准/神时，恰恰是被“神”抛弃的时候，因为你否定了自我，不再能对原本的自己满意，从此走上理想中我和实际的我两者纠结对抗的不归路，越来越痛苦。标准/神离本我越远，离业火地狱则越近。（但反面，如果一个什么情况下都对自己满意就好了就接近神了？比如快乐的杀人狂？撒旦？这种原始命题的探讨真怎么说都有理也没理…）

（越来越感觉，有时文化提升后人越来越敏感脆弱，对自己提越来越高的期望，同时对身边人——父母、老师、医生、孩子、伴侣……也要求越来越高，互相抬到了近乎神圣的标准。但事实真相是99.99的人从生理心理的初始基础上就注定达不到那么多要求，容易生病、容易脆弱崩溃、容易暴躁泄愤……我们是该期盼重新回到伊甸园吗？还是应该脚踏实地，同时无可奈何地正视此世只能是凡俗肉胎的人，当好一个人，当好自己就好。放过自己也放过他人，世界不会更好也很难更糟。）（可这样真的就好了吗？人类毕竟是种“必须做点什么力求改变的物种”，潜意识里根深蒂固有种逆水行舟的危机感。不可能，我们背负着或许叫做原罪的东西，注定没有长久的安宁，在世一生就得不停摇摆在欲求和探索中，像个不倒翁。停不下来才是真相……）