Equus
by Sidney Lumet
List Price:
Our Price: $6.73
You Save: $8.25 (55%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Colin Blakely, Harry Andrews, Joan Plowright, Peter Firth, Richard BurtonDirector: Sidney Lumet
Brand: BURTON,RICHARD
Cinematographer: Oswald Morris
Editor: John Victor-Smith
Producer: Denis Holt
Producer: Elliott Kastner
Producer: Lester Persky
Writer: Peter Shaffer
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 137 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-03-04
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Equus
DVD Review: Excellent Movie, Partially Flawed Therapy
Summary: 4 Stars
Equus offers a gripping view into the mind of a disturbed and at times psychotic teenage boy - and into the psyche of his conflicted therapist. Although the movie is well worth watching, I only gave it four stars because of several of its flaws.
My main criticism is that the movie strayed into idealization of the therapist and the therapy. Yes, the therapist (played brilliantly by Richard Burton) was passionate, earnest, committed, and struggling to be honest both with himself and the boy, and yes, the movie partially succeeds at highlighting the therapist's vulnerability, hypocrisy, and stuckness, but at times he violated the boy in ways the movie not only didn't address, but even presented as being therapeutically necessary.
For starters, Equus minimized the therapist's sporadically combative - and thus untherapeutic - behavior. At points he rejected the already abused and frightened boy (threw him out of the office for not behaving "properly"), manipulated him (hypnotized him on the sly - as if the boy, desperate for love, could refuse!), tricked him (gave him a false "truth drug" - with false promises of a cure - to make him talk), and even brutalized him (screamed at him and bullied him to force him into revealing the horrors of his past for the sake of "healing"). Although this made for good drama it utterly fails to show, much less even hint at, how a slow and gentle and safe therapeutic approach could have so much more effectively helped the boy discover and integrate his true self. Forget all the trickery and rage and pressure to make the boy "normal" - which only repeat the horrors perpetrated on him by his troubled parents - just honor him and honor his natural healing process.
My experience has shown me that the greatest results are achieved with no therapeutic violation of the patient. Although the "blast your way to healing" approach plays to the public's idea of an actively engaged, virtuoso therapist who stops at nothing to "save the patient," it disguises (much more than the movie addressed) a therapist's grandiosity, insecurity, hidden agenda, impatience, and split-off self-hatred - and risks terrible consequences for the patient. Had the boy killed himself during or after the therapy - a likelihood which struck me several times in the film - I would have partially blamed the therapist.
I was not surprised that after the boy finally admitted to blinding the horses, and admitted his back story that drove him to do it, he had a complete breakdown and went into catatonic shock - and "needed" to be drugged. And this is considered good therapy, even healing? Hardly. For starters, it's based on the fanciful idea that simply getting someone to admit what happened to them, by hook or by crook, is enough to catalyze healing. If only that were the case! This is where the psychological detective story element of the movie took precedence over a real chance to demonstrate good therapy.
And then there is the nudity. A little might have been relevant, but it was gratuitous to repeatedly show the teenage boy's fully naked body in the film - much less to show overt sex between him and the girl who participated in driving him over the edge. But perhaps the biggest violation was that the psychiatrist's manipulations got the boy to undress to full nudity right in a therapy session! Talk about malpractice!
Although they initially presented this therapist as being the best there is (the only therapist "within a hundred miles" who could help the boy), I could only hope this wasn't the case. And if it was, what a terrible - yet probably realistic - indictment of the modern mental health system.
Description of Equus
This Oscar®-nominated* adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Tony Award-winning play erupts on the screen with the same power and passion as the stage original. Richard Burton gives "one of his best performances ever" (Boxoffice) in this "elegant and provocative" (Newsweek) tale ofmyth and madness. What would drive Alan Strang (Peter Firth), a troubled adolescent stable boy, to blind six horses with a metal spike? Psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Burton) investigates these unspeakable acts and delves deep into Alan's psyche, confronting the mysteries of sexual passion and madnessas well as the dark demons buried within his own soul. *1977: Actor (Burton),Supporting Actor (Firth), Adapted ScreenplayBestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Anne of the Thousand Days / Mary, Queen of ScotsUni; Release date: 2007-09-18; DVD
Best price: $11.07
Price in other shops:
BecketMPI; Release date: 2007-05-15; DVD
Best price: $10.98
Price in other shops:
The PawnbrokerLions Gate; Release date: 2003-12-16; DVD
Best price: $8.53
Price in other shops:
Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood (Special Collector's Edition)Hart Sharp Video; Release date: 2005-08-09; DVD
Best price: $8.27
Price in other shops:
Who's Afraid of Virginia WoolfWarner Brothers; Release date: 2010-11-09; DVD
Best price: $3.58
Price in other shops:
Long Day's Journey Into NightLions Gate; Release date: 2004-05-11; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
There Goes My BabySony; Release date: 2003-09-16; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
Walkabout (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2010-05-18; DVD
Best price: $22.76
Price in other shops:
Equusby Peter Shaffer
Scribner; Published: 2005-10-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.57
Price in other shops:
Walkabout (The Criterion Collection)Walkabout; Release date: 1998-05-06; DVD
Best price: $43.99