4 replies to this topic

[pork chop]

Went so see Eqqus a few days ago and thought it was an outstanding piece of theatre and im now tempted to buy the film . Just wondering if anyone who as seen both could tell me how they compare . Does the film stick very true to the play and script and is it just as gripping as the play .

any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

thanks

[JWC]

My opinion is to avoid it. Equus is such an essentially theatrical piece that it is nigh on impossible to recapture its spirit on film. I seem to recall the central performances are good (Richard Burton and Peter Firth) and the supporting cast (Joan Plowright, Eileen Atkins, Colin Blakely) are, as might be expected, top notch. The big problem comes with the horses which are real and actually all the worse for being so. Alan Strang (and by extension the audience) believes that the horses are like primitive gods and it seems to me to be a crucial aspect of Shaffer's vision that they are masked actors rather than true representations.

If the current production wasn't on and you hadn't seen it I'd say watch the film; as it is keep your good memories alive and intact!

[achilles]

My opinion is to avoid it. Equus is such an essentially theatrical piece that it is nigh on impossible to recapture its spirit on film. I seem to recall the central performances are good (Richard Burton and Peter Firth) and the supporting cast (Joan Plowright, Eileen Atkins, Colin Blakely) are, as might be expected, top notch. The big problem comes with the horses which are real and actually all the worse for being so. Alan Strang (and by extension the audience) believes that the horses are like primitive gods and it seems to me to be a crucial aspect of Shaffer's vision that they are masked actors rather than true representations.

If the current production wasn't on and you hadn't seen it I'd say watch the film; as it is keep your good memories alive and intact!

oh the film is very very literatal, with real horses and no use of imagination....and terrible 70's(?) wallpaper, and bad british film lighting. Plenty fo flesh as is a prerequisite of the piece......shame as I do think the film could have been more imaginative, especially with the horses.

[tadpole]

I loved the film, before I saw the play. After seeing the film I read the play and really wanted to see it performed but - due to accident of birth - had to wait a few decades. Having now seen both versions I'd agree it works very much better on stage. The film reduces everything to a literal level and the final scenes, being literal, are distractingly gory.

It's a while now since I've seen the film but, as I recall, they didn't mess with the dialogue too much and the cast was well up to the job. Although neither Richard, Burton nor Griffiths, quite match my mental image, from reading it, of Martin Dysart, and Peter Firth was nothing like my mental image of Alan Strang. Daniel Radcliffe was much more like it.

[Blue]

Wasn't the film used on the opening night of Channel 4. I remember watching the first ever countdown and then the first part of this film which I turned off. It works so much better in a theatre.