盛佳藍(lán)光標(biāo)注。Equus是拉丁語，對應(yīng)的英文意思就是'horse'，中文翻譯是“戀馬狂。”最先知道這部舞臺劇是媒體大肆報道的哈里·波特電影的主演、年僅17歲的丹尼爾將全裸出演本劇。

戀馬狂的劇作者是沙費(fèi)爾，其故事取材于真實事件，一名馬童令人費(fèi)解地戳瞎了6匹馬的眼睛?！皯亳R”1973年第一次在國家大劇院演出時便引發(fā)轟動。在此之后，“戀馬”轉(zhuǎn)戰(zhàn)美國百老匯，期間由安東尼·霍普金斯擔(dān)任主角，上演次數(shù)達(dá)到1200余次，成為紐約歷史上最為成功的戲劇之一。1977年，好萊塢將“戀馬”改編成電影，本片獲1978年金球獎最佳男主演，最佳男配角二項大獎及奧斯卡最佳男主演，最佳男配角，最佳改變劇本三項提名。

電影是從一位心理醫(yī)生的回憶開始的。一位平時行為舉止良好的17歲少年，突然刺瞎了他工作的馬廄的6匹馬的眼睛，正當(dāng)他將面臨法院審判的時候，一位在當(dāng)?shù)睾苡型男睦磲t(yī)生主動提出愿意接受他到自己的診所進(jìn)行治療，從而也幫助他躲過了其他懲罰。

心理醫(yī)生用了很多方法希望這名少年能夠說出他刺馬前所有與馬有關(guān)的經(jīng)歷，以幫助分析他令人費(fèi)解的行為的根源。但最開始，這名少年一直隱藏自己的心事，什么都不愿意說出來。心理醫(yī)生只有從他的親人身上了解男孩的內(nèi)心。從與他父母和他兼職的馬場老板的交流中可以看出，男孩從小就受到父母嚴(yán)厲的管教，不讓他接觸周圍世界的任何事物，他唯一了解世界的窗口就是從母親口中聽到的關(guān)于圣經(jīng)的各種故事，和家里的關(guān)于他從事馬術(shù)的舅舅的照片，唯一能給予他想象力的就只有他臥室床頭的一幅耶穌受難的圖片。這部電影的宗教意味太弄了，大部分的對話都是些很晦澀的宗教用語，所以在看的時候，自己很多東西都不能理解。

在男孩6歲的時候，父母帶他到海邊玩，一次偶然的機(jī)會他碰到了一位騎馬的紳士，并且邀請他一起到馬上來感受騎馬的樂趣。當(dāng)騎在馬背上飛馳的時候，男孩第一次感受到了快樂和自由，但就在這時，他卻被父親嚴(yán)厲地斥責(zé)下了馬。

從此男孩便對馬這種生物瘋狂的著了迷，同時，他從床頭的耶穌受難圖中似乎找到了其和馬的共通之處。耶穌身上的枷鎖就像馬頭上的韁繩一樣，被人束縛和折磨；耶穌蓬亂的頭發(fā)就像馬的鬃毛；耶穌痛苦的表情就像馬無助的神態(tài)；耶穌身后的廣大民眾組成的背景就像馬奔跑的草原。他應(yīng)經(jīng)把馬當(dāng)成了上帝來看待，覺得馬生來就受罪，一輩子就做人的奴隸，他要替他們受罪。于是在晚上的時候他經(jīng)常對著一幅馬的圖片（他父親將它床頭的耶穌受難圖片撕掉，認(rèn)為這褻瀆了神，他大哭大鬧最后換上了一張馬的圖片后才安靜下來），用韁繩將自己束縛，然后用馬鞭抽打奴役自己。

后來男孩通過一個朋友介紹，找到了一份在養(yǎng)馬場清理馬廄的兼職，每個周末去工作兩天。但是老板無意中發(fā)現(xiàn)，男孩經(jīng)常在晚上牽著馬出去，第二天馬又照常在馬廄里。心理醫(yī)生用了催眠的方法，讓男孩講述他把晚上把馬牽出去后的行動。男孩的潛意識一直在拒絕講述這段經(jīng)歷，最后在醫(yī)生的刺激下，他終于說出來：他喜歡全身裸體和馬相抱，喜歡自己的臉頰靠著馬脖子的感覺，喜歡赤裸裸地騎在馬身上（網(wǎng)上都在說他裸體騎馬是尋找性快感，我倒認(rèn)為不是），喜歡感受在馬奔馳的過程中自己和馬融為一體的感覺，馬就是他心中的GOD。

在馬場長時間的工作后，他與另一位在那里工作的16歲女孩漸漸產(chǎn)生了感情。一天晚上，他們偷偷到電影院觀看成人電影，男孩第一次看到了女人的裸體。就在這時，他父親卻又走進(jìn)了電影院，發(fā)現(xiàn)了他的兒子。其實他父親也是來電影院看這部電影的，但是為了避免尷尬，卻假裝說是來找這里的老板談生意，大家彼此心照不宣。就在父親叫他回家的時候，他勇敢挑戰(zhàn)父親的權(quán)威，跟著那個女孩跑回了馬場。電影其實到這里已經(jīng)做了很多鋪墊了，接下來的情節(jié)就順利成章的是男女身體接觸了。這部電影還是比較大膽，男女都是六面全裸。但是馬已經(jīng)占據(jù)了他精神的全部，馬就是他的上帝，在與女孩接吻的時候，他根本無法擺脫馬在他腦子里的影響。他說：當(dāng)我睜著眼睛，我就看到一只馬隔在我們中間；但比上眼睛的時候，腦子里就全都是馬的畫面了，以至于我根本無法感受到她身體的存在。

馬的形象作為上帝一直監(jiān)視著他的活動，使他雖然極度渴望但卻無法正常和女人交往，我想這個時候他刺傷馬的眼睛也就不難理解了。

這部電影圍繞性喚醒、希臘神話和宗教展開，只能看個半懂。其實我覺得造成他戀馬的原因也很簡單，就是家庭教育讓他和外世隔絕了，再加上他母親成天給他灌輸?shù)淖诮趟枷?。和馬接觸成了他唯一能夠釋放自己的方式，于是他就把馬神化成了上帝。與其說是戀馬，還不如說是worship the God。

電影還有一個有意思的地方，就是心理醫(yī)生在治療男孩的同時，也不斷發(fā)現(xiàn)自己心里的陰暗面。在電影中他曾提到，已經(jīng)很多年和妻子沒有性生活了。以致在影片的醫(yī)生獨(dú)白部分，他都顯得如此憤怒。還有就是電影讓我看到了催眠術(shù)的恐怖一面，當(dāng)他喚起人們痛苦回憶的時候，往往會讓人瀕臨死亡的邊緣。

雖然有喜歡的導(dǎo)演、編劇和主演，但是看得好累。

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).