Richard Burton’s Catholic priest in Anthony
Page’s Absolution might be viewed as an amalgam of many of his then-most
recent roles: Exorcist II (in which he also played a priest), Equus
(written by Peter Shaffer, whose brother Anthony wrote Absolution), and The
Medusa Touch (where his character’s rage against society is so powerful
that it can overcome the laws of nature): all roles which in one way or another
tried to make a strength out of the actor’s customary stiffness (whereas the
one not listed above, The Wild Geese, tried in futility to ignore it). His
character in Absolution, Father Goddard, is a teacher at a boys’ school
who comes to believe that his star pupil Benjie (Dominic Guard) has in effect
fallen under the influence of Satan (Billy Connolly plays the serpent who leads
him astray, a drifter called Blakey who hangs around the school grounds); Benjie
starts using the confessional to taunt Goddard first with made-up sins, and
then apparently with real and horrific ones, including the murder of Blakey,
knowing that Goddard can’t repeat any of it to anyone. The movie’s interest in
its cloistered world is unfortunately limited, with only one other boy (played
by Kes’s David Bradley) portrayed in any depth (not that the adults
register either, beyond Goddard and Blakey), and the briefest possible glimpses
of such standard transgressions as girlie magazines and cigarette smoking.
Although Catholic teachings and rituals are inherent to the plot, the film seems
mainly interested in them as devices; it’s interesting to imagine what a more
cerebral or intense director could have done with it. Such a director might
have gotten something very powerful out of Burton; even so, the actor is at
his latter-day best here, conveying sheer inner torture at a situation that rapidly
surpasses both his analytical capacities and his faith.
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