Unit Title: Anatomy (RCGA1002) Film Review 5: The Elephant Man (1980, Director David Lynch)

This film goes one stage further than La Belle et Le Bete (year), though stays on the same topic. Here the viewer is asked to squeeze every ounce of empathy from both flesh and bone in considering the fate of one whose flesh and bone like at the core of their monstrous appearance.

Set in Victorian London, director David Lynch uses his skills as film maker and purveyor of the bizarre and menacing to great effect from the off.

A marvelous movie, shot in stunning black-and-white by Freddie Francis. Milne T., (date unknown). Like La Belle et La Bete the film is in black and white, cunningly used to draw the viewer into a dark and seedy world where curiosity and freakishness are both revered and reviled in equal measure.

Based on the real life of Joseph Merrick (renamed John for the film), we are shown how a cultures limited capacity for understanding makes the unfortunate both terrifying and

Unit Title: Anatomy (RCGA1002) Film Review 5: The Elephant Man (1980, Director David Lynch)

salable. Indeed the reason for the main characters deformity is put down to his mother being attacked by a bull Elephant in her seventh month of pregnancy. This is, of course laughable by modern standards, but a little showmanship can go a long way to subverting the truth.

The scene is very quickly set, we see the confusion and fear surrounding the Freak show enable and entice our hero Dr Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) into a state of intrigue. The police are in fact in the process of shutting down the show and detaining the main attraction as Hopkins looks on. Remember at this stage neither Hopkins nor the viewer know what horrors have forced women to faint and rumor to run rife.

It is only in the next scene, when Hopkins returns to the fair, seeks out the owner (actor name) that we see, just the merest glimpse of what is undeniably our own shame as we recoil at Lynchs vision of the badly deformed Merrick.

Hopkins is able to take custody of Merrick and offers him comfort and dignity in return for the opportunity to study and present him scientifically.

It takes John Hurt (Merrick) some time to feel comfortable enough to reveal the fact that he is neither mute nor simple minded. When Hopkins realises this, encourages and coaches Hurt to speak more often their is a shift in the way the audience is encouraged to feel about his afflictions. With a different kind of pity.

Eventually Hopkins is able, with Hurts assistance to convince John Guilgeuds Sanatorium Administrator that Hurt is nothing but a seriously, physically deformed man. At this revelation it is Gielgud who is appalled at his own attitude.

Unit Title: Anatomy (RCGA1002) Film Review 5: The Elephant Man (1980, Director David Lynch)

When Robert Eberts comments. I kept asking myself what the film was trying to say about the human condition as reflected by John Merrick, and I kept drawing blanks. (date unknown) he just doesnt understand.

This is a story about perception. Set in a time when physical abnormality was seen for the price of an admission ticket. But is Victorian London so very different from today? Those in the Freak business are better paid, their fundamental human rights allowing them every comfort afforded to the rest of us. Director David Lynch has created an eerily compelling atmosphere in recounting a hideously deformed mans perilous life in Victorian England. Staff V. (date unknown).

But who hasnt, at some point, looked on another with pity or disgust. Only those fortunate few who have the insight to look inwardly with pity or disgust look deeper before judging.

Critic Bibliography

Ebert R., (date unknown). Chicago Sun-Times, rottentomatoes.com

Milne T., (date unknown). Time Out, rottentomatoes.com

Staff Variety., (date unknown). Variety, rottentomatoes.com

Image List Poster Image: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1006527-elephant_man/

Unit Title: Anatomy (RCGA1002) Film Review 5: The Elephant Man (1980, Director David Lynch)