The Elephant Man Directed by David Lynch
A film review by Chris Loar
As David Lynch's first commercially viable film, THE ELEPHANT MAN is an odd -- but nearly perfect -- blend of the conventional and the idiosyncratic. What's remarkable about it is that, despite its mainstream appeal, it's still emphatically a film by David Lynch; it jettisons all of the mawkish sentimentality that might well have burdened a film about the travails of John Merrick, Victorian England's Elephant Man, and replaces it with a complicated meditation on voyeurism and ethics. To my mind, this is one of Lynch's most successful films; the discipline of adhering to a conventional storyline makes his style here less solipsistic and self-indulgent than it has sometimes been elsewhere; and the credible characters of Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) and John Merrick (William Hurt) make the picture more emotionally involving than, say, WILD AT HEART.
The film tells the tale of the unfortunate John Merrick, an Englishman afflicted with a rare congenital deformity; he has a profoundly misshapen skull, and most of his body is covered with fleshy growths and tumors. He's on exhibit in a sideshow when he is rescued by Dr. Treves, who reacts to him with a mixture of pity and fascination. And because that pity is tainted, the rescue itself is somewhat ambiguous; Dr. Treves initially assumes Merrick to be an imbecile, and puts him on display for his colleagues. Later, as Merrick begins to open up to his new caretaker, the two begin to develop a friendship, and Treves begins to introduce his friend to members of polite society. But that friendship and those introductions are also, arguably, tainted; as Merrick begins to enter polite society, he does so as a spectacle and a curiosity rather than as an active member of society. Or so Lynch seems to argue. What I admire most about this film is its refusal of easy sentimentality; there is no triumph here for Merrick. Even in one of the final sequences, when Merrick attends the theater and, for the first time, is a spectator rather than a spectacle, there is no victory -- for immediately after the performance, the audience turns and looks to him, and it's HE that receives the standing ovation. For a child of the carnival, there is no easy escape from the freakshow.
All this might not have worked were it not for some fine acting, including some first-rate work by Hopkins and Hurt. Hurt, in particular, is excellent, even under what must have been fifteen pounds of prosthetic makeup; his dialogue shows a perfect sense of timing, and his body manages to convey debility mixed with a blend of self-hatred and pride. Hopkins is nicely modulated as the morally confused doctor. And there are some fine secondary parts; the virtually unknown Michael Elphick is particularly good as a night porter who profits by humiliating Merrick.
The film is also a technical marvel. It's shot beautifully in black and white by Freddie Francis (a onetime director of horror films; he went on to win an Oscar for his work on GLORY), and Lynch's more expressionist tendencies are blended nicely with a relatively conventional visual style. The soundtrack, too, makes excellent use of Lynch's trademark sound effects; hisses, clanks, and other sound effects blend with the dialogue to give the production a rather eerie effect.
Lynch's work since ELEPHANT MAN has increasingly veered back towards the arty self-indulgence of ERASERHEAD -- which isn't altogether a bad thing, and has resulted in some spectacular films. (Indeed, some, such as BLUE VELVET, are clearly superior to ELEPHANT MAN.) But this film -- by demonstrating that unconventional filmmaking can find a home in the bottom-line world of Hollywood melodrama -- is in some ways his most important achievement.
(c) 1998 by Chris Loar
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