The Elephant Man. (12A.)
Directed by David Lynch. 1980
Starring Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, John Gielgud, Anne Bancroft, Wendy Hillier, Freddy Francis and Dexter Fletcher. 4k Ultra HD restoration. Available on Digtal, DVD, BD & 4L UHD Collector's Edition from April 6th. Black and White. 124 mins.
Due to the enormity and extremity of the physical deformity that covered the majority of his head and body, it is often overlooked that Mr John Merrick (or at least the film version of him) was the most appalling snob. His indignation at being used as a circus freak is that a man of his calibre, who knows Shakespeare and can recite psalms by heart, is being belittled by East End proles. When he eulogizes his beautiful mother he is pitying the fact that he has been cheated out of his birthright of looking down on the people that are looking down on him. You suspect the hospital administrator played by Gielgud, a man who could look down at his nose at any object or being the universe put in front of him, sides with Merrick not because he isn't an animal, but because he's an upper-class human being.
The recreation of Victorian England is beguiling and thorough, going all the way down to the script which is mawkish and sentimental. The film is usually seen as a tug of war between the surrealism of director Lynch and the stuffy tradition of the British costume drama but I think Lynch is very at home in this world. (On screen anyway; off-screen many of the greats of the West End stage were apparently beastly to the young midwesterner who was far from home and effectively making his first proper film production.) Lynch is an uptight exhibitionist, a small c conservative, and I suspect that the talky scenes between theatrical royalty meant as much to him as the hellish visions of Victorian workhouses and factories. There are moments that should be cringey but you accept them because he has created a world where the melodrama is as integral as the moody monochrome surrealism.
Of all the many, many reasons why one should give thanks and blessings to Mel Brooks, his part in launching the career of Lynch is right up there with The Producers and Blazing Saddles. Lynch's only previous full feature was Eraserhead, effectively a student film made over five years at weekends or whenever people could get away. It's slow, plotless, an expression of sexual discomfort set in a barren industrial landscape. If Lynch is a visionary for making it than what can we call Brooks for bursting out of a screening of it and deciding that this was the man to hand control over a $4million production of a hot property to? (Elephant Man fever was at its peak in the late 70s; a Broadway production of the same name was running with at one point David Bowie playing Merrick.)
Lynch's approach was basically to apply the Eraserhead treatment to a straightforward script. The black and white cinematography, the men slaving over a hot furnace in the workhouses were all taken from Eraserhead. The mechanics of gaslighting delight him in the way electricity does in his other films. He gets great performances out of the cast too. Hurt is amazing just for being able to bear having all the makeup done every day he was on set but the stand out in Hopkins as Frederick Treves, the surgeon that saves him from life in the freak show. Hopkins is so softly spoken, so hesitant his restraint gives the role enormous power.
Forty years haven't dented the film's impact at all. Lynch is a timeless oddity, and the topic – a mishapen Tory with a sense of entitlement who should be locked away for the benefit of himself and society – is very 2020.
Extras.
A New BFI Q&A with producer Jonathan Sanger
A new interview with still photographer Frank Connor.
Interview with David Lynch.
Interview with John Hurt
Mike Figgis interview with Lynch.
The Air Is On Fire: Lynch interview at Cartier Foundation.
Joseph Merrick: The Real Elephant Man.
The Terrible Elephant Man Revealed. A Making of documentary.
Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery.
Directed by David Lynch. 1980
Starring Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, John Gielgud, Anne Bancroft, Wendy Hillier, Freddy Francis and Dexter Fletcher. 4k Ultra HD restoration. Available on Digtal, DVD, BD & 4L UHD Collector's Edition from April 6th. Black and White. 124 mins.
Due to the enormity and extremity of the physical deformity that covered the majority of his head and body, it is often overlooked that Mr John Merrick (or at least the film version of him) was the most appalling snob. His indignation at being used as a circus freak is that a man of his calibre, who knows Shakespeare and can recite psalms by heart, is being belittled by East End proles. When he eulogizes his beautiful mother he is pitying the fact that he has been cheated out of his birthright of looking down on the people that are looking down on him. You suspect the hospital administrator played by Gielgud, a man who could look down at his nose at any object or being the universe put in front of him, sides with Merrick not because he isn't an animal, but because he's an upper-class human being.
The recreation of Victorian England is beguiling and thorough, going all the way down to the script which is mawkish and sentimental. The film is usually seen as a tug of war between the surrealism of director Lynch and the stuffy tradition of the British costume drama but I think Lynch is very at home in this world. (On screen anyway; off-screen many of the greats of the West End stage were apparently beastly to the young midwesterner who was far from home and effectively making his first proper film production.) Lynch is an uptight exhibitionist, a small c conservative, and I suspect that the talky scenes between theatrical royalty meant as much to him as the hellish visions of Victorian workhouses and factories. There are moments that should be cringey but you accept them because he has created a world where the melodrama is as integral as the moody monochrome surrealism.
Of all the many, many reasons why one should give thanks and blessings to Mel Brooks, his part in launching the career of Lynch is right up there with The Producers and Blazing Saddles. Lynch's only previous full feature was Eraserhead, effectively a student film made over five years at weekends or whenever people could get away. It's slow, plotless, an expression of sexual discomfort set in a barren industrial landscape. If Lynch is a visionary for making it than what can we call Brooks for bursting out of a screening of it and deciding that this was the man to hand control over a $4million production of a hot property to? (Elephant Man fever was at its peak in the late 70s; a Broadway production of the same name was running with at one point David Bowie playing Merrick.)
Lynch's approach was basically to apply the Eraserhead treatment to a straightforward script. The black and white cinematography, the men slaving over a hot furnace in the workhouses were all taken from Eraserhead. The mechanics of gaslighting delight him in the way electricity does in his other films. He gets great performances out of the cast too. Hurt is amazing just for being able to bear having all the makeup done every day he was on set but the stand out in Hopkins as Frederick Treves, the surgeon that saves him from life in the freak show. Hopkins is so softly spoken, so hesitant his restraint gives the role enormous power.
Forty years haven't dented the film's impact at all. Lynch is a timeless oddity, and the topic – a mishapen Tory with a sense of entitlement who should be locked away for the benefit of himself and society – is very 2020.
Extras.
A New BFI Q&A with producer Jonathan Sanger
A new interview with still photographer Frank Connor.
Interview with David Lynch.
Interview with John Hurt
Mike Figgis interview with Lynch.
The Air Is On Fire: Lynch interview at Cartier Foundation.
Joseph Merrick: The Real Elephant Man.
The Terrible Elephant Man Revealed. A Making of documentary.
Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery.
