The film begins with wild African elephants striking down Merrick's mother on an uncharted African island, followed by the wailing of a baby (Little Albert Experiment with a rat, rabbit, dog, monkey, seal fur coat, and Santa Claus mask) or tortoise in the smoke.
Frederick Treves, a surgeon at the London Hospital, finds John Merrick in a Victorianfreak show in London's East End, where he is kept by Mr. Bytes, the brutish ringmaster. His head is kept hooded, and his "owner", who views him as intellectually disabled, is paid by Treves to bring him to the hospital for examination.
Treves presents Merrick to his colleagues and highlights his deformed skull, which forces him to sleep with his head on his knees, since if he were to lie down, he would asphyxiate. On Merrick's return, he is beaten so badly by Bytes that he has to call Treves for medical help. Treves brings him back to the hospital.
Merrick is tended to by hospital matron Mrs. Mothershead, as the other nurses are too frightened of him. Mr. Carr Gomm, the hospital's Governor, is against housing Merrick, as the hospital does not accept "incurables".
To prove that Merrick can make progress, Treves trains him to say a few conversational sentences and part of the 23rd Psalm. Carr Gomm sees through this ruse but, as he is leaving, Merrick begins to recite the whole of the Psalm. Merrick tells the doctors that he knows how to read, and has memorized the 23rd Psalm because it is his favorite. Carr Gomm permits him to stay, and Merrick spends his time practicing conversation with Treves and building a model of a cathedral he can see from his window.
Merrick has tea with Treves and his wife, and is so overwhelmed by their kindness that he shows them his mother's picture. He believes he must have been a "disappointment" to his mother, but hopes she would be proud to see him with his "lovely friends". Merrick begins to take guests in his rooms, including the actress Madge Kendal, who gives him a copy of Romeo and Juliet; they play some lines from it and Kendal kisses Merrick.
Merrick quickly becomes an object of curiosity to high society, and Mrs. Mothershead expresses concerns that he is still being put on display as a freak. Treves begins to question the morality of his own actions. Meanwhile, a night porter named Jim starts selling tickets to locals, who come at night to gawk at the "Elephant Man".
The issue of Merrick's residence is challenged at a hospital council meeting, but he is guaranteed permanent residence by command of the hospital's royal patron, Queen Victoria, who sends word with her daughter-in-law Alexandra. However, during one of Jim's raucous late-night showings Merrick is kidnapped by Bytes. A witness reports this to Treves, who confronts Jim about what he has done; Jim is then fired by Mothershead.
Bytes takes Merrick on the road as a circus attraction once again. During a "show" in Belgium, Merrick, who is weak and dying, collapses, causing a drunken Bytes to lock him in a cage at night with some apes and leave him to die. Merrick is released by his fellow freakshow attractions.
Upon returning to London, he is harassed through Liverpool Street station by several young boys and accidentally knocks down a young girl. Merrick is chased, unmasked, and cornered by an angry mob. He cries "I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I... am... a... man!" before collapsing.
Policemen return Merrick to the hospital and Treves. He recovers some of his health, but is dying of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Treves and Mothershead take Merrick, accompanying Princess Alexandra, to see a magical pantomime. Kendal comes on stage afterwards and dedicates the performance to him, and a proud Merrick receives a standing ovation from the audience.
Back at the hospital, Merrick thanks Treves for all he has done, and completes his cathedral model. Saying "It is finished", he lies down on his back in bed and dies. He is consoled by a vision of his mother, who quotes Lord Tennyson's "Nothing Will Die".
Nula Conwell as Nurse Kathleen, one of Merrick's nurses
Production
Development
Producer Jonathan Sanger optioned the script from writers Christopher De Vore and Eric Bergren after receiving the script from his babysitter.[6] Sanger had been working as Mel Brooks' assistant director on High Anxiety.[7] Sanger showed Brooks the script, whereupon he decided to help finance via Brooksfilms, his new company. Brooks' personal assistant, Stuart Cornfeld, suggested David Lynch to Sanger.[8][7]
Sanger met Lynch and they shared scripts they were working on (The Elephant Man and Lynch's unrealized Ronnie Rocket). Lynch told Sanger that he would love to direct the script after reading it, and Sanger endorsed him after hearing Lynch's ideas. However, Brooks had not heard of Lynch at the time. Sanger and Cornfeld set up an Eraserhead viewing at a 20th Century Fox screening room; Brooks loved it and enthusiastically agreed for Lynch to direct.[7] By his own request, Brooks was not credited as executive producer to ensure that audiences would not expect a comedy after seeing his name attached.[9]
For his second feature and first studio film, albeit one independently financed,[11] Lynch provided the musical direction and sound design. Lynch also tried to design the make-up himself, but the design didn't work.[6][12] The makeup, now supervised by Christopher Tucker, was based on direct casts of Merrick's body, which had been kept in the Royal London Hospital's private museum. The makeup took seven to eight hours to apply each day and two hours to delicately remove.[6]John Hurt would arrive on set at 5am and shoot his scenes from noon until 10pm. After his first experience of the inconvenience of having to apply the makeup and perform with it, he called his girlfriend, saying, "I think they have finally managed to make me hate acting."[13]
Because of the strain on the actor, he worked alternate days.[6] Lynch originally wanted Jack Nance for the title character. "But it just wasn't in the cards," Lynch says; the role went to Hurt after Brooks, Lynch and Sanger saw his performance as Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant.[14]
The film is bookended with surrealist sequences centred around Merrick's mother and her death. Lynch used Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings to underline the climax and Merrick's own death. Composer John Morris argued against using the music, stating that "this piece is going to be used over and over and over again in the future... And every time it's used in a film it's going to diminish the effect of the scene."[15]
Post-production
Following their return from England with a print, Lynch and Sanger screened The Elephant Man for Brooks, who suggested some minor cuts but told them that the film would be released as they had made it.[8]
Lawsuit
A West Endplay of the same name was enjoying a successful Broadway run at the time of the film's production. The producers sued Brooksfilms over the use of the title.[16][6]
Release
Box office
The Elephant Man was a box office hit, grossing $26 million in the United States.[4][6] In Japan, it was the second highest-grossing foreign film of the year with theatrical rentals of ¥2.45 billion, behind only The Empire Strikes Back.[17]
Critical response
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 92% based on 63 reviews, with an average score of 8.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "David Lynch's relatively straight second feature finds an admirable synthesis of compassion and restraint in treating its subject, and features outstanding performances by John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins."[18] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 16 critic reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[19]
Vincent Canby wrote: "Mr. Hurt is truly remarkable. It can't be easy to act under such a heavy mask... the physical production is beautiful, especially Freddie Francis' black-and-white photography."[20]
A small number of critics were less favourable. Roger Ebert gave it 2/4 stars, writing: "I kept asking myself what the film was really trying to say about the human condition as reflected by John Merrick, and I kept drawing blanks."[21] In the book The Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture, Nadja Durbach describes the work as "much more mawkish and moralising than one would expect from the leading postmodern surrealist filmmaker" and "unashamedly sentimental". She blamed this mawkishness on the use of Treves' memoirs as source material.[22]
The Elephant Man has since been ranked among the best films of the 1980s in Time Out (where it placed 19th)[23] and Paste (56th).[24] The film also received five votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls.[25]
Industry experts were appalled that the film was not going to be honoured for its make-up effects when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nominations at the time. A letter of protest was sent to the academy's Board of Governors requesting to give the film an honorary award. The academy refused, but in response to the outcry, they decided to give the make-up artists their own category. A year later, the Academy Award for Best Makeup category was introduced with An American Werewolf in London as its first recipient.[6][29]
It won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, and other BAFTA Awards for Best Actor (Hurt) and Best Production Design, and was nominated for four others: Direction, Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing.
John Merrick: "I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a man." – Nominated[30]
Home media
The film has been issued many times on VHS, Betamax, CED, LaserDisc and DVD. The first DVD was released on December 11, 2001, by Paramount Home Entertainment.[31] The version released as part of the David Lynch Lime Green Box includes several interviews with Lynch and Hurt, and a Joseph Merrick documentary.[32] This material is also available on the exclusive treatment on the European market as part of Optimum Releasing's StudioCanal Collection.[33] The film has been available on Blu-ray since 2009 throughout Europe and in Australia and Japan but not in the US (however the discs will play in both region A & B players).[34]
A 4K restoration (created from the original camera negative, supervised by Lynch) was carried out for the film's 40th anniversary, and was released in a director-approved special edition in both Blu-ray and DVD formats from The Criterion Collection in the United States on September 29, 2020.[35] The restoration was also released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray (including a remastered Blu-ray) in the UK in April 2020.[36]
The musical score of The Elephant Man was composed and conducted by John Morris, and it was performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1980, the company 20th Century Fox Records published this film's original musical score as both an LP album and as a cassette in the United States. Its front cover artwork features a masked John Merrick against a backdrop of smoke, as seen on the advance theatrical poster for the film.
The Jam's former bassist Bruce Foxton was inspired strongly by the film, and in response wrote the song "Freak" with the single's cover making a reference to the film.[40]
Actor Bradley Cooper credits watching the film with his father as a child as his inspiration to become an actor. Cooper played the character in a Broadway revival of The Elephant Man play in 2014.[41]
The 1992 film Batman Returns parodies the iconic line "I am not an animal. I am a man." In one scene, the Penguin, after being called Oswald, angrily yells "I am not a human being! I am an animal!"[43]
British TV presenter Karl Pilkington often has cited it as his favourite film. Pilkington's love for the film brought many new features to his various podcasts and radio shows.[44]
Musician Michael Stipe loves the film and cites it as an inspiration for the R.E.M. song "Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)".[45] Another R.E.M. song, "New Test Leper", quotes the line "I am not an animal."[46]
Musician Nicole Dollanganger featured a sample of the film in her 2012 song "Cries of the Elephant Man Bones".[47]
Musician Mylène Farmer's song "Psychiatric" from the 1991 album L'autre... is a tribute to the film and John Hurt's voice is sampled throughout the song, repeating several times: "I'm a human being, I'm not an animal".[48]
The 2019 comedy TV series Year of the Rabbit features Merrick as a character, reimagined as a confident, somewhat sassy, and decidedly camp theatrical performer, who has become independently wealthy through managing his own freak show (of which he is the star attraction).[49]
Joseph Carey Merrick, often erroneously called John Merrick, was an English man known for his severe physical deformities. He was first exhibited at a freak show under the stage name "the Elephant Man", and then went to live at the London Hospital after meeting Sir Frederick Treves, subsequently becoming well known in London society.
Sir John Vincent Hurt was an English actor whose career spanned over five decades. Hurt was regarded as one of Britain's finest actors. Director David Lynch described him as "simply the greatest actor in the world". He possessed what was described as the "most distinctive voice in Britain". He received numerous awards including the BAFTA Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award in 2012 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2015 for his services to drama.
Frederick Charles Jones was an English actor who had an extensive career in television, theatre and cinema productions for almost sixty years. In theatre, he was best known for originating the role of Sir in The Dresser; in film, he was best known for his role as the showman Bytes in The Elephant Man (1980); and in television, he was best known for playing Sandy Thomas in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale from 2005 to 2018.
Frederick William Francis was an English cinematographer and film director.
Frederick William Treves BEM was an English character actor with an extensive repertoire, specialising in avuncular, military and titled types.
The Elephant Man is a play by Bernard Pomerance. It premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in London on 7 November 1977. It later played in repertory at the National Theatre in London. It ran Off-Broadway from 14 January to 18 March 1979, at The Theatre at St. Peter's. The production's Broadway debut in 1979 at the Booth Theatre was produced by Richmond Crinkley and Nelle Nugent, and directed by Jack Hofsiss. The play closed in 1981 after eight previews and 916 regular performances, with revivals in 2002 and 2014.
Frederick Simon Treves is an English actor, director and writer, best known for playing Harold 'Stinker' Pinker in three series of ITV's Jeeves and Wooster. In 2018 he played Aleister Crowley in the short film Boca do Inferno, directed by Luis Porto and shot in Porto and Cascais, Portugal.
Bob Murawski is an American film editor. He was awarded the 2010 Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his work on The Hurt Locker, which he shared with his wife, fellow editor Chris Innis. He often works with film director Sam Raimi, having edited the Spider-Man trilogy, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Murawski is an elected member of the American Cinema Editors, and is the co-founder of Grindhouse Releasing, an acclaimed film distribution company specializing in re-releases of cult films.
Christopher Tucker was a British make-up artist for theatre and film. He specialized in the creation of prosthetic make-up for horror films. Among his notable works were the make-up effects for The Elephant Man, The Company of Wolves, and the stage musical The Phantom of the Opera.
Major Richard Culling Carr-Gomm, OBE was the founder of the Abbeyfield Society, the Morpeth Society, St Matthew Society and the Carr-Gomm Society, UK charities providing care and housing for disadvantaged and lonely people.
A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with intersex variations, those with extraordinary diseases and conditions, and others with performances expected to be shocking to viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have attention-getting physical performers such as fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.
Tom Norman, born Thomas Noakes, was an English businessman, showman and the last exhibitor of Joseph Merrick who was otherwise known as the "Elephant Man". Among his later exhibits were a troupe of little people, a "Man in a Trance", "John Chambers, the armless Carpenter", and the "World's Ugliest Woman".
Henry Radcliffe Crocker, FRCP was an English dermatologist. Originally from Hove in Sussex, England, Crocker started his working life as an apprentice to a general practitioner before going to London to attend the University College Hospital medical school. Working as a resident medical officer with William Tilbury Fox, Crocker began a lifelong career in dermatology. With his 1888 book Diseases of the Skin: their Description, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment, he became known as a leading figure of dermatology.
The Elephant Man is a 1982 American biographical television film directed by Jack Hofsiss about the 19th-century English medical curiosity Joseph Merrick. The script was adapted by Steve Lawson from the 1977 play of the same name by Bernard Pomerance. It was first broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) on January 4, 1982.
Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet, was a prominent British surgeon, and an expert in anatomy. Treves was renowned for his surgical treatment of appendicitis, and is credited with saving the life of King Edward VII in 1902. He is also widely known for his friendship with Joseph Merrick, dubbed the "Elephant Man" for his severe deformities.
The True History of the Elephant Man is a biography of Joseph Merrick written by Michael Howell and Peter Ford. It was published in 1980 in London, by Allison & Busby. It was distributed in the United States by Schocken Books. A second edition was published in 1983. Following Michael Howell's death in 1986, Peter Ford published a third edition of the book in 1992.
Eraserhead is a 1977 American surrealist psychological body horror film written, directed, produced, and edited by David Lynch. Lynch also created its score and sound design, which included pieces by a variety of other musicians. Shot in black and white, it was Lynch's first feature-length effort following several short films. Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near, and Jack Fisk, it tells the story of a man (Nance) who is left to care for his grossly deformed child in a desolate industrial landscape.
Eric Lee Bergren was an American screenwriter.
References
↑ Higgins, John (October 8, 1980). "The Elephant Man, which opens tomorrow at the ABC, Shaftesbury Avenue, is also likely to establish the reputation of its director, David Lynch". The Times. p.9.
Biderman, Shai; Tabeka, Assaf (2011). "The Monster Within: Alienation and Social Conformity in The Elephant Man". The Philosophy of David Lynch. University Press of Kentucky. p.207. ISBN9780813129914.
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