Cheap The Elephant Man (DVD) (Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt) (David Lynch) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Elephant Man

Has Much Unrealized Potential
"The Elephant Man," director David Lynch's sophomore major film effort, seems to be groomed for greatness from the beginning. The story of John Merrick, a horribly deformed person who lived in London in the Victorian age and became somewhat of a celebrity among medical and social circles in that time, "The Elephant Man" is many things: a historical throwback to an earlier style of filmmaking, a story of human triumph, and a film designed to tug at the heartstrings and manipulate with them. Lynch isn't known for making "easy" films. Even his blue-collar masterpiece "The Straight Story," released more than 15 years after "The Elephant Man," has a depth and complexity not found in many novels. "Elephant" may stand as the one exception to this rule.

In a dank, filthy, black-and-white London, Dr. Frederick Treves (played by a much younger Anthony Hopkins before he became typecast as another, more evil Doctor) visits a carnival sideshow. Therein, he discovers John Merrick, the Elephant Man, a person whose bone structure has been twisted so that it appears he has a tusk growing from his swollen, malformed face. Treves recognizes Merrick as a medical curiosity, and plucks him from being a carnival exhibit to being a teaching tool for his classes. In a fit of compassion, Treves wonders if Merrick might actually be able to understand what goes on around him, and discovers that he is correct: the Elephant Man, while deformed on the outside, has a perfectly working mind and is fully cognizant of others, language, and actions. The rest of the movie follows Merrick as he tries to be recognized for the simple fact that he's a human being.

Because of this fairly straightforward treatment of a very serious subject - what does it mean to be human, and to have human rights and dignity - "Elephant" doesn't reach the same levels of depth as "Blue Velvet" or even "Straight Story." It's unfortunate, because Lynch is a very capable director, and it almost seems as if decisions were made not on the basis of what would make the best movie, but what would appeal to more people (and more award-shows).

Don't misunderstand, "Elephant" manages its subject matter with far more finesse than most other films that attempt to breach the same territory, it's simply that it had the potential to be more than it was. The acting is wonderful, and John Hurt was literally robbed for his Oscar as Merrick - the emotional range he portrays with body language alone reflects a mastery of his craft. As with all Lynch films, the meticulous attention to detail and cinematographical excellence are welcome qualities in a time when most movies settle for computer-rendered effects and pointing the camera at some people.

Rent "Elephant Man." As emotionally draining as this movie can be, you may want to watch it before you buy it, because it's not something you'll pop in the DVD player on a Friday night just to watch.

Final Grade: A-

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He is not an animal.
The magnificent visuals in *The Elephant Man* are rather less due to director David Lynch than they are to cinematographer and Hammer vet (and former director himself) Freddie Francis. On purely visual terms, this has to be one of the greatest black & white movies ever shot. Victorian Europe becomes Hell, here: gritty, damp sidewalks; plumes of smoke everywhere (light and dark, steam and coal); impenetrable shadows; nauseating grays; daguerreotype snapshots in hallucinogenic fogbanks. It is the work of no less than a genius. The photography all by itself raises this otherwise conventional drama to near art. Also worthy of praise are the set design and -- of course! -- the costuming. Only by the film's credits do you realize that it's John Hurt who's portraying the horribly deformed John Merrick, the famous personage in Victorian London who rose from sideshow degredation to national celebrity. Watching this movie again, I wished that Francois Truffaut had written and directed it. I was constantly reminded of that director's *The Wild Child*, in which he played the equivalent doctor-role that Anthony Hopkins plays here. Nothing wrong with Hopkins' performance, mind you; it's more the heavy-handed moralizing that his character is forced to personify. Lynch, that famous finger-waggling moralist, insists on putting Dr. Treves' ethical quandary into the character's own mouth, thereby making sure we "get" it. (Truffaut understood that the ethical quandary of bringing a wild child -- or an elephant man -- into normal society is already a given, without requiring sage speechifying, oratory, declamation.) Every time I hear about what a "daring" director David Lynch is, how he "thinks outside the box", how "revolutionary" he is, I recall this tear-jerking film. *The Elephant Man* is ultimately as sentimental as any Academy Award-bucking Hollywood product. Of course, that's exactly what the movie is. It's also as sentimental and moralistic as most of Lynch's other movies. It's definitely worth seeing, but let's not get carried away.

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The tyranny of normality.
Although generally interpreted as David Lynch's breakthrough, the main force behind the making of 'The Elephant Man' was Mel Brookes. Brookes fought agressively for David Lynch's final cut, including the opening and closing dream sequences that Paramount wanted to drop.

Lynch, whose fascination with the industrial landscape permeated his cinematic debut 'Eraserhead', must have taken a fancy to directing a movie set in smoke-staked Victorian Britain. Lynch himself likened John Merrick's facial structure to a series of uncontrollable explosions, an industrial-like catastrophe of the body (which sounds like the basis of an architypal David Cronenberg movie).

Although initially cared for by men of varying degrees of affection, it is with women that John Merrick shares his strongest bond. Within the moral confines of Victorian society, he is treated as the passive spectacle that women would have been viewed as at the time. His sensitivity and feminine affectations remain intact despite the brutality society has inflicted upon him. This bond would be almost impossible to imagine if he did not receive some maternal affection as a child. Yet ironically what ultimately dooms Merrick is the tyranny of normality that prevades Victorian society. All of those well-bred, well-meaning people who try to help, raise in him a fantasy of acceptance. A 'normality' he will always be excluded from. This tyranny of normality even leads him to believe that there is a 'proper' and 'accepted' way to sleep. Such is the huge leap from the conformist coventions of a century ago, that I believe if Merrick were alive today, he would wear his difference as a badge of individuality, something that has become a convention in itself.