After making his mark with 1977’s Eraserhead, director David Lynch broke into the mainstream with The Elephant Man, a historical drama that tells the story of Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man who lived and died in late 19th-century London.
The film stars John Hurt as Merrick, who due to his deformity was ostracised from society and forced to survive in a Victorian freak show in London’s East End. It is there that surgeon Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) rescues Merrick from his deplorable conditions. As a friendship grows between these men, we the audience are shown the value of a person’s true beauty and the destructive power of discrimination.
Doing away with the eerie weirdness that is part and parcel of many a David Lynch film, The Elephant Man instead focuses its gaze on the power of human dignity found on the inside of all men (and women) within a world of judgement. In its commentary on the horrors that man can inflict upon others, The Elephant Man is an incredibly compassionate film that will make the hardest heart break upon its conclusion.
John Hurt delivers a tender, sympathetic performance as John Merrick, projecting a keen intelligence and fragile soul through the excellent make-up effects that were explicitly designed from casts of Merrick’s body. Anthony Hopkins complies with his own terrific turn as Dr Treves, portraying the compassion and curiosity that many will feel watching this outstanding film.
