| The Elephant Man | |
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| Directed by | David Lynch |
| Screenplay by |
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| Produced by | Jonathan Sanger |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Freddie Francis |
| Edited by | Anne V. Coates |
| Music by | John Morris |
Production company | |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 123 minutes[2] |
| Countries |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $5 million |
| Box office | $26 million(North America)[4] |
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The Elephant Man is a 1980biographicalhistorical drama film loosely based on the life ofJoseph Merrick (named "John" in the film), a severely deformed man who lived inLondon in the late 19th century. The film was directed byDavid Lynch, produced byJonathan Sanger, and executive produced byMel Brooks (who was uncredited, to avoid audiences anticipating the film being in the vein of his comedic works, although his company Brooksfilms is in the opening credits). It starsJohn Hurt,Anthony Hopkins,Anne Bancroft,John Gielgud,Wendy Hiller,Michael Elphick,Hannah Gordon, andFreddie Jones.
The screenplay was adapted by Lynch, Christopher De Vore, andEric Bergren fromFrederick Treves'The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923) andAshley Montagu'sThe Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity (1971). It was shot inblack-and-white byFreddie Francis and featured make-up work byChristopher Tucker.
The Elephant Man was a critical and commercial success, with critics highlighting Lynch's direction and Hurt's performance. The filmgarnered several accolades including threeBAFTA Awards (includingBest Film), and nominations for eightAcademy Awards and fourGolden Globe Awards. After receiving widespread criticism for failing to honor the make-up effects, theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was prompted to create acompetitive award for Best Makeup the following year.
Frederick Treves, asurgeon at theLondon Hospital, finds John Merrick in aVictorianfreak show in London'sEast End, where he is kept by Mr. Bytes, the brutish ringmaster. Merrick's head is kept hooded outside of shows, and Bytes, who views him asintellectually disabled due to his muteness, is paid by Treves to have him brought to the hospital for examination.
Treves presents Merrick to his colleagues and highlights his physical abnormalities; his deformed skull forces him to sleep with his head on his knees, since if he were to lie down, he wouldasphyxiate. On Merrick's return, he is beaten so badly by Bytes that his errand boy has to call Treves for medical help. Treves brings Merrick back to the hospital, where he 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". Treves encourages Merrick to speak, finding him to be intellectually competent.
To prove that Merrick can make progress, Treves trains him to say a few conversational sentences and part of the23rd 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 favourite. Carr Gomm permits him to stay, and Merrick spends his time building a model of a cathedral he can partially see from his window.
At tea with Treves and his wife, Ann, Merrick views photos of their family and in return shows them his mother's picture. He believes he must have been a disappointment to her, but hopes she would be proud to see him with friends. Merrick begins to take guests in his room, including the actressMadge Kendal, who gives him a copy ofRomeo 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 for this audience. 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 granted permanent residence after the governors' hospitality is commended byQueen Victoria, who sends word with her daughter-in-lawAlexandra. However, during one of Jim's raucous late-night showings, Merrick is kidnapped by Bytes. Another night porter 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 and leave him to die. Merrick is released by his fellow freakshow attractions who are escaping Bytes. Upon returning to London, Merrick is harassed throughLiverpool Street station by several young boys and accidentally knocks down a young girl. Merrick is chased, unmasked, and cornered by an angry mob. Before collapsing, he cries "I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!"[5]
Policemen return Merrick to the hospital. Treves apologises to Merrick for his ordeal, but Merrick says he is happy and his life fulfilled from all Treves has done. Treves and Mothershead take Merrick, accompanying Princess Alexandra, to see apantomime. 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 and Treves bid each other goodnight, and Merrick completes his cathedral model. He lies down on his back in bed, imitating a sleeping child in a picture on his wall, and dies. He is consoled by a vision of his mother, who quotesLord Tennyson's "Nothing Will Die".
ProducerJonathan Sanger optioned the script from writers Christopher De Vore andEric Bergren after receiving the script from his babysitter.[7] Sanger had been working asMel Brooks' assistant director onHigh Anxiety.[8] Sanger showed Brooks the script, and Brooks said he "read it through at one sitting and cried. It was the first time something like that had moved me sinceThe Miracle Worker."[9]
Brooks decided to help finance via Brooksfilms, his new company, which had just made its first film,Fatso. Brooks' personal assistant, Stuart Cornfeld, suggestedDavid Lynch to Sanger.[10][8]
Sanger met Lynch, and they shared scripts they were working on (The Elephant Man and Lynch's unrealizedRonnie 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 anEraserhead viewing at a20th Century Fox screening room; Brooks loved it and enthusiastically agreed for Lynch to direct.[8] "Eraserhead made me feel he could handle melancholy and freaks and could use black and white film," said Brooks. "We wantElephant Man in black and white to minimise the horrific deformity and also to help us capture the feel of Victorian England."[9]
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.[11]
A stage play about Merrick calledThe Elephant Man byBernard Pomerance had debuted in 1977 and enjoyed a successful run on Broadway in 1979. This play wasadapted as a television movie in 1982. It was not used as a source for the film.[12] The producers of the play sued Brooks over the use of the title and he counter sued claiming it was public property.[9]
Dustin Hoffman wanted the role of John Merrick, but Sanger rejected the idea, saying "We’re always going to be looking to see where the Elephant Man ends and Dustin Hoffman begins". Lynch considered his friendJack Nance, who he worked with onEraserhead, for the role, but he cast John Hurt in the role after seeingThe Naked Civil Servant.[13] At the time, Hurt was still makingHeaven's Gate which had fallen badly behind schedule due to directorMichael Cimino's perfectionism. Hurt spent so long waiting for something to do that he performed the role of Merrick in the interim before returning toHeaven's Gate to complete shooting.[14]
The budget was $5 million, $4 million of which was raised fromFred Silverman ofNBC.[7] Part of this deal involved Brooks doing a one hour special for NBC.[9] The remainder came fromEMI Films.[15][16]
For his second feature and first studio film, albeit one independently financed,[17] Lynch provided the musical direction and sound design. Lynch also tried to design the make-up himself, but the design didn't work.[7][18] The makeup, now supervised byChristopher Tucker, was based on direct casts of Merrick's body, which had been kept in theRoyal London Hospital's private museum. The makeup took seven to eight hours to apply each day and two hours to delicately remove.[7]John Hurt would arrive on set at 5 am and shoot his scenes from noon until 10 pm. 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."[19] Because of the strain on the actor, he worked alternate days.[7]
The film is bookended withsurrealist sequences centred around Merrick's mother and her death. Lynch usedSamuel Barber'sAdagio for Strings to underline the climax and Merrick's own death. ComposerJohn 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."[20]
Following their return from England with a print, Lynch and Sanger screenedThe Elephant Man for Brooks, who suggested some minor cuts but told them that the film would be released as they had made it.[10]
AWest 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.[21][7]
The Elephant Man was a box office hit, grossing $26 million in the United States.[4][7] In Japan, it was the second highest-grossing foreign film of the year withtheatrical rentals of ¥2.45 billion, behind onlyThe Empire Strikes Back.[22]
Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 91% based on 64 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."[23] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 16 critic reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[24]
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."[25]
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 thehuman condition as reflected by John Merrick, and I kept drawing blanks."[26] In the bookThe 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.[27]
The Elephant Man has since been ranked among the best films of the 1980s inTime Out (where it placed 19th),[28]Paste (56th),[29] andRolling Stone (38th),[30] and among the greatest biopics of all time.[31][32][30][33] The film also received five votes in the 2012Sight & Sound polls.[34] The February 2020 issue ofNew York Magazine listsThe Elephant Man as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."[35]
The Elephant Man was nominated for eightAcademy Awards,[36] tyingRaging Bull at the53rd Academy Awards, includingBest Picture,Actor in a Leading Role (Hurt),[37]Art Direction-Set Decoration (Stuart Craig,Robert Cartwright,Hugh Scaife),Best Costume Design,Best Director,Best Film Editing,Music: Original Score, andWriting: Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.[38] However, it did not win any.
Industry experts were appalled that the film was not going to be honoured for its make-up effects when theAcademy 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, theAcademy Award for Best Makeup category was introduced withAn American Werewolf in London as its first recipient.[7][39]
It won theBAFTA Award for Best Film, and otherBAFTA Awards for Best Actor (Hurt) and Best Production Design, and was nominated for four others: Direction, Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing.
The film is recognized byAmerican Film Institute in these lists:
The film has been issued many times onVHS,Betamax,CED,LaserDisc andDVD. The first DVD was released on December 11, 2001, by Paramount Home Entertainment.[41] The version released as part of the David LynchLime Green Box includes several interviews with Lynch and Hurt, and a Joseph Merrick documentary.[42] This material is also available on the exclusive treatment on theEuropean market as part ofOptimum Releasing's StudioCanal Collection.[43][44] The film has been available onBlu-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).[45]
A 4K restoration (created from theoriginal 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 fromThe Criterion Collection in the United States on September 29, 2020.[46] The restoration was also released on4K Ultra HD Blu-ray (including a remastered Blu-ray) in the UK in April 2020.[47]
A tie-in novelization byChristine Sparks was published byBallantine Books in 1980.[48]
The musical score ofThe Elephant Man was composed and conducted byJohn Morris, and it was performed by theNational Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1980, the company20th Century Fox Records published this film's original musical score as both anLP album and as acassette 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.
In 1994, the firstcompact disc (CD) issue of the film score was made by the companyMilan, which specializes infilm scores andsoundtrack albums.[49]
Track listing for the first U.S. release on LP
Side one
Side two
Michael Jackson used excerpts from the film in his song "Morphine" from the 1997 remix albumBlood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix.[50]
The Jam's former bassistBruce 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.[51]
ActorBradley 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 ofThe Elephant Man play in 2014.[52]
Inseason 3, episode 21 ofThe Simpsons, "Black Widower",Lisa daydreams ofAunt Selma's new boyfriend as the Elephant Man.[53]
In season 4, episode 13 ofSeinfeld, "The Pick", in defense of allegedly picking his nose, Jerry pleads to a surrounding crowd: "Are we not human? If we pick, do we not bleed? I am not an animal!"[54]
The 1992 filmBatman 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!"[55]
British TV presenterKarl Pilkington has often cited the film as his favorite, and has referenced it frequently during his appearances onThe Ricky Gervais Show.[56]
MusicianMichael Stipe loves the film and cites it as an inspiration for theR.E.M. song "Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)".[57] Another R.E.M. song, "New Test Leper", quotes the line "I am not an animal."[58]
MusicianNicole Dollanganger featured a sample of the film in her 2012 song "Cries of the Elephant Man Bones".[59]
MusicianMylène Farmer's song "Psychiatric" from the 1991 albumL'autre... is a tribute to the film andJohn Hurt's voice is sampled throughout the song, repeating several times: "I'm a human being, I'm not an animal".[60]
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