The Lynch Who Stole Christmas: The Elephant Man (Dir David Lynch, 2h3m, 1980)

By now you should know the drill. It's December, it's time to talk about some of the work of another great filmmaker. This year, there was only only one option. David Lynch, perhaps the greatest filmmaker of the last forty years of American cinema, died this January; in its wake have come commemorations, celebrations, rememberances and the slightly bizarre sideshow of everything from Lynch's books, records, and cameras to his guitars, and, inevitiably, coffee machines going under the hammer, together with ephemera, props, and memorbelia from his ten theatrical films, thirty plus short films, and the cult tv series Twin Peaks and On the Air. David Lynch has been on the minds of many of those who called themselves fans of his work, and, but for the disowned Dune, I decided it was time I joined them. 

Where better* to begin than with the work that broke him into the mainstream, and perhaps his least "Lynchian" work, The Elephant Man, in which Lynch, and John Hurt, search for humanity and dignity in the life of John Merrick. Beginning with a dream sequence - one of three that feels closer to the typical Lynch themes, this one depicting the supposed cause of Merrick's deformities, at the hands of a circus elephant frightening his mother - the film quickly changes tacks to what its focus is. Drawing on The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity by Ashley Montagu, and The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences by Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins), the film begins with Treves' discovery of Merrick in a travelling amusement run by the cruel Bytes (Freddie Jones). 

Soon liberating Merrick from Bytes, after displaying him to his colleagues, and the unfortunate man is beaten by his cruel "owner" so Treves takes him back to the London Hospital, and despite the reactions of fear and - Lynch appears clear on this point - cowardice from the staff, so Treves attempts to habilitate him, finding Merrick not to be a mute, but highly articulate despite his condition, and, thanks to Hurt's sublime performance under nine hours worth and multiple kilograms of makeup, a deeply affecting soul to encounter. Encounter he does, as the film shifts between his gentle treatment by the celebrities and wealthy of the era, including Madge Kendal (Anne Bancroft), and the Princess of Wales (Helen Ryan), and his objectification and rough treatment by the working classes, led by hospital porter Renshaw (Michael Elphick), all of which adds layers to Lynch(and fellow script writers, Christopher de Vore and Eric Begren)'s commentary on man's inhumanity -and kindness- to man.

At first glance, The Elephant Man may seem grounded; together with The Straight Story, it remains the director's only work based upon true events, his only true period film, and lacks the psychological darkness of much of Lynch's ouvre. It is also the only film I will cover in this season not masterminded by Lynch, brought on as a gun for hire by, of all people, Mel Brooks - who would still defend Lynch to the hilt in an infamous exchange with the film's financial backers. Yet, like Merrick, look beyond skin deep and Lynch's fingerprints are all over the film .The black and white film shot by Freddie Francis, by this point as reknowned for his role as a horror director as for the usage of the rich black and white that pervades The Elephant Man. Against this is imagery strikingly Lynchian - again and again, like a fugue, Lynch and Francis return to steam, to machinery, to the emblematic sense of Progress of the Victorian age, against which innocents like Merrick seem to stand little chance. The groaning, droning soundtrack by Brooks' stalwart, John Morris only adds to this.
 
Merrick, despite - or perhaps because - of the limitations upon Hurt, is a stunning performance, at once one of great physicality, such that Hurt worked only alternate days during the film's production. Yet, we lose Hurt to the role, to this utterly beguiling role where we cannot but emphaise with him. We want the world to be kind to John Merrick, as Treves and his wife (Hannah Gordon) are kind to Merrick, as the stern but ultimately motherly figure of Mrs Mothershead (Wendy Hiller) is kind to Merrick. It is not. The world is cruel to Merrick over and over, one form of depersonalisation, one form of sideshow arguably swapped for another, and the rest of the world is not as understanding, as kind, as loving as Treves and those who are close to John. 

The Elephant Man is a film about a man fighting for his dignity, for his humanity, and one could read it, given the presence of both the stage, the place where John is ultimately welcomed, and the model church, half-imagined by Merrick, as symbolic of greater forces that sustain John Merrick towards dignity, and humanity, and love. Yet Merrick never loses, even when once again taken by the cruel and by now alcoholic Bytes, that quiet dignity - when chased through a station, Lynch again linking steam and machinery and man's increasing inhumanity, first by cruel boys, then by a mob of men, it is here that Merrick finally articulates the film's central message, that he is as much a man as any of his persectors. 

The film is compassionate - how could it not be? - but never maudlin and certainly, compared to many of the films that have essentially taken its template as writ to make so-called "inspirational" films, together with Hurt's transformative prosthetics that would cause the Academy Awards to set up the Best Makeup award after its shocking ommision, mawkish. It is none of the sort. It is not fear that Hopkins as Treves shows when first meeting Merrick, but sorrow, tears rolling down his face as he departs; it is not fear his colleague, Gomm (John Gielgud) empresses to Treves, but a great, saddening empathy, and it is this that it shares with much of Lynch's other work.

Midway through episode four of 2017's Twin Peaks The Return, Lynch nails perhaps that other great facet of his filmography, his great emphathy, his understanding for other people, and especially for people who are different. "I told them to fix their hearts or die", Lynch says, through the mouthpiece of his role as Gordon Cole. The Elephant Man is that emphathy on full show, that "fix your hearts or die" mentality wielded with pathos, with kindness, with love, against the cruel and small-minded masses, only made the stronger by the pathos-filled performance by John Hurt.

Rating: Must See

The Elephant Man is available via BluRay from Studio Canal and streaming from AppleTV

Next week, we continue our tribute to the great David Lynch in the nightmarish noir mystery of Blue Velvet

* Editor's note: You may be asking, dear reader "Where is Eraserhead", Lynch's first feature, his arrival as unsettling force in the Midnight Movie sphere, the first film to feature actors like Jack Nance and Charlotte Stewart, and crew like Frederick Elmes and Jack Fisk, and certainly the first film of his ouvre to be considered Lynchian. The reasons are myriad; its complex production, its pure...indescrible nature, the fact that the film remains (at least in the UK) bizarrely difficult to get hold of, and, in all honesty, because I feel Eraserhead should and must be experienced, rather than read about. This is to say nothing of the approachability of The Elephant Man for audiences unused to Lynch's more surreal outings - of all things, the film was narrowly pipped by Empire Strikes Back as 1980's highest grossing foreign film in Japan.