Film Review: The Elephant Man (1980)

Fig. 1 The Elephant Man (1980) Film Poster

David Lynch’s ‘The Elephant Man’ is based on the real life story of Joseph Merrick’s dealings

with his deformity and explores how it impacted on Merrick’s life.

The film begins in a typically Lynch surrealist style with flashes of black and white imagery

that give a dreamlike sense and later on click to the audience that this is supposedly how Merrick’s

(John Hurt) deformity came about. The dreamlike telling of this however, explores Lynch’s belief that

this wasn’t the case, instead that it could have happened to any of us. The black and white

cinematography doesn’t allow the impact of colour deprive us of the true emotion behind the story

of ‘The Elephant Man’ instead, in the especially tense parts the black and white seems to get deeper

expressing more emotion. ‘Lynch, still brings his stylish surrealistic lenses to the film, and mixes

moods of dark tension and music with dialogue about what it means to be human.’ (Gullotta,

2011)

The linear and quite slow placed (in the way of discovery) narrative further assists in the expression

of the film’s emotion because rather than the sudden viewing of Merrick, the audience are slowly

introduced to him via his personality and silhouetting through shadows therefore, becoming more

open to his actual visual appearance because they feel they know him personally already. This

silhouetting of his physique however does explore Barthes’ Enigma code as the audience sits in wait

to ‘meet’ this man that has captured Frederick Treves’ (Anthony Hopkins) interest.

Fig. 2 The enigma of Merrick’s appearance

Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory on binary oppositions is evident throughout many scenes in ‘The

Elephant Man’ most noticeably between Merrick’s treatment from others. The range of Victorian

societies seem to bounce off of each other with their different ideologies towards Merrick especially

the poor, money grabbing seeing him as an object of gaping and a circus act whereas, the upper,

more respected class, as an equal with his intelligence and personality outweighing his deformity.

The film’s use of the hypodermic syringe model therefore injects the beliefs similarly to ‘La Belle et la

Bête’ that we should not judge each other by our appearance and first sight or we risk naivety to the

wider world.

Instead of following Chomsky’s belief of diverting the mass media from real life issues

because an audience is more likely to engage ‘The Elephant Man’ opens up a whole new spin on the

representation of people and allows us to empathise and relate with Merrick because we have all at

some point felt like an outsider ‘struggling to be heard over the prejudice of the many.’

(Haflidason, 2001) ‘The Elephant Man’ seems like a symbol of all that is good in us being neglected

and mistreated by the lust for an ideal and ‘perfect’ world.

Fig. 3 Merrick’s treatment as a circus act

David Lynch deals with disturbing tableau throughout of Merrick’s treatment creating moral

panic in the audience as we worry what will happen to him but also what would happen to someone

like Joseph Merrick now. There is a sense of role reversal through the disturbing scenes as Merrick

isn’t the one going around harming people and putting them in horrible situations. Instead it is those

who are seen as the human ones. The ones who scream at Merrick in horror as they see him as some

sort of monster and as such are actually enjoying tormenting him due to his unfortunate deformity

which is an example of Schadenfreud’s theories. ‘The Elephant Man is a movie dealing with an

unspeakably hideous monster…and that monster is us.’ (Jacobson, 2001) Instead of a stereotypical

view on what a monster physically looks like this ‘monster’ is one of the few who are actually human

throughout the film connoting that the monster comes from the person inside, not what you

perceive from the outside and as Merrick rightly puts it himself ‘I… am not an animal…I am a human

being!’

Bibliography

Gullotta, D, N. (2011) Battle Royal with Cheese

http://www.battleroyalewithcheese.com/2011/09/elephant-man-1980-review.html (Accessed

08/10/11)

Haflidason, A. (2001) BBC Films

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/05/24/the_elephant_man_1980_review.shtml (Accessed

08/10/11)

Jacobson, M. (2001) DVD Movie Central

http://www.dvdmoviecentral.com/ReviewsText/elephant_man.htm (Accessed 08/10/11)

List of Illustrations

Fig. 1. The Elephant Man (1980) Film Poster From: The Elephant Man Directed by: David Lynch. [film

poster] On uk.movieposter.com http://uk.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/111/MPW-55902

(Accessed 08/10/11)

Fig. 2. The enigma of Merrick’s appearance (1980) From: The Elephant Man Directed by: David

Lynch. [film still] On fanpop.com http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-elephant-

man/images/11130952/title/elephant-man-movie-still-screencap (Accessed 08/10/11)

Fig. 3. Merrick’s treatment as a circus act (1980) From: The Elephant Man Directed by: David Lynch.

[film still] On fanpop.com http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-elephant-

man/images/11130774/title/john-hurt-joseph-merrick-photo (Accessed 08/10/11)