2008 Woodie Awards
Lynch's film offers insight into gross disfigurement of human behavior
Tanya Ludlow
Issue date: 8/27/07 Section: Features
Perhaps David Lynch's most accessible film "The Elephant Man" is loosely based on the story of John Merrick, a man was famous in the late 1800s for his hideous deformities.
A prominent doctor rescues him from horrendous living conditions as a sideshow freak, and it is discovered that, surprise surprise, Merrick is actually a nice and sensitive young man. However, to say that this movie is important because it tells you to not judge people because of the way they look would be an over-simplification and might imply that the strength of the film relies on grotesque emotional manipulation (three words: I Am Sam).
If movies as art are meant to reveal the sometimes unsavory side of human nature, then The Elephant Man is effective at exposing our innate emotions of disgust and revulsion that have a curiously strong link with our penchant for voyeurism.
Yes, the man who beats him and forces him to display himself as a sideshow freak is obviously a villain, but even more insidious are the throngs of people who pay to see him, or who pursue him en masse in a train station, cornering him in order to get a peek.
Softies will sniffle, smarties will ponder the dehumanization of "the other," Lynch fans will enjoy the surreal and weirdly sexually charged sequences set to elephant noises, and your dummy friends might note that John Hurt, who plays Merrick, was that wand guy in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.
A prominent doctor rescues him from horrendous living conditions as a sideshow freak, and it is discovered that, surprise surprise, Merrick is actually a nice and sensitive young man. However, to say that this movie is important because it tells you to not judge people because of the way they look would be an over-simplification and might imply that the strength of the film relies on grotesque emotional manipulation (three words: I Am Sam).
If movies as art are meant to reveal the sometimes unsavory side of human nature, then The Elephant Man is effective at exposing our innate emotions of disgust and revulsion that have a curiously strong link with our penchant for voyeurism.
Yes, the man who beats him and forces him to display himself as a sideshow freak is obviously a villain, but even more insidious are the throngs of people who pay to see him, or who pursue him en masse in a train station, cornering him in order to get a peek.
Softies will sniffle, smarties will ponder the dehumanization of "the other," Lynch fans will enjoy the surreal and weirdly sexually charged sequences set to elephant noises, and your dummy friends might note that John Hurt, who plays Merrick, was that wand guy in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.
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