You know that something's up when you come to a film in which Anthony Hopkins is the nice guy and someone else is the freak! Then again, something bizarre is almost always up in a film directed by David Lynch.

Historical Background: David Lynch is not a very typical film director and this film is not especially typical of his output either, so you'll probably not have a significantly better notion of what Lynch is about after viewing this one film. Born in Missoula, Montana in 1946, Lynch's family moved about the Pacific Northwest a lot as he was growing up and finally settled in Alexandria, Virginia. Lynch didn't care much for high school or a variety of menial jobs that he mostly failed at, but faired somewhat better in a succession of arts schools, in D.C., Boston, and, finally, Philadelphia. While studying fine arts, he made a couple of short films. One called The Grandmother, made with a grant from the American Film Institute, won several festival awards. He shot his first feature, Eraserhead, over a four year period while working as a newspaper delivery boy and trying to support a wife and child. His marriage collapsed under the strain, but the result was a bizarre, nightmarish film that debuted in 1976 and found its way onto the cult film circuit.

The Elephant Man was just Lynch's second film. Jonathan Sanger from the production company of Mel Brooks produced the film and Lynch had to work within certain constraints, reigning in some of his wilder impulses. The resultant film won widespread, though not universal, critical acclaim and was nominated for eight Oscars. As luck would have it, the same story, with a different emphasis, had run as a play on Broadway the year before.

Lynch must have been feeling cocky after his success with The Elephant Man. He turned down George Lucas's offer to direct Return of the Jedi to choose, instead, Dune (1984), an adaptation of a science-fiction novel. It flopped badly but Lynch bounced back with a bizarre, sadomasochistic tale of deranged sex and violence, Blue Velvet (1986), which firmly established Lynch as "the auteur of weird America." Lynch had further success with Wild at Heart (1990), a kinky comedy that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Lynch also directed the television series Twin Peaks in 1990, rather implausibly depicting incest and prostitution rings as the seedy, sexual underbelly of small town America. A feature film prequel to the television series, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, was neither a commercial nor artistic success. More recently, Lynch has had successes with such films as Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999), and Mulholland Drive (2001). Lynch is currently working on a film tentatively entitled Inland Empire, scheduled for 2006. Lynch has wended his way through two marriages and an affair with Isabella Rossellini. One of his children is Jennifer Chambers Lynch, also a movie director.

The Story: "The Elephant Man" was the name given John Merrick (John Hurt) by his "owner," Bytes (Freddie Jones), during his days of enforced servitude as a freak show exhibit in a traveling carnival. Merrick was grossly deformed, most likely by what we now call Proteus Syndrome or, less likely, neurofibromatosis.

Proteus Syndrome is rare with about 100-200 cases known worldwide. There is no clustering of the disorder in families, so it is probably non-hereditary. It occurs in both genders and there are no racial, ethnic, or geographic correlates. Tumors occur under the skin. The head is often enlarged. The hands or feet may be enlarged, often more on one side than the other. Large, darkly pigmented, rough elevations (called nevi) may be evident on the surface of the skin. It's believed that some kind of chromosomal rearrangement shortly after conception causes a subset of embryonic cells to become hyperplastic (growing excessively rapidly) and to produce hyperplastic offspring cells in various tissues during development and differentiation. Learning disabilities or mental retardation occurs only in a relatively small subgroup of those with Proteus Syndrome.

A London surgeon, Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins), spots the "Elephant Man" while visiting the carnival and pays off the show's owner, Bytes, to permit him to examine and exhibit the man before the London Pathological Society. Merrick is thought initially to be mentally undeveloped, perhaps an imbecile or an idiot. Treves rather hopes so, telling the hospital's head man, Carr Gomm (John Gielgud), "The man's an idiot. I pray to God he's an idiot," meaning that he hopes the man does not comprehend his deplorable condition.

Merrick is returned to the carnival, but he suffers from chronic bronchitis and during an especially difficult bout, Bytes sends for Dr. Treves to provide aid. Treves, noting that Merrick has also been badly beaten, removes him to the hospital and situates him in the isolation room, not because he's contagious but because his appearance would frighten other patients as well as the staff.

The hospital's policy is to exclude those with incurable conditions, but Gomm is won over when it becomes evident that Merrick is not mentally deficient, after all. Merrick provides indications of both intelligence and sensitivity. Other members of the hospital staff are more resistant to providing Merrick with "shelter," but the arrival of Princess Alex with a letter from the Queen commending the hospital for "doing the Christian thing" settles the matter in Merrick's favor. He'll be allowed to make his hospital room his home, indefinitely.

Merrick is befriended by Treves and his wife Anne (Hannah Gordon) and made something of a celebrity among the London aristocrats after a leading actress, Mrs. Kendal (Anne Bancroft), takes an interest in him. He learns to groom himself as best as his condition allows and to dress in high fashion. His speech becomes articulate and mannered. Even the Mothershead (head nurse, Wendy Hiller) begins to warm to him. On the other hand, the night porter (Michael Elphick) abuses Merrick by bringing round a coterie of paying customers, turning Merrick into a freak show exhibition once again. Worse, Bytes shows up, wanting to recover his top attraction for the freak show. He kidnaps Merrick and spirits him off to France, with the carnival.

In France, Merrick's physical condition deteriorates and he is once again subject to Bytes's abuse. A group of the carnival performers, mostly various kinds of "freaks" (or "special people," to be more sensitive about the issue), help Merrick escape and board a ferryboat back to England. One leg of the trip, in England, involves the train and at the station, Merrick is humiliated, harassed, and almost attacked by an unruly mob, believing him to be some kind of beast. He is rescued in the nick of time by a couple of bobbies, who return him to the care of Dr. Treves.

Merrick lives out his days in his hospital home and even spends a night at the theater, at the invitation of Mrs. Kendal, where he enjoys himself immensely and receives a standing ovation when introduced to the audience at the end of the evening by the lead actress. Otherwise, Merrick spends his time working on a model of the cathedral outside his window and hobnobbing with London socialites. His medical condition continues to deteriorate, however, and he dies in 1927 of asphyxiation, which asleep.

Themes: I am stupefied that such a typically astute critic as Roger Ebert finds this film wanting in its thematic content. Ebert says, "I kept asking myself what the film was really trying to say about the human condition as reflected by John Merrick, and I kept drawing blanks." Ebert then goes on to deride the film's shallow philosophy as no more than "the Elephant Man sure looked hideous" and "gosh, isn't it wonderful how he kept on in spite of everything?" The film, however, raises profound issues from both the point of view of Merrick and all those who came into contact with him. The latter set of issues is especially rich and complex. We could start with the issue of morbid curiosity and the tendency of human society to make spectacles out of people with unusual attributes. The freak shows that once existed in carnivals and circuses are only the most flagrant example. This film very nicely illuminates the parallels between medical curiosity and freak shows. Dr. Treves, to his credit, ruminates about his role in relation to Merrick, first in taking him before the Pathological Society (where he is even required to drop his underwear to reveal that his genitals are normal) and, later, catering to the curiosity of London's well-heeled socialites. Merrick may be living more comfortably in the hospital, but isn't he still on exhibit? The key in relation to that issue, I suppose, is the extent to which the hobnobbing with the socialites was Merrick's free choice. Certainly Treves made a name for himself and his professional stature benefited by the relationship, in somewhat the same manner as Bytes. For that matter, movies, including the present one, can be viewed as another kind of freak show, reaching a larger audience and perhaps somewhat more sophisticated. Film stars are another kind of freak, even if the special quality in question is exceptional beauty and/or sexiness. I've discussed the issue of "objectification" in some other reviews and it derives from the same perverse tendency to judge a person based on exterior appearance rather than the inner person. Then there are the size freaks (like Arnold, now governor of California) and the cosmetic freaks (like Michael Jackson, Cher, and all the ladies with breast implants).

A second interesting issue in this film might be labeled conspicuous charity. We Americans see it every year during the president's State of the Union Address in front of Congress and the nation, regardless of who that president happens to be at the time. A few beneficiaries of the president's initiatives are trotted out for all to see, even if that president's policies are noteworthy for diminishing the level of care provided to the neediest members of society, taken collectively. Queen Victoria intervened on behalf of Merrick because he would serve as a highly public example of the nation's charity toward the most disadvantaged members of society. Lynch interposes occasional shots of the pollution and harsh working conditions that were rampant in England during the time period of this film (the 1880's) to illustrate that it was far from being an especially compassionate society. Merrick became the token instance of charity – the exception to mask the rule. Bush plays the same deceptive game in our era. Like the hospital that took in Merrick and the Victorian society of that time, the conservatives in America say, in effect, "We only help those who can be cured." Workfare, not welfare.

But, there's more. This film invites us, as one reviewer so nicely put it, "to despise humanity but to love the humane." Most of the secondary characters in this film treat Merrick deplorably, even cornering him like an animal until he has to scream for understanding, "I am not an animal. I am a person." Bytes represents the worst of humanity and the night watchman a close second, but the general public and even some of the physicians also reveal the same dearth of compassion. Far too many people permit themselves to hate and bully unusual people. They frighten us because they challenge our sense of boundaries between people and animals, men and women, and normal and abnormal.

On the other hand, we observe real compassion in Treves, Carr Gomm, some of the nurses, and Mrs. Kendal. Lynch skillfully draws viewers along in a manner that assures that most will join with the compassionate contingent. It takes so little to ease the burden of special people. As Merrick puts it, late in the film, "I am happy every hour of the day because I am loved." Even given compassionate intent, however, it's not always clear how one should interact with physically unusual individuals? I, for one, confront the question every single day at the University where I work. One wants to be compassionate but part of being sensitive to a person with special circumstances is treating that person as a person rather than a special circumstance. A person with epilepsy, for example, is a person first, not merely an epileptic. A person in a wheel chair is not "a cripple" but a person. The same point can be made in relation to people belonging to any demographic minority. If I sit down to lunch with a person with some special quality (whether an ailment, unusual physical attribute, or some minority status), do I raise the issue as a topic of conversation or avoid it? If I raise it, will it be the umpteenth time the person has had to discuss it? If I avoid it, will it suggest that I'm uptight about the issue or prejudiced? In The Elephant Man, Merrick is taken to the theater for a Beauty and the Beast kind of story involving an imprisoned ogre. Was that gauche? If my wife and I have a black couple over to our home for dinner and a movie, do I suggest a film with black characters or is that patronizing? How do I best respect a person as a human being rather than a type or a spectacle? These are daily issues that no one film can put to rest, but for a film to openly raise such issues is quite something!

All of the above issues relate to the characters that come into contact with Merrick. What about Merrick himself? Should he be viewed as a courageous man? Ebert says not. He makes reference to an American novelist who was crippled by polio and who complained in a Newsweek essay that he was tired of being praised for his "courage" because he had been given no choice other than to deal with his disease. True courage, he had argued, requires a degree of choice. I applaud the novelist's modesty, but Ebert has confused modesty for a soundly reasoned argument. When people are faced with some kind of untreatable, physically debilitating circumstance, there is still a crucial choice to be made. One choice is to give up, which can take such forms as suicide, depression, withdrawal, abusive behavior, self-pity, alcoholism, or drug abuse. Many people have made such choices for far less reason than affliction with polio or Proteus Syndrome. There is genuine courage in choosing to live as well as one can, despite a disability or chronic ailment. Merrick is courageous because he understands the incurability of his condition, yet permits himself to imagine and indulge in a degree of normality.

Production Values: Lynch is known for his wide-ranging and daring techniques. Though this film is a bit subdued by Lynch's standards, it still draws on a pretty good assortment of tricks. Lynch borrows some of the methods of horror films, especially near the beginning, to tantalize viewers with ominous music, hints, and short, dimly-lit, glimpses of the creature that leave us wanting more. We see "The Elephant Man" in his mask and our morbid curiosity is stimulated, just as though we were paying customers at the carnival.

There's plenty of poignancy in this film, such as when Merrick admires the pictures of the Treves relatives and produces his own treasured picture of his beautiful mother. "She had the face of an angel," he says, adding, "I must have been a great disappointment to her. I tried so hard to be good." As we viewers weep, Anne Treves, the doctor's wife, breaks down crying as well. You can tell that she had wanted above all else to maintain her composure and to treat her guest as simply another human being, not a freak to be pitied, but the poignancy of the moment had simply overwhelmed her determination.

The cinematography is in black-and-white and in the style of German expressionism. The sets are marvelous. The makeup used to turn John Hurt into Merrick is really quite extraordinary. Interspersed, here and there, throughout the film are three kinds of Lynchian surrealities. There are periodic, seemingly random, shots of industrial smoke stacks, machinery, and hot, sweaty workers, which serve the theme of "conspicuous charity," mentioned above. Then there are a few dream sequences, illustrating Merrick's subconscious viewpoint. There's also a final existential death segment in which Merrick's soul, presumably, finally finds reunion with his mother and eternity. John Morris provided the film's lyrical score.

John Hurt received an Oscar nomination for his performance and well deserved, in my opinion. He managed to give us a sense of his character's interior, despite working under pounds of makeup. Hurt had previously appeared in A Man for All Seasons (1966), ,Midnight Express (1978), Watership Down (1978), and Alien (1979) and later appeared in Heaven's Gate (1980), 1984 (1984), and Love and Death on Long Island (1998). I thought the performance by Anthony Hopkins every bit as good (and certainly more visible). Hopkins is best known for his turns as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs and its sequel, which are a couple of horror films that genuinely frighten me.

Bottom-Line: This is an exceptionally well-constructed film, very moving but also artistically satisfying, with a rich assortment of cinematographic techniques and thematic issues. I highly recommend it. The running time is 123 minutes. The DVD extras include the theatrical trailer, a retrospective of cast and crew interviews, and a special interview with the make-up artist. There's regular Dolby English, English 5.1 surround sound, or French mono to choose from, as well as English subtitles.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older