A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.
The Elephant Man was nominated for eight Oscas (it failed to win a single one) including best actor for John Hurt, who played the cruelly misformed John Merrick. Hurt lost out to Robert De Niro for Raging Bull.
In one of the most unlikely strokes of inspiration, Mel Brooks, wearing his producer’s hat saw David Lynch’s semi-underground first feature, Erasurehead (1976), and decided Lynch was the director to handle a serious project Brooks held dear, a biopic of John Merrick, the Victorian freak, and of Frederick Treves, the philanthropic doctor who became his patron and friend.
However, Lynch imports all the cinematic strangeness of Eraserhead, creating a Victorian Britain of hideous industrial accidents and steam-belching machines in Expressionist black and white, and turning a trip to the theatre – a highlight in Merrick’s life – into a magical celebration of the fantastical that evokes the memories of the early trick films of George Méliés, It’s a very rich film, confident enough in its emotional core to get away with broadstrokes like the villainous performances of Freddie Jones and Michael Elphick as rotten exploiters, and a visit from Anne Bancroft as a princess.
dir: David Lynch
Year: 1980
country: US
run-time: 2h 4mins
rating: 15
Full £6.00
Concession: Pay What You Can
Doors 19:30 - Film 20:00