Movie #101 – The Elephant Man (1980) - 124 min, cert 15.
Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) is a surgeon in Victorian England. In a travelling freak show, he finds a heavily disfigured man (John Hurt) known simply as the Elephant Man. He rescues him and takes him back to the hospital where he works to care for him and study his case. The man turns out to be quite intelligent and fully aware of the circumstances in which he is forced to live. Treves helps him to integrate into Victorian society, taking him to the theatre and other social gatherings. It all threatens to come crashing down again, however, when the original owner of the freak show comes looking for his biggest attraction.
This film is based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, but David Lynch, the director, takes many liberties with the truth. As a result, much of the plot doesn’t quite seem to hang together very well. The film portrays Bytes, the freak show owner, as a savage man who kept him prisoner and beat him regularly. In reality, Merrick was at the freak show by choice, and was quite well paid there. He objected more to the humiliating examinations he had to endure at the hospital than anything that happened at the freak show.
When all’s said and done, I’m not really a David Lynch fan. I didn’t see the point of the opening sequence with the woman screaming over the elephant noises. Are we supposed to believe she was raped by an elephant? Or was the sheer trauma of being attacked by one enough to somehow partly change her baby into one. Either way seems utterly ludicrous. Plus it all seemed far too easy for Merrick’s abductors to wander into his house and make off with him.
It did have its moments. The performances from Hopkins and Hurt were very good. Hurt’s make-up was also very realistic. It’s also quite fun spotting the cameos from Pauline Quirke and Dexter Fletcher from before they were famous.
Score – 6/10. Good performances from the leads, but a weak plot.
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