The Elephant Man

Joseph Carey Merrick played by John Hurt is severely deformed at birth by a rare disease called multiple neurofibromatosis or von Recklinghausens disease, which produced tumerous deformities of head, face, and body. Through horrible physical deformities, which were almost impossible to describe, he spent most of his life exhibited as a fairground freak. Hounded, persecuted, and starving, he was rescued, taken in, and fed by the young successful surgeon Dr. Frederick Treves played by Sir Anthony Hopkins.

To Dr. Treves’s surprise, he discovers during the course of their friendship that lurking beneath the mass of Merrick’s corrupting flesh lives a spirit that is as courageous as it has been tormented, and a nature as gentle and as dignified as it has been deprived and tortured. I liked this film because it was based on actual events, on a young man struggling to be accepted by people despite his monstrous features. Joseph Merrick is the subject of several books, and this film. The outstanding British cast is brilliant together and make you feel like your there with them.

They make you think that this was actually filmed whilst Joseph Merrick, Frederick Treves and the rest of all those who affected his life were all alive. Camera techniques are used well, close ups are used on those who meet Merrick for the first time; they show the fear and astonishment on their faces, women scream and faint when they see him wouldn’t you? , Men make fun of him, but they are used on Joseph Merrick to show his emotions although hard to see because of his disfigured face. The film is shot in black and white, which gives it a documentary feel to it.

The harrowing flashbacks of trampling elephants, the satanic mills and belching smoke of the Victorian industry, are powerful. The flashbacks are almost like horrific nightmare visions of evil. Tracking shots are used when Joseph walks down ally ways and down streets making you feel as if you are there with him or following him secretly or when you first see his face when a young nurse goes to his room to give him food. I think that the camera techniques are used well, but there could be more close ups.

Some of the scenes, especially when he is being tormented are so horrific that you cant bare to think what he went through. The caretaker and his gang of drunken men and whores torment him with mirrors to show Merrick what he looked like which is just extremely cruel, in my opinion. Frederick Treves at first assumed that Joseph Merrick was an imbecile because he couldn’t speak, but when told that he had to meet F. C. Carr Gomm the head of the hospital, Treves was determined to help him; he taught him to say “Hello my name is John Merrick” and part of the 23rd Psalm.

After Carr Gomm had left he said to Treves that Merrick would have to be set up somewhere else until they over heard Joseph Merrick reciting the whole 23rd Psalm and both men are shocked. Merrick told them that he used to read the bible and he could write. The Queen sent her thanks to them for looking after him and Joseph Merrick was accepted to the hospital as a full time patient. It was his home. The make up on John Hurt and his fellow fairground freaks is extensive, whereas on everyone else it is very natural except for the occasional prostitute.

This was set in the Victorian age, the period costumes, the hats, suits, dresses, and shoes fit greatly with this age. If you have read the book by Peter Ford and Michael Howell or any other book on Joseph Merrick “The Elephant Man”, you will know that David Lynch captures the fact that Frederick Treves could never get Josephs name right, he often called him “John”. The dialogue is typical London Victorian age style, there is diagetic sound, and the speech, there are elephant sounds and industrial sounds and the steam trains and the boat sounds all help to portray the industrial age that this was set in.

The non-diagetic sound is things like the music, sirens. The lighting is darkly lit in some places, and a little brighter in others like at night or down dark ally ways, it all adds to the mystique of this man and his life, but at the same time it brings fear because of the psychotic killer (Jack the Ripper) who was on the lose at the time. Would you like to live around this time and area? The darkly lit halls and corridors of the London medical hospital and the house on whitechapel road where he used to live give eerie sense to the film sometimes like a ghost town.

I really do not know how the film could be improved, it is a masterpiece as it is and maybe it should be kept that way. If you’re the type of person who cries at films, this one will make you cry I know I cried for the 2 times that I have watched it. I think that maybe the director could have used more close ups to convey the fear that people felt when they saw this man regardless of whether he was gentle or not, because it is a very rare disease and you don’t come across people like that often do you?

John Hurt’s amazing performance as the elephant man makes you think that there is no actor behind the mask but the real Joseph Carey Merrick. Even though he has a tumerous head, a mouth that cannot smile, and trapped eyes that can only weep, he still manages to make Joseph Merrick come back to life, to convey only through the shrill, strangled voice, and the shy gestures of his one good hand, compassion and honor. Beneath the horrible exterior lies a sweet, clever man who can read, write and loves poetry and Shakespeare.

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