The Elephant Man (1980)

Directed by David Lynch. With Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud. 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 intelligence and sensitivity.

The Elephant Man is a 1980 American historical drama film about Joseph Merrick (whom the script calls John Merrick), a severely deformed man in late 19th century London. The film was directed by David Lynch and stars John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Wendy

Rotten Tomatoes - Trending on RT

Directed by David Lynch Frederick Treves - Anthony Hopkins John Merrick - John Hurt Mrs. Kendal - Anne Bancroft Carr Gomm - John Gielgud Bytes - Freddie Jone...

Amazon.com: The Elephant Man: John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Fanny Carby, Gerald Case, Claire Davenport, Lesley Dunlop, Michael Elphick, Roy Evans, Dexter Fletcher, John Gielgud, Hannah Gordon, Chris Greener, Wendy Hiller, Patricia Hodge, Kenny Baker, Freddie Jones, Eiji Kusuhara, Tony London, Hugh Manning, Phoebe Nicholls, Orla Pederson, Marcus Powell, John Rapley, David Ryall, Helen Ryan, Lisa & Teri Scobie, Patsy Smart, John Standing, Stromboli, Frederick Treves, Anne Bancroft, Robert Day, Kathleen Byron, Dierdre Costello, Pat Gorman, Pauline Quirke, Maggie Cartier, Robert Bush, Teresa Codling, Carole Harrison, Richard Hunter, Bernadette Milnes, William Morgan Sheppard, Tommy Wright, Peter Davidson, Kenny Baker, Kathleen Byron, Fanny Carby, Gerald Case, Claire Davenport, Peter Davidson, Lesley Dunlop, Michael Elphick, Roy Evans, Dexter Fletcher, John Gielgud, Hannah Gordon, Chris Greener, Wendy Hiller, Patricia Hodge, John Hurt, Freddie Jones, Eiji Kusuhara, Tony London, Hugh Manning, Phoebe Nicholls, Orla Pederson, Marcus Powell, John Rapley, David Ryall, Helen Ryan, Lisa & Teri Scobie, Patsy Smart, John Standing, Stromboli, Frederick Treves, Anne Bancroft, Robert Day, Anthony Hopkins, Dierdre Costello, Pat Gorman, Pauline Quirke, Maggie Cartier, Robert Bush, Teresa Codling, Carole Harrison, Richard Hunter, Bernadette Milnes, William Morgan Sheppard, Tommy Wright, Peter Davidson, Freddie Francis, John Morris, Samuel Barber, John Morris, David Lynch, Anne V. Coates: Movies & TV

The film of The Elephant Man is not based on the successful stage play of the same name, but they both draw their sources from the life of John Merrick, the original "elephant man," whose rare disease imprisoned him in a cruelly misformed body. Both the play and the movie adopt essentially the same point of view, that we are to honor Merrick because of the courage with which he faced his existence.The Elephant Man forces me to question this position on two grounds: first, on the meaning of Merrick's life, and second, on the ways in which the film employs it. It is conventional to say that Merrick, so hideously misformed that he was exhibited as a sideshow attraction, was courageous. No doubt he was. But there is a distinction here that needs to be drawn, between the courage of a man who chooses to face hardship for a good purpose, and the courage of a man who is simply doing the best he can, under the circumstances. Wilfrid Sheed, an American novelist who is crippled by polio, once discussed this distinction in a Newsweek essay. He is sick and tired, he wrote, of being praised for his "courage," when he did not choose to contract polio and has little choice but to deal with his handicaps as well as he can. True courage, he suggests, requires a degree of choice. Yet the whole structure of The Elephant Man is based on a life that is said tobe courageous, not because of the hero's achievements, but simply because of the bad trick played on him by fate. In the film and the play (which are similar in many details), John Merrick learns to move in society, to have ladies in to tea, to attend the theater, and to build a scale model of a cathedral. Merrick may have had greater achievements in real life, but the film glosses them over. How, for example, did he learn to speak so well and eloquently? History tells us that the real Merrick's jaw was so misshapen that an operation was necessary just to allow him to talk. In the film, however, after a few snuffles to warm up, he quotes the Twenty-Third Psalm and Romeo and Juliet. This is pure sentimentalism. The film could have chosen to develop the relationship between Merrick and his medical sponsor, Dr. Frederick Treves, along the lines of the bond between doctor and child in Truffaut's The Wild Child. It could have bluntly dealt with the degree of Merrick's inability to relate to ordinary society, as in Werner Herzog's Kaspar Hauser. Instead, it makes him noble and celebrates his nobility. 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. The film's philosophy is this shallow: (1)Wow, the Elephant Man sure looked hideous, and (2)gosh, isn't it wonderful how he kept on in spite of everything? This last is in spite of a real possibility that John Merrick's death at twenty-seven might have been suicide. The film's technical credits are adequate. John Hurt is very good as Merrick, somehow projecting a humanity past the disfiguring makeup, and Anthony Hopkins is correctly aloof and yet venal as the doctor. The direction, by David (Eraserhead) Lynch, is com-petent, although he gives us an inexcusable opening scene in which Merrick's mother is trampled or scared by elephants or raped_who knows?_and an equally idiotic closing scene in which Merrick becomes the Star Child from 2001, or something.

Filming locations for David Lynch's The Elephant Man, around London, including Liverpool Street Station and the Liberal Club in Whitehall

Joseph Merrick's extreme physical deformities made him a sideshow attraction in life, and the fascinating subject of posthumous stage and film productions, including the current Broadway show starring Bradley Cooper. Here's a look at the tragic real life that inspired "The Elephant Man."