The Elephant Man (1980)

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “The Elephant Man”? As I grew up in the eighties, my first response would be Michael Jackson as there were rumours then that he wanted to buy the bones of the elephant man. He even parodied it himself in his “Leave Me Alone” video. As it turns out it is also the name of this movie, which tells the story of John Merrick (John Hurt), a man who had many deformities and for a long time was lived his life as curiosity in a travelling carnival show.

This movie takes Merrick’s story and manages to tell it in a very captivating way. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) is a surgeon who becomes interested in this deformed man and who pays the boss of the carnival some money to allow him to have a closer look. He has to do this in secret as people are scared of the Merrick and don’t want to come near him. Treves slowly gets to know this young man and starts caring for him. Not everyone at the hospital thinks the same about this, so it’s a struggle for Treves to make sure that Merrick is treated correctly.

John Hurt is amazing as Merrick and because of the makeup you won’t be able to tell it’s him. He paints him as a very fragile person, who is haunted by his past and still has problems dealing with specific situations. It’s a complex character and as a viewer it’s one that you start to care for, you want him to be all he can be. I was expecting this movie to have won a couple of Oscars, but although it had 8 nominations, it lost out against movies like Ordinary People and Raging Bull.

Although I’m not a big David Lynch fan (a lot of it is just to weird for me basically), he impressed me with this movie. It is a timeless classic and a movie which I think won’t age. There’s not a moment that you can see that this was shot in 1980. The sets, the fact that it’s shot in black and white and amazing performances by the whole cast makes this a movie that you really need to see if you haven’t yet.

Score: 9