1980 Week: The Elephant Man

          Here’s one of my favorite bits of movie trivia—Mel Brooks is responsible for unleashing David Lynch on the world. Sort of. After expanding an American Film Institute student project into the bizarre feature Eraserhead (1977), Lynch caught the attention of a producer at Brooks’ short-lived production company, Brooksfilms. This led to Lynch getting hired as the director for The Elephant Man, which Lynch did not originate but which completely suits the filmmaker’s dark style. Thus, a connection was permanently formed between the funnyman who filled the Wild West with flatulence in Blazing Saddles (1974) and the experimentalist who combined huffing and rape in Blue Velvet (1986).

          Anyway, The Elephant Man is in some ways Lynch’s most accessible movie, even though it’s black-and-white, set during the Victorian era, and profoundly sad. Notwithstanding some flourishes during dream sequences, The Elephant Man is entirely reality-based, so Lynch doesn’t rely on any of his usual surrealist tricks. Instead, he demonstrates an extraordinary gift for stylized storytelling, because Lynch swaths this poignant narrative with a perfect aesthetic of murky shadows, silky rhythms, and undulating textures. (Lynch and his collaborators create such magical effects with editing, music, production design, and sound effects that the film seems to have a tangible pulse.) The director also guides his cast through masterful performances.

          Based on the real-life exploits of Joseph Merrick, an Englishman afflicted with neurofibromatosis, the movie tracks Merrick from the indignity of life as a circus attraction to the period during which he was accepted by polite society thanks to the patronage of a sympathetic doctor. Renamed John Merrick in the script, the character is a paragon of dignity, suffering the exploitation of cretins and the revulsion of gawkers without manifesting the rage to which he was surely entitled. The saintly portrayal tips the narrative scales, to be sure, but this approach suits the film’s overall themes: More than anything, The Elephant Man is about society’s inability to embrace unique people.

          When the story begins, Merrick (John Hurt) is kept as a virtual slave by a beastly carnival barker named Bytes (Freddie Jones). One evening, aristocratic Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) sees Merrick on display and marvels at Merrick’s deformities, which include an oversized head, a misshapen spine, and various large tumors. Treves buys Merrick’s freedom and contrives to find Merrick a permanent home inside a London hospital. Later, Merrick is presented to society and shown a mixture of pity and respect that he perceives as love. Crystallizing Merrick’s acceptance is his friendship with a famous stage actress (Anne Bancroft), who visits Merrick regularly without ever evincing disgust at his appearance. The demons of Meerick’s old life aren’t so easily kept at bay, however, because Bytes and other tormenters forever threaten to ruin Merrick’s salvation.

          Despite being made with consummate craftsmanship on every level (the movie received 10 Oscar nominations), The Elephant Man is painful to watch, simply because of the amount of suffering that Merrick experiences in every scene. Yet there’s great beauty to the film, as well, particularly during the heartbreaking final sequence, which is set to Samuel Barber’s exquisite “Adagio for Strings.” Part character study, part medical mystery, and part morality tale, The Elephant Man is a singular film of tremendous power.

The Elephant Man: RIGHT ON

Eraserhead (1977)

          Back in my film-school days, a fellow student who favored experimental cinema encouraged me to watch David Lynch’s directorial debut, Eraserhead, which at that point I knew only by reputation. (This was around the time Lynch was enjoying a vogue thanks to his TV series Twin Peaks.) I took the plunge and watched Lynch’s 90-minute ode to oddness, which explores the world of crazy-haired weirdo Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), who lives in an industrial wasteland with a shrewish female companion and a caterwauling mutant baby. More of an audiovisual experiment than a traditional narrative, the movie is an endurance test for viewers—not only is the film virtually incomprehensible on the level of storytelling, Lynch utilizes so much sickening imagery and thundering noise that it sometimes seems his only goal is inducing nausea.

          Immediately after watching the movie, I was quizzed about my reaction by the Eraserhead fan, and I estimated that about 80% of the movie made sense to me. My friend said that meant I “got” the film, and, indeed, I vaguely recall articulating a fully formed interpretation. Collectively, however, the fact that I can’t remember a single word of what I said, the fact that I’ve never wanted to see the movie again, and the fact that failing to understand the entire movie was considered par for the course indicate how Eraserhead works: It’s like a drug. The movie is such a straight shot of Lynch—replete with his usual tropes of alienation, degradation, mutation, and stylization—that it’s either a sensation you need a fix of every so often, or a sensation you’re content to experience just once.

          There’s no denying the film’s power, because once you’ve seen Lynch’s grainy, black-and-white images of the putrid baby squirming in its crib, ooze glistening all over its misshapen body, you’ll never be able to erase the sight from your memory. Accordingly, Lynch deserves credit for putting his subconscious directly onto the screen; for better or worse, this is auteur filmmaking at its most idiosyncratic and indelible. And, as years of subsequent disturbing movies from this iconoclastic director have demonstrated, it’s not as if Eraserhead represented a juvenile stunt or a weird developmental phase—the man’s first feature is pure Lynch, unencumbered by the dead weight of a plot.

          As Lynch himself remarks in the so-so documentary Great Directors, “Eraserhead is my most spiritual film, but nobody has ever picked up on that.” (Whether that remark was coy or sincere is debatable, since I’ve never been sure how much of Lynch’s persona is a put-on.) Still, whatever the movie’s virtues and/or shortcomings, Eraserhead represents a cinematic artist finding success without compromise.

          Lynch started making the movie while a student at the American Film Institute, acquiring end money from a school grant and from actress Sissy Spacek, the wife of Lynch’s classmate/collaborator Jack Fisk. An adventurous distributor put the movie onto the midnight-movie circuit, where it became a sizable cult hit, earning $7 million despite costing only a reported $20,000. The film’s whacked-out artistry made a deep impression on Hollywood—Mel Brooks, of all people, hired Lynch to make The Elephant Man (1980), and Lynch’s career was off and running.

          So, although it’s deeply unpleasant to watch and although many viewers find it to be a pointless exercise in outré excess, Eraserhead is one of a kind—and that’s why it remains an inspirational touchstone for maverick filmmakers everywhere. Mutant babies of the world, unite!

Eraserhead: FREAKY