The monstrous and the tender in The Elephant Man | Little White Lies

In Heaven Everything Is Fine

The mon­strous and the ten­der in The Ele­phant Man

11 Feb 2025

Dark sketch of a woman sitting on a bed in a rustic interior, with a window and furnishings visible.
Dark sketch of a woman sitting on a bed in a rustic interior, with a window and furnishings visible.
Christi­na New­land explores the rhythms of David Lynch’s take on the life of Joseph Merrick.

I am not an ele­phant! I am not an ani­mal! I am a human being! I am a man!”

With a quiv­er­ing voice that’s been dis­tort­ed by his med­ical con­di­tion, the anguish and hor­ror of John Merrick’s cry for dig­ni­ty feels, to me, like one of the most dev­as­tat­ing moments in all of David Lynch’s work. In The Ele­phant Man, John Hurt’s gen­tle Mer­rick finds brief fame and for­tune in Vic­to­ri­an-era Lon­don. His phys­i­cal defor­mi­ty is as much a source of pruri­ent enter­tain­ment and shock to a soci­ety who pre­tends to find the car­ni­val freak show’ a moral out­rage as it is to the freak show’ pun­ters themselves.

The scene at the train sta­tion, where Mer­rick acci­den­tal­ly knocks over a young girl and is chased by a crowd of angry onlook­ers, comes late in the film. Mer­rick has been put into the care of the seem­ing­ly mag­nan­i­mous Dr Treves (Antho­ny Hop­kins) and tak­en from the bru­tal­i­ty of the cir­cus show he was dis­cov­ered in. Yet the cru­el­ty of the world around him is unrelenting.

Lynch’s work is often char­ac­terised for its so-called sur­re­al­ism, or its fas­ci­na­tion with the uncan­ny, dreams and the uncon­scious mind; it seems less com­mon that we dis­cuss his deep wells of empa­thy. He is a film­mak­er often pre­oc­cu­pied with char­ac­ters in intense, some­times inex­plic­a­ble psy­chic pain – peo­ple who have been made to suf­fer and whose suf­fer­ing or grief he depicts ten­der­ly, even as he also shows the vio­lence which catal­y­ses it. Like many of our great mav­er­ick auteurs, his hall­marks have become so dis­tinc­tive that it’s easy to see any per­ceived out­lier’ in his work.

Assigned to work for hire by a major stu­dio for the first time, on a real his­tor­i­cal tale with an all-star ensem­ble cast, the lin­ear­i­ty and rel­a­tive con­ven­tion­al­i­ty of The Ele­phant Man may feel like an out­lier. In 1980, it was nom­i­nat­ed for eight Acad­e­my Awards, win­ning none. And yet, maybe even part­ly because of this main­stream hon­our, it has some­times been seen as his most sen­ti­men­tal’ work, cer­tain­ly one of his less obvi­ous­ly Lynchi­an’.

Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. Like some strange rel­ic from a bygone age, the dreamy black and white of The Ele­phant Man emerges into view like its own sort of night­mare. Yet the mon­strous­ness of the film is con­tained every­where but with­in its so-called mon­ster’: this is a cru­el, vain world which con­demns him to live his life as a freak. Mer­rick is almost knight­ly as he suf­fers so nobly; his gen­tle­ness is vio­lat­ed repeat­ed­ly and the lit­tle dig­ni­ty he thinks he has gained is lost in this one ghast­ly scene in the train station.

It’s a harsh view of a hyp­o­crit­i­cal world and its treat­ment of the out­sider; but Lynch instils it with such anguished feel­ing for our trou­bled hero that you can nev­er deny his own enor­mous ten­der­ness as an artist. That ten­der­ness is as Lynchi­an as any­thing in his work. Lynch often demands dig­ni­ty for his suf­fer­ing char­ac­ters; peo­ple who for one rea­son or anoth­er are ill-val­ued or dis­re­spect­ed by main­stream soci­ety. Nev­er was that demand so plain­spo­ken – or open­ly heart-wrench­ing – as in this scene.

To com­mem­o­rate the life and cre­ative lega­cy of the peer­less film­mak­er David Lynch, Lit­tle White Lies has brought togeth­er writ­ers and artists who loved him to cre­ate In Heav­en Every­thing Is Fine‘: a series cel­e­brat­ing his work. We asked par­tic­i­pants to respond to a Lynch project how­ev­er they saw fit – the results were haunt­ing, pro­found, and illuminating. 

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