About

'The story of the Elephant Man was about someone who was a monster on the outside but who inside was a beautiful and normal human being you fell in love with. He was a monster who wasn't really a monster.' David Lynch

'In recreating the story of John Merrick, the Victorian who was reputed to be "the ugliest man alive," David Lynch affects a study of prejudice, voyeurism and human dignity... Merrick was born with neurofibromatosis, giving him an enlarged head, a twisted spine, and facial deformities. As an adult, he is a virtual prisoner of a traveling freak show until the surgeon Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) becomes his protector, finding funding for a private room in the London Hospital. Here Merrick very gradually reveals himself to be not only intelligent but an intellectual, and finds a measure of happiness equal to his measure of dignity. But he becomes another kind of sideshow – for high society – and Treves must ask if he himself is not a high-class carny. Lynch plays with point-of-view to make his point: aided by the actor John Hurt in a most extraordinarily moving performance, he shows us what it must be like to see through Merrick's eyes, hear with his ears.' Pacific Film Archive