The Elephant Man (1980)

Summary

A surgeon in Victorian England ‘discovers’ a man whose congenital mutilations are so grotesque that no one in society can stand the sight of the circus sideshow man. As he endeavors to bring this “elephant-man” into society, the surgeon inadvertently creates another sort of freak show amongst England’s high society. Can this unfortunate soul ever find rest?

Prove ‘Em Wrong?

After the critical success of “Eraserhead,” there were some in film circles who felt that while it was a really unique and creative vision, it also betrayed David Lynch as an arthouse director, who would never be able to adapt his aesthetic to a more mainstream form. The, “Elephant Man,” Lynch’s most accessible film, is his answer to the critics.

In some ways they were right and in others they were wrong. On the one hand, “The Elephant Man,” Is the only David Lynch movie many people will have ever even heard of. On the other, many of those people will have heard of the film but not seen it, since it is strikingly unmodern, with none of the features we typically expect in a four quadrant film.

The Limits

The main things that makes this film work so well is its theme and the way that Lynch, as a director, communicates that theme, not just verbally, but visually. The film loosely tells the story of a real man’s, Joseph Merrick’s, life. Luckily, Lynch understands, as do the best directors, that making a film is not about telling the facts. It is about communicating ideas and thoughts. As such, he does not confine himself to actual events, opting instead to try and communicate his own feelings about this man’s life as he reacted to it.

Merrick, the ‘elephant man,' played by John Hurt (1984), begins the film already in a cage. He is a circus side show, only for the especially brave. His appearance remains unseen to the audience but it is so ghastly that the carnival owner treats him simply as a beast and he behaves as one. A surgeon, played by Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs), buys the elephant man from the carnival owner and sets out to rehabilitate him, once he realizes that there truly is a man beneath that mass of malformed flesh. 

It seems the stage is set for a miracle to occur. A little love and kindness, and the most deformed and hurting among us turn from monsters into men. At least, that is how most Hollywood films would go.

This is where Lynch’s brilliance shines. He never lets us forget that John is a human being, but that very very few other people see him that way. As Merrick learns to dress, speak, and converse properly in society, there remains no cure for his deformity and so he simply becomes the subject of another sort of disgusting carnival show, this time playing at high society but never really belonging.

Lynch is the perfect director for a task such as this. His eye hones in on all of the ways that society, the surgeon, and the carnival owner all behave like animals toward Merrick. He sees the malformed human heart and holds it out for us all to see and examine. In the end we see that the film is not about transforming a near animal into a man, but about all of the ways that we, who have no outer scar, are deeply flawed within.

He explores the limits of humanity not as the frontier of what qualifies biologically as a human, with head, and arms, and language, but what qualifies as the frontier of our inner humanity, with compassion, mercy, and vulnerability. This unfolding of our undesirable traits, thoughts, and feelings is what Lynch does best so while this film amy not meet modern standards horror, it is a sort of horror film.

Yet again, however, Lynch cannot help himself, and makes it horror at the sight of ourselves, with which we are confronted, not the horror of the film.

Review Written By:

Michael Mcdonald

Sisters (1972)

Summary:

A journalist witnesses a murder in a nearby apartment, but the police find no evidence of any wrongdoing, so the journalist takes matters into her own hands.

My Thoughts:

The more films I see by De Palma, the more I realize how heavily Hitchcock influenced him. This film in particular borrows techniques from “Psycho”, “Rear Window'“, and I suppose even bits of “Vertigo”. While I can’t say this film is as polished as Hitchcock’s aforementioned works, it is incredibly well done, and De Palma’s direction is absolutely astounding. De Palma makes use of half a dozen different techniques to emphasize things that are happening in the film; from two narratives happening simultaneously through a split screen to various aspect ratios to altered footage, this film is constantly trying new things, and I think that was honestly what I liked most about it. The story boasts a few twists and turns, and even though some of them might’ve been a touch predictable, that never bothered me because the way in which the story was told was so interesting.

“I saw a murder, and I’m going to prove it!”

After appearing on a game show together Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder, “Superman”) and Phillip Woode (Lisle Wilson, “The Incredible Melting Man”) have dinner and spend the night at Danielle’s home on Staton Island. The next morning, Danielle’s twin sister, Dominique (also played by Kidder) accidentally murders Phillip, and Danielle’s neighbor, Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt, Midnight Cowboy) sees the entire thing through her window. Grace calls the cops, but they refuse to believe her on the basis that she had just recently written an article about police brutality. Danielle’s ex-husband Emil (William Finley, “Phantom of the Paradise”) steps in to help Danielle and Dominique hide the body, but Grace is desperate to get to the bottom of what happened.

As I mentioned above, the best part about this film is De Palma’s unique directing style- particularly the innovation he uses with different aspect ratios and techniques. One of the first scenes starts with a cropped 4X3 aspect ratio to illustrate that we’re watching the television game show on which Phillip and Danielle appeared. It’s a unique way to start the film, as this is the way we’re introduced to the characters- this aspect ratio is brought back a few different times throughout the film, almost any time the characters watch something on a screen. Where the film really started to impress me was with the split screen side by sides that first start to occur right after Phillip is stabbed. On one side of the screen, we watch as a wounded Phillip crawls away from the place where he was stabbed, and on the other screen we watch as Grace watches in horror and then calls the cops. The split screen resumes shortly after- the cops arrive and talk to Grace, and simultaneously, Danielle and Emil decide what to do with the body. It’s an incredibly interesting way to tell the story for a couple of different reasons; first, this builds a lot of tension. We’re able to watch the crime scene being cleaned up, while at the same time watching as Grace argues with the police about going up to the apartment in the first place. Second, the film again employs the ‘psycho technique’ of killing off who we’d assume might’ve been a main character rather early in the film and completely switching perspectives for a majority of the remainder of the film. There is another scene later on in the film that we see through binoculars, watching a character in a parallel apartment (ala ”Rear Window”). The scene is done entirely in one take, and we watch as a whole story takes place before our eyes without a single bit of dialog- it’s all visual directing, and it’s fantastic. De Palma also uses black and white photography to show some of the flashback scenes, and it makes some of the images towards the end even more shocking. I thought both Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt were really good in this; William Finley, whom I’ve only seen in “Phantom of the Paradise” before was pretty creepy, and Lisle Wilson was rather likeable and sympathetic as Danielle’s ill-fated lover.

Overall I was kind of split on the writing for this film. As far as dialogue goes, the writing was absolutely fine. Even the beginning of this film seemed to drip with sarcasm as Danielle and Phillip meet on a game show called “Peeping Tom,” and they win gifts that seem painfully stereotypical (Phillip is African American and they give him a dinner for two gift card to a place called African House, and Danielle receives a new set of cutlery). That stuff, I actually thought was pretty funny, and purposefully satirical. The problem came with the way that it portrayed people born with abnormalities. This film seemed to enjoy the idea of ‘freakish’ beings, and to me that felt a little outdated. It wasn’t so bad as Tod Browning’s “Freaks”, where malformed men literally attack someone at the end, but it did feel like it was fine with furthering a phobia of those who might’ve been born differently. Still, this film is pretty farfetched as far as some of the twists go, so I wouldn’t say that would be a huge detractor for me; just something I’d feel weird about not mentioning.

Verdict:

Overall this film is pretty fantastic- as a story I probably would’ve only given it a 3.5/5, but there are so many interesting techniques used throughout this film that to give it anything less than a 4 Star would be a travesty. I’ve watched quite a few of De Palma’s films in the past year, and this one is actually one of my favorites now.

Review Written By:

Seth Steele