Original subtitles

Stand up. Stand up!

Turn round. Turn around! Turn around!

The Elephant Man is a dramatic and moving biopic,

filled with such greats of British acting,

as Sir John Hurt, Sir Anthony Hopkins,

and Sir John Gielgud.

It's set in an authentic black-and-white Victorian London.

It was nominated for eight Oscars, received glowing reviews,

and was a significant hit at the arty end of the Box Office.

This is the tragic, but uplifting story of John Merrick,

the horribly deformed man rescued from a circus by the kindly doctor,

Frederick Treves, eventually to be introduced to Victorian society.

What do we know of the real Victorian figure

of John Merrick, on whom the film is based?

Well, the filmmakers actually changed his name.

The real person was called Joseph Merrick.

He was born in Leicester, and as a child,

started to develop these symptoms, these disfiguring symptoms.

What's, I think, also important

is that the filmmakers take away a certain amount of agency

that the real Joseph Merrick had in his life.

He had a relatively happy childhood, his mother died,

his father couldn't support him.

He went to work in the workhouse

and he found the workhouse very difficult to be in,

so he effectively contacted a local showman,

and said, well, look, I can be part of your travelling circus.

And so they devised The Elephant Man performance really, 50/50.

So I mean he... In a sense,

Joseph Merrick created his show, his Elephant Man show.

And then as a result of that,

when that particular travelling show was over,

he then personally went down to London

and signed himself into The Penny Entertainments.

So he was kind of very aware that his appearance could make him money.

And so that's where he was discovered,

and that's where the film really picks up.

It's an interesting, awkward time in British history

because you've got a couple of collisions.

You've got science.

Science is beginning to become important

in ordinary people's lives.

They don't know a lot about it, but they know it exists.

We also have doctors who now are doing things

that they're not allowed to do any more,

but they were experimenting on human beings

to find out what made human beings tick.

And there was also the entertainment industry,

which in a sense, collides with all of this as a way to,

I'm going to hate using this term, but to appease the masses.

Because there was so much going on socially as well.

You'll bring him to me tomorrow morning at 10, Mr...?

Bytes, sir. Bytes.

He'll be there. Good.

Now here is my card and I'll send the cab, all right?

We have a deal.

We understand each other.

More than money has changed hands.

We understand each other completely, my friend.

Yes, well thank you, Mr Bytes. Mm.

Tomorrow.

So what do we know about how the project came together?

Cos it's an unusual subject for a film.

Yes, it is a very unusual subject, and it was...

Really, the screenplay written by two guys,

Christopher De Vore and Eric Bergren.

And they'd read Frederick Treves's autobiography,

including the story of John Merrick, Joseph Merrick of course.

In fact, it was Treves who changed his name in the book to John,

for reasons that we have no idea of.

He altered certain elements of the true history,

to sort of make them a bit more dramatic.

So anything that happens in the film that was not occasioned

in Merrick's actual life, comes directly from Treves's book.

They didn't make that up,

the two writers actually, literally, took that stuff

and then you know, formed a screenplay with it.

That makes him seem much more heroic,

- makes Treves seem much more of a heroic character. - Yes, it does.

I mean, you know, this is very much in Treves's character,

which emerges throughout the film in fact, I think,

that you find that he's not saintly by any means.

And of course, the... If there is an arc of the film,

and one of the things that we forget is that there is virtually no plot

in this film, it is a series of incidences

about him discovering this extraordinary human being,

in many ways, and then pushing him into the public spotlight.

We have to remind ourselves that it was directed

by America's great surrealist, David Lynch,

still relatively unknown in 1980.

This second film is his most conventional work,

but don't let that fool you.

I'm looking for a Mr Frederick Treves.

Please ma'am.

Very well, I'll send for him. Nurse.

Oh, Mr Treves, sir, this... This...

Thank you. Yes, I was expecting him.

The screenplay goes through this incredible story of serendipity,

because the two screenwriters know two producers,

Jonathan Sanger who knows Mel Brooks, but Stuart Cornfeld,

who is looking for a way to get David Lynch to work,

he loves Eraserhead, and he wants to give him a project,

so he rings him up and says what are you doing next,

what would you like to do next? I've got four scripts for you.

why don't we meet and talk about these four scripts? And then...

Yeah, we should talk about where David Lynch was

at this point in time, cos he had made Eraserhead as you say,

and he was trying to get a strange script made called Ronnie Rocket,

which is very Lynchian, it involves a kind of dark city,

and it involves a kind of Frankenstein-like figure

who plugs himself into the mains.

- It's a film he tries to make all his life. - Yes.

It's a very significant film in Lynch's career,

but no studio or film company ever wanted to make it.

And I think Lynch sort of had a sort of moment of the soul

where he thought, I'm not going to have a career

unless I prove I'm a regular filmmaker,

unless I can prove I can go out there

and just tell a story in what you might think of as Hollywood terms.

So I think he was in the market, as much as possible,

for a conventional story.

And I agree with that. I mean, you...

You need at some point as a director,

if you have an off-the-beat sort of hit like that,

to show I can be in the game, I know the game.

I know how to get Anthony Hopkins, I can get Wendy Hiller,

I can get these people and I can work with them.

Then you become real as far as the industry is concerned,

then you become bankable.

Then you don't become something

who's a one-hit wonder, or something strange.

And Lynch wants to make films.

He wants to make movies too, and those two things he understands

and he understands perfectly what the difference is.

People love the unknown.

They love going into a new world, having a new experience.

It's like they like to go onto the moon.

It's something in people, it's a nifty thing,

and film is a great way to have a new experience.

Just one ticket and it's something brand new.

David Lynch realised that he had to prove himself as a regular filmmaker.

Accepting The Elephant Man on the title alone,

he became enthralled by John Merrick,

thought to have had congenital neurofibromatosis,

and abandoned as a freak.

Adding to the unlikeliness of the project,

Lynch was backed by an uncredited Mel Brooks,

who believed the young director's unconventional talents

were an ideal match for this tragic outsider.

He wanted to come out of the sort of art-horror cult market as it were,

and into the sort of light of Hollywood.

And he didn't quite know how to do it, but Cornfeld,

who came up with four script ideas...

It also meant that he would have to film somebody else's script,

which is, you know, a big jump from somebody who has been

basically an hauteur, and intends to carry on being an hauteur.

And he knew, he was clever enough to realise that I'll have to, you know,

I'll have to prove myself to the big guys in Hollywood

that I'm a sort of-

That's the price. Exactly, is to do it.

And Cornfeld came up with four scripts for him.

And they met at a diner, didn't they? That's right.

Cornfeld came- The classic diner thing.

You know, he loves being in diners.

And he said OK, what are they?

And he said, well, number one is The Elephant Man.

And he said stop. I'll do it.

He had no idea what the script was about,

or he had no idea about Joseph Merrick,

and he just, he said a bomb went off in my head

at the thought of making a film called The Elephant Man.

Here is this anomaly.

This creature outside of the mainstream.

Maybe, he thinks to himself, I can actually keep my voice in.

Maybe I can keep my hauteur self in.

He knew... He was inside of this film very deeply,

and there are moments that are not coherent,

cinematically in terms of what he's doing,

and that's partly because he is talking to himself,

which is one of the really beautiful things for me about this film.

It is important that Merrick, for instance, is an artist.

- Totally. - Merrick is someonewho creates, he's creating models

and paintings, so there's a real commonality between these two,

who are sort of trying to put things together,

but are not accepted or not part of the mainstream.

It was a tough shoot for the young director,

and here was the arrival of a complete filmmaker.

Provocative and heartbreaking, realistic and strange,

The Elephant Man is so much more than a period piece.

Hurt has never been better than as the revelatory Merrick,

while working with cumbersome prosthetics.

Hopkins is eloquent and enigmatic as Treves,

the doctor who sought both to help him and study him.

And the supporting cast is astonishing.

Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Freddie Jones,

Anne Bancroft, Michael Elphick.

Mrs Mothershead, I will be in my room,

and I'm not to be disturbed, alright?

Of course, sir.

Will you come with me, please?

He is English, he is 21 years of age,

and his name is John Merrick.

Gentlemen, in the course of my profession,

I have come upon many lamentable deformities of the face

due to injury or disease,

as well as mutilations and contortions of the body,

depending upon like causes.

But at no time have I met with such a perverted

or degraded version of a human being as this man.

Now I wish to draw your attention to the insidious conditions

affecting this patient. Can you see over there?

Lynch saw a film about the beautiful soul

that lay beneath the disfigured surface,

and what could be more Lynchian than that?

He filled its world with his own distinct atmosphere and ideas.

This is a deformed city, clanking with machinery,

and clogged with smoke.

There is an ugliness beneath the skin of London and its citizens.

So he is discovered by Dr Frederick Treves,

on whose book the film is based.

Yeah... There's a chapter in his autobiography where he talks about-

So what part does Treves play in Merrick's life?

Well, Treves goes to see him at this penny arcade,

performing, you know, it was almost like a circus in London,

and is so fascinated that he takes him to The Pathological Society,

which is, you know, a collection of doctors,

at which point the authorities become aware

of the whole situation and close down that arcade.

And really, actually, put Merrick out of work.

So he then... It goes through a process of kind of bringing him

into the hospital and studying him,

and trying to understand him, and bringing...

That's where the film follows largely what's true.

Now listen, he's my livelihood.

We're... business partners, he and I.

He's the greatest freak in the world.

It's really interesting because in effect there is a sub-plot

in which Freddie Jones as the circus owner,

and Anthony Hopkins as Dr Treves,

are the two fathers of Merrick,

both competing for the love of their son,

for a kind of ownership of their son.

And we should really talk about Hopkins especially,

because he is effectively the second lead in the film,

and he brings such a different energy to it.

Yes. He's very calm.

He has that lovely sort of fluid, melodious voice,

but he's ambiguous, he's both a loving figure,

a father figure, and he is clinical.

He's the calm, as you say, clinical, seemingly kinder version

of Freddie Jones's circus owner, who at one stage of...

Outside of when he's got Merrick behind the curtain,

he says my treasure.

And you think, because he's exploiting him

and he's making a lot of money,

but it could mean a little bit more than that.

And exactly the same thing is occurring with Treves,

you know, who seems first of all...

He has certain human sympathy for him, up to a point,

because he is a doctor and he does sort of put him on display.

But at the same time, after a while,

once he's brought him in to the hospital,

you can hear that...

You can see that there is a certain vanity about him,

that he's discovered this person that may, you know,

will put him on the map in the medical profession.

And so when it is pointed out by Freddie Jones actually,

and then later Wendy Hiller as the main nurse,

that all you have done is taken him

from one sort of freak show to another,

- and people want to come and watch it. - Absolutely, absolutely.

And so he's being as exploitative as,

you know, the carnival owner.

Excuse me.

The elephant man.

Sorry, sorry.

So the script arrives at Mel Brooks' company, Brooks Films,

which beyond the comedies he makes,

is actually quite a dynamic, adventurous film company.

So it was actually the right place for it to be.

For an American audience to see Mel,

the name Mel Brooks connected with the film,

they're going to come in laughing.

And if they don't laugh, that film is a flop, OK?

So what Mel Brooks does, because he's a highly intelligent guy,

he takes Mel off the film.

He takes his first name off.

And so therefore the film at least has a chance to get somewhere,

and to be looked at in its own merits.

He is... He still is a very unusual,

intellectual, highly intellectual person.

This fitted him to a tee,

and he also knew Mel had to come off this thing.

It was the whole reason he started Brooks Films.

Totally. In fact, to make serious films.

You know, under his own banner, but without his name.

I mean, Mel Brooks is the right person to produce it.

The script came to him serendipitously,

and he read it and identified with it

because Mel Brooks as a kid, he was physically weak,

he was bullied, his father died, he felt like the outsider.

He was Jewish, he felt even more of an outsider.

He looked at the story of the elephant man, at Merrick,

and he thought this is a guy I really know.

I mean, he did, at one point, in quotes, say that

Merrick wasn't quite the wandering Jew, but he was close to that.

I literally do wear the hats.

I have four hats made for me.

One says Director, one says Producer,

one says Star, one says Writer,

and I keep putting them on to remind me,

and I have a little mirror that's oh, I'm a writer now,

I talk as the writer. But sometimes when you're the writer,

and the director and the star, for instance,

I am also the producer.

The writer in me has a fight with the director.

Then the star comes in and says will you please straighten it out,

I'm going on camera in two minutes?

So I have this schizophrenic fight with myself and we get the star.

Then as the star, I don't come out of my dressing room

because I'm not paying myself enough money.

I'm not, I know I'm not giving myself enough,

so I send myself a bouquet of flowers.

I say gee, this producer is a sweet guy.

Alright, the hell with the money, I'll go. And I do the shot.

His first film, actually, was called Fatso,

was directed and written by his wife.

- Anne Bancroft. Anne Bancroft. - A great actor.

And it was about obesity.

It didn't do very well, but it was, you know,

it was a serious film with sort of interesting elements to it.

This was the second film,

so he was true to his basic ideal of Brooks Films,

which was not to make comedies, but to make serious films.

And he is deeply involved as well.

This isn't just a production company

where he sits and gets a team to go off and do something.

he's involved in the casting, he's involved... Yes.

He's on set when the thing is being done,

you know, he is making key decisions and helping,

really helping David Lynch, adapt to this world.

He's great at guiding. And he's also,

very importantly, defending his choice of David Lynch.

But we should talk about the fact-

Well, let me just say that so in a sense,

he becomes the godfather of David Lynch.

He actually mentors this film through by saying to Lynch,

you be who you are, all right?

I know how to do this, I've got your back.

And so he is able to go through it. Exactly.

- At the very first, he doesn't know who David Lynch is. - Right.

So famously, he was looking down the list of everything -

potential actors and where were they going to shoot,

and sort of going, oh, great, great, great.

And he comes to director, and he says who is this David Lynch?

And Stuart Cornfeld, the other producer,

he sort of gulps and goes I think you'd better see Eraserhead.

And David Lynch wanted to be there outside the cinema

when Mel Brooks saw Eraserhead.

So David Lynch is standing outside, Mel Brooks is inside watching-

He's like pacing back and forth, David Lynch, terrified.

What's going to happen when Mel Brooks comes out?

And when he comes out, he throws his arms wide and goes,

you're crazy, you're a genius, I love you, let's do this.

Of course, of course.

But really, if you think about it, it's a daring choice, isn't it?

Because we've only got Eraserhead, an art film essentially,

an art horror film, so if you are a studio,

and Paramount backed the film, David Lynch is a risk.

Well, Brooks is real... He's real smart though, Mel.

Mel Brooks is very smart.

He knows these people, he schmoozes them all the time,

and he wants to hold on to his credentials.

His credentials as making these daring kind of small films

that you don't know it's him, and he must like that a lot,

to be able to sort of subvert people's ideas about him.

And he also knows that he can howl to... I mean, for some reason,

I guess, he's worked with so many complicated figures by this point.

Yes, indeed. He knows how to nudge David Lynch

in the right way, pretty much from the word go.

Because he's involved in casting John Hurt,

I mean, he is the guy who sets up this elaborate casting of John Hurt,

where he spends an enormous amount of money

to print off giant-size photographs of John Merrick,

and decides that he would be the right actor to bring,

we don't want Dustin Hoffman, Dustin Hoffman wanted the role,

but he said no, if we put Dustin Hoffman in it,

everyone will be looking for the join.

- There'll be another thing, exactly, exactly. - So he's smart.

And also Jon Voight expressed an interest in directing it,

and Mel said no, because you would never...

You would never know whether it was Jon Voight directing

or Jon Voight acting being a director. So he was out.

So a brilliant, absolutely brilliant man,

and totally dedicated to allowing the American cinema in particular,

to be a little bit something else.

He wants to be commercial, he doesn't want to be out there

in the weeds, but he also wants the American movie-goer,

and everybody else, to come and experience his view of the world.

Merrick.

Hello, my name is John Merrick.

Hello, my name is...

John Verrick.

You can speak.

It was a sharp learning curve for Lynch,

in the requirements of period storytelling

and dealing with strong-willed actors.

Hurt is astonishing,

giving a textured and moving performance,

after six hours in the make-up chair every day.

Now I want to talk about a performance,

because as much as it's Lynch's film

and Mel Brooks' film, this is John Hurt's film.

And it's a staggering piece of acting,

not only in his interpretation of this man,

but to do it through an incredibly difficult prosthetic,

and to still see the performance, see what Hurt can do.

I mean it's one of the greats, isn't it?

I mean, it starts with the audition, which... Not the audition,

the meeting actually I think, which is John Hurt's over in America,

making Heaven's Gate.

He's already done Alien, he's done a few bits and pieces,

but he's not a big name.

And they want someone who the audience don't recognise,

but they recognise that he's got the power to immerse himself,

you know, throw himself into a role.

They meet him in this room where they've decorated it

with pictures of John Merrick, Joseph Merrick,

and they go into this big spiel.

And at some point, John Hurt says, well yes, of course I'll do it,

and he said, don't tell my agent this,

I'll do it for nothing.

And the manager is in the room saying, no, no, no!

I've lost my power! Wrong!

Yeah, but it's absolutely seeing eye to eye.

They all fully understand each other.

Yes, what's fascinating is that Brooks was really worried

that an actor, even not a star,

wouldn't countenance actually being so covered up

that nobody would recognise him.

When, in fact, that is exactly the kind of role

that John Hurt has, you know, often done.

He is a fully immersive actor, you know,

he is very happy to put on sort of wigs and stuff like that,

or you know, look different to how he would normally.

So he was perfect. He was the perfect cast.

But part of me thinks that John Hurt wants to work with Freddie Francis.

I mean the idea of working with this,

I mean epic cinematographer.

Worked with Powell and Pressburger, great, great man of the cinema.

He made horror films, too, and all kinds of different things,

but he shot The Innocents, he did The Innocents.

And so the challenge for an actor like Hurt,

is can I come through?

Can I do this with all of these prosthetics, this whole thing,

you'll never know it's me, nobody will ever know that,

but this great cinematographer will know how to get inside me.

I think he went because it was being shot by him.

And he also knew that if that all worked out,

this would be the performance of a lifetime.

Totally, totally, totally. A career-making role, absolutely.

Now central to this, obviously it's central to the entire film,

is the look of the elephant man, the prosthetic head they have to create.

And that really was its own story in itself,

because initially David Lynch,

and naturally being an artist and liking to sculpt-

He did everything in Eraserhead, didn't he?

Yeah, did everything, very hands on.

He thought, well, I will make the prosthetic of Joseph Merrick,

of John Merrick.

And he was driven virtually mad by this process.

It was really difficult, it didn't work,

and he got to a crisis point

where I think he claimed to be nearly suicidal.

I think it's an exaggeration-

But this is the Mel Brooks genius as well.

At exactly the right moment, Mel Brooks steps in and says,

remember, you're a director,

you're not doing all the other bits and pieces.

Leave the prosthetics to the prosthetics men.

Now that you've made that discovery for yourself,

let me tell you what I've been meaning to ever since we began,

you just direct, we've got everything else covered.

I'll go out and find you the right person to do the prosthetic.

Hopkins evokes both a heart and the clinical mind of a scientist.

Gielgud is the model of elegance as the hospital administrator.

Freddie Jones offers a Dickensian flourish as the circus owner,

and a fabulous Dame Wendy Hiller

is the unblinking head nurse,

determined to see a patient, not a monster.

We have to remember that medicine in those days was not what it is now.

And Dr Treves knows that.

He knows it, he's interested with how this person is assembled,

how this personal functions,

how this person is able to move into the world.

He loves the fact that he is close to this person,

he kisses him at one point.

I think that is a kiss of yes, you affirmed me.

And they share the most devastating scene in the whole film effectively,

don't they, when Merrick turns to him

and very politely says and by the way, can you cure me?

Sir, please.

There's something that I've been meaning to ask you

for some time now.

What's that?

Can you cure me?

No.

No, we... We can care for you but we...

We can't cure you.

No. I thought not.

He's not there to be healed, he's there to be looked at.

And to be displayed and to be, even if it were possible,

if he wasn't a human being, to be dissected.

That's what they did in those days.

And exhibit you, put you up.

And that's how he has been leading,

and all of the society, the medical society,

it's about taking people apart.

I mean, you know, it's like about what makes them work.

And Anthony Hopkins' character comes to the point

where he has to decide is that what he is actually doing?

Yes. What is he doing?

Because when he says I can't cure you, or words to that effect,

that should be the end of the show. It isn't.

It seems to me I might as well meet this patient of yours.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Um... what, should we say in a few days then?

Shall we say 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon?

Um... yes, well, whatever is most convenient for you, sir.

2 o'clock, then, tomorrow.

John Gielgud. Yes.

Who Lynch adored, apparently.

He was so elegant and so well-spoken

and so easy to work with, that...

And he brings, I suppose, a kind of grace to the film.

Yeah, I mean Gielgud does.

He's just got the natural authority anyway,

but he's got that sort of...

slightly sort of questioning sort of attitude,

and he knows that Treves is up to something.

And he sort of says, oh, come into my office, you know?

And then Treves says yes, it's a personal thing,

I'm just trying to sort something out.

And you can see that he is trying to work out what it is he's up to.

And Treves finally says, you know, to Gomm,

well, you must meet him.

And he brings him in and they have this sort of great meeting-

Pre-scripted session. Pre-scripted session.

He's taught him to talk... speak, and to say certain words.

Which he does, and Gielgud sort of looks at him

and goes, oh, very good, very good.

And he comes out and he says...

How long did it take you to teach him that?

And you know, he knows that the game is up, you know,

the game is up, and that that's the point

at which he carries on behind the door, doing the psalm.

Though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for thou art with me.

My rod and my staff...

Mr Carr-Gomm?

Yes, what is it?

It's there.

I didn't teach him that part.

My cup runneth over...

Surely your goodness and mercy

will follow all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Aren't the women fascinating in this?

Well it's Anne Bancroft, Hannah Gordon.

Yeah, Anne Bancroft, Wendy Hiller.

Wendy Hiller as the head nurse, the minute she comes on,

even if she's on for two seconds, this authority, this...

of her as the actor, but also what she brings,

all of these women who come on, who just sort of like...

almost cutting-edge, in a way, they're saying this is this,

this is that, this is the- And they hold the power.

And they hold it, they hold the power.

And the men are floundering on the...

See, that's very subtle.

That's very subtle and actually,

makes the film tender in a strange way.

It makes it a very tender picture.

And this woman, these strong women, are as natural as anything.

They're not unusual, they are part of the picture.

Of course I appreciate your concern,

- I appreciate everything that you've done for Mr Merrick. - Thank you.

But I am the physician in charge- I appreciate-

And I must do what I think is best for him.

Please, now I'm also very late.

If you ask my opinion, he's only being stared at all over again.

Thank you.

It's Hiller, as her character, who displays the most discipline.

Absolutely. And the most humanity.

Because she's wrestling herself with it and she says,

this is a patient, she's telling to her staff, not a monster.

But also you've got Princess Alexandra,

who is coming from Queen Victoria,

these two women who come into the hospital,

and effectively decide, because the board are saying

we want to get rid of this incurable sort of odd character,

we don't we don't want to pay to look after this character,

and the princess comes in and says I want to commend you

for everything you've done, knowing full well that what this really is,

is this will make them continue with what they're doing.

And so she is the person really,

who is critical to deciding what happens next.

If she doesn't do that, then he's out in the street.

- Exactly. - Her power is fundamentalfor what happens next.

And that is the underpinning, in many ways, of the picture.

That's what makes it almost revolutionary

at that point in the history of cinema,

it's very subtle.

It makes Lynch a very British director to me,

in a way, because he's not...

He's not bang, banging on your head

at a time when we women were out there.

This film is one of the strongest examples of how women...

And the power, and it's so subtle, it's so subtle, so beautiful.

So let me ask about Anne Bancroft, because she is,

she's a fascinating character in it, a fabulous performance,

because she effectively takes Merrick out into Victorian society.

But before then, just before then, she goes into his room,

and shows no sort of sign of any uncomfortable behaviour,

because she knows what it is to be looked at.

Come in. Ah, good morning.

Good morning.

There's someone here who would like to meet you, if that's all right?

May I introduce you to one of the bright lights of the English stage?

Mrs Kendal, Miss Kendal, Mr John Merrick.

Good day, Mr Merrick.

The fact that the American public knew that they were married,

Mel Brooks, and when they found out he was the producer...

Anne Bancroft, he was allowing his wife to show all of her chops,

show everything that she could do, she was a big star.

And so she was doing all kinds of big main roles,

that she walked into a picture that had Wendy Hiller in it, OK.

Yep, John Gielgud. John Gielgud,

Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft.

- And she runs her part beautifully, she's wonderful. - Yeah.

All the women are so incredible in this picture, so multi-faceted.

To your point, she does also take him to the theatre.

She says to him, you must come to the theatre, you will love it.

And again, you think this is not going to work,

but she organises it, and she then mainstreams him

at the end of the performance, she then turns the spotlight on him

and celebrates him and the audience rise to their feet.

It's kind of... Almost the climax of the show,

is the thing that she conjures up,

the magic that she conjures up in that moment.

Ladies and gentlemen,

tonight's performance was very special to me,

because it was very special to someone else.

A man who knows the theatre, and who loves the theatre,

and yet this is the very first time he has ever been here.

I wish to dedicate -

the whole company wishes to dedicate with all their hearts -

tonight's performance,

to Mr John Merrick, my very dear friend.

Shot by Hammer veteran Freddie Francis,

in a smoggy but enchanted monochrome,

this is a world of duality -

the medical clarity of daylight,

and the distorted hallucinatory nights.

They found their central location

in the derelict Eastern and London Hospital,

where Lynch could sense vibrations from the past.

Even as the director struggled to cope with the gloomy British autumn,

he created a fairytale about the dehumanisation of industry

and the search for beauty.

Freddie Francis was the perfect cinematographer for this,

because he had won an Academy Award for black-and-white photography

in Sons and Lovers.

And he knew exactly how to create

an almost sort of poetic vision

of this particular society at night.

He was using anamorphic lenses,

so in spite of the fact that it was all very closed spaces,

you know, narrow alleyways and whatever, they filled the screen.

And I think that that whole...

The way that he created and conveyed, you know,

the darkness and the sort of almost Gothic atmosphere, you know,

not unlike David Lean's Oliver Twist, you know,

in certain aspects, but this had a clarity,

light bounding off the cobblestones.

And you can see the lights coming through the steam

coming out of the vents, and that gave it

a sort of slightly surreal quality. Absolutely.

Now we should recognise that this film was immensely successful

at the Box Office, critically,

and it received what, eight nominations at the Oscars?

I mean, this was- Well, also,

it created another nomination, because no-one could believe

there wasn't an award for make-up for this film.

So they created for the following year,

the award for make up for this, you know, retroactively in a sense,

because this film didn't get one. So they...

The Academy wanted to give them nine.

But it found an audience, didn't it, very readily,

and you know, it wasn't an art film.

It was obviously very artistic,

but it wasn't an art film in the kind of ghettoised sense.

This played to a wide universal audience.

And it did, and in America, I think in particular,

the film spoke to the era in a strange way.

Because there was so much unmasking and opening up,

and looking at hidden things

and things that had not been in the public eye.

And this story of this man, in another country,

which made it safe, but this story of this man

and everything he had gone through, was, I think,

very important for an American audience,

because you could make it personal.

It was a personal journey, it didn't end well,

it didn't make you feel happy,

but you saw the grace and the genius of this human being.

And it taught you, just don't... You know, some people...

Don't judge people by what they look like on the outside.

Yeah, yeah. It was extraordinarily relatable, wasn't it?

I mean given the subject matter, the fact that it's, you know,

a Victorian era, but I think that's what happened.

It, you know, above and beyond the European audience.

- It really transcended the concept of period piece. - It really did.

Yeah, but also it transcends... I mean, I think,

right now it's incredibly relatable and relevant.

You know, it's about the problems with healthcare,

it's about the problems with what happens when you're looked at,

with fame, with examining the weird, identity.

It never stops being a relevant story, this film.

Because it's so well made, it doesn't look like it was made

at any particular point, it could have been made yesterday.

It could have just been released.

There's something timeless about it

and something constantly important about it.

And it is, I think, above all, about human agency.

This man... This man who people considered a monster...

This film had the power and the grace

to let us see that this is not a monster.

This is a human being.

So maybe the guy next to you or the woman next to you,

is a person, too.

And that's I think what audiences walked out thinking.

That's a person, that's a human being.

No!

I am not an elephant!

I am not an animal!

I am a human being.

So what do you think it did for Lynch's career in particular?

It basically made him.

It took him out of the possible ghetto of art horror,

into the mainstream.

I mean, and it gave him the possibility of a career in,

you know, more or less, studio cinema.

Studio-backed films anyway, which of course he took full advantage of.

So yeah... it was that big moment for him.

And I think he deserved it. Bearing in mind

that he had a wonderful team around him to help him.

Yes. He was supported.

But it did give him that opportunity which he grabbed with both hands.

But the interesting point, isn't it, finally,

that we don't think of it as a Lynch film,

and I don't mean that in a bad way. No.

I think the film exists in its own right,

and it's a legacy that exists in its own right.

It's almost like As if Joseph Merrick is more than David Lynch

just in this situation.

It is the performance, the lead performance,

it is the cinematography,

which takes this film out of whatever you think,

or anyone thinks a David Lynch film is,

and puts it into a category,

not only in and of itself,

but it becomes part of the history of cinema in many ways,

and so it's a big, big movie, a big piece of cinema.

What, fundamentally, I get from The Elephant Man,

and when I return to it, obviously, it's all the magic of its making

and the beauty of what you watch.

But it's such a human story,

it's such a tribute to the humanity that we could have within us.

And that's the test put before us by John Merrick, Joseph Merrick,

that what would we do?

How would we look upon him and how do we look upon ourselves?

It's like a warning and a blessing at the same time, The Elephant Man,

it says, regard yourself in terms of the human race,

you know, we are worth more than perhaps we recognise.

And I think it's such a powerful but very simple and beautiful statement

for a film to make. And it's really...

It's a film which seeks to define, and I think successfully,

it seeks to look at and understand the human soul.

And that's the beauty of it. What it does,

is just for a moment, for two hours in your life,

you can get a glimpse into the human soul,

and that's something wonderful.

It is so beautifully directed, so beautifully directed

that that moment that Anthony Hopkins kisses him,

you sit there and think, is that spontaneous or is that in there?

And that's what a great movie does.

You don't know how a moment like that happens,

and it caps the whole thing.

And I think that's also how he expresses that

in the very, very final scenes of the film.

He sort of goes into Merrick's head and out into the universe.

And the last images he sees are of his mother,

his mother's eyes, which is how they start.

And you're left with the final words after he has made that decision,

to lie down.

And we know that as soon as he lies down,

he will probably break his neck and he knows that, he does it.

And the last thing we see is his mother's face saying again

and again, no-one will die, no-one will die, no-one will die.

The Elephant Man tends to be overlooked

in the rush to decipher Lynch, but it is a key film.

In Hurt's delicate hands,

Merrick is revealed as a gentle, artistic soul,

a reflection, perhaps, of the director himself.

Lynch's most heartfelt film,

The Elephant Man is a visionary tribute

to the endurance of the human soul.

So pleased you enjoyed yourself.

Good night.

Good night.

Subtitles by Sky Access Services www.skyaccessibility.sky