DIRECTOR David Lynch’s film tells the story of Joseph Merrick, whose terrible deformities to head, limbs, and skin led to him being called the Elephant Man. It begins with Merrick’s nightmare of his mother being attacked by elephants—supposedly the cause of his condition—in smeary, scary, surreal images as disturbing as those from Lynch’s earlier fatherhood paranoia film, Eraserhead. Merrick is initially exploited as a carnival freak, but like the Victorian era the story is set in—a time of belief in progress, growth, and self-improvement—the movie ultimately turns optimistic. It shows Merrick’s development, with the aid of understanding medical gentlemen, from a brutalized working-class outcast to a person able to take his place among upper-class society, becoming friend to royalty, society celebrities, and theater crowds. Along the way, though, The Elephant…
