David Lynch
The Elephant Man

The only films that have ever moved me so much in my life that I felt the classic lump in my throat and my eyes watering, without my typically southern male pride being able to do anything to stop them, were "Big Fish" by Tim Burton and "The Elephant Man" by David Lynch.

The films in question, although profoundly different from each other, have in common the relationship between child and parent.

In 'Big Fish' it is a tormented relationship full of misunderstandings that prolongs over time to the point of exasperation, and this aspect constitutes the main theme of the work. In Lynch's opus, however, the relationship is not lived but dreamed, so much hoped for that it leads the protagonist to end his life to reach it in another dimension.

The existence of John Merrick was certainly not easy, afflicted from birth by a terrible genetic disease that made him heavily deformed and full of protrusions, so much so that he resembled an elephant. For this reason, John embodies the perfect freak show phenomenon, disgusting and repugnant, that must be shown to an insatiably curious audience of everything that nature makes differ from the traditional human scheme.

For the more learned minds, the "elephant man" is, instead, an opportunity for research and, consequently, a useful tool to gain the attention of colleagues while trying to achieve a rapid career advancement. This was the reason that prompted Dr. Treves, skillfully played by Anthony Hopkins, to rescue John Merrick from the captivity imposed by his protector and organizer of that show, which exposed him to the disgusted eyes of the circus attendees. Not, therefore, a feeling of human charity, but only a way to conduct experiments and hold conferences and thus become famous.

However, Dr. Treves' attitude slowly but inexorably changes when he discovers he is facing an intelligent, polite, profoundly good, and extremely sensitive young man who believed that his illness and the painful distance from his beloved mother, whom he never knew and of whom he kept an old photo always with him, was the right price to pay for having committed who knows what misdeeds in the past.

Obviously, it was not so.

John, although he had a terrible appearance that frightened anyone who looked at him, was certainly a better man than many others. Treves recognized this truth and tried to show it to others. Thanks to the friendship of Dr. Treves and his courage, the elephant man fulfilled the dream of being among people without feeling like something different. But his greatest dream, as mentioned, was to reach the beautiful woman who had given birth to him and whom he had never known, and there was only one way to do it: to sleep lying in a warm bed like all men do, without the weight of his enormous head breaking his breath…

"The Elephant Man" is a film of such poetry and romanticism, emphasized by the wise choice to shoot it in black and white, that it is not easy to remain detached, watching it with cold rationality. The messages that pour forth from the viewing are multiple and subjective. What struck me the most is John Merrick's consternation at being distant from maternal love, made even more painful by the mistaken belief that this distance was because of his behavior or, worse still, his appearance.

There remains the consolation of knowing that, finally, John Merrick and his mother are one and the same in a universe where everyone is truly equal and where there are no deformities to keep people away from the affection of their loved ones.