100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #68: The Elephant Man (1980)

Directed by David Lynch. Starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins.

An encounter with suffering is at the heart of the Catholic faith, but to recognize suffering as a gift is a challenge even for the greatest saints. When we see someone who has undergone great sorrow, do we recoil in discomfort and try to ignore the suffering in the world, or do we encounter the one who suffers with a compassionate presence? From those two options, the Christian response is obvious, but how difficult this remains for many of us when the suffering person appears beyond help. As David Lynch’s powerful true-life drama The Elephant Man demonstrates, a person who appears beyond help does not eliminate our responsibility towards our fellow man. Rather, it increases that responsibility to care and walk alongside the weak and the unaffirmed. 

Based on the true story of English artist Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a man who from a young age developed severe facial and bodily deformities, The Elephant Man recounts his adult years when he was discovered by British surgeon Frederick Treves and given hospitalization after suffering at the hands of a cruel side-show owner. When Treves (Anthony Hopkins) first discovers The Elephant Man exhibit, he slowly walks in, hesitant to approach the dark room that houses the deformed man. When Merrick (John Hurt) shows his face to the surgeon, Treves looks dumbfounded, and as the camera slowly zooms towards Treves’ face, a single tear rolls down his cheek. This shot captures the heart of the film, for here is the Christian response to suffering. Rather than turning away in disgust and pity, as the gawking crowds had treated Merrick, Treves faces the man and sits with him in his suffering, recognizing the dignity and worth of the human person who deserves to be cared for. Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan is artfully captured in this shot and throughout the rest of the film, which follows Treves’ efforts to understand Merrick’s deformities and give him attention after years of neglect.

It is unlikely that director David Lynch (best known as the creator of the cult classic television series Twin Peaks) sought to make a specifically Christian film, but his storytelling recognizes the soul of man, present in every human person, and doesn’t shy away from including Merrick’s Christian belief. The real Merrick read the Bible every day, and during the film he recites the 23rd psalm:

The Lord is my Shepherd;

there is nothing I lack.

In green pastures he makes me lie down;

to still waters he leads me;

he restores my soul.

He guides me along right paths

for the sake of his name.

Even though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

your rod and staff comfort me.

(Psalm 23: 1-4)

Until this point in the film, Treves was unaware that Merrick was well-versed in scripture, but by encouraging him to practice speaking his name, he discovered that an intelligent and unique man lived beneath the deformities; a man who was simply afraid to speak because of the way he’d been treated throughout his life. But hearing him recite the psalm, a prayer of hope, Treves experiences a newfound hope that Merrick can be properly helped now that he can communicate his thoughts and feelings. More than that, Merrick himself lets Treves know that his own hope throughout his life has been in his Creator. Despite his condition, he has not given way to despair, and accepts the medical assistance that Treves offers. 

In the hands of another director, Merrick’s story could easily have been mishandled and turned overly sentimental or been sensationalized. But Lynch’s calm, understated direction (combined with Freddie Francis’ crisp black-and-white cinematography that captures Victorian England as a shadowy 19th century photograph) makes The Elephant Man a film of quiet triumphs. There is no emotional manipulation in the performances. The actors disappear into their roles with restrained professionalism, avoiding any hint of melodrama. As a result of this understatement, the emotions, when they come, hit hard because we recognize them as authentic. Merrick quietly shedding tears when Treves’ wife greets him with kindness, a curious actress coming to visit Merrick in the hospital and kissing him on the cheek, the hospital board voting to let Merrick stay, are among the many emotional moments that do not require overacting or saccharine music swells to make the audience cry. The story by itself is enough. Lynch trusts the audience to see the humanity of Merrick the same way the characters do, and we walk alongside them, hoping for Merrick’s happiness. 

The greatest triumph of the film is the way friendship forms from the encounter with suffering. Initially a patient that Treves was interested in for scientific inquiry, Merrick soon becomes more than a patient to Treves. He becomes a friend. This simple word “friend” is not used until near the end of the film, and we as an audience might underestimate its power. When characters begin to introduce Merrick as their friend, these are cinematic moments of uncommon warmth, because we recognize an authentic affirmation from one friend to another, something that has been lacking in Merrick’s life for a long time. Catholic Psychiatrist Conrad Baars, in his extensive research on the importance of affirmation for a person’s development, talked about affirmation as the process where we come to know ourselves as good, and how this knowledge of our own goodness must be given to us by another person.

In order to become you, you must first receive the gift of yourself. In order to receive this gift, there has to be another who gives without taking, without demanding anything, who gives you what is not his own, but yours, your own goodness.¹

This is Christ’s affirmation towards us, and the kind of affirmation we are called to emulate in our own lives and relationships. In forming friendships with compassionate people who saw past Merrick’s deformities and into his soul, Merrick became a happier, more confident man and recognized his own goodness. There was no question that his physical suffering would continue, but with friends walking alongside him in his suffering, carrying him towards his heavenly home, he says to Treves, “my life is full, because I know I am loved.”

1. Conrad Baars, Born Only Once: The Miracle of Affirmation (Fransiscan Herald Press, 1975), 19.