Review of The Elephant Man (1980) by Ryan Gibbons — 21 Aug 2010

I did not dislike the film at all but I did not think that it was all that well made. I completely understand why Ebert gave it such a low rating, it is very peculiar and unclear. There are a few things that I did not understand.

Why was the film focused so much on Treves? I know he was an important person in John Merrick's life but a film with a title like this is usually centered around the main character and we really don't meet Mr.

Merrick until much later on. I was also not sure on what tone the movie wanted to take, it goes from being a normal drama with nothing special about it, to a movie that is supposed to lift our spirits and make us cry because of his triumph, and then it goes into some intellectual Philosophical meaning of life type movie that really tells us absolutely nothing, makes no sense, and is utterly pointless.

I'M referring to the end of the film which did not make me wonder, oh..what was that about, it was more like Oh....ehhh.. Why did they end it like that? going backwards now, but there is a scene were Merrick goes missing and we never figure out where he was or how he got there and that sort of bugged me.

Overall I felt like I was watching a movie about everyone but John Merrick even though they did go pretty in-depth into him, I never really felt like I knew him, And I knew too much about all of the other characters.

Now on to the strong points of the film. The beginning of the film made me feel very uneasy and at first I had no idea what they were talking about until I researched it after viewing. Unless you have a lot of knowledge on the man, you pretty much have to do some research to understand what the hell the point of the first scene was, I did not have a lot of knowledge of the man, I only knew the name that people called him.

I will admit shamelessly that at first, it was not really an uneasy feeling when they introduced the man, but I was shocked. And like I'm sure it was then, as time went on I was more comfortable with him, so it does make us feel like were part of the story very well and that was well done by the director.

He also did a superb job with the cinematography, some really incredible shots of Victorian London. I do have emotions..... there were some scenes in the film what made me feel very sad for Mr.Merrick, I shed a few brief tears, well actually my eyes only watered a bit because I did not feel close to the character.

John Hurt's performance proves why the Oscars mean very little because he did not even win for this incredible portrayal. But as I have said before, I was born over a hundred years after these events took place so I cannot vouch for it's historical accuracy.

I have also said this before, Anthony Hopkins would probably be in the lead if there was a race for greatest actor of all time even though I strongly believe that there is no such thing, the guy just gets "it" better than most actors.

All in all The Elephant Man is a pretty good film but there are quite a few problems, one that I left out would be the poor sound that this film has. It does have some strong points, but I don't think that the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing.

I really would have liked to know the main character more. Little bit more to add. The film is sad, sad in the sense that people judge as much as they do on appearance, which will really never fade. John Merrick was just a victim of human ignorance and I guess human nature because just about all of us have judged a person without getting to know them at all.

John Merrick was probably a very good man, but I guess that just really did not matter, sad...really sad. I guess we all have different interpretations of who the "freaks" really are. It's an educational film with value.