The Elephant Man (1980) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe) avi

The Elephant Man (1980)

Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, a 19th-century Englishman afflicted with a disfiguring congenital disease. With the help of kindly Dr. Frederick Treves, Merrick attempts to regain the dignity he lost after years spent as a side-show freak.

Anthony Hopkins ... Dr. Frederick Treves
John Hurt ... John Merrick
Anne Bancroft ... Mrs. Kendal
John Gielgud ... Carr Gomm
Wendy Hiller ... Mothershead
Freddie Jones ... Bytes
Michael Elphick ... Night Porter
Hannah Gordon ... Mrs. Anne Treves
Helen Ryan ... Princess Alex
John Standing ... Dr. Fox
Dexter Fletcher ... Bytes's Boy
Lesley Dunlop ... Nora
Phoebe Nicholls ... Merrick's Mother
Pat Gorman ... Fairground Bobby
Claire Davenport ... Fat Lady

Director: David Lynch

Runtime: 124 mins

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080678/

Codecs:

CD1:

Video : 3.80 GB, 8622 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 720*304 (Unknown), H264 = H 264,
Audio : 202 MB, 448 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 5 channels, 0x2000 = AC3 DVM, CBR,

CD2:

Video : 3.81 GB, 9072 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 720*304 (Unknown), H264 = H 264,
Audio : 192 MB, 448 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 5 channels, 0x2000 = AC3 DVM, CBR,

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If one was to turn on David Lynch's The Elephant Man midway through, without knowing what it was, one might be startled at the appearance of the main character. One might even be tempted to make fun of the character. But if one was to watch the film from the beginning, one's sympathy with John Merrick (John Hurt), 'The Elephant Man,' would be strong enough to deny that the former situation was ever a possibility. Lynch does not allow his audience to glimpse Merrick sans mask until his appearance has been built up substantially. When we the audience are at our zenith of anticipation, we see him-no dramatic music, no slow motion; a simple cut and he's there. There he is. And it's no big deal.

This is the beauty of Lynch's direction. We are led through our morbid curiosity at the same rate the characters in the film are. We develop alongside them. More specifically, we develop alongside Frederick Treeves, played with an astounding sublimity of emotion by Anthony Hopkins. Next to Treeves we pity Merrick, respect him, pity him again, and then ask ourselves with him, 'is he just a spectacle to me? Am I a bad person?'

Lynch certainly doesn't let us bypass this question easily. Are we bad people for being intrigued or are we good people for pitying? Certainly there is a mix of intrigue and pity with every character who first meets John, and we are not excluded. However, as with almost every character who truly comes to know John and confer with him, we learn to respect him as a human being and not as a spectacle. Nonetheless, this issue never finds close in the film, nor do I feel it ever can be closed in actual life. Hopkin's Treeves is never fully sated in how he feels about this dilemma, and so, neither can we be.

Technically, The Elephant Man is a beautifully shot film. In crisp black and white, the film recalls the cinematic technique of American cinema circa the 1930's. The scenes dissolve into one another; there is no brisk editing. The lighting is kept low-key during dark scenes, balanced during daytime scenes-this is standard film-making of the era. The one digression from this form are the distinctly Lynchian surrealities-pseudo-dream-sequences of commendably original imagery that break up the film and serve as distinct mood-setters for the audience. These are, for the most part, fairly intimidating sidenotes. We as an audience are caught off-guard because in these tangents we are not identifying with Treeves, we are put instead into Merrick's shoes. It is unsettling.

But Lynch has never been a director to flinch at unsettling prospects. We must watch Merrick beaten, abused, harassed, humiliated, and tormented. We may feel a surge of happiness when he finally stands up for himself, but by that point we still have to cope with what we've already, what he's already, experienced. I suppose that is the greatest and most devastating aspect of the film-empathy. Every moment is heartbreaking. Yet no matter how hard it gets, and how much better it then turns, there is always the threat of another jab. And those jabs only get more and more painful.

The Elephant Man is a perfect film. It is sorrowful but it apologizes not at all for it. It is a film about where our empathy stems from, a film that asks you to feel sorry but rebukes you for your blind pity. It asks you to respect Merrick, not cry for him. But you can't help crying. The Elephant Man is a film that treks you through despair and asks for your hope in the end. It asks you to hate humanity but to love the humane. It asks you to look at a man who appears sad and know that inside, he's okay.

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This movie changed my life forever. To see someone so beautiful, dignified, and unique, hidden behind a body and face that society considers ugly, made me realize how the body is a decaying pile of dust, but the soul is a breath-taking and uniquely formed indestructible diamond.

I believe that everyone should get a chance to see this film, for those of an open mind, and a caring soul, there is nothing else like it.

It also shows the detestable ways some people treat others. I felt at first pity for John Merrick, but then my feelings changed to admiration, as the film went on. John, in the film starts as a severely deformed mute figure being badly mistreated, as the story progresses, he becomes the hero. A bold and courageous man, standing against the evils of modern society.

Joseph (John) Merrick, was a man so one-of-a-kind, that someone else like him physically or emotionally will never appear again. His life should be taken as an example to everyone.

As in the film, John's mother says "Nothing will Die", Joseph Merrick will live on in the hearts and souls of everyone who has witnessed the story of his life.

My love goes to Joseph Merrick, where ever he may be.

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Between the surreal dystopia of Eraserhead and the artistic immobility of Dune, and before critics labeled him as the auteur of Weird America with permanent marker, David Lynch directed this strange but true story set in London, England during the late 1800's. Being one of only two films of his to be based on fact it is far less of a personal work than those generated by the director himself. Despite his sensibilities being contained in a more formal framework his unique aural and visual style (like the sound of blowing wind or the peculiar emphasis of the industrial machinery of the period)clearly comes across, although it's a far cry from the narrative conundrums that comprise Eraserhead, Lost Highway, or Mulholland Dr.

The year before this film was released Bernard Pomerance's play opened on Broadway. This film is not based upon the former work and the latter takes a dramatically divergent path with its namesake subject. One of the most substantial is Merrick's role in his adoptive society once his carnival career is truncated. Pomerance's tale is a tragic one showing us how Merrick becomes caught in the machinery of the repressive and hypocritical society that cultivates him, tempting him with the illusion of normality with the artificial world they erect around him, but ultimately imprisoning him within it. The film depicts Victorian society as a benevolent sanctuary for a man, who while given the props to model himself after the normality he aspires to, is never deceived into thinking he can achieve it beyond his imagination. Merrick's own realization of this is clear in a scene (hauntingly scored by composer John Morris)where he asks his caretaker Treeves if he can cure him. Treeves' reply is no. Merrick's response is of a man who knew the answer all along but still allows himself the indulgence to dream.

Treeves' struggles are similarly reduced. The closest he comes in the film to questioning his motives concerning Merrick is a brief scene where he asks his wife (and audience) if his seemingly charitable act of taking Merrick from his sideshow squalor was possibly something other than altruistic. Pomerance has Treeves questioning the artificial social fabric that's been woven around Merrick and his undeniable complicity in it. The screenwriters seem less concerned with tackling these Victorian dilemmas than focusing on the beauty in the beast theme. Considering Lynch's fascination with organic phenomena this focus seems much more up his alley. In his words Lynch has stated that the eponymous title character is "this beautiful soul trapped in this horrible body and that's what the whole film is about." Yes siree Bob.

Much less effective in the film is the role of the actress Madge Kendall who's really nothing more than a walk on by Anne Bancroft. There is some(even subtly sexual)awkwardness between Merrick and Kendall at the beginning of their meeting together but it ultimately winds up with a scene that feels patronizing towards Merrick and mawkish. It doesn't fit with the earlier tension and Kendall never becomes anything more than a well acted cameo. Much more effective is Merrick's ability to retain the power to disturb the bourgeois society that flocks to see him once he becomes that season's fashionable curiosity. His transformation into a gentrified version of his erstwhile sawdust and calliope music carnival persona still has the same effect on others. In one scene he is serving tea to a noticeably unnerved aristocratic couple who are guests of his. Their cups rattle against their saucers in barely restrained horror as he discusses his mother's beauty in the context of his own deformity. His cherished portrait of his mother becomes an eerily recurring visual motif. She remains a mysterious presence frozen in time. The conflation of Merrick and his mother recalls a line heard early in the film that "life is full of surprises."

Merrick's background remains equally enigmatic. The only glimpse we see of his past are some creepily abstract images during one of his nightmares. Even his beginnings are fictionalized as part of the sideshow spiel recited by his owner Bytes. Treeves' first view of the elephant man is in a private showing by Bytes. He is led down a dark corridor to a room where the terrible freak is kept concealed behind a curtain. Only the flames of a gas lamp illuminate the darkness. Bytes spins a tale of a terrifying encounter between woman and elephant while Treeves stares, mouth agape. The scene has a strange Lynchian spookiness about it.

The costume and production design authentically breathe life into the Victorian era while Freddie Francis' expressionistic monochrome adds both verisimilitude and a sense of an alternative world. These elements together with Lynch's use of both nightmarish and chimerical images, an other worldly atmosphere, pathos and sentiment, make the film a sort of Charles Dickens tale wrapped inside The Twilight Zone with the ethereal touch of a haunting dream. The past a la Lynch.

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* Director David Lynch originally tried to do the makeup for the elephant man himself but simply wasn't able to.

* Following the death of the real Joseph "John" Merrick, parts of his body were preserved for medical science to study. Some internal organs were kept in jars, and plaster casts were taken of his head, an arm, and a foot. Although the organs were destroyed by German air raids during the Second World War, the casts survived and are kept at the London Hospital. The makeup for John Hurt, who played Merrick in the film, was designed directly from those casts.

* The Elephant Man makeup took 7 hours to apply each time. John Hurt would arrive on set at 5.00am and shoot from noon until 10.00pm. Because of the strain on the actor, he worked alternate days.

* When the nominees for the 53rd Annual Academy Awards were announced in February 1981, many in the industry were appalled that this movie was not going to be honored for its make-up effects. At the time there was not regular category and winners for make-up were cited with a special award. Feeling that the make-up technicians deserved to be rewarded for the film, a letter a protest was sent to the Academy's Board of Governors to ask them to change their minds and give the film a special award. The Academy refused, but in response to the outcry, they decided a year later to reward make-up artists with their own annual category, and thus the best make-up award was born.

* Merrick's condition was undiagnosed at the time of his death. Later studies of his skeleton and the casts made of his body led researchers to suggest he suffered from neurofibromatosis (NF), a genetic condition that 1 in 4,000 persons suffer from. The NF Foundation used the movie as a fund raising tool and credited it with making the disease more widely known. Later examination, including CT scans of the skeleton, lead researchers to believe he suffered from proteus syndrome, a much rarer condition than NF. In 2003, researchers using surviving DNA samples from Merrick were able to determine that he definitely suffered from proteus syndrome, and probably suffered from NF as well, hence his unique condition.

* The writers based this film on the memoirs of Dr. 'Frederick Treves' as well as other true accounts, but avoided the play by Bernard Pomerance. The true name of the Elephant Man was not John Merrick as most believe, but Joseph Carey Merrick. Merrick was born in Leicester, England on August 5, 1862, and died in the Royal London Hospital on April 11, 1890, at the age of 27. When Dr. Treves wrote his memoir, he referred to him as John. His handwritten manuscript reveals that Treves knew that Merrick's name was Joseph, and deliberately crossed out Joseph and replaced it with John. Merrick's surviving correspondence shows he signed his name as Joseph, and contemporary newspaper articles about his case refer to him by his correct name. Why Treves changed his name to John is unknown.

* After the first day of shooting, when actor John Hurt was exposed for the first time to the inconveniences of having his make-up applied and walking around in it, he called his wife, saying, I think they finally managed to make me hate acting.

* When Treeves sees Merrick for the first time, he sheds a single tear. Anthony Hopkins thought of his sick father at that moment to help him to cry.

* Originally offered to Terrence Malick but he passed.

* Keith Barron was cut out of this film

* Director Cameo: [David Lynch] when Merrick returns to London, he is chased by an angry mob, and flees underground. The shot of the crowd descending the stairs in pursuit features Lynch in full costume.

* Trevor Howard was asked to play the Freddie Jones part.

* This film was executive produced by 'Mel Brooks (I)' , who was responsible for hiring director David Lynch and obtaining permission to film in black and white. He deliberately left his name off the credits, as he knew that people would get the wrong idea about the movie if they saw hi