Nobody but Lynch could have directed this movie and made it the masterpiece that it is. Where other people would have gone for fake sentimentality and/or gruesome imagery; Lynch just presents the story how it is. The film is never gratuitous, and that is much to it's credit. It is, however, utterly repulsive. The black and white cinematography enforces this. There is nothing pleasant about The Elephant Man; it is as ugly as it's title character, and that is the way that this story needs to be. On the surface, it is ugly and repulsive; but just like it's title character; the movie has a hidden depth that is ultimately touching and heartbreaking. The movie sets itself up for this early on; the scene in which the Elephant Man is introduced is most of the most gut wrenching ever committed to film. As the doctor (Anthony Hopkins) sees the freak rise up and realises the extent of his deformity...a tear slowly form and rolls down his cheek. From this, you can see the pity that he feels for this man who has drawn the lot of a lowly circus freak; just from that one shot of a tear, David Lynch shows us the sorrow and the pity, and that's all he needs. Where some directors would have piled the sentimentality on, David Lynch is economic; that's all it needs, so that's all it gets. And that is the mark of a great director. Something that David Lynch most certainly is.

The film is also ironic. Aside from it's visuals that link to the title character, it also observes how society is not unlike a circus. The good doctor has taken the Elephant Man away from the glares and the scowls of the circus audience, the exploitation that he's had to face, and put him a kinder and more loving environment; only now the scowls and stares come not from the circus audience, but from society's upper crust, who want to exploit the Elephant Man themselves for their own selfish reasons - to impress their friends. The Elephant Man is not merely a horror story of the life of a very unfortunate man; it's a story of love, a story of acceptance. Despite being taken from one circus to another, the Elephant Man is happier and more fulfilled than he ever was; he doesn't care about the looks and the exploitation, he merely wants to be loved. By 'normal' people, this is taken for granted; but The Elephant Man shows us that love and acceptance isn't something that can be taken for granted. As one doctor notes in the film, "we can't imagine the life he's had". We can't.

David Lynch also succeeds in making voyeurs out of his audience. Just like the various audiences in the film; we too want to see the Elephant Man, and yet are utterly repulsed and disgusted by him. With this, David Lynch makes a mockery out of today's society, without ever making a mockery out of the character upon which this film is based. The Elephant Man himself is a perfectly balanced example of how pathos can be achieved. Not only is this man seen as a monster, but his character is pathetic also. With The Elephant Man, Lynch is saying to the world that it is society that is the monster, not the freaks that live within it.

To put it simply: David Lynch has taken a story that could have easily been told simply and expanded it to take in themes that are outside of the central premise. This small story of one unfortunate man has been moulded into a striking comment on society. And all in all; it's a masterpiece.

Moralising narratives are at the heart of many "outsider" biopics as a means of exposing the flawed logic of a "civilized" yet inherently inhumane society. This approach is exemplified to the extreme in David Lynch's The Elephant Man. The famous biography of John Merrick is presented as a horror film in which the viewer is repeatedly subjected to scenes of violence against a helpless and cripplingly deformed man. Historical documentation reveals that Merrick indeed suffered a great many injustices but testament to his survival is his industriousness and independence, qualities not explored in the film. The intelligent and gentle nature of Merrick is emphasized not to explicate his strength of character but rather to expose the stupidity and brutality of his tormentors. Fictionalized abuses such as a kidnapping, a violent manager, and a psychopathic night-guard supplement an already grotesque vision of 19th century England as an era of absolute inhumanity. The industrial nightmare which is the basis of Lynch's earlier experimental film Eraserhead is recycled and juxtaposed with the world of etiquette and bourgeois finery of the self-righteous Victorian upper classes. The system of capitalism is exposed for its inability to acknowledge the worth of human life outside of productive capacity. Those without labour power are dehumanized and stripped of all dignity in order to survive, fuelling the prevalence of prostitution, child exploitation, and freak shows. The treatment of John Merrick in The Elephant Man is yet another exploitation of sorts as it reduces an extraordinary life to a moral tale. When Dr. Treves says, "Mr.Bytes, I'm sorry but all you do is profit from another man's misery", one has to wonder at the hypocrisy of a film which replicates the spectacle of the freak show and exaggerates victimization in order to drive home an unsubtle misanthropic narrative.

Anthony Hopkins is so associated with Hannibal Lecter, that we almost forget that he did star in movies before that. "The Elephant Man", for example. It's sort of hard to determine whether the main character is disfigured John Merrick (John Hurt) or Dr. Frederick Treves (Hopkins). Either way, it's the movie's plot that's important. The plot of course shows how Merrick has been treated as a monster all his life and Treves tries to cure him. As for the possibility that the movie may have revered its subject too much...well, would you feel comfortable mocking him? A particularly interesting combo is the people behind the movie: director David Lynch and executive producer Mel Brooks (Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft appears as an actress). The former is synonymous with deliberately weird cinema, while the latter is synonymous with silliness. Both men show a different side here. All in all, this is definitely a movie that everyone should see.