Cullen
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Soldiers of Cinema Podcast. Episode 32. Today, I'm Cullen McFater. I'm joined as always by Clerk Coffey. How's it going?
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Clark
It's going well, man. How are you?
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Cullen
I'm good. I'm good. We're doing the elephant Man today, which is David Lynch's 1980 film about Joseph Merrick, who was a.
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Clark
Or Johnny, as.
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Cullen
He's called Johnny's. Yeah, exactly. He's a late 18th century figure.
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Clark
18th or 19th.
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Cullen
Or I guess it would be 19th century.
00:00:42:13 - 00:00:45:12
Clark
It was 19. Right. I always get that confused, too. But we're talking if you.
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Cullen
Go back one first.
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Clark
Yeah. Yeah. He was born in in what I think like 62, 1862. Yeah. He died I think in about 1880 or I'm sorry, 1890. So yeah, I think that's going to actually have him in the 19th century. London. Yes. Yeah.
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Cullen
Yeah. Late 19th century. But yes, he was known as the Elephant Man. He had severe deformities to his body, which we.
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Clark
Still don't medically understand.
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Cullen
Yeah, we don't. There's, there's theories as to what they could have been, but yeah, there's no consensus really on, on what.
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Clark
They did actually.
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Cullen
Was the cause of it.
00:01:17:07 - 00:01:21:05
Clark
Yeah. They've even done I think like you know, DNA test of. Yes.
00:01:21:10 - 00:01:24:05
Cullen
Actually his remains are still on display in London, I think.
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Clark
Still no consensus as to exactly what he might have been afflicted with. But very interesting.
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Cullen
Yeah, very interesting figure. I guess the movie is primarily based off of trees. This book was The doctor, Sir Frederick.
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Clark
Frederick.
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Cullen
Shreve, who was basically his is I suppose you could say, closest friend and.
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Clark
Benefactor.
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Cullen
Doctor. Yeah.
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Clark
Yeah. But yeah, Frederick Trees book The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscence is and I think was the primary source although I think there was an additional source of as well if I'm not mistaken but that was the primary source.
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Cullen
Yes there's a the other the other was a book I think it was a researcher. Was the other.
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Clark
Correct. It was out of primary source. Ashley Montague's, the Elephant Man, a study in Human Dignity, which which was released in 1971, so that those were the two source materials.
00:02:22:06 - 00:02:52:10
Cullen
And it was it was Purdue by Mel Brooks uncredited. Yeah, but but he's super interesting. Yeah. He felt that his name being on the movie would kind of lead people to assume that it was satire comedy of some sort. And so he decided to take his name off the movie. But yeah, Mel Brooks involved, which is interesting because, you know, just kind of I guess an aside that Lynch's previous film was in black and White Eraserhead and Mel Brooks, his earlier film, Young Frankenstein, was black and white as well.
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Cullen
So I find it interesting that this even, you know, mid seventies, early eighties, these movies are still being made in black and white on it. You know the name of the film stock. What was the thought? It was so stock.
00:03:03:06 - 00:03:28:05
Clark
So yeah, I mean a fun little tidbit of history and trivia here. So yeah, I find the film to be really quite beautiful and so I wanted to know what stock it was shot on. It was actually shot on Eastman Kodak X plus x 5231 and used to be a very popular film for black and white. And there was a still 35 equivalent equivalent.
00:03:28:13 - 00:03:36:17
Clark
And I'm not quite sure if that film is still made or not by the UK subsidy of Kodak that still makes film. I'd have to double check on that.
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Cullen
Yeah, I'm I'm pretty sure a whole bunch of them are discontinued.
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Clark
Yeah. Unfortunately some live on is still photo stock now. Yeah, but this this is for sure gone so they discontinued this particular stock and actually interesting story. So I think we all remember that film the artist not too long ago shot black and white, won.
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Cullen
Best picture.
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Clark
Won best picture. I forget the year that that was.
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Cullen
12, I think.
00:03:59:23 - 00:04:24:06
Clark
Okay. Yeah, You're 11 ish. Yeah, ish. So actually, the producers director of that film wanted to shoot on this stock. The Eastman Kodak plus x 5231 wanted to shoot on that. But it had been discontinued by that point in time. So they were looking for, okay, do we have any stock that's, you know, anywhere around the world? And it had literally just just been snagged up.
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Clark
All of the the little snippets, loose ends, everything that existed anywhere real here, real there was picked up by a project called The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, a film that none of us have seen.
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Cullen
I had never it's like a musical. I think I looked at the trailer for it.
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Clark
Oh, yeah. But it was made by an indie film maker out here in Burbank. So that project had actually bought up all the remaining stock right before the artist wanted to use it. And so the artist actually, if I'm not mistaken, they ended up shooting color digitally and then switched to black and white after the fact, if I'm not mistaken.
00:05:00:03 - 00:05:05:16
Clark
So which which a lot of projects have done since then. But yeah, so it's got.
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Cullen
So so what's interesting to you about so the film looks like it was shot in the early 20th century, like it really does look like something from the 1920s or thirties. Yeah.
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Clark
It really is.
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Cullen
So and there's, there's very clearly an intense and a choice made being made there and you know, which is I think is really funny because again, we kind of have spoken about this before, but movies didn't look like this in 1980. And I think that that's a really important point to perhaps younger people who, you know, would be might watch this movie for the first time or something that this, you know, very much looks is intentionally it's very unique.
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Cullen
It looks like it's it's kind of it's shot period. Yeah. In a lot of ways.
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Clark
And definitely, obviously black and white is part of that. But it was shot in an other using other techniques in other ways that I think make it look any even older, which.
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Cullen
I would say the only one that that is not which is an interesting choice again is that it's shot widescreen anamorphic morphic which is which is kind of an interesting choice to be like rather than, you know, perhaps one, three, three or Academy ratio. But I mean, regardless that it's still a beautiful movie. It's a really.
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Clark
It's a good point. I mean, especially because this is all interiors. It's were in small rooms were were not to say that I'm necessarily a fan of four three or you know, square films, but I think if there were a film where that would work, frankly, this was a film that that would have worked. And so I agree.
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Clark
Yes, interesting that he went anamorphic widescreen. But I want to go real quickly before we jump into the cinematography of this film in earnest. A couple of the things that I think were really interesting on the on the history of it, you know, so when this film was released in 80, like you said, Colin, it was a it's a look was quite unique.
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Clark
Films were not looking like this in 1980. I mean, just to give us a little bit of, you know, contrast here, I mean, you know, The Empire Strikes Back was the number one box office film at the time. So, you know, you have other films like 9 to 5 Stir Crazy with Richard Pryor Airplane. I don't know if you ever remember comedy.
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Clark
This is slapstick. I mean, you know, so, so substantially different in look and feel and, you know, production. But but the film was really quite successful, you know, up until this point. You know, we have David Lynch, I'm sure we mentioned he was the director, right? We mentioned that already. Yes. Yeah. Only his second film and his previous film was Eraserhead.
00:07:31:10 - 00:07:46:16
Clark
And that's a quite a surreal I mean, you could definitely call that an art house film, a very surreal experience. Not not by no means, although it did actually do pretty well financially. I think you look that up.
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Cullen
Yeah, it was made on 10,000 a made like 7 million, I think, which is amazing.
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Clark
I would have never guessed that. I would have never guessed that. But to have such a successful sophomore effort, I mean, you know, this film budgeted was about 5 million. It recouped it recouped that and more 26 million at the box office just in North America. I know it was also popular in other countries and pretty and I think in Japan it was quite popular, other countries for sure.
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Clark
And it was nominated with eight Academy Awards, including big ones, you know, best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best actor. Now, unfortunately, it didn't win any. It lost all of those to ordinary people, Raging Bull.
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Cullen
So and it also spawned the Academy Award for best makeup. It was. That's right. Inspiration. The next year they brought that on board because, I mean, so many people were saying basically that, you know, we got to start acknowledging the incredible work that.
00:08:43:09 - 00:09:01:09
Clark
Yep, artists I feel I feel so so sorry for for that production, though. It's like, darn it, you do all this great work and you know, so, so much so that the academy is like, you know, catalyzed and created a new category. And it's like, oh, nothing. But, you know, next year.
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Cullen
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:09:02:17 - 00:09:23:06
Clark
It's like that's got to be a bittersweet moment, you know? Yeah, but, but yeah, So let's, let's go back to a little bit of what you were talking about, the look and the feel of this film. I think it is really unique and I totally agree with you. I feel like this film has it absolutely has a look that's so much older than 1980.
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Clark
Yeah. I mean, it's almost feels which I mean, it feels period. Not just in the costume, in the location, in the language, in the subject matter, but I mean, this really feels like an old film, doesn't it.
00:09:36:11 - 00:10:12:18
Cullen
Yeah. And I think that's that's, you know, something that I think was very much an intention was was shooting this movie as it would have been shot at. Of course, cinema didn't exist when Merrick was, you know, around. But but shooting this as it would have been shot then and kind of taking the cues on theater especially and things like that, you know, even just from the point that the camera is very, very observational, it's very much, you know, obviously, of course, on a tripod the entire time just kind of pans to follow action, zooms in on on a lot of things, but doesn't shoot not there's not really any dollies.
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Cullen
There's not there's not much movement of the camera in an actual like 3D movement kind of sense. It really is a very simplified production. And because of that, again, it sort of does feel like almost like a little bit of a expressionistic it feels very much like a kind of an early silent film in a lot of ways, which I thought was really, really neat.
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Cullen
Yeah. And, you know, at the end of like, Oh, sorry, go ahead.
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Clark
No, yeah, I was just going to say you said expression. I was going to say, yeah, it's I mean, I do get a feel of like some German expressionism. I, I get like little hints of m for example, you know, the high contrast weight shot. You even sometimes feel even a little bit of gnaw creep in a lot of, you know, like I said, high contrast lighting, a lot of like the usage of shadows to hide and reveal it.
00:11:02:19 - 00:11:04:23
Clark
So I definitely noticed that too. But I'm sorry. Yeah.
00:11:05:07 - 00:11:17:19
Cullen
No, I was just going to add to that. It also to me, like there's a lot of inspiration from and again, this is all you know, me kind of stipulating. You're not stipulating, I'm just speculating on.
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Clark
Speculating.
00:11:18:11 - 00:11:41:06
Cullen
Things that we've seen. But but I think there's a lot of it that sort of feels almost like an old, like creature, the Black Lagoon as well, and that it almost presents and not in, you know, in a very, very aware way that it's kind of like approaching the subject matter to a degree that the people at the time would have approached him because, of course, he was kind of paraded around and things like that.
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Clark
It feels like a monster movie.
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Cullen
Yeah, So it does.
00:11:44:08 - 00:11:46:09
Clark
Actually it presents that first act. Yeah.
00:11:46:17 - 00:12:07:05
Cullen
And so and so I know another thing too. So the movies, of course, being, you know, with that being a visual interpreter in the movie, I would also add that the storytelling very much feels rooted in that exact kind of esthetic or that, I mean, that that kind of time period. Yeah. In that it, it it's very simple.
00:12:08:06 - 00:12:34:21
Cullen
There's not a whole lot of, you know, opinion being put onto the material. There's not a whole lot of necessarily point of view. Again, it's very much a movie that seems to be much more in a Herzog sense, fly on the wall than than like kind of a stinging hornet. It doesn't really say any or bring any grand conclusions to the table and say, like this is what you have to think about leaving this movie.
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Cullen
It's it's very much presented again in a very simplistic kind of like the reason that I think it's so interesting to compare it to like a creature of like Black Lagoon or something like that is because to me it almost seems like it's the creature of the Black Lagoon. If the filmmaker now had sympathy for the creature of the Black Lagoon and of course, Frankenstein.
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Clark
Of course.
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Cullen
Frankenstein.
00:12:55:05 - 00:12:55:23
Clark
Too. Yeah, right.
00:12:56:12 - 00:13:21:18
Cullen
Yeah. And so so I think that it's interesting that it's made in that way, and then it's presented in that kind of format without going the kind of extra step of, of contextualizing it in a modern day context like it doesn't really have. I would say, a modern point of view on the subject matter. There's no critiques really that are brought up of of the treatment of him by any characters.
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Cullen
You know.
00:13:22:11 - 00:13:46:23
Clark
It's interesting that yeah, it's extremely interesting you mentioned that because it is I mean, the film the film very much is. And we're definitely going to get into this kind of that Lynch's opinion, his perspective and memorialization or lack thereof, definitely want to talk to you a lot more about that. But I want to focus in for just a moment here on part of what you mentioned, because you said a lot there about this.
00:13:46:23 - 00:14:10:17
Clark
You know that the story is told not just in its look and then the feel from it. You know, it's you're right in how they handle the subject matter. It feels like the story is being told from the perspective of 1880. Right. It's almost as if we made this film right after Joseph Merrick died. Like this might be what that film would look like is kind of, you know.
00:14:10:17 - 00:14:25:09
Clark
So it's like if we if we made this film 100 years prior to when it was made. And a great example of that, I think is, is that is the very opening, the very opening of this film. We have this great, surreal, symbolic.
00:14:25:22 - 00:14:26:20
Cullen
Very lynchian.
00:14:27:03 - 00:14:28:14
Clark
Very Lynchian most lynchian.
00:14:28:14 - 00:14:29:22
Cullen
Part of the movie, arguably, and there's.
00:14:29:22 - 00:14:55:22
Clark
A couple of these dream sequences, right, that I feel are very much lynchian. But, but, but what we have here is and it's really unsettling. It's quite disturbing. This, you know, it almost feels almost like that, you know, a woman is being either hurt or, you know, accosted by this elephant. But it's interesting to note, I mean, that that was the explanation back then of what had happened to Joseph Merrick.
00:14:55:22 - 00:15:28:10
Clark
That explanation at the time was, you know, of course, lacking in modern medicine and technology was that she had been injured by an elephant while she was pregnant. And that encounter with that elephant while she was pregnant, imprinted this on to the infant. And that was a common belief at the time. That was a commonly held medical belief that if something happened to a pregnant woman like that, if she were frightened by an animal or, you know, some kind of event like that occurred, that it would imprint that onto the infant and potentially affect their development.
00:15:28:10 - 00:15:55:01
Clark
So, yeah, it's interesting that, you know, Lynch shows us this happening and basically is the explanation this is the explanation in the film for why Joseph Merrick is the way he is to an extent. Yeah. So it's very much told from this perspective that's 100 plus years old. So I think that's quite fascinating because of course, you could have made the choice to tell the story in an entirely different way.
00:15:55:05 - 00:16:25:09
Clark
I mean, you could have told it from a today's perspective, right, if you wanted. You know, something else I noticed, too, just real quick that really places this film in that era. There's so much there's so many, I guess, inserts, if you want to kind of call it that of end of machinery. There's a lot of machinery and smokestacks and they don't seem to necessarily have anything to do with the story per se, But I feel like it really puts you in this time period of industrialization in London.
00:16:25:17 - 00:16:57:10
Cullen
Yeah. And even the first the opening scene of the film is, well, not the initially the very opening, but one of the opening scenes. Our introduction to Anthony Hopkins character is him doing surgery on someone who's been injured by machinery. So even then, perhaps that could be, again, all speculation, but perhaps the, you know, the connection that Lynch was trying to make there was somehow that this pollution could have caused, you know, birth deformities, as has possible recorded the history of like.
00:16:57:10 - 00:17:39:20
Cullen
Yeah. Areas of extreme pollution, of extreme, you know, chemical output often wind up with more and more birth defects, a higher rate of birth. So whether or not that was the intention, who knows? It could have exactly. It could have simply just been something to establish the time period and establish the the feeling. But I would say that it is definitely, you know, again, like you were saying, that there's this very interesting kind of especially in the first half of the movie, this motif of machinery continually coming up and that that Hopkins, one of his lines is basically about the uncaring, unfeeling, you know, almost primitiveness of machines and things like that, that he's very
00:17:39:20 - 00:17:58:12
Cullen
critical of them. So I think it I think it is interesting and perhaps that even does come up again very, very vague connection. But but and or subtle but the idea perhaps that it is this machine instinct that makes people fear Merrick that is.
00:17:58:12 - 00:17:59:03
Clark
Well, that's a great.
00:17:59:13 - 00:18:24:04
Cullen
The the immediate response for most people is this again this very almost like computational fear without any, uh, any reason to be fearful other than purely on a visual level. Right? And so I think that is kind of interesting. And again, like I don't, again, I don't have the answer to to what Lynch was necessarily going for in his specific, you know, choices there.
00:18:24:04 - 00:18:42:22
Cullen
But I would say that it is it is interesting that those things do come up a lot, especially within the first half of the film when Merrick is being introduced before, you know, it's 45 minutes before he has his first line of dialog in this movie. So the first half of the movie very much is portraying Merrick as this voiceless creature, right?
00:18:43:07 - 00:18:47:18
Cullen
Doesn't look like a human, like he doesn't have a human being's face. He doesn't have, you know.
00:18:47:18 - 00:18:48:08
Clark
Or shape.
00:18:48:13 - 00:19:18:17
Cullen
Body or shape or anything. You see him in silhouette when he's you know, you don't really get a lot of close up views of him until he begins to talk. And I think that that's, again, a very deliberate choice, that he is portrayed as this this this thing that cannot be seen, this almost like an enigma of mankind, and that this like this creature and that it's once he begins to speak and kind of is humanized in that way, that we then tone all of that down.
00:19:18:17 - 00:19:41:21
Cullen
There's no longer the the stark images of silhouette with him. There's no longer the the long again, universal monster movie type shots of him kind of stumbling down a dark hallway. It becomes very much a much more matter of fact type of filmmaking. And once he's once he's introduced us as more so a person, if that makes sense.
00:19:41:21 - 00:20:06:12
Cullen
And I think that does really hark on the idea that it was made exactly like you said, it was made like something in the 1890s, because this day and age, I mean, let's speculate for a second. This day and age of this movie was made, I think that it would humanize Merrick from the outset. I think that it would be much more of a story from his point of view, from his perspective, you would feel what he was feeling much more viscerally.
00:20:06:12 - 00:20:28:09
Cullen
It would it would perhaps discuss more so about his aspirations and much more about like I think it would do much more to put you in the shoes of the character in this horrifying, you know, just situation that he was in where every single person he seemed to see was terrified of him and how horrible that would be for somebody, which this movie, of course, does touch on, the Lynch version does touch on.
00:20:28:09 - 00:20:47:13
Cullen
But I think that this day and age of this movie was made for a modern context. It would be that would be much more at the forefront of the film, which I think is very interesting because, again, Lynch chooses to strip all that away and make it very much something that's that's quite matter of fact. That is quite almost theatrical in a lot of ways.
00:20:49:05 - 00:21:11:22
Cullen
So I just think that's an interesting choice that that Lynch decided on was was this idea that, you know, it's not super personal, if that makes sense. Like it doesn't, although it's about Merrick himself, it doesn't feel like it's a very personal picture about Merrick. It feels much more biographical, much more of a study of the man than than himself.
00:21:11:22 - 00:21:23:04
Cullen
Then then, like his necessarily a movie about him and his wants and dreams and things like that. So I just think that's kind of an interesting angle that the movie came from.
00:21:23:04 - 00:21:44:19
Clark
Well, I there's a lot there. You brought a lot of different things, I think, in my mind. So try to try to touch on a handful of things that you brought up. So I think, you know, Lynch is kind of taking us through the process that anybody who would have been introduced to Joseph Merrick in life would have gone through.
00:21:45:17 - 00:22:08:19
Clark
And it's the process that that Fred retrieves Hopkins character goes through and so many of the other frankly, almost all the characters go through this process with him, which is that on your initial impression, he is not human. He is a curious ity, he is terrifying, he is gruesome, and you're trying to understand and process what this thing is.
00:22:09:03 - 00:22:38:13
Clark
And so the way he's revealed to us is absolutely in that way. We're also curious. We're also we're no different than these other characters who find him as a as a gruesome novelty. And it's and it's we're more concerned about our curiosity than we are about his feelings. And and so it's only after this process of realization and that the other the characters go through as well, and we're going through it with them where he's humanized.
00:22:38:13 - 00:23:02:13
Clark
Right? The film humanizes him over time. So he starts out at one point where he is definitely something other than human. And by the time we empathize greatly with him because we we're we see that he has an intellect, he has feelings, He is hurt by the reactions of other people to his physical appearance. And we see this and we get to know him a little bit more.
00:23:02:18 - 00:23:10:21
Clark
And so I think, you know, the film is allowing us to go through a process that I think we anybody would have gone through.
00:23:11:01 - 00:23:11:21
Cullen
Yes. Yeah.
00:23:12:11 - 00:23:31:04
Clark
You know, and and that's the sad reality of it, is that I think that most people would not I mean, that look, this is the reality of humans, period. Whether you look like the Elephant Man or you look like anybody else, you know, a lot of times we don't empathize with things that we don't, you know, people that we don't have some kind of personal extended experience with sadly.
00:23:31:04 - 00:23:51:06
Clark
And this is you know, this leads to a lot of nasty things in our world. But, you know, most of the time this is how racism exists. This is how sex and sexism exist. This is how all kinds of things exist where you've dehumanized a group of people or a person until you actually get to know them. And once you get to know them and then you actually start to see them as human.
00:23:51:06 - 00:23:57:00
Clark
So in my mind, I think this is a really interesting mechanism. I think it's a it's a I like the choice.
00:23:57:00 - 00:23:58:08
Cullen
BY Yeah.
00:23:58:11 - 00:24:20:10
Clark
No. LYNCH Yeah. And but you do, you know, other things that you touch on too. I mean, there's so much here, I'm afraid I don't want to lose some of the other things you talked about. But, you know, you talked about a difference between this film and how a biographical film would have been done today. And I think maybe you and I have talked about this a little bit, but I'm not a big fan of how most biographies films are done today.
00:24:20:10 - 00:24:46:12
Clark
Yeah, I'm really not a fan. And a lot of this Oscar bait stuff that's been put out. I mean, clearly this was Oscar bait, too, although they didn't bite. Ha ha ha. But but but, you know, it's and it's interesting to a point. And then we could really go into this for a long time here. But, you know, in a strange sense, you could make an argument and I don't know if I am, but I'm just going to kind of presented this food for thought.
00:24:46:12 - 00:25:09:20
Clark
You know, that that Lynch is kind of doing to the Elephant Man what he's pointing out that other people did in his lifetime, which is that it's kind of like he's still reduced to his physical attributes in this film in a sense. I mean, he is still defined by his deformities and by how other people react to his deformities.
00:25:09:20 - 00:25:43:01
Clark
In this film, we aren't although we do get some glimpses right, we bump into Merrick, but very little. We get little moments where he's we we sense a longing to be loved by a woman. We get some of that and there's that really kind of nice, beautiful, touching scene where he's reenacting Romeo and Juliet. But but this man is presented so one dimensionally we don't see anything, for example, that he's a real human being with also less desirable traits.
00:25:43:01 - 00:25:43:23
Clark
We just we see.
00:25:43:23 - 00:25:44:09
Cullen
That he never.
00:25:44:09 - 00:26:08:19
Clark
Gets off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He never gets angry. He never gets jealous. I mean, do you think maybe the Elephant Man might have been resentful in real life? Jealous, maybe in real life of people who look normal? I'm going to guess. Likely because he's human. So a lot of these Biograph films strip that humanity away from people from the from their subjects, because I think they're afraid.
00:26:08:19 - 00:26:10:10
Cullen
They make it all about the struggle. Yeah.
00:26:11:13 - 00:26:31:14
Clark
I think they're afraid that it's like, well, if we admit that he was human and that he also had traits that we consider, quote unquote, unpleasant, that somehow this, this, this takes away our ability to, like, use him as a an icon of the human, the triumph of the human spirit. And I'm like, that kind of stuff just bores me.
00:26:31:22 - 00:26:50:11
Cullen
Well, I also think that it's like when you say that that he's still in this film presented relatively one dimensionally, that that most people in this movie are as well. There's there's a lot of a lot of interesting. So this kind of goes into the choices of of I'm not sure if it was Lynch or if it was the other writers that that decided these things.
00:26:50:11 - 00:27:17:14
Cullen
But what's interesting about this film is that there's a lot of the changes that are made from real life, for example, that the real life relationship between Merrick and Treves was much longer than it's kind of presented in the movie. They had a relationship for years, but even so. So Tom Norman, who is the person that Bates who is the kind of circus owner that parades right?
00:27:19:06 - 00:27:29:13
Cullen
Merrick Around at the beginning of the film, in the film, he's presented as this kind of like a working class, not very rich, not a very good life, kind of a, you know, a.
00:27:29:13 - 00:27:30:13
Clark
Piece, a scoundrel.
00:27:30:13 - 00:27:30:19
Cullen
A.
00:27:30:19 - 00:27:32:16
Clark
Scoundrel con man that is in real.
00:27:32:16 - 00:27:48:23
Cullen
Life that the real Tom Norman only knew Merrick for a matter of weeks before Merrick was kind of taken to the hospital and was actually quite a wealthy man. Was was quite a successful businessman in London who owned a whole bunch of these, you know, as they were called, freak shows.
00:27:49:04 - 00:27:49:12
Clark
Right.
00:27:50:12 - 00:28:13:01
Cullen
And so it's interesting that that choice. But but it's also something to be said that pretty much everybody of the working class in this film is presented as sort of animalistic, sort of monstrous. Oh, and, and yeah. Whereas every one of the upper classes, there's still some moments where people are the upper classes are displayed as being scared or something of Merrick, but much more gentle.
00:28:13:09 - 00:28:30:06
Cullen
And it almost also, you know, kind of in line with that plays up this idea that Merrick isn't human until he can read and recite Shakespeare and recite the like that there's this kind of so again, that could totally have been. And so I'm not necessarily pointing at the finger and saying that Lynch is saying that all poor people are monsters and all rich people are nice.
00:28:30:19 - 00:28:52:08
Cullen
But I think that it could very much have been, again, this idea that Lynch was making this film from an 1890s perspective, which would very well have been the perspective at the time that the uneducated, poor masses, they were too uneducated to appreciate. Merrick They were too uneducated to understand that he was a human being. Whereas we have the upper class, we have the theater, we have the, you know, the medical professions.
00:28:52:08 - 00:29:23:13
Cullen
We understood him as a person, and so we were much kinder to him. So again, whether or not, you know, again, I don't know if Lynch was making that decision because of that, because he was actually trying to almost highlight that element that that the the elements of of previous book where, you know, it's primarily mostly rich people that are kind to to Eric versus the poorer people who are again much more.
00:29:23:18 - 00:29:24:09
Clark
And actually read.
00:29:24:09 - 00:29:25:11
Cullen
Them the violent towards him.
00:29:25:11 - 00:29:57:23
Clark
Yeah yeah and I've not read the books I don't know but yeah I absolutely it's clear what you mentioned it is that the poor people are represented here or you know middle underclass are represented as crude and rude and heartless, whether that's like you mentioned bytes or it's the the night porter at the hospital who takes advantage of Joseph and and charges people to bring people into his room and ridicule him and you know doing it for a laugh and and a little bit of extra money.
00:29:59:06 - 00:30:20:16
Clark
Mr. Bytes you mentioned he's represented as an alcoholic and although there's a little bit of texture there, there's Lynch hints a little bit that maybe there is an affection. But I mean absolutely 99% of it. I mean, he's putting them in cages, He's beating him. He's you know, I mean, it's it's really quite horrific treatment. And you're right.
00:30:20:16 - 00:30:48:00
Clark
And then all the upper class people are the people with means, the people with education. They're by and large, very nice. I mean, I think the most, you know, negative scene that we show with a rich person is where that couple comes in to have tea with Merrick after he's kind of been presented to the London, you know, social class and and they're a little bit afraid of him, which is like, well, who wouldn't be, you know, but but they're never rude.
00:30:48:06 - 00:31:16:23
Clark
They're not they're certainly not what you would call mean or abusive of it. So I agree. This is really interesting here. And it is I think as a whole, it's sometimes difficult to kind of understand what Lynch is saying. And I don't think Lynch is is a director that that, you know, some directors are very overt in their perspective and films that in other words, they tell you exactly what they're thinking, whether it's through dialog.
00:31:16:23 - 00:31:38:02
Clark
I mean, they're very, very specific. And, you know, people have different opinions. It was definitely a criticism, I think at the time. Roger Ebert did not review this film well and criticize kind of the that he was unable to tell what Lynch was saying about this situation. Yeah. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing necessarily.
00:31:38:02 - 00:31:47:03
Clark
And I think in some ways. LYNCH Definitely hints at what he's saying about it, but I think he does it in a much more subtle manner, which I actually do prefer. I really.
00:31:47:03 - 00:31:47:14
Cullen
Totally.
00:31:47:19 - 00:32:21:22
Clark
I really, really, really don't like those films where he they should a and here's why you should take it. And I just don't like I don't like when ideology overtakes esthetics and film in general or art period. I'm not a big fan of that, so I prefer this. But I mean, he definitely, for example. LYNCH You know, it's we are very clearly see a correlation where you know he Joseph America's is is being treated as an object or an animal and is on display at the at the freak show.
00:32:22:06 - 00:32:51:21
Clark
But then again the instant that Anthony Hopkins character retrieves brings him to the hospital and presents him, he's shown that. I mean, he's totally degraded and treated as a non-human entity in front of that in that theater with the other surgeons and doctors. And, you know, I mean, and they really make it a point. I lynch very specifically makes a point to to speak to the level of degradation I think is and really, you know, I think other directors or a lot of people would handle this and in a less interesting way.
00:32:51:21 - 00:33:18:12
Clark
But I just there was something like so poignant about even, you know, as Anthony Hopkins is like describing that his genitalia are still intact and it's like, you know, remove your your that last little bit of dignity and cover that you have and take away the cloth, you know, and we don't see any of it. It's so beautiful done with his shadow silhouetted you know behind that curtain but it's just like to just take someone down to such a.
00:33:19:14 - 00:33:21:10
Cullen
Well, he's being displayed more.
00:33:21:12 - 00:33:46:09
Clark
Gentefied level. So I think, you know Lynch is saying there look, or at least he's asking the question, is there a difference? Like, yeah, and of course he does have Treves character explicitly say, I don't know if I'm doing this altruistically, or am I just doing the exact same thing that everybody else is doing? At least he's asking the question, which I think is is a good thing.
00:33:46:09 - 00:34:03:15
Clark
And I think we've all asked ourselves those questions. It brings up an interesting kind of question of greed versus altruism. And we likely we likely often delude ourselves into thinking we're being altruistic when we are. But but yeah, I mean, what do you think overall? I mean, I.
00:34:03:15 - 00:34:24:16
Cullen
Think what's interesting about what you've said is that it I think what Lynch did and again, this might be owing to the fact that he's he's portraying this story in a much more classical sense. Mm hmm. Is that he just he he did. Which all movies have to do. He simplified. Yeah. He took things from real life and put things on.
00:34:24:17 - 00:34:55:16
Cullen
So. So was the character, you know, of course, Bites real name, Mister Bites in the movie. Who's the. The guy that owns the circus? His real name, of course, again was Tom. Norman was in real life. Tom Norman, a man that beat him. We don't know. Tom Norman says that, you know, in in Tom Norman's autobiography, he says that that he treated Merrick kindly, that Merrick often returned to him on his own accord and basically said that he felt like he was being shown as an animal in this hospital.
00:34:56:13 - 00:34:57:06
Clark
Interested, you know.
00:34:57:06 - 00:35:30:05
Cullen
And at the time, at the time as well, like things like freak shows and stuff like that were really going out of style that people that the general population just began to feel a, you know, an empathy for these people that were being displayed to these freaks. So I think in a lot of ways what Lynch has done, and especially by changing his name and I think that's again, another thing things intentional is basically using this character to represent the parts of society that would still have this person be put on display like this and then using that to represent.
00:35:30:15 - 00:35:58:14
Cullen
In contrast, Treves is kind of more compassionate side. I think that he's simplifying it down because a story like this sort of needs to be simplified because again, this took place in real life over the better course of a decade. Yeah, it could have been that for the first three years, Treves didn't feel much sympathy for him, that Tyrese was simply looking at him as a as a medical study and that as he began to know him more and more and that relationship formed, that's when they became friends.
00:35:58:14 - 00:36:11:22
Cullen
That's when Treves began to actually, you know, appreciate his personhood. Yeah, but for the sake of the movie, which, which again, it's never really specified in the movie how long it takes place over. But it seems like it takes place over perhaps a few weeks or a few months.
00:36:12:00 - 00:36:13:18
Clark
It's brief. It seems brief, Yeah.
00:36:14:20 - 00:36:27:15
Cullen
That you just need to rush those things along. Essentially. You need you can't necessarily have too much time of trips, you know, contemplating what he's doing because otherwise you would spend half the movie doing that.
00:36:27:23 - 00:36:28:11
Clark
We have.
00:36:28:11 - 00:36:30:13
Cullen
Inevitably a little bit of basically Yeah, yeah.
00:36:30:13 - 00:36:31:17
Clark
Exactly. We have a little bit.
00:36:31:17 - 00:36:32:14
Cullen
Over 2 hours.
00:36:32:21 - 00:37:05:11
Clark
Yeah and this is true like what you're saying is absolutely true. And it is one of the interesting challenges of film is and I think especially with the Biograph film, where you're trying to represent a, you know, this life in in an hour and a half or 2 hours time. So totally I mean, it's very understandable. I think sometimes it's it's a it's it's unfortunate that we lose some of the nuance, But I mean, but in the other side of it, though, is that you look at this and you're like, it's almost kind of like a fairy tale story.
00:37:05:11 - 00:37:27:23
Clark
This is almost like a Grimm's, right. It's reduced to such a kind of you know what I'm saying, that it's like really, at this point, the Elephant Man, we're no longer talking about a human being. We're not we're not really trying to understand Joseph Merrick, per se. It's it's this entity is being turned into a symbol.
00:37:28:15 - 00:37:29:11
Cullen
Or a lesson.
00:37:29:16 - 00:37:46:16
Clark
And or a lesson. And for I mean, you know, one of the things that that I felt, at least and I'm curious to hear what you how it kind of personally impacted you, but we can move a little bit into that and say, I think that's one of the more interesting things to discuss with people. I always love to hear like what their personal experience with the film was.
00:37:46:16 - 00:38:17:11
Clark
But, you know, for me, I mean, the way I felt about the film when I'm watching it is that I feel like all of us, or at least me, but I'm guessing I would guess that all or most of us, if we're really honest with ourselves, feel like we have an elephant man inside of us. I think that, you know, I think everybody could at some point in time, you know, greater to lesser degrees, but at one point in time have been ashamed about our bodies, about ourselves.
00:38:17:11 - 00:38:40:03
Clark
There's something about us we feel ugly. We feel like we're an outsider. We feel we're made fun of. Maybe you've been picked on when you were a kid in school, bullied. You're too fat, you're too short, you're too tall, your teeth are crooked. You're you have acne. I mean, any number of things. Right? But I think everybody goes through an experience of being ridiculed and embarrassed for our physical appearance.
00:38:40:03 - 00:38:56:06
Clark
And it's something that most of the time it's like you can't help. It's like, I can't help it if I'm bald. I can't help it. I'm not, by the way. But but, you know, you can't help it if. You're you know, I know I have like I have definitely been ashamed of my body and and I've felt shame for that.
00:38:56:06 - 00:39:23:00
Clark
And I have, you know, felt what it is to to feel like people are, you know, ridiculing you or judging you or being critical that you don't fit. So I think most of us feel like that. And it really doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your exterior body. A lot of times maybe people aren't even noticing or don't care, but it's the insecurity that we all have about ourselves, how we all want to fit in and and even more.
00:39:23:00 - 00:39:29:03
Clark
I mean, I think most of us want to be beautiful. We long to be beautiful in some way, to be.
00:39:29:03 - 00:39:33:08
Cullen
Somebody perceived as beautiful as. Yes. Not only by ourselves, but by others, correct?
00:39:33:08 - 00:39:52:12
Clark
Correct. And so and it and it's something that we can't do great extent or often control. I mean, the Elephant Man didn't ask for this. He didn't do anything to deserve it. It happened to him. And we all are like that. What we're brought into the world with is what it's like. This is what we have. We did you know, we can't change it a lot of times.
00:39:52:12 - 00:40:19:14
Clark
I mean, yeah, it's like, you know, plastic surgery and all these things, but you get my overall gist. It's it's a fundamental part of the human condition. So that's how I related to the film that, you know, it's not so much about let's try to represent this person's life in a realistic way, in a nuanced way, but it's let's take this person's life and turn him into a symbol of something and kind of mythologize it so that it resonates with others.
00:40:20:12 - 00:40:24:02
Clark
So what I mean, what did you kind of did it did it resonate with you in that way? Well, I.
00:40:24:02 - 00:40:33:09
Cullen
Totally I mean, I think that that one of the things this movie does incredibly well is you you care so much about Merrick.
00:40:33:12 - 00:40:33:22
Clark
Yeah.
00:40:33:23 - 00:41:03:22
Cullen
Like, I like it. It is actually a really, really to me at least, a really emotionally powerful movie in that I was like, like as simple as the storytelling is, and perhaps owing to the simple storytelling, I, I felt, you know, you relate to the character in a way. And I think it's actually interesting, too, because the most recent, I think one of the most recent stage productions of The Elephant Man was was starring Bradley Cooper, where they decide to actually not do any makeup.
00:41:04:04 - 00:41:26:17
Cullen
Yeah. And it was all entirely just a physical performance. And I think the reason they did that was likely because much in line with with what we're talking about is that it's it's more so making a point about anybody perceived to be different goes through some version of this. And I think that everybody has a point in their life where they do think that they are different or they do feel different in some way.
00:41:27:10 - 00:41:41:22
Cullen
And so I think that that's one thing that I thought was really Remar And even just the idea, again, like it was the Elephant Man ever chased through a train station, Who knows? Who knows? But the moment when he's backed into that corner in the washroom and he screams out, You know, I'm not an animal, I'm a human being.
00:41:41:22 - 00:42:13:12
Cullen
Arguably the most famous scene from the movie. Um, I think that that it just resonates. It resonates with every single person because the whole point is that you, everybody wants a point where they can or has a point in life where they feel like they need to say that. And I think that, you know, on the kind of same note the movie really does deal with, you know, although as we spoke about before, how it's like very much divided by class, it does also very much deal with this idea of like internal and external beauty, which is that, you.
00:42:13:12 - 00:42:13:21
Clark
Know, yeah.
00:42:14:03 - 00:42:38:04
Cullen
That that marriage is such. And I think that that might again be one of the reasons that marriage is simplified. This man who's never angry, who's never jealous, who never lies, that is because it less so, is trying to make an accurate portrayal of the man and of the story of the man and stuff like that. But more so using, like you said, the man is a symbol to represent that you can be someone with severe deformities on your outside.
00:42:38:04 - 00:42:52:15
Cullen
You can be someone that that hardly looks human, and yet you're the most gentle, kind, loving, caring person in the world. And, you know, even again, just to talk a little bit about John Hurt for a second, that the performance that he gives through this makeup.
00:42:52:15 - 00:42:53:20
Clark
Is yeah, we had talked about.
00:42:54:09 - 00:43:13:22
Cullen
How soft spoken he is and how, again, how much sympathy he elicits from the like. You immediately just kind of want to give the guy a hug is what I thought was really remarkable. The movie, like the first thing you want to do is just get him out of there and be like, No, yeah, for God's sakes, you know, how different would of his life as being have been if he was around today?
00:43:14:13 - 00:43:14:21
Clark
Yeah.
00:43:15:08 - 00:43:16:01
Cullen
And so I think.
00:43:16:01 - 00:43:20:00
Clark
That that's one of the things sometimes I wonder though sometimes I think yeah.
00:43:20:00 - 00:43:39:16
Cullen
But but I think that that's the thing is that you see you see this this movie and again it so becomes very much a point of to me it's like again it could, it's probably just built into the source material automatically whether or not it was a point to be made in the movie, but very much so that there's this this huge point about like that.
00:43:39:16 - 00:43:53:04
Cullen
The people who you don't like aren't the people who aren't physically pretty. It's the people who are abusive, manipulative, who are, Yeah. You know, scoffing and aggressive and violence towards Merrick. Not not Merrick himself, of course. So.
00:43:53:04 - 00:44:09:20
Clark
Well, it's interesting. I mean, so you're right. This is and this is this is definitely another you've got internal and external beauty. You also have what does it mean to be human? And, you know, a lot of movies, you have a lot of like movies go into this realm like Blade Runner where you know, what is you know, a lot of times that's where it goes.
00:44:11:01 - 00:44:15:04
Clark
In today's day and age, like in a science fiction, like is a you know, what does it mean to be human.
00:44:15:05 - 00:44:16:07
Cullen
Gets existential, it.
00:44:16:08 - 00:44:38:06
Clark
Gets credit. But but this is kind of the same question in a sense, just asked in a different kind of context. But what is it to be human is human. Your physical shape is human, your recognizable face is human. You're opposable thumbs and two arms and two legs. And, you know, is that human or is human? Your intellect is human, your emotional response to things.
00:44:38:06 - 00:45:07:02
Clark
So, you know, it's asking a lot of these same questions. And you touched on this briefly earlier, and I think worth discussing again a little bit is this you know, is this idea of literature being attached to humanity? And we've got a several examples here that I think are so interesting. I mean, and when when Merrick is brought into the hospital and Treves wants him to stay, the governor of the hospital or the head manager of the hospital doesn't.
00:45:07:09 - 00:45:23:23
Clark
So, you know, and trees kind of trains him to respond to some commands as and and and teaches him a little bit of Psalm 23. Yeah and the governor's not impressed at all. He's like, well you could have taught you could have taught a monkey. It doesn't say that verbatim, but kind of he's like, you could have taught anything to.
00:45:23:23 - 00:45:49:09
Clark
Can I just repeat, you know what you, what you, what you practice. So they leave. And as they're leaving, Merrick starts continue to recite the the song 23 well past what he had been taught by trees. Yeah. This is an indication to the both of them that there is humanity and it's it's interesting that it is his ability to speak, his ability to read and comprehend.
00:45:49:12 - 00:46:02:21
Clark
Literature is a big part of what starts to convince them that he is actually human. We have another great, great scene. And actually it's one of the I think the best scenes of the film myself is that the Romeo Juliet scene? Yes.
00:46:02:21 - 00:46:03:09
Cullen
Yeah, Yeah.
00:46:03:13 - 00:46:31:04
Clark
Where he's he is reading Romeo. We have this actress character in the film is playing Juliet and they're going back and forth with their lines and kind of, you know, they fall into this scene and it really touching. It's really quite beautiful. And it's another part where literature and his ability to comprehend it, to be a part of it, to understand.
00:46:31:04 - 00:46:55:07
Clark
And it is used to kind of create this, that this connection to humanity. And it's really beautiful. And she kind of calls him, you know, says that he is a Romeo and it's really a beautiful and humanizing moment. And then, of course, when he's dying, when Merrick is dying on the bed, he's like, finally, for once in his life, he's lying down and Tennyson's Nothing will die.
00:46:55:17 - 00:47:23:12
Clark
Poem He's like, this Starfield, with his mother's face is kind of, you know, we've got this kind of a dream sequence, I guess, or die in sequence or however you might like to call it. We have kind of another, another piece of literature, even, you know, Merrick attending the play. And that, I guess, you know, this performance of literature is kind of the for, for Joseph to say I've lived.
00:47:24:02 - 00:47:31:19
Clark
Yeah. And I'm going to like, you know, I mean because you could strongly make an hour. He knows he's going to die if he lays down. So he's like, Yeah, I have five which now lived.
00:47:32:01 - 00:47:56:08
Cullen
It's interesting to their because I think in real life again it wasn't really certain whether or not his death was intentional, that it could have like that, that the you know, I think the consensus that Reeves came to was that it was an accident, that he just felt like he could have ended Frye lying down. So and I think it's again, it's another example you hear of Lynch simplifying so much like well, like Herzog talks about.
00:47:56:08 - 00:48:04:09
Cullen
But it's that it's more so that what's the truth versus fact right like and it comes back to those conversation a little bit open.
00:48:04:09 - 00:48:24:20
Clark
I mean it's not like and this is what's great. I mean, Lynch doesn't have Merrick saying, I've got to shuffle off by my scale now that I've I mean, he hints to it a little because we see Merrick signs the cathedral that he's been building. Yeah, this little miniature cathedral. He signs it. So we do get a sense of punctuation, right?
00:48:24:22 - 00:48:54:10
Clark
That that he it's almost like his, you know, death note, so to speak. Right. He signs this cathedral and but, but, but, but Lynch is still open. I mean, you could also read it as like he's had this wonderful evening. He's like gotten to go to this play. He received an ovation. He was called out, you know, And so he's like in like wants to experience just a little bit more of the fullness of what it means to be human and just the simple ability to be able to sleep like a normal human.
00:48:54:20 - 00:48:58:09
Clark
So you could, you know, I mean, you could kind of sort of there's like some nuance there.
00:48:58:09 - 00:49:15:00
Cullen
And he looks over at the painting that's on his wall of the the child sleeping in bed. And so that there there's this again Yeah this, this and that even that goes back this desire of like what does it actually mean to be human because yeah, he almost looks at it as a way of like, I would like to sleep like a normal human being.
00:49:15:00 - 00:49:40:14
Cullen
He mentions that earlier in the film as well. But this idea, yeah, that it's like, you know, you're completely correct in that that it both emphasizes this whole idea of literature. But I mean again it's I think it's a very well thought out movie in terms like I feel like what I think is so funny about Ebert really not liking it and the points that Ebert makes about not liking it is that I almost would think the opposite.
00:49:40:14 - 00:49:50:21
Cullen
Like, I think that this movie really knows what it what it wants to say. And that is almost I'll say little it's almost to to to present these ideas.
00:49:51:07 - 00:49:53:16
Clark
So maybe that Lynch did have a pretty strong.
00:49:53:21 - 00:50:14:16
Cullen
Because we yeah I mean that's again just because I see a lot of like I again I see a lot of choice I see a lot of intention in the way that the story is told, in the way both visually and you know, the actual storytelling that goes on. I see so much intention there that, that I think that it would be a safe guess to say that Yeah.
00:50:14:16 - 00:50:26:07
Cullen
That the things that go on in the film, the way that things are kind of left to a much more ambiguous end is much, very much intentional. That it's not it's not an oversight.
00:50:26:07 - 00:50:38:13
Clark
So maybe there is a strong voice here. It's just not a voice that is that is telling you what to think or how to think or why to think that way. Like a lot of films are today.
00:50:39:02 - 00:50:39:12
Cullen
It's more.
00:50:39:12 - 00:50:45:16
Clark
So. Joseph resisting voice. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different type of voice. Well, and it's a voice that I really appreciate. No.
00:50:45:16 - 00:50:55:09
Cullen
And I mean, I guess just to put it clearly, the guy, I really enjoyed them. It was my first time watching this movie, actually. I hadn't seen it before, whereas I think you mentioned that you'd seen it.
00:50:55:09 - 00:51:15:18
Clark
Well, yeah, we can kind of just in a little bit on I mean, just in the most funny story, we can kind of wrap up my experience with it. So obviously I'm older than you. For those who are who haven't heard that before, there's about a 28 year difference between the two of us. I'm in my mid forties and Cohen is in his twenties, so I just I was four when this film came out.
00:51:15:20 - 00:51:41:03
Clark
Obviously I did go see it at the theater, but you know, a year or two years later, whatever it was, when it finally came on cable, I caught some of this film and it has left an absolutely indelible mark in my mind. It's burned into my brain. It scared the bejesus out of me that you back then, the way you watched movies was that you flipped around on channels and whatever was on was what was on.
00:51:41:03 - 00:52:05:16
Clark
And that's what you watch, you know, So so it was a very different experience. So, you know, I was probably, you know, let's say maybe six or so, maybe and six or seven years old. And I'm flipping around and the movie is starting and it's this first, you know, where the where Reeves is kind of snaking his way through the back alleys with the Barkers and everything.
00:52:05:16 - 00:52:29:00
Clark
And and on that first reveal of The Elephant Man, I mean, I was terrified. I was terrified. And I'm not and I loved monster movies and science fiction movies and, you know, all this kind of stuff and horror movies even probably just starting to get into a little bit, a little bit of that at only six. But it really terrified me.
00:52:29:00 - 00:52:51:10
Clark
But it also totally had me spellbound. I was so intrigued. And I mean, I almost kind of even became obsessed with the Elephant Man. Like, I remember, you know, going to the library and trying to read up on every that I could find. You know, what caused this condition, What you know, what in the world would do? What could make this happen to someone?
00:52:51:10 - 00:52:59:03
Clark
And even like reading medical books. And, you know, I got really into it, man, when I was a kid. It moved.
00:52:59:04 - 00:53:00:00
Cullen
Us interest. Yeah.
00:53:00:00 - 00:53:33:19
Clark
Yeah. So it had a big impact on me. And and that was, that was kind of like when this movie popped into my head is as an option for us to do because it was I try to think back like just what were some of the films that had the most raw kind of, you know, visceral impact on me and was one of them, you know, And I mean, just and I think when you take all of these things together, the the black and white photography, the the way it was shot lends it, this ancient kind of feel.
00:53:34:19 - 00:54:04:14
Clark
But yet we have such an accomplished makeup, you know, doesn't work there. I mean, you know, the elephant man's prosthetic work, that all of that makeup is outstanding. And it just felt so real. It felt like almost a documentary to me. I mean, it felt like, you know, World War Two, like documentary footage or something that had been shot, you know, in 16 millimeter or something, you know, But it it just it really was extraordinary.
00:54:04:14 - 00:54:24:18
Clark
So, yeah, I mean, my experience was that it was it was a pretty big deal when I was a kid, and I hadn't seen it in a really long time. So I'd say it's probably been 15 years since I'd seen the film. So it was great to come back to it now, but I very much enjoyed it and I thought it was a pretty powerful experience.
00:54:24:18 - 00:54:26:13
Clark
And it sounds like you did too, on your first.
00:54:26:15 - 00:54:47:16
Cullen
Yeah, I mean, I knew about the I mean, I knew the story. I knew I knew about it. I knew the big moment of the time. Not an animal, I mean. Right. That's that's very much something I've seen several times and but I think what was interesting was going into it. I didn't really know what to expect because I didn't know if it was going to be very lynch in the way that it was going to be surreal.
00:54:47:16 - 00:54:57:12
Cullen
It was going to be sort of a little bit more arthouse because, you know, I would say 99% of Lynch's movies are, if anything, this would this may be the kind of sole exception of cinematography that's.
00:54:57:16 - 00:54:58:13
Clark
Pretty straight shot.
00:54:58:13 - 00:55:19:05
Cullen
Yeah, dreamlike. Yeah. Of course. There are those moments in it that that go surreal. But they're supposed to be dreams, so it makes sense within the context. But no, I, I loved it. It was one of those movies that like, again, you know, I, I'm a fan of David Lynch, so I had the expectation that I would have liked it going into it.
00:55:19:05 - 00:55:28:16
Cullen
But no, I thought that it was I don't know what it was. It kind of just encapsulated me. It took me away with it. It was there was never a moment where I felt myself drifting from the screen. There was there was.
00:55:28:20 - 00:55:28:21
Clark
A.
00:55:29:02 - 00:55:51:09
Cullen
Constant kind of attention throughout, which isn't super like I mean, I find it quite easy to watch very long movies and not someone who struggles with that in any way. But but no, this movie kept me engaged right throughout. And again, also made me feel a lot felt really, again is a very emotional movie and a very touching movie.
00:55:51:09 - 00:55:56:12
Cullen
And I like it. Yeah. So I, you know, for the first time.
00:55:56:12 - 00:55:57:07
Clark
While I was up from.
00:55:57:07 - 00:55:58:04
Cullen
College, happy with it.
00:55:58:13 - 00:56:12:10
Clark
Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Well, I'm. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. It's fun for me to kind of share films, and it's not very often that a film that was had this big of an impact is something that you can share new with someone. So that's actually. Yeah, glad to hear that. You know it was.
00:56:12:10 - 00:56:22:08
Cullen
Fun to is that it's related vaguely to the last episode we did on Silence of the Lambs because John Hopkins is apparently one of the big reasons that he wanted Hopkins to be Lecter was because of the Elephant Man.
00:56:22:08 - 00:56:38:11
Clark
So I love it. A great little tie in. We'll try to do that. Like the next year that we pick for next episode. We'll try to find, you know, a degree, just a degree of separation of the student to the other. Yeah. Yeah. All right, man. Well, on that note, we'll go ahead and off, but it's been yet another awesome conversation.
00:56:39:05 - 00:56:58:02
Clark
It's always a blast to discuss these films with you. I can't wait to see what we choose next. I think you're going to be up for making a suggestion for what film we cover next time. So for our audience out there, that'll be a fun surprise. But everyone, thank you for listening. And until next time, have a great week.
00:56:58:14 - 00:57:07:01
Cullen
By.