HEART OF WISDOM
Re-watching David Lynch's The Elephant Man last night, after having returned to his debut feature Eraserhead the night before, I was struck by just how immaculate and unique his first two feature productions were. From both an audio and visual perspective, Lynch's artistry in these two films is exemplary, creating concurrent levels of storytelling through script, sound design, and cinematography. The black-and-white aesthetic in both films especially seems to emphasise the dehumanisation of people surrounded by heavily industrial environments.
But what really affected me, most notably with The Elephant Man, was the profound compassion of the film, including the beautiful performances by John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, and Anne Bancroft—not forgetting the young Dexter Fletcher. There is a directness in the film's emotional truth that hits you in a way deeper than just a typical heightened response to emotive storytelling, most commonly associated with melodramas—especially those involving illness storylines and themes. No, The Elephant Man captures something quite rare in cinema—something that possesses a childlike emotional purity in how it affects you, reminding us of our own capacity to feel empathy, love, and compassion.
In many ways, Hopkins as Dr. Frederick Treves acts as the audience's conduit for accessing these profound emotions throughout the tragic tale of John Merrick, and it must be one of his most selfless performances in his long career. When you consider that he played the more psychopathic Dr. Hannibal Lecter eleven years later in Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs, the contrast couldn't be more striking.
Today, thinking of David Lynch on what would have been his birthday, just a few days after news of his death was reported last Thursday, I couldn't help but feel deeply moved by the art he's left us—art that allows us to think beyond the daily grind of reality and venture into uncertain places. Places where we might find ourselves vulnerable and scared but ultimately rewarded by the redemption of love. Even at his darkest, Lynch seeks to guide us back toward the light of total love. Consider the bluebirds at the end of Blue Velvet or Sailor's love song to Lula at the end of Wild at Heart. Lynch takes us to the dark side of our souls and returns us to the safety of pure love (totality), a theme he frequently expounded upon in his many interviews and talks on transcendental meditation.
When John Merrick finally reconciles with his own mortality in the final scene of The Elephant Man, I defy anyone watching it not to be undone by the simplicity and beauty of the moment. It conveys how this cruelly deformed man wants nothing more than to return to the image of his mother and replicate, in his bed, the image of a young child in blissful repose, depicted in a painting on the opposite wall.
It is a moment that exemplifies the heart of wisdom Lynch possessed throughout his life—wisdom that imbues his work with an extraordinary quality that can sometimes be baffling but more often deeply touching.
Merrick's Mother: Never. Oh, never. Nothing will die. The stream flows, the wind blows, the cloud fleets, the heart beats. Nothing will die.