It is truly baffling to me that there are people who have seen this film who still think that David Lynch is a cold and cruel film-maker. David Lynch is ,in fact, a man of extraordinary gentleness and sensitivity, who cares deeply about the sort of people whom mainstream society stigmatizes as 'freaks'.Please, watch this film--watch it carefully-- and you will see that Lynch's deepest concern is with how a over-industrialized, rigid, and profoundly hypocritical society crushes its outsiders. It may sound odd, but I really believe that the non-Christian Lynch has, in the person of John Merrick portrayed one of the most profoundly moving "Christ figures' in all of film. Let me also note how well Lynch( In only his second effort at directing!) handled such legends as Hiller, Gielgud and Hopkins.
Review of The Elephant Man
