I hope everyone is ready for a new topic coming on today’s post at The Autistic Animator’s Desk, and I’m actually looking forward in doing a discussion on this particular subject (in writing). As you have just saw the name of the title, I thought it would be very interesting in sharing my own review on one of my favorite movies I have come upon to watch this summer, based on one of the most well-known historical figures in both English history and disability history. So, with that, I will be sharing my thoughts and three fan art drawings on the classic film, The Elephant Man (1980).
To leave you a note: This is my first time reviewing on a live-action film. My main focus on this blog is animation, art, and illustration, and also on autism and disability advocacy. Once in a while, I’ll post on any movie reviewing topics that relates to the portrayal of the disability community, like I have written a review on the Pixar short, Loop (2020), which features their very first animated character with autism, which you can find the full-length topic in this blog. However, I do have a very great interest in writing on any famous people with disabilities, like Helen Keller. Because this film follows the true events of a real-life disabled man, I just thought it would be very interested in talking about Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, and what kind of lessons can we learn from him today. I hope you’ll enjoy reading my thoughts on the film, and please check out the fan art drawings, after reading the review section.
The Elephant Man was released in 1980 by Paramount Pictures. It is directed by David Lynch, and it stars Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Frederick Treves and John Hurt as John Merrick, the titled character, along with Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Freddie Jones, Michael Elphick, and Hannah Gordon. It’s a bio topic of Joseph Merrick (who is called John Merrick in the film), an English man, who was severely deformed from skin to bone since childhood, while making a living in a freak show in the Victorian-Era. By then, he was discovered and rescued by Dr. Frederick Treves, a surgeon and professor at the London Hospital, where Merrick would live there for the rest of his life, until his death in 1890, and the two men develop a close friendship.
The film follows closely on the two written biographies of Joseph Merrick, such as The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences by Sir Frederick Treves and The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity by Ashley Montagu. It is shot in black and white photography and was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
Long before, I have never seen this film, not even when I was growing up, until I started watching it for the first time. I was, however, familiar with it, just from knowing the title, but didn’t know any history of it. I do remember seeing a poster of The Elephant Man play, though I have never seen it, in the lower level in the Fine Arts Building at Kent State University at Stark, as a college student. It was one of my favorite places to go, whenever it’s going to my art classes and/or sitting down to relax and study. Down there, you will see many picture frames of posters of plays and musicals that Kent State Stark has done their own productions, and one of them was The Elephant Man. I think the poster was very much like the movie poster of the film, with the black and white shot of John Hurt as John Merrick wearing the iconic long black cloak and cap, and mask.
That was my main memory of discovering The Elephant Man. I’ll never forget that. Later on, I was able to find out that it was based on a true story of Merrick, and he was deformed, which explains on why he’s been called the Elephant Man, because the parts of Merrick’s skin were very lumpy that it resembles to an elephant’s skin. This year, I suddenly grew curious, and want to know more about him, even though I was told it’s pretty sad, but I want to try watching the movie. So, my mom rented it on the Vudu app on a Saturday evening on June 18th.
To my surprise, I actually love this movie! I will admit, there were some intensive moments, but the film really did educate me something meaningful. The more I learned about John Merrick, from watching him going through the hard-life times and taking courage against all odds to his friendship with Treves, the more I became intrigued. John Hurt was absolutely incredible as the Elephant Man, and he was so brilliant to bring in such an emotional performance that you just cannot help but caring so much for Merrick, especially having to see this amazing make-up by Christopher Tucker. And Anthony Hopkins was fantastic as Frederick Treves. To me, I think the strongest part of the movie was the wonderful chemistry between Hopkins and Hurt on screen, and it really works, because the main theme is the beautiful friendship of John Merrick and Dr. Treves. All of his life, Merrick was left nothing but fear and disgust by people for who he was as a deformed man. They looked at him as a horrible monster, and he was living in isolation, until Frederick Treves came and played an important part of Merrick’s life. He was Merrick’s only friend in the world, and they were very fond of each other.
Of course, it’s a very emotional film. At first, I didn’t get emotional, even though I did get teary-eyed for one scene, but I was still caught up with the story. But when I watched it for the second time, I really started to feel it, and cried about three times.
My favorite scene from the movie is when Dr. Treves invites John Merrick over to his house to have tea with him and his wife, Mrs. Treves (played by Hannah Gordon), and Merrick was looking at the pictures of Treves’ family, and then, showing Treves and his wife the small portrait of his mother. I find this scene such a sweet and tender moment. I love seeing Merrick’s curiosity of home life, and you can see how much kindness he was given from Treves and his wife, and they treat him as a human being, not an outcast.
Today marks Joseph Merrick’s 160th birthday, who was born on to this day – August 5th, 1862. This topic is post on the day of his birth, and so, I would like to dedicate it as a special birthday tribute to him. Let’s take a look at the drawings! We’ll start off with a couple of my very first sketches of the Elephant Man himself.
First Drawings of the Elephant Man (4B Graphite Pencil)
Both of them were all drawn in 4B graphite pencil on a page of a drawing notebook. If you have been following me on Instagram and Facebook, you’ll probably have recognized these drawings, adding the iconic line: “I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am…a man!” I have never drawn a deformed character, not even Quasimodo from the Disney adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), so that makes John Merrick as the first deformed character I’ve learn to drawn, even though he’s drawn as an animated caricature of the actor John Hurt. In order to learn to draw Merrick, I would have to look up on images of screenshots from the film, including an image of the real-life Elephant Man, Joseph Merrick, so I can draw him with right certain shapes and details.
The first drawing I started out with was John Merrick in his disguised costume and the walking stick. He would always carry a walking stick, because he had a very poor balance, and he could not walk normally. In John Hurt’s interview, he described the characteristics of Merrick as a ‘corkscrew’ from the way his spine was, in which you can see it in Merrick’s skeleton exhibited in the London Hospital Museum. His backbone is curvy, as part of his deformities, so you can understand on why he couldn’t walk very good. Of course, you can see fear in his eye through the little hole in his veil. Second drawing shows Merrick looking at his mother’s portrait from having tea at Treves’ house sequence from the film.
Disney animator Glen Keane has talked about on how he came up the design and animation of the Beast, during the making of Beauty and the Beast (1991) by putting heart and soul into the character. The way we would see the Beast, we can’t help thinking of him as a frightening monster, but if you look at his eyes, you will see a human prince trapped inside, and it has sadness and innocence. That’s how I approach in drawing John Merrick, just by remembering on what Glen Keane had said on animating the Beast.
Here are three more drawings in the next section down below. They’re all drawn in black and white, in digital drawing from Autodesk SketchBook at 1700 x 1080.
The first piece is a second version of the first pencil sketch of John Merrick in his disguise; a more approval drawing than how I worked on it for the first time. Like how I drew Merrick in the first drawing, it was important to drew fear expression in his eye, for his worst fear was to have his deformed face revealed in public, with people reacting so frightened and disgusted by it.
The second drawing is the fan art illustration I picked up from the screenshot of the film, where Frederick Treves was teaching John Merrick to speak, while Merrick was recovering from bronchitis, after being taken to the London Hospital. Treves was teaching Merrick speaking in these words: “Hello, my name is John Merrick. I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Not only you have seen John Hurt drawn in animated caricature, but also you get to see Anthony Hopkins drawn in my animation look, too! 😀
And finally, here is the third drawing of John Merrick adding a finishing touch of his beautiful cardboard model of a cathedral. I drew this after the screenshot of John Hurt as Merrick, as he was painting the model, but I drew Merrick and the model in the different angle.
This is actually my most favorite out of the three, because all you see is Merrick being comfortable of himself, while working on his little art project, and it makes him feel like he’s in a safe place in the hospital, rather than living in the freak show. I think that was my main surprise of learning about him was that he was talent in art. The church model was presented as a gift to actress Madge Kendal, and it’s still exhibited at the London Hospital Museum today.
The more you would think about it, I think art has been a huge comfort zone for people with disabilities and illnesses. They paint, draw, or sculpt to express their feelings and emotions, like some kind of their own form of communication, in case if they don’t know how to say it in spoken words. Art and animation have always been my love and comfort zone since I was a kid, and there isn’t anything else I would do in the word besides art.
These are my thoughts on the film, and I hope you have enjoyed seeing the drawings. I would give the movie five out of five stars. And now, I would like to leave you all a question: What are your thoughts on The Elephant Man? Favorite scenes and quotes? And what is a powerful lesson do you think we can learn from John Merrick and Frederick Treves? I would like to know your thoughts, and please share them in the comment box.
If you have missed the recent post on Olaf Presents: ‘Cinderella’ fan art drawings, you can find it here at The Autistic Animator’s Desk. Take care and have a great weekend! 😊
Link:
- The Elephant Man (1980) movie trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQJdFwVXBTs
- My Favorite Scene (movie clip): https://www.tcm.com/video/828331/elephant-man-the-1980-movie-clip-the-face-of-an-angel
- Joseph Merrick’s Church Model: https://www.deviantart.com/worldoftimz/art/Joseph-Merrick-s-Model-Church-548405249
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