A "haunting" Oscar-nominated film by David Lynch is set to be available to stream online for free. The Elephant Man is loosely based on the life of British artist Joseph Merrick with severe physical deformities, played by Oscar-nominated actor John Hurt. Frederick Treves, played by Anthony Hopkins, is a doctor who finds John at a freakshow and invites him to work together at the hospital. The pair bond as Merrick learns about human kindness in Victorian London when he was seen more as a freak than a human being.
The Daily Express reports 1980 film was a huge hit for Lynch and saw his work nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Director and Best Score. John Hurt was nominated for an Oscar for his scene-stealing speech: "I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!". The Elephant Man didn't win any Oscars, but won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, Best Actor for John Hurt and Best Production Design.
For film fans who want to watch the film for the first time or relive a classic movie, The Elephant Man airs on BBC Two at 11.55pm on Sunday (February 9). The film will be available on BBC iPlayer thereafter. Many critics praised the film with some calling Lynch's work "haunting" with its imagery and praised John Hurt's "truly remarkable" performance under heavy make-up. One Guardian review reads: "It has to be said that Lynch’s Elephant Man, while not exactly sentimental, takes a determinedly un-alienated attitude to Merrick’s image: rational, compassionate and very different from his approach to what might be called body-nonconformity in Eraserhead in which the keynote is clearly one of horror.
"There is far more empathy in The Elephant Man, especially in the moving scene in which Treves brings Carr-Gomm to see Merrick for the first time – and poor Merrick is at first hardly able to speak and then astonishes both men by reciting the 23rd Psalm from memory.". The Elephant Man forms part of a double bill with Blue Velvet to celebrate the life of legendary director David Lynch, who died from complications of emphysema at his daughter's home on January 15.
