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.
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.
"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.".
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.
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).
