'The Elephant Man' Was Blunt and Uncompromising

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"People are frightened by what they don't understand."

John Merrick (John Hurt)

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"The Elephant Man," which premiered on this date in 1980, was an extremely difficult movie to watch at times.

That does not mean it was a bad movie. Quite the contrary. Nearly everything about it was great. The acting was great. The directing was great. All the technical aspects of the movie were great.

The makeup was so impressive, in fact, that the Oscars were shamed into creating a new category for makeup and hairstyling the next year after Christopher Tucker's makeup work in "The Elephant Man" wasn't honored. Tucker wasn't overlooked deliberately by the Academy. There simply wasn't a category to recognize makeup artists.

Prior to that, two Special Achievement Oscars were awarded — to William Tuttle (in 1964 for "7 Faces of Dr. Lao") and John Chambers (in 1968 for "Planet of the Apes") — but there was no standing category for makeup artists (or, in Tucker's case, prosthetic work), and that was a mistake, considering the many great things that were done with makeup in the decades before "The Elephant Man."

The first recipient of the new Oscar — and, thus, the first beneficiary of the fallout from Tucker's snub — was Rick Baker for "An American Werewolf in London."

Tucker was recognized with an Oscar for Best Makeup a few years later.

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In all, "The Elephant Man" received eight Oscar nominations, tying it with "Raging Bull" for the most nominations that year, but it took none home. That may have been the greatest shock of that year's Oscars.

John Hurt was brilliant in the role of John Merrick (in reality, Merrick's first name was Joseph; I have no idea why it was changed for the movie), the grossly disfigured hero of the story, and he was recognized for his work with an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. (He lost to Robert De Niro in "Raging Bull.")

None of the other performers — Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller — were nominated, but the movie was nominated for Best Picture and David Lynch was nominated for Best Director. Both awards went to "Ordinary People."

It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. How on earth did it fail to win a single Oscar?

It couldn't be because the subject matter was regarded as too rough. The winner of Best Picture that year was "Ordinary People," a story about a family coming apart at the seams, and it could be every bit as difficult to watch as "The Elephant Man."

I suppose more people could relate to "Ordinary People" than "The Elephant Man," though. You never have to look very far to find a dysfunctional family, but Merrick suffered from a rare disease, one that hasn't touched a fraction of the people that dysfunction has. Still, even if far fewer people could relate to his circumstances, his character was every bit as sympathetic.

He endured all kinds of abuse in Victorian England as a result of his affliction — and abuse, unfortunately, is not uncommon, even in today's politically correct climate. Hurt's performance deserved all the praise that film critics were eager to heap on the movie.

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There were those in the movie who recognized what was happening. Merrick was a friendly and intelligent person, but he was hideous to behold, and that was what drove his treatment from others — and drove away those who might have been his friends.

"Can you imagine the kind of life he must have had?" pondered John Gielgud at one point.

"Yes, I think I can," replied Hopkins.

"I don't think so," Gielgud countered. "No one could possibly imagine it. I don't believe any of us can."

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Merrick was regarded as a freak by many; in fact, the movie opened with him in a carnival, advertised as the "Elephant Man."

It was early in the movie that the viewers began to get a real taste for the grim reality of Merrick's existence. By the time Hurt was introduced to Hannah Gordon, who played Hopkins' wife, most viewers must surely have perceived the irony of their conversation.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Merrick," she said.

"I'm very pleased ..." Merrick began but couldn't finish. He was overcome with emotion.

"What is it, John?" Hopkins asked, concern creeping into his voice. "What's the matter?"

"It's just that I'm not used to being treated so well by a beautiful woman," Merrick replied.

The fact that being told "I'm very pleased to meet you" upon being introduced to someone could be regarded as being treated well speaks volumes and is heartbreaking testimony to the life he led.

"The Elephant Man" was blunt and uncompromising. Hurt's performance may have been the most sensitive I have ever seen.

I still can't believe the American Film Institute did not include "The Elephant Man" in its Top 100 movies of all time list.

On the Run With Sailor and Lula

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"This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top."

Lula (Laura Dern)

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"There is something inside of me that resists the films of David Lynch," film critic Roger Ebert wrote after the debut of "Wild at Heart" 25 years ago today. "I am aware of it, I admit to it, but I cannot think my way around it. I sit and watch his films and am aware of his energy, his visual flair, his flashes of wit. But as the movie rolls along, something grows inside of me — an indignation, an unwillingness, a resistance."

I don't think a lot of people really remember just how hot (not in the physical sense but in the successful sense) David Lynch was when he wrote and directed "Wild at Heart." Among his many projects was his TV brainchild Twin Peaks, which had a meteoric ride that began in April 1990 and continued until June 1991. At the end, the ratings were tanking, but it lit up the sky there in 1990. Many said it had developed a cult following for Lynch.

It was while Lynch was working on the first episodes of Twin Peaks that he was approached about directing a movie based on a novel called "Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula," the tale of a couple of lovers on the road together. Lynch was the one who introduced the crime angle; in the movie adaptation, Sailor and Lula weren't on the road so much as they were on the run.

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I guess that was one of the movie themes of that time — people on the run from the law (or something). To an extent, I suppose, it is always a movie theme, but it isn't always as popular as it seemed to be in the late '80s and early '90s.

And, even when there is an unusually high number of such road movies in the theaters, few are as surrealistic — and I say that fully aware that "Thelma & Louise" premiered less than two years later — as "Wild at Heart."

Anyway, as I say, Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern) were on the run — but it started out that they were running from Lula's overbearing mother (played by Dern's own mother, Diane Ladd), who got other folks involved — gangsters, for example, and a detective (played by Willem Dafoe).

Both of the leads were played by young but familiar actors. Cage was cast regularly in movies in the 1980s — "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "The Cotton Club," "Peggy Sue Got Married," "Raising Arizona," "Moonstruck." By the time he made "Wild at Heart," moviegoers were pretty accustomed to the idea of Cage as a leading man.

Things were different for Dern. "Wild at Heart" was hardly Dern's first appearance on the silver screen — that came nearly 20 years earlier, when, at the tender age of 6, Dern was cast in 1973's "White Lightning" — but many moviegoers probably didn't know that in 1990, and most probably were not aware of her resume. She was cast in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," which received three Academy Award nominations, in 1974. She had had many supporting roles (earning a reputation within the industry for earnest portrayals of virtuous but rather naive characters); she had worked with Lynch before, on 1986's "Blue Velvet," and some of her roles could be regarded as leading roles, but "Wild at Heart" was probably the first truly successful movie in which she was widely recognized as one of the stars.

A big part of the plot of "Wild at Heart" was sex, as one would expect with an oversexed, hot–blooded type like Lula — and Cage's character was always willing to oblige her, as just about any man in that age group probably would. It's been quite awhile since I've seen the movie, but it seems to me that Dern and Cage marked just about every event with a roll in the sack ...

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Even though that is — to an extent — the kind of behavior that is expected of people Sailor's and Lula's age, it was part of what made the movie so surreal. "You've got me hotter than Georgia asphalt," Dern said to Cage at one point. She must have spent her life in a constant state of arousal.

Part of it was Lynch himself, though. The structure of the road film freed Lynch to indulge himself in all sorts of ways, which led to mixed results. That part was probably predictable. But he also took viewers to some intriguing places — like the aftermath of a two–car collision in which a young woman, suffering from an obviously severe head injury, emerged from the wreckage, staggered around for a little while, asking what had happened and trying to find her wallet, and then died in front of the amorous couple. Sailor and Lula regarded it as a bad omen.

Which it was, I suppose, particularly for the girl who died.

Ebert dismissed "Wild at Heart" as "a film without the courage to declare its own darkest fantasies." There may be truth in that. I only saw it once, many years ago. Maybe I need to see it again.

"I've seen the movie twice now," Ebert told his readers. "I liked it less the second time."

My advice to you is to judge for yourself.