The Elephant Man (1982) - full transcript
A taped version of the stage play about a hideously deformed 19th-century London man and how he managed to triumph over his disease.
(solemn solemn music)
- [Frederick] How should I begin?
Because in the end, what John Merrick, the Elephant Man,
looked like, and what he was were two very different things.
Perhaps it is naive of me to expect the general public
to fully comprehend this mystery.
After all, who does not secretly relish
the shock of the abnormal, the biggest,
the ugliest, the most bizarre?
But, what about a face and physique
beyond rational explanation.
The unimaginable head, it's pungeon huh grows like tusks,
the mouth gaping and swollen,
one eye nearly obliterated by masses of flesh,
a lump recognizable to very few as a human nose.
The arms, one shaped like that of any man's,
the other monstrously misshapen, twisted,
blown out of all proportion.
The hand on the deformed arm a mere flipper,
a piece of flesh, fingers and thumb welded together
by a cruel whim of nature, intertwined with it, helpless.
And, what about the body as a whole,
the affliction of the joints
which reduced it to the spraddling stature of a hunchback?
I met him twice.
I knew of him for two years.
I knew him for another four.
The second meeting changed both our lives.
Physicians, they say, are supposed to be impartial,
but the Elephant Man represented
the most significant episode in my professional life.
I came to see him differently from others somehow.
They saw only the surface and shrank from looking deeper.
- Blimey.
- What is it?
- Look here.
Who'd have believed it?
What is it?
It don't look human even.
- That's him.
That's the bloke they kept up here three or four years.
Oh, a fright, ain't he?
- That'll do.
Get on with your work.
- Yes, sir.
- [Frederick] How many times have I looked at these?
When was the first time?
Yes, that's it.
The very same year, not long after I arrived here.
- I'm Mr. Carr Gomm,
administrator here at the London Hospital.
- Frederick Treves, your new lecturer in anatomy.
- Age 31, books on scrofula
and applied surgical anatomy.
I'm happy to see you rising, Mr. Treves.
Ignore the squalor of Whitechapel,
the general dinginess, neglect, and poverty without,
and you will find a continual medical
(speaks foreign language)
in the London Hospital.
We study and treat the widest range
of diseases and disorders,
and are certainly the greatest institution of our kind
in the world.
Well the empire offers unparalleled opportunities
for our studies, as places cruel to life
are the most revealing scientifically.
Add to our reputation by going further,
and that will satisfy.
You've bought a house?
- On Winslow Street.
- Good.
Keep at it, Treves.
You'll have 100 guinea fees before you're 40.
An excellent consolation prize.
- Consolation?
I don't know what you mean.
- I know you don't.
You will.
- A happy childhood in Dorset,
a scientist in an age of science,
in an an English age an Englishman.
A teacher and doctor at the London,
two books published by my 31st year,
and by god, 100 guinea fees before I'm 40.
Consolation for what?
My work at the hospital was rewarding.
In my few spare hours though, I slipped outside
and disregarded the administrator's advice.
I found the poverty, the dirt, the disease,
oddly invigorating.
A kind of vast revolving show which never seemed to end.
- See Mother Nature uncorseted, and in malignant rage!
Tuppence.
- This sign is absurd.
Half elephant, half man is not possible.
I'm from the London Hospital across the road.
I should be curious to see him,
if there is some genuine disorder.
If he's merely a mass of paper mache and paint--
- Then pay me nothing.
Enter, sir.
Merrick, stand up.
You bloody donkey, up, up!
- I must examine him further, at the hospital.
This is my card, I'm Treves.
I shall send a taxi round to pick him up and to return him.
This card will gain him entry.
- Five bob and he's yours for the day.
- I wish to examine him in the interest of science, you see.
- Sir, I'm Ross.
I look out for him.
I get him his living.
I found him in a Leicester workhouse.
His ma put him there at the age of three,
couldn't bear the sight.
Well, you can understand.
He's good value, though.
You won't find another like him.
- Fair enough.
(chattering)
(banging)
When I examined him,
the most striking feature about him
was his enormous head.
Its circumference was about that of a man's waist.
From the brow there projected a huge bony mass,
like a lobe, while the from the back of the skull
hung a bag of spongy, fungus-looking skin,
the surface of which was comparable to brown cauliflower.
From the top of his skull hung a few long, lank hairs.
The osious growth on the forehead at this stage,
about the size of a tangerine,
almost occluded one eye.
From the upper jaw there projected another mass of bone.
It protruded through his mouth like a pink stump,
turning the upper lip inside out
and making the mouth a wide, slobbering abdul.
The nose was merely a lump of flesh
recognizable only as a nose from its position.
These deformities rendered the face
utterly incapable of the expression
of any emotion whatsoever.
He could weep, but he could not smile.
The back was horrible because from it hung
as far down as the middle of the thigh
huge sack-like masses of flesh covered with this same
loathsome cauliflower stain.
The right arm was of enormous size and shapeless.
It suggested, but was not elephantiasis,
and was overgrown also with bended masses of flesh
covered with this same cauliflower like skin.
The right hand was large and clumsy.
A fin or paddle, really, rather than a hand.
No distinction existed between the palm and the back.
The thumb was like a radish
and the fingers like thick, tuberous roots.
As a limb it was useless.
The other arm was remarkable by contrast.
It was not only normal,
but was moreover a delicately shaped limb,
covered with a fine skin
and provided with a beautiful hand
which any woman might have envied.
From the chest hung a bag of this same repulsive flesh.
It was like a dewlap suspended from the neck of a lizard.
The lower limbs had the characters of the deformed arm.
They were unwieldy, dropsical looking and grossly misshapen.
There arose from the fungus skin growth
a very sickening stench,
which was hard to tolerate,
and to add a further burden to his trouble,
the wretched man, when a boy,
developed hip disease which left him permanently lame,
so that he could walk only with the aid of a stick.
Please.
- [Man] My god.
- He was thus denied all means of escape
from his tormentors.
- Mr. Treves.
You have shown us a profound and unknown disorder.
You have said that when he leaves here
it will be to return to his exhibition.
I do not think it ought to be permitted.
It is an indecency.
Something ought to be done.
- Well I am a doctor, sir.
What would you have me do?
- Well I know what to do.
I know.
(chattering)
(solemn music)
- [Frederick] The police found Merrick's exhibition
degrading, and closed the show.
Ross the showman fled with the Elephant Man
to the continent.
But the crowds were pitifully few,
and the police of Zurich and Strasbourg
were no more receptive to Ross's show
than those in England had been.
He came finally to Brussels.
His reception was discouraging.
(singing)
- No no no no no, don't recite yet, you morons,
I'll say when.
And when you do, get it right.
If you don't, it's back to the asylum.
You know what that means, don't you, huh?
(laughing)
Yes, they'll cut your little heads, huh?
(laughing)
Pull out your little brains.
Ah, replace them in the dachshund
they were nicked from, eh?
(laughing)
Yes?
Cut it!
Yeah?
All right.
Be back with customers.
Come!
See the queens of the Congo!
Come see the queens of the Congo!
- Cosmos?
- Congo, Congo!
Lands of darkness.
Oh, look at them, lad.
It's freer on the continent.
Loads of indecency here.
No one minds.
Now you have a little tet-a-tet with this lot,
and I'll go and see the coppers
about our permit to exhibit.
- Ross-
- Be right back.
- I come from England.
At home they chased me out of London.
Police.
Someone complained.
They evict me.
You have no trouble, no?
- Hello.
- Hello!
- Hello.
- Hello!
- Hello.
In Belgium, we make money.
I look forward to it.
Happiness, I mean.
You and your police,
how is it done?
- Hello, hello!
- Oh, we'll do a show together some time, yes?
I have saved 48 pounds, two shillings, nine pence.
- They're coming!
They're coming.
Ready?
(applauding)
Now.
♪ We are the queens of the Congo ♪
♪ That beautiful Belgian empire ♪
♪ Our ladies are bigger
♪ Our manners our finer
♪ Empire, empire, Congo I come
(laughing)
- Admire, admire.
(booing)
Fire, fire.
- Fire?
Fire!
(booing)
- You cretins!
Get those words right!
- Don't cry.
You sang nice.
There there, don't cry.
- What more do you want?
- This is a brutal, indecent, and immoral display
of public indecency!
It's forbidden!
- Well what about them and their perfect cone heads?
- They're ours.
- Competition's good for business.
Where's your spirit of competition?
- Right here!
- Don't do that, you'll kill him!
- Better off dead than indecent bastard.
Hurry, hurry.
(chattering)
- Don't cry.
Doesn't hurt.
(mutters)
- I've decided, lad,
I'm sending you back.
You're a flop.
Nope.
You're a liability.
Not the money maker I figured.
So that's it.
- Alone?
- Now, here's your kit, and a few bob
so you can have a nosh,
I'm keeping the rest for my trouble.
I deserve it, I reckon.
Pick up your stink if I stick around.
(mumbles)
Stink of failure.
Stink of lost years.
Just stink!
Stinks, stinks, stinks!
(shouting)
Be forewarned, just see him
to Liverpool Street Station safe, will ya?
Here's something for your trouble.
(Merrick wails)
- [Man] What's he saying?
- [Ross] Fella's an imbecile.
Just makes sounds.
(Merrick wails)
Bon voyage, Johnny.
His name's Johnny.
Knows his name.
That's all though.
(Merrick shouting)
(crowd shouting)
- [Man] Liverpool Street Station.
- We're safe in here, I've barred the door.
- They wanted to rip him apart.
I've never seen anything like it.
- Got somewhere to go in London, lad?
You can't stay here.
- Oh, where could he go?
- Who knows.
Not with that mob out there.
Got any money?
(Merrick wails)
What was that?
- Oh, he's an imbecile, he can't understand.
Search him.
(Merrick wails)
He just makes sounds, frightened sounds is all.
Go through his coat.
- Hey hey hey.
You Johnny Merrick?
Ah, got a card here.
What's this old card here, Johnny?
- What's it say?
- Mr. Frederick Treves, lecturer in anatomy
at the London Hospital.
- Let me go over there.
It's not far.
- What does he do, eh?
Eh?
Lecture you on your anatomy?
Now people who think right
don't look like that then, do they?
(Merrick moaning)
Oh, yes yes, glum glum glum.
Oh, yes yes.
Treves, Treves, Treves.
(crying)
(knocking)
- What's going on here?
(banging)
Ah.
I'm Frederick Treves, this is my card.
- This poor wretcher had it.
- He just arrived, sir, from Belgium.
- Merrick.
John Merrick.
Good lord.
What have they done to you?
- Help me!
- [Frederick] In the attic of the London Hospital
was an isolation ward with several beds.
It was used for emergency purposes,
for patients suddenly gone insane,
or a man with a mysterious fever.
Here the Elephant Man was made comfortable
and supplied with food.
The condition of his skin
rendered a bath at least once a day a necessity,
and the unpleasant odor ceased to be noticeable.
But his appearance remained hideous,
and none of the regular nurses would attend him.
I was obliged to advertise for an experienced outsider.
- You are Miss Sandwich?
- Sandwich, yes.
- And I see you've had experience in missionary hospitals
in the Niger.
- And Salon.
- Well, I may assume you've seen--
- The tropics.
Oh those diseases, the many and awful scourges
our lord sends.
Yes sir.
- Well I'm looking for the help of an experienced nurse,
you see.
- Someone to bring his meals, to take care of his room?
I understand, but is it somehow difficult?
- Well, I have been let down so far.
He really is...
Well, the regular sisters, it is not part of their job,
and they simply will not do it.
Be ordinarily kind to Mr. Merrick,
without, well, panicking.
He is quite beyond ugly, you understand that,
his appearance has terrified them.
- The photographs show a terrible disease.
- It is a disorder, not a disease.
He's in no way contagious,
though in fact I don't know what it is.
I have encountered a rather strange superstition
in those that I have tried.
They seem to believe that he somehow
brought it upon himself,
this thing.
Of course it is not like that at all.
- I am not one who believes it is ourselves who attain grace
or bring chastisement to us, sir.
- Miss Sandwich, I am hoping not.
- Let me put your mind to rest.
Care for lepers in the East, and you have cared, Mr. Treves.
In Africa I've seen dreadful scourges
quite unknown to our more civilized climes.
What at home could be worse
than a miserable and afflicted, rotting black?
- I imagine.
- Appearances do not daunt me.
- Well that is exactly what has sent me
outside the confines of the London seeking help.
- I look unto the hills, whence cometh my help?
I understand.
I think I will be satisfactory.
- Good.
- His lunch.
- Oh, perhaps you'd care to accompany me.
I shall introduce you.
- Allow me to carry the tray.
- No.
I will, this time.
You are ready?
- I am.
- Come.
He is bathing to be rid of his odor.
John?
John?
This is Miss Sandwich.
She's going to be taking care of you for a little while.
(gasps)
- Oh, my good god in heaven!
(screaming)
- I am sorry.
I thought...
- Thank you for saving my lunch this time.
- Excuse me.
You really have let me down, you know.
I did everything I could to warn you,
and still you've let me down.
- You didn't say.
- But I did say.
- Didn't!
You said just words.
- But the photograph.
- Just a picture.
No one will do this.
I am sorry.
(solemn music)
- [Frederick] The Elephant Man adapted quickly
to the hospital routine.
A letter to the Times from Gomm
brought in a torrent of funds for medic support,
the next step to assure him a normal life.
"Normal like us," inquired Mr. Gomm?
I asked if there was something wrong with that.
- How long is as long as I like?
- You may stay for life.
The funds exist.
- But reading this about homes for the blind,
wouldn't mind going to one when I have to move.
- But you don't have to move,
and you're not blind.
- I would prefer it where no one stared at me.
- But no one will bother you here.
(gasping)
- What did I tell you?
- God almighty!
- Shh.
- Mr. Treves.
Mr. Gomm.
- I don't understand.
You were told not to do this.
You must not lurk around, surely you have work?
- Yes sir.
- Really is infuriating, you know,
when you're told a thing, I expect you to listen.
I will not have you gaping in at my patient,
kindly remember that.
- But he isn't a patient, is he sir?
- Don't let me find you here again.
- I didn't know you was here, sir.
We'll be off now.
- No.
No Will.
Mr. Treves was precisely saying
no one would intrude when you intruded.
- Well he is warned now, Merrick does not like it.
- He was warned before.
On what what penalty, Will?
- That you'd sack me, sir.
- [Gage] You're sacked, Will.
And what is your name?
- Stark, sir.
Just started.
- Well.
I hope the point is taken.
Now?
- Mr. Gomm.
I ain't truly sacked, am I?
- Well yes, truly sacked.
You will never be more truly sacked.
- Well it ain't me.
My wife ain't well.
My sister has to look after our kids, and of her.
Well?
- Think of them first next time.
- It ain't as if I interfered with his medicine.
- That is exactly what it is.
You may go.
- Just keeping him to look at in private,
that's all, isn't it?
- There are priorities, Frederick,
the first is discipline.
Smooth is the passage to the tight ship's master.
Merrick, you're safe from prying now.
- Oh have we nothing to say, John?
- If all that stared at me had been sacked,
there'd be whole towns out of work.
- I meant thank you, sir.
- Oh, thank you, sir.
- We always do say please and thank you, don't we?
- Oh, yes sir.
- [Frederick] If we want to properly be like others.
- I want to, sir.
- Then it is for our own good, is it not?
- Thank you sir, Mr. Gomm.
- Sir, you are welcome.
- You are happy here, are you not?
- [John] Yes sir.
- The baths have rid you of your odor, have they not?
- First chance I had to bathe regular.
Ly.
- And three meals a day delivered to your room.
- Yes sir.
- Well, this is your promised land, is it not?
A roof, food, care, protection.
Is it not?
- Right, Mr. Treves.
- I'll bet you don't know what to call this.
- No sir, I don't.
- You call it home.
- Oh, never had a home before.
- Well, you have one now.
Say it, John.
Home.
- Home.
- No no no no no, really say it.
I have a home.
This is my...
Go on.
- I have a home.
This is my home.
This is...
This is my home.
I have a home.
I have a...
For as long as I like?
- Well, that is what home is.
- Oh, that what is home.
- If I abide by the rules, I will be happy.
- Yes sir.
- Don't be shy, John, say it.
- If I abide by the rules,
I will be happy.
- Very good.
Why?
- Why what?
- Why will you be happy?
- Oh, because this is my home.
- Why do rules make you happy?
- I don't know.
- Of course you do.
- No, no, I don't.
- Well, why does anything make you happy?
- Like what, like what?
- Now don't be upset.
Rules make us happy because they are for our own good.
- All right.
- Don't be shy, John.
Say it.
- This is my home!
- No, no, no.
Now about rules making us happy.
- They make us happy
because they are for our own good.
- Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, I must submit a follow up report on you
to the pathological society.
It would be of great help to me
if you could tell me more of what you recall
of your early years to fill in gaps.
- To fill in gaps?
The workhouse, where they put me,
they beat you there like a drum.
Boom,
boom.
Scrape the floor.
Shine the pan.
Boom,
boom.
It never ends.
The floor is always dirty.
The pan is always tarnished.
There's nothing you can do about it.
You'll always...
Will the children
go to the workhouse?
- What children?
- [John] The children,
of the man you sacked.
- Well, of necessity.
Will will find other employment.
You don't want people staring at you, do you?
- No.
- In your home, you needn't have crowds staring at you.
Or anyone, for that matter, do you?
In your home.
- No.
- Well then.
Mr. Gomm was merciful, was he not?
You yourself are proof, is it not so?
Well?
Is it not so?
- If your mercy is so cruel,
what do you have for justice?
- Well.
I am sorry.
That is just the way things are.
- Boo.
Boo.
Boo.
(solemn music)
- John Merrick.
To secure Merrick's recovery,
and bring him, as it were, to life once more,
it was necessary that he should make the acquaintance
of other people.
Women I felt to be more important than men
in bringing about his transformation.
- You have seen the photographs of John Merrick,
Mrs. Kendal.
You are acquainted with his appearance.
- He reminds me of an audience I played Cleopatra for
in Brighton once.
All huge grim head and grimace, and utterly unable to clap.
(laughs)
- Well, my aim is to lead him
to as normal a life as possible.
His terror of us all comes from having been held
at arm's length from society.
I am determined that that shall end.
For example, he loves to meet people and to converse.
I am determined that he shall.
Most critical I feel are women.
I shall explain.
They have always had the most intense
fear and loathing of him,
while he adores them of course.
- Ah, then he is intelligent.
- And I'm convinced that they are the key
to retrieving him from his exclusion.
Though I must warn you, Mrs. Kendal,
that to John Merrick, women are not quite real.
They are more like creatures of his imagination.
- Then he's already like other men, Mr. Treves.
- So, I thought an actress could help.
I mean, unlike most women, you won't give in.
You're trained to hide your true feelings
and to assume others.
- You mean unlike most women,
I am famous for it, that is really all.
- Well, in any case, if you could just enter his room
and smile and say good morning,
and then when you leave, if you could shake his hand,
the left one, it's quite usable.
It's actually quite beautiful.
And say,
"I am very pleased to have made your acquaintance,
"Mr. Merrick."
- Shall we try it?
- Pardon?
- Left hand out, please.
(clears throat)
I am very pleased to have made your acquaintance,
Mr. Merrick.
I am very pleased to have made an acquaintance, Mr. Merrick.
(laughing)
I am very pleased
(laughing)
to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Merrick.
Ah.
I
am
very pleased
to have made your acquaintance,
Mr. Merrick.
Yes, yes, that one.
- By god, they were all splendid.
Merrick will be so pleased.
It will be the day he becomes a man like other men.
- Speaking of that, Mr. Treves.
- [Frederick] Frederick, please.
- Freddie.
May I commit an indiscretion?
- Yes.
- I could not help but notice from the photographs
that of the unafflicted parts...
How shall I put this?
- Oh.
Oh, yes.
Yes, I see.
I quite understand.
No, no.
It is quite normal.
- Yes, I thought as much.
- Medically speaking, the papillomatous extrusions
which disfigure him seam to correspond quite regularly
to the oscious deformities.
What I mean to say is that there appears to be a link
between the fungus skin growth and the bone disorder,
though for the life of me, I have no idea why that is
or what it is, but in any case,
the part which you indicated
would be unlikely to be afflicted, because...
Because
there's no bone in it.
(chuckles)
No bone at all.
(chuckles)
- Well we learn a little every day, don't we?
- I am horribly embarrassed.
- Are you?
Then he must be lonely indeed.
- He is making sketches for a model of St. Phillip's church.
John?
This is Mrs. Kendal.
She would very much like to make your acquaintance.
- Good morning, Mr. Merrick.
- Well, I must attend to a few matters,
if you will excuse me.
- I've planned to say so many things.
I forgot them.
You are so beautiful.
- How charming, Mr. Merrick.
- Well really--
- Tell me.
Is it lonely?
- That's what I planned to say,
but I forgot what I planned to say.
I couldn't think of anything else, I was so excited.
- The real charm is always planned, don't you think?
(laughs)
- Well,
I don't know why I look like this.
My mother was beautiful.
She was knocked down by an elephant in the circus
when she...
Was pregnant.
Something must've happened, don't you think?
- It may well have.
- It may well have.
But sometimes,
I think my head is so big
because it is so full of dreams.
Because it is.
Do you know what happens when dreams cannot get out?
- No, no.
- Oh.
I don't either.
Something must.
Well.
You are a famous actress.
- I am not unknown.
- You must display yourself for a living then, like I did.
- Well,
that is not myself, Mr. Merrick.
That is an illusion.
This is myself.
- This is myself too.
- Frederick says you like to read.
So, books?
- Oh, I am reading Romeo and Juliet now.
- Ah, Juliet.
What a love story.
I adore love stories.
- I like love stories best, too.
If I had been Romeo, guess what?
- What?
- I would not have held a mirror to her breath.
- What?
(exhales)
You mean the scene in which Juliet appears to be dead?
And he holds a mirror to her breath, and he sees--
- Nothing.
Well, how does he feel when he kills himself
because he sees nothing?
- Well,
my experience with Juliet has always been,
particularly with an actor I will not name,
(chuckles)
that whilst I'm lying there dead, dead, dead,
and he is lamenting excessively,
I start to think, if this slab of ham does not part
from the ham hock of his life toot sweet,
I shall scream, pop off the tomb,
and plunge a dagger into his scene-stealing heart!
(laughing)
Romeos are very undependable.
- Because Romeo does not care of Juliet.
- Not care?
- Well, does he take her pulse?
Does he get the doctor?
Does he make sure?
No.
He kills himself.
The illusion fools him because he does not care about her,
he only cares about himself.
If I had been Romeo,
we would have got away.
- But then there would have been no play, Mr. Merrick.
- If he does not love her, why should there be a play?
Looking in a mirror and seeing nothing.
That is not love.
That is an illusion.
When the illusion ended,
he had to kill himself.
- Well.
That is extraordinary.
- Before I spoke with people,
I did not think these things,
because there was no one to bother to think them for.
Now things just come out of my mouth which are true.
- John, John, look.
You are famous, John.
We are in the papers.
They published my report to the pathological society.
Well look, it's rather an apotheosis for you.
- Frederick.
I feel Mr. Merrick would benefit by even more company
than you provide.
In fact, by acquainting him with the best,
and they with him,
I shall make this my task, if you will permit me.
As you know I am a friend of nearly everyone,
and I do pretty well as I please,
and what pleases me is this task.
I think.
- By god, Mrs. Kendal, you are splendid.
- I must go now, Mr. Merrick.
I shall return again, if you will permit me,
and next time I should like to bring
my good friend Dorothy, Lady Neville.
She would be most pleased to meet you.
Let me tell her yes.
Then until next time.
I am sure your church model will surprise us all.
Mr. Merrick,
it has been
a very great pleasure
to make your acquaintance.
- Your hand, John.
She wishes to shake your hand.
- Thank you
for coming.
- But it was my pleasure.
Thank you.
(classical music)
(chattering)
- [Frederick] The transformation of John Merrick
was an amazing change to witness.
Suddenly everybody wanted to see him.
He must've been visited by everyone of rank
in the social world.
They came flocking from all corners of the realm.
An extraordinary step forward, I thought.
Frankly I wasn't sure, I had my doubts.
Where was all this going to lead?
In any case, there was no turning back.
- No no, Lord Ron, A Lady From the Sea,
now there's a play for you.
- Say as you like, Mrs. Kendal.
Ibson, after all.
Drury Lane for me.
- Ah yes, the pantomime.
Mr. Merrick and I are going next week.
Dick Wittington is playing.
- Merrick, going to the theater?
What do you think of that, Mr. Gomm?
- Don't ask me, my lord.
What says the church about the theater?
- Christmastime sirs, Christmastime.
- Mr. Merrick, I hope the decanter and the goblet
are to your liking?
- Many thanks, Countess.
- I'm so pleased to have met you.
The happiest of holidays.
(chattering)
- Is this the right moment, Sir Treves?
- Of course, Dr. How, after you.
- Your very own edition of the Psalms, Mr. Merrick.
Bound in ivory.
- Thank you, Dr. How.
- Silver topped walking stick, Merrick.
Keep up the good work, example to us all.
- Thank you, Mr. Gomm.
- Happy Christmas, John, and many more.
These are for you.
Ivory handled razors and a toothbrush.
- Thank you, Mrs. Kendal.
- And a silver cigarette case, John.
Full of cigarettes.
- Thank you, Frederick.
- Her Royal Highness, Princess Alexandra.
Certainly, your royal highness.
- The happiest of Christmases, Mr. Merrick.
- Her Royal Highness has brought you a signed photograph
of herself, John.
- I am honored, your royal highness.
It is a treasure of my possessions.
I have written His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales
to thank him for the pheasant
and woodcock he sent me.
- He was delighted to hear from you.
And how is the model of your church progressing?
(chattering)
- You have my idea, my lord, how forthright a Christian
Mr. Merrick is.
The model confirms it.
He's religious and devout and he knows that salvation
must radiate to us, or all is lost.
- Indeed, Dr. How.
For example, he knows I used him
to raise money for the hospital, as you do of the church
when you speak of him from the pulpit.
He's wary of any promise, yet he fits in well, like me.
- Why all of these toilet articles, tell me?
He's much too deformed to use any of them.
- Props, of course, to make himself, as I make me.
- You?
You think of yourself?
- Well, he is charming, almost feminine.
He's gentle, honest within limits,
he is a true artist,
he is almost like me.
- How odd.
I think of him curious, compassionate,
and concerned about the world.
Rather like myself.
Freddie Treves, AD 1889.
- The model of St. Phillip's church
is progressing beautiful, Mr. Treves.
- Yes, it is remarkable, I know.
- And I do it with just one hand, they all say.
- You are an artist, John Merrick.
An artist.
- I did not begin to build at first,
not until I saw what St. Phillip's really was.
It is not stone and steel and glass.
It is an imitation of grace, lying up from the mud.
So I make my imitation of an imitation,
but even in that is heaven to me, Mrs. Kendal.
- That thought has a good line to it, John.
Plato believed this was all a world of illusion,
and that artists made illusions of illusions of heaven.
- You mean we are all just copies of originals?
- Yes, that's it.
- Who made the copies?
- God.
The demi-urge.
- He should have used both hands, shouldn't he?
(laughing)
- Mr. Merrick, you are a credit to Mr. Treves.
And Mr. Treves, you are a credit to medicine,
to England, and to Christendom.
I am so very pleased to have made your acquaintance.
- You know, Lord John, when His Royal Highness
asked Mr. Treves to be his personal surgeon,
he said "dear Freddie, if you can put up
"with that elephant bloke, you can surely put up with me."
(laughing)
- I've come actually to ask forgiveness.
- I have found a good home, Ross.
I forgave you.
- I was hoping we could make a deal, something new, maybe.
- No.
- I was counting on it, see?
You being warmhearted the same as me.
Figure what I read about you in the newspapers,
you don't change.
Dukes and Ladies coming to see you.
Makes them feel good about themselves by comparison.
There but for the grace of God, eh?
(laughs)
So I figure you're selling the same service as always.
Only to a better clientele.
Only difference now is you ain't charging for it.
- You make me sound like a whore.
- Well you are.
I am, they are, most are.
No disgrace, John.
Only disgrace is being a stupid whore.
Give it for free.
Not to have a manager is stupid.
- You see this church?
I am building it.
The people who visit me are friends, not clients.
I am not a dog walking on his hind legs.
- I was thinking, charge these people.
The pleasure of the Elephant Man's company.
Do it in the right spirit, they'd pay happily.
I'd take 10%.
I'd do all right with 10%.
- Bad luck's made you daft.
- I helped you, John, I discovered you, was that daft?
No, what was daft?
Ross sows, Treves harvests?
It isn't fair, is it John, when you think about it?
And I do.
Cause I'm old.
Got something in me throat, maybe you've noticed.
Something in me lungs, something in me belly I guess too,
but I'd do all right with 10%.
I don't ask much.
- They are my friends!
I'd lose everything for you.
You robbed me.
48 pounds,
nine shillings,
tuppence.
You kept me like an animal in darkness,
you left me to die, you come back and want to rob me again.
Will you not be satisfied?
Now,
I am a man.
Like others.
You want me to return.
- Had a woman yet?
- Is that what makes a man?
- In my day, it'd do for a start.
- Not what makes this one.
Yet I am like others.
- Then I am condemned.
Might as well go to a doss house straight, with no future.
5%, John?
- I'm sorry, Ross.
That is just the way things are.
- By god, then I am lost.
(solemn music)
- [Frederick] Christmas had come and gone.
Winter set in, and with it, harsh weather.
Because of his declining physical condition,
Merrick was obliged to spend most of his days inside.
Mrs. Kendal's visits became a staple in his existence.
(humming)
- The Prince has a mistress,
that Irishman had one,
everyone seems to.
Or a wife.
Some have both.
I have concluded I need a mistress.
It's bad enough not to sleep like others.
- Sitting up, you mean?
Yes, it can't be very restful.
- Too heavy to lay down my head.
But to sleep alone, that is worst of all.
- The true artist expresses his love through his works.
That is civilization.
- Are you very shocked?
- Why should I be?
- Others would be.
- I am not others.
- I suppose it is hopeless.
- Nothing is hopeless.
However.
It is unlikely.
- [John] I thought you might have a few ideas.
- I can tell who has a few ideas here.
- You don't know something, Mrs. Kendal.
- Hmm?
- I've never even seen a naked woman.
- Oh, surely, in all the fairs you've worked?
- I mean a real woman.
- [Mrs. Kendal] Is one more real than another?
(chuckles)
- I mean in the theater, the opera.
- Oh, surely you cannot mean they are more real.
- Oh, in the audience.
A woman not worn out early, not deformed
by awful life.
A lady, respectful, kept up.
You don't know what fairgrounds are like, Mrs. Kendal.
- Do you mean someone like Princess Alexandra?
- She does not look happy, no.
- Dorothy Neville?
- Not so old.
- Lady Ellen.
- Too thin.
- Then who?
- Certain women,
they have a kind of ripeness.
They seem to stop
at the perfect point.
- My dear.
She doesn't exist.
- Probably why I never saw her.
(laughs)
- What would your friend Bishop How say to all of this,
I wonder?
- Oh, he says I should put these thoughts out of my mind.
- Oh, is that the best he can suggest?
- I put them out of my mind.
Snap.
They reappear.
- And what about Frederick?
- Oh, no, no,
he would be appalled if I told him.
- I'm flattered.
Too little trust has maimed my life.
But that is another story.
- What a rain.
Are we going to read this afternoon?
- Yes.
Some women are lucky to look well, that is all.
It is a rather arbitrary gift,
it hasn't a really good use.
Though it does have its uses, I will say that.
However, it does not signify very much.
- For me it does.
- Well you are mistaken.
- What are we going to read?
- Trust is very important, you know.
I trust you.
- Thank you.
Very much.
I have a book of Thomas Hardy's here.
He is a friend of Frederick's.
Shall we read this?
- Turn around a moment.
- Hmm?
- Don't look.
- Is this a game?
- I would hardly call it a game.
A surprise.
- Surprise?
Oh, what kind of a surprise.
- I saw photographs of you before I met you.
You didn't know that, did you?
- The ones from the first time in '84?
- Yes.
- Oh.
No, I didn't.
- I thought they were
unjust.
I don't know why.
I can't say my sense of justice is my
most highly developed characteristic.
You may turn around now.
Well?
A little funny, isn't it?
- It is the most
beautiful sight
I have seen.
Ever.
- If you tell anyone about this,
we shall never see each other again,
we shall not read, we shall not speak,
we shall do nothing.
Wait.
There.
No illusions now.
- What is going on here?
What is going on?
- For a moment, Freddie,
paradise.
- Have you no sense of decency?
And you.
Are you not ashamed?
Do you know what you are?
Don't you know what is forbidden?
- What is there to say?
I am
extremely pleased
to have made
your acquaintance.
(solemn music)
- Frederick.
He's in heaven?
Hell?
What about Christ?
What about God?
I believe in heaven.
The Bible promises in heaven,
the crooked shall be made straight.
- So does the rack, my boy.
So do we all.
- You don't believe?
- Right now I'll settle for a reliable general anesthetic.
I had a patient once though, a woman,
operated on her for a woman's thing.
Used ether to anesthetize, tricky stuff.
And she didn't come of it.
Pulse stopped, no vital signs, absolutely moribund.
Just a big white dead mackerel.
Five minutes later, she fretted back into existence,
like a lost explorer of the great scope of the undiscovered.
- She saw heaven?
- Well I'll quote her.
It was neither heavenly nor hellish.
Rather like perambulating through a London fog.
People drifted by, but no one spoke.
London, mind you, hell's probably the provinces.
- If you don't believe,
why did you send Mrs. Kendal away?
- You know why.
- [Frederick] If you don't believe--
- Don't forget, it saved you once,
my interference.
You know very well it was not proper.
- How can I tell if you don't believe?
- Because there are still standards that we abide by.
- They make us happy?
Because they are for our own good?
- Not always.
- Oh?
- Look, if you're angry, I wish you would just say so.
- Whose standards are they?
- I'm really not in the mood
for this chipping away at the edges, John.
- They do not always make us happy
because they are not always for our own good.
- Well everyones mind everyones.
- That woman's a Juliet.
- What, Juliet?
- Who died and then came back.
- [Frederick] Yes, yes, her standards too.
- So?
- So what?
- [John] Did you see her naked?
- When I was operating, yes, of course.
- Oh?
- Look, I am trying to read about anesthetics.
Oh what?
- Oh, is it all right to see them naked
if you cut them up afterwards?
(laughs)
- Good lord.
I am a surgeon, that is science.
- [John] She died, Mrs. Kendal didn't die.
- But the woman came back.
- And Mrs. Kendal didn't, if you mean that.
- There is simply no comparison.
- Oh?
- That woman came to me to...
Well what I mean to say is...
Well, it's just science, and that's all it is.
It's not love, you know?
- Is that why you worry about anesthetics?
- It would just be a boon to surgery.
- Because you don't love them.
- Love has got nothing to do with surgery.
- Do you lose many patients,
Frederick?
- I?
Some.
- Oh.
- Look, can't you understand?
What difference does it make if I, or any surgeon,
loves her or any patient or not?
And what conceivable difference to you?
- Because it is your standards we must abide by.
- Look, if you are angry, I wish you would just say so.
I'm not going to turn you out, you know.
Go on and say it.
Go on, I am angry, say it.
Say it, will you?
I am angry, say it!
Say it!
- I
believe in heaven.
- Yes.
Yes, I know.
It's not all right to see them naked
if you cut them up afterwards, eh?
Good lord, you make me sound like Jack the Ripper.
- Oh, Frederick.
You worry about anesthetics, you are merciful.
- Are you being funny?
- I myself am proof.
Is it not so?
Well,
is it not so?
- John.
About Mrs. Kendal.
Perhaps I was wrong.
I don't know what's been getting into me lately.
Taking too much on, I think.
- Will she come back?
Mrs. Kendal.
- Well I will speak to her again.
- But will she?
- No.
No, I don't think so.
- Oh.
- There are other things involved, John.
Just other things.
- Other things, sir?
Excuse me.
Must go to the loo now.
Why won't she...
Why?
- Because I don't want her here
when you die.
(solemn music)
(laughing)
(banging)
- The most striking feature about him, note,
the terrifyingly normal head.
This allowed him to lie down normally
and to dream in the exclusive personal manner,
without the weight of others' dreams accumulating
to break his neck.
The mouth, deformed by satisfaction
at being at the hub of the best of existing worlds,
was rendered therefore utterly incapable
of self-critical speech,
thus the ability to change.
The heart showed signs of worry at this unchanging
yet untenable state.
The surgeon's hands were well developed and strong,
capable of the most delicate carvings up.
The right was of enormous size and power,
but so incapable of distinction
between the assertion of authority
and the charitable acts of giving
that it was often to be found disgustingly beating others
for their own good.
The left was slighter and fairer,
and may be seen in typical position,
hand covering the genitals,
which were treated as a solemn colony
in constant need of restriction, governance, and punishment.
To add a further burden to his trouble,
the wretched man, while a boy,
developed a disabling spiritual duality.
He was thus unable to feel what others feel,
nor reach harmony with them.
Please.
He would thus be denied all means of escape
from those he had tormented.
We hope in 20 years we will understand enough
to put an end to this affliction.
Had we caught it earlier, things might have been different.
The truth is, I'm afraid,
we are dealing
with an epidemic.
(echoing)
(solemn music)
(gasps)
(solemn music)
- Still beavering away for Christ?
- Yes.
I got your report.
He doesn't know that...
The bishop?
- No no no.
I meant Merrick.
- No.
- I shall be sorry when he dies.
- Well it will not be unexpected, anyway.
- He's brought the hospital quite a lot of good repute,
you know.
Quite a lot of contributions too, for that matter.
No, I've never regretted letting him stay on.
I didn't imagine it would last this long.
- Well his heart will not sustain him much longer.
In fact it might even give out
when gets off his bloody knees with that bloody man.
(chuckles)
- And what is it, Freddie?
What has gone sour for you?
- Nothing has gone sour for me.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's just that, as he achieves greater and greater normalcy,
his condition edges him ever closer to the grave.
The parable of growing up, to become more normal is to die,
more accepted to worsen.
It is a mockery of everything we live by.
- Sorry, Freddie, don't quite follow you.
- Nothing has gone sour for me.
- Well then cheer up, man.
You're knighted, your clients will be kings.
Nothing succeeds, my boy, like success.
- I find my sessions with him utterly moving, Mr. Treves.
He struggles so.
I suggested he might like to be confirmed and leapt at it,
like a man lost in the desert to an oasis.
- Yes, he is very excited to do what others do,
if he thinks it is what others do.
- Do you cast doubt on his faith, sir?
- Oh no sir, I do not.
Yet he does make us all think
that he is deeply like ourselves,
and yet we are not like each other at all.
I conclude therefore that we have
polished him like a mirror,
and shout hallelujah when he reflects us to the inch.
I have grown sorry for it.
- Something is troubling you, Mr. Treves?
- Corsets.
How about corsets?
I have here a pamphlet that I've written,
due mainly to the grotesque ailments
I have seen caused by corsets.
Fashion overrules me, of course.
My patients do not unstrap themselves of corsets.
You know,
I have so little time in the week,
I spend Sundays in the poor wards to keep up with the work.
The work being 20 year old woman who look an abused 50
with worn outedness.
Young men with appalling industrial conditions,
who I turn out as soon as possible
to return to their labors.
Oh happily, most of my patients are not poor.
What then sir could be troubling me?
I'm an extremely successful Englishman
in a successful and respected England,
which informs me daily by the way it lives
that it wishes to die.
I am in despair, in fact.
- Sir, there is in Christ's church consolation.
- Yes, well I'm sure we were not born for mere consolation.
- Look to Mr. Merrick's happy example.
- Yes.
Oh yes, I do.
You know, I'm an awfully good gardener, did you know that?
I mean with Merrick, with...
John.
Good lord.
In taking such good care of anyone,
you're convinced.
Are you not convinced?
Him, I mean.
He's not very dangerously human.
And I, well.
What I have given him,
and taught,
of course I mean taken, when I say given, but,
you know that.
And I...
I'm...
- Mr. Treves, I cannot make out what you're saying.
- Help me.
Please.
Help me.
(soft music)
- It is done.
- Lunch, Mr. Merrick!
I'll set it right over there.
Perhaps you'd like to take a walk after lunch.
Rain's doing wonders for the gardens.
Oh, me mate Will?
His sister died yesterday.
28 she was.
Imagine that.
Yeah.
Now the wife was sick, and the sister nursed her.
Now the wife's all right, and the sister just ups and dies.
Well, it's all so...
What's the word, I forgot it.
It means chancy.
Well, I forgot it.
Chancy'll do.
Now you have a good lunch.
- Chancy?
Chancy.
♪ We are the queens of the cosmos ♪
♪ Beautiful darkness in all
♪ Darkness, darkness, light, true love ♪
♪ Here is eternity his finest hour ♪
♪ Sleep light as you learn to admire ♪
♪ Be like your mother
♪ Be like your father
(gasping)
- I remember it, Mr. Merrick!
I remember it now.
The word is arbitrary.
Arbitrary.
It's all so...
Oh.
Hey.
Hey.
The Elephant Man is dead!
- [Frederick] The coroner said it was death by asphyxiation.
The weight of his head crushed the windpipe.
- To the editor of the Times,
sir, in November 1886, you were kind enough to insert
in the Times a letter from me drawing attention
to the case of Joseph Merrick.
- John.
- Hmm?
- John Merrick.
- Oh yes, of course, John.
Known as the Elephant Man.
It was one of singular and exceptional misfortune,
et cetera.
Debarred from earning his livelihood
in any other way that being exhibited
to the gaze of the curious,
this having been rightly interfered with
by the police, et cetera.
With great difficulty he succeeded somehow or other
in getting to the door of the London Hospital.
And I go on about how he spent his time here,
that all attempted to alleviate his misery,
that he was visited by the highest in the land, et cetera,
that he joined our lives as best he could,
and in spite of all this indulgence,
he was quiet and unassuming,
grateful for all that was done for him,
and conformed readily
to the restrictions which were necessary.
Will that do so far, do you think?
- Yes, I should think it would.
- You wouldn't add anything else, would you?
- Well, he was highly intelligent.
He had an acute sensibility.
And worse for him, a romantic imagination.
No.
No, nevermind.
I'm not really sure of any of it anyway.
(solemn music)
- I am your obedient servant FC Carr Gomm,
London Hospital, the 15th of April, 1890.
- I did think of one small thing.
- Too late, I'm afraid.
It's done.
(solemn music)
(light music)
- [Frederick] How should I begin?
Because in the end, what John Merrick, the Elephant Man,
looked like, and what he was were two very different things.
Perhaps it is naive of me to expect the general public
to fully comprehend this mystery.
After all, who does not secretly relish
the shock of the abnormal, the biggest,
the ugliest, the most bizarre?
But, what about a face and physique
beyond rational explanation.
The unimaginable head, it's pungeon huh grows like tusks,
the mouth gaping and swollen,
one eye nearly obliterated by masses of flesh,
a lump recognizable to very few as a human nose.
The arms, one shaped like that of any man's,
the other monstrously misshapen, twisted,
blown out of all proportion.
The hand on the deformed arm a mere flipper,
a piece of flesh, fingers and thumb welded together
by a cruel whim of nature, intertwined with it, helpless.
And, what about the body as a whole,
the affliction of the joints
which reduced it to the spraddling stature of a hunchback?
I met him twice.
I knew of him for two years.
I knew him for another four.
The second meeting changed both our lives.
Physicians, they say, are supposed to be impartial,
but the Elephant Man represented
the most significant episode in my professional life.
I came to see him differently from others somehow.
They saw only the surface and shrank from looking deeper.
- Blimey.
- What is it?
- Look here.
Who'd have believed it?
What is it?
It don't look human even.
- That's him.
That's the bloke they kept up here three or four years.
Oh, a fright, ain't he?
- That'll do.
Get on with your work.
- Yes, sir.
- [Frederick] How many times have I looked at these?
When was the first time?
Yes, that's it.
The very same year, not long after I arrived here.
- I'm Mr. Carr Gomm,
administrator here at the London Hospital.
- Frederick Treves, your new lecturer in anatomy.
- Age 31, books on scrofula
and applied surgical anatomy.
I'm happy to see you rising, Mr. Treves.
Ignore the squalor of Whitechapel,
the general dinginess, neglect, and poverty without,
and you will find a continual medical
(speaks foreign language)
in the London Hospital.
We study and treat the widest range
of diseases and disorders,
and are certainly the greatest institution of our kind
in the world.
Well the empire offers unparalleled opportunities
for our studies, as places cruel to life
are the most revealing scientifically.
Add to our reputation by going further,
and that will satisfy.
You've bought a house?
- On Winslow Street.
- Good.
Keep at it, Treves.
You'll have 100 guinea fees before you're 40.
An excellent consolation prize.
- Consolation?
I don't know what you mean.
- I know you don't.
You will.
- A happy childhood in Dorset,
a scientist in an age of science,
in an an English age an Englishman.
A teacher and doctor at the London,
two books published by my 31st year,
and by god, 100 guinea fees before I'm 40.
Consolation for what?
My work at the hospital was rewarding.
In my few spare hours though, I slipped outside
and disregarded the administrator's advice.
I found the poverty, the dirt, the disease,
oddly invigorating.
A kind of vast revolving show which never seemed to end.
- See Mother Nature uncorseted, and in malignant rage!
Tuppence.
- This sign is absurd.
Half elephant, half man is not possible.
I'm from the London Hospital across the road.
I should be curious to see him,
if there is some genuine disorder.
If he's merely a mass of paper mache and paint--
- Then pay me nothing.
Enter, sir.
Merrick, stand up.
You bloody donkey, up, up!
- I must examine him further, at the hospital.
This is my card, I'm Treves.
I shall send a taxi round to pick him up and to return him.
This card will gain him entry.
- Five bob and he's yours for the day.
- I wish to examine him in the interest of science, you see.
- Sir, I'm Ross.
I look out for him.
I get him his living.
I found him in a Leicester workhouse.
His ma put him there at the age of three,
couldn't bear the sight.
Well, you can understand.
He's good value, though.
You won't find another like him.
- Fair enough.
(chattering)
(banging)
When I examined him,
the most striking feature about him
was his enormous head.
Its circumference was about that of a man's waist.
From the brow there projected a huge bony mass,
like a lobe, while the from the back of the skull
hung a bag of spongy, fungus-looking skin,
the surface of which was comparable to brown cauliflower.
From the top of his skull hung a few long, lank hairs.
The osious growth on the forehead at this stage,
about the size of a tangerine,
almost occluded one eye.
From the upper jaw there projected another mass of bone.
It protruded through his mouth like a pink stump,
turning the upper lip inside out
and making the mouth a wide, slobbering abdul.
The nose was merely a lump of flesh
recognizable only as a nose from its position.
These deformities rendered the face
utterly incapable of the expression
of any emotion whatsoever.
He could weep, but he could not smile.
The back was horrible because from it hung
as far down as the middle of the thigh
huge sack-like masses of flesh covered with this same
loathsome cauliflower stain.
The right arm was of enormous size and shapeless.
It suggested, but was not elephantiasis,
and was overgrown also with bended masses of flesh
covered with this same cauliflower like skin.
The right hand was large and clumsy.
A fin or paddle, really, rather than a hand.
No distinction existed between the palm and the back.
The thumb was like a radish
and the fingers like thick, tuberous roots.
As a limb it was useless.
The other arm was remarkable by contrast.
It was not only normal,
but was moreover a delicately shaped limb,
covered with a fine skin
and provided with a beautiful hand
which any woman might have envied.
From the chest hung a bag of this same repulsive flesh.
It was like a dewlap suspended from the neck of a lizard.
The lower limbs had the characters of the deformed arm.
They were unwieldy, dropsical looking and grossly misshapen.
There arose from the fungus skin growth
a very sickening stench,
which was hard to tolerate,
and to add a further burden to his trouble,
the wretched man, when a boy,
developed hip disease which left him permanently lame,
so that he could walk only with the aid of a stick.
Please.
- [Man] My god.
- He was thus denied all means of escape
from his tormentors.
- Mr. Treves.
You have shown us a profound and unknown disorder.
You have said that when he leaves here
it will be to return to his exhibition.
I do not think it ought to be permitted.
It is an indecency.
Something ought to be done.
- Well I am a doctor, sir.
What would you have me do?
- Well I know what to do.
I know.
(chattering)
(solemn music)
- [Frederick] The police found Merrick's exhibition
degrading, and closed the show.
Ross the showman fled with the Elephant Man
to the continent.
But the crowds were pitifully few,
and the police of Zurich and Strasbourg
were no more receptive to Ross's show
than those in England had been.
He came finally to Brussels.
His reception was discouraging.
(singing)
- No no no no no, don't recite yet, you morons,
I'll say when.
And when you do, get it right.
If you don't, it's back to the asylum.
You know what that means, don't you, huh?
(laughing)
Yes, they'll cut your little heads, huh?
(laughing)
Pull out your little brains.
Ah, replace them in the dachshund
they were nicked from, eh?
(laughing)
Yes?
Cut it!
Yeah?
All right.
Be back with customers.
Come!
See the queens of the Congo!
Come see the queens of the Congo!
- Cosmos?
- Congo, Congo!
Lands of darkness.
Oh, look at them, lad.
It's freer on the continent.
Loads of indecency here.
No one minds.
Now you have a little tet-a-tet with this lot,
and I'll go and see the coppers
about our permit to exhibit.
- Ross-
- Be right back.
- I come from England.
At home they chased me out of London.
Police.
Someone complained.
They evict me.
You have no trouble, no?
- Hello.
- Hello!
- Hello.
- Hello!
- Hello.
In Belgium, we make money.
I look forward to it.
Happiness, I mean.
You and your police,
how is it done?
- Hello, hello!
- Oh, we'll do a show together some time, yes?
I have saved 48 pounds, two shillings, nine pence.
- They're coming!
They're coming.
Ready?
(applauding)
Now.
♪ We are the queens of the Congo ♪
♪ That beautiful Belgian empire ♪
♪ Our ladies are bigger
♪ Our manners our finer
♪ Empire, empire, Congo I come
(laughing)
- Admire, admire.
(booing)
Fire, fire.
- Fire?
Fire!
(booing)
- You cretins!
Get those words right!
- Don't cry.
You sang nice.
There there, don't cry.
- What more do you want?
- This is a brutal, indecent, and immoral display
of public indecency!
It's forbidden!
- Well what about them and their perfect cone heads?
- They're ours.
- Competition's good for business.
Where's your spirit of competition?
- Right here!
- Don't do that, you'll kill him!
- Better off dead than indecent bastard.
Hurry, hurry.
(chattering)
- Don't cry.
Doesn't hurt.
(mutters)
- I've decided, lad,
I'm sending you back.
You're a flop.
Nope.
You're a liability.
Not the money maker I figured.
So that's it.
- Alone?
- Now, here's your kit, and a few bob
so you can have a nosh,
I'm keeping the rest for my trouble.
I deserve it, I reckon.
Pick up your stink if I stick around.
(mumbles)
Stink of failure.
Stink of lost years.
Just stink!
Stinks, stinks, stinks!
(shouting)
Be forewarned, just see him
to Liverpool Street Station safe, will ya?
Here's something for your trouble.
(Merrick wails)
- [Man] What's he saying?
- [Ross] Fella's an imbecile.
Just makes sounds.
(Merrick wails)
Bon voyage, Johnny.
His name's Johnny.
Knows his name.
That's all though.
(Merrick shouting)
(crowd shouting)
- [Man] Liverpool Street Station.
- We're safe in here, I've barred the door.
- They wanted to rip him apart.
I've never seen anything like it.
- Got somewhere to go in London, lad?
You can't stay here.
- Oh, where could he go?
- Who knows.
Not with that mob out there.
Got any money?
(Merrick wails)
What was that?
- Oh, he's an imbecile, he can't understand.
Search him.
(Merrick wails)
He just makes sounds, frightened sounds is all.
Go through his coat.
- Hey hey hey.
You Johnny Merrick?
Ah, got a card here.
What's this old card here, Johnny?
- What's it say?
- Mr. Frederick Treves, lecturer in anatomy
at the London Hospital.
- Let me go over there.
It's not far.
- What does he do, eh?
Eh?
Lecture you on your anatomy?
Now people who think right
don't look like that then, do they?
(Merrick moaning)
Oh, yes yes, glum glum glum.
Oh, yes yes.
Treves, Treves, Treves.
(crying)
(knocking)
- What's going on here?
(banging)
Ah.
I'm Frederick Treves, this is my card.
- This poor wretcher had it.
- He just arrived, sir, from Belgium.
- Merrick.
John Merrick.
Good lord.
What have they done to you?
- Help me!
- [Frederick] In the attic of the London Hospital
was an isolation ward with several beds.
It was used for emergency purposes,
for patients suddenly gone insane,
or a man with a mysterious fever.
Here the Elephant Man was made comfortable
and supplied with food.
The condition of his skin
rendered a bath at least once a day a necessity,
and the unpleasant odor ceased to be noticeable.
But his appearance remained hideous,
and none of the regular nurses would attend him.
I was obliged to advertise for an experienced outsider.
- You are Miss Sandwich?
- Sandwich, yes.
- And I see you've had experience in missionary hospitals
in the Niger.
- And Salon.
- Well, I may assume you've seen--
- The tropics.
Oh those diseases, the many and awful scourges
our lord sends.
Yes sir.
- Well I'm looking for the help of an experienced nurse,
you see.
- Someone to bring his meals, to take care of his room?
I understand, but is it somehow difficult?
- Well, I have been let down so far.
He really is...
Well, the regular sisters, it is not part of their job,
and they simply will not do it.
Be ordinarily kind to Mr. Merrick,
without, well, panicking.
He is quite beyond ugly, you understand that,
his appearance has terrified them.
- The photographs show a terrible disease.
- It is a disorder, not a disease.
He's in no way contagious,
though in fact I don't know what it is.
I have encountered a rather strange superstition
in those that I have tried.
They seem to believe that he somehow
brought it upon himself,
this thing.
Of course it is not like that at all.
- I am not one who believes it is ourselves who attain grace
or bring chastisement to us, sir.
- Miss Sandwich, I am hoping not.
- Let me put your mind to rest.
Care for lepers in the East, and you have cared, Mr. Treves.
In Africa I've seen dreadful scourges
quite unknown to our more civilized climes.
What at home could be worse
than a miserable and afflicted, rotting black?
- I imagine.
- Appearances do not daunt me.
- Well that is exactly what has sent me
outside the confines of the London seeking help.
- I look unto the hills, whence cometh my help?
I understand.
I think I will be satisfactory.
- Good.
- His lunch.
- Oh, perhaps you'd care to accompany me.
I shall introduce you.
- Allow me to carry the tray.
- No.
I will, this time.
You are ready?
- I am.
- Come.
He is bathing to be rid of his odor.
John?
John?
This is Miss Sandwich.
She's going to be taking care of you for a little while.
(gasps)
- Oh, my good god in heaven!
(screaming)
- I am sorry.
I thought...
- Thank you for saving my lunch this time.
- Excuse me.
You really have let me down, you know.
I did everything I could to warn you,
and still you've let me down.
- You didn't say.
- But I did say.
- Didn't!
You said just words.
- But the photograph.
- Just a picture.
No one will do this.
I am sorry.
(solemn music)
- [Frederick] The Elephant Man adapted quickly
to the hospital routine.
A letter to the Times from Gomm
brought in a torrent of funds for medic support,
the next step to assure him a normal life.
"Normal like us," inquired Mr. Gomm?
I asked if there was something wrong with that.
- How long is as long as I like?
- You may stay for life.
The funds exist.
- But reading this about homes for the blind,
wouldn't mind going to one when I have to move.
- But you don't have to move,
and you're not blind.
- I would prefer it where no one stared at me.
- But no one will bother you here.
(gasping)
- What did I tell you?
- God almighty!
- Shh.
- Mr. Treves.
Mr. Gomm.
- I don't understand.
You were told not to do this.
You must not lurk around, surely you have work?
- Yes sir.
- Really is infuriating, you know,
when you're told a thing, I expect you to listen.
I will not have you gaping in at my patient,
kindly remember that.
- But he isn't a patient, is he sir?
- Don't let me find you here again.
- I didn't know you was here, sir.
We'll be off now.
- No.
No Will.
Mr. Treves was precisely saying
no one would intrude when you intruded.
- Well he is warned now, Merrick does not like it.
- He was warned before.
On what what penalty, Will?
- That you'd sack me, sir.
- [Gage] You're sacked, Will.
And what is your name?
- Stark, sir.
Just started.
- Well.
I hope the point is taken.
Now?
- Mr. Gomm.
I ain't truly sacked, am I?
- Well yes, truly sacked.
You will never be more truly sacked.
- Well it ain't me.
My wife ain't well.
My sister has to look after our kids, and of her.
Well?
- Think of them first next time.
- It ain't as if I interfered with his medicine.
- That is exactly what it is.
You may go.
- Just keeping him to look at in private,
that's all, isn't it?
- There are priorities, Frederick,
the first is discipline.
Smooth is the passage to the tight ship's master.
Merrick, you're safe from prying now.
- Oh have we nothing to say, John?
- If all that stared at me had been sacked,
there'd be whole towns out of work.
- I meant thank you, sir.
- Oh, thank you, sir.
- We always do say please and thank you, don't we?
- Oh, yes sir.
- [Frederick] If we want to properly be like others.
- I want to, sir.
- Then it is for our own good, is it not?
- Thank you sir, Mr. Gomm.
- Sir, you are welcome.
- You are happy here, are you not?
- [John] Yes sir.
- The baths have rid you of your odor, have they not?
- First chance I had to bathe regular.
Ly.
- And three meals a day delivered to your room.
- Yes sir.
- Well, this is your promised land, is it not?
A roof, food, care, protection.
Is it not?
- Right, Mr. Treves.
- I'll bet you don't know what to call this.
- No sir, I don't.
- You call it home.
- Oh, never had a home before.
- Well, you have one now.
Say it, John.
Home.
- Home.
- No no no no no, really say it.
I have a home.
This is my...
Go on.
- I have a home.
This is my home.
This is...
This is my home.
I have a home.
I have a...
For as long as I like?
- Well, that is what home is.
- Oh, that what is home.
- If I abide by the rules, I will be happy.
- Yes sir.
- Don't be shy, John, say it.
- If I abide by the rules,
I will be happy.
- Very good.
Why?
- Why what?
- Why will you be happy?
- Oh, because this is my home.
- Why do rules make you happy?
- I don't know.
- Of course you do.
- No, no, I don't.
- Well, why does anything make you happy?
- Like what, like what?
- Now don't be upset.
Rules make us happy because they are for our own good.
- All right.
- Don't be shy, John.
Say it.
- This is my home!
- No, no, no.
Now about rules making us happy.
- They make us happy
because they are for our own good.
- Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, I must submit a follow up report on you
to the pathological society.
It would be of great help to me
if you could tell me more of what you recall
of your early years to fill in gaps.
- To fill in gaps?
The workhouse, where they put me,
they beat you there like a drum.
Boom,
boom.
Scrape the floor.
Shine the pan.
Boom,
boom.
It never ends.
The floor is always dirty.
The pan is always tarnished.
There's nothing you can do about it.
You'll always...
Will the children
go to the workhouse?
- What children?
- [John] The children,
of the man you sacked.
- Well, of necessity.
Will will find other employment.
You don't want people staring at you, do you?
- No.
- In your home, you needn't have crowds staring at you.
Or anyone, for that matter, do you?
In your home.
- No.
- Well then.
Mr. Gomm was merciful, was he not?
You yourself are proof, is it not so?
Well?
Is it not so?
- If your mercy is so cruel,
what do you have for justice?
- Well.
I am sorry.
That is just the way things are.
- Boo.
Boo.
Boo.
(solemn music)
- John Merrick.
To secure Merrick's recovery,
and bring him, as it were, to life once more,
it was necessary that he should make the acquaintance
of other people.
Women I felt to be more important than men
in bringing about his transformation.
- You have seen the photographs of John Merrick,
Mrs. Kendal.
You are acquainted with his appearance.
- He reminds me of an audience I played Cleopatra for
in Brighton once.
All huge grim head and grimace, and utterly unable to clap.
(laughs)
- Well, my aim is to lead him
to as normal a life as possible.
His terror of us all comes from having been held
at arm's length from society.
I am determined that that shall end.
For example, he loves to meet people and to converse.
I am determined that he shall.
Most critical I feel are women.
I shall explain.
They have always had the most intense
fear and loathing of him,
while he adores them of course.
- Ah, then he is intelligent.
- And I'm convinced that they are the key
to retrieving him from his exclusion.
Though I must warn you, Mrs. Kendal,
that to John Merrick, women are not quite real.
They are more like creatures of his imagination.
- Then he's already like other men, Mr. Treves.
- So, I thought an actress could help.
I mean, unlike most women, you won't give in.
You're trained to hide your true feelings
and to assume others.
- You mean unlike most women,
I am famous for it, that is really all.
- Well, in any case, if you could just enter his room
and smile and say good morning,
and then when you leave, if you could shake his hand,
the left one, it's quite usable.
It's actually quite beautiful.
And say,
"I am very pleased to have made your acquaintance,
"Mr. Merrick."
- Shall we try it?
- Pardon?
- Left hand out, please.
(clears throat)
I am very pleased to have made your acquaintance,
Mr. Merrick.
I am very pleased to have made an acquaintance, Mr. Merrick.
(laughing)
I am very pleased
(laughing)
to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Merrick.
Ah.
I
am
very pleased
to have made your acquaintance,
Mr. Merrick.
Yes, yes, that one.
- By god, they were all splendid.
Merrick will be so pleased.
It will be the day he becomes a man like other men.
- Speaking of that, Mr. Treves.
- [Frederick] Frederick, please.
- Freddie.
May I commit an indiscretion?
- Yes.
- I could not help but notice from the photographs
that of the unafflicted parts...
How shall I put this?
- Oh.
Oh, yes.
Yes, I see.
I quite understand.
No, no.
It is quite normal.
- Yes, I thought as much.
- Medically speaking, the papillomatous extrusions
which disfigure him seam to correspond quite regularly
to the oscious deformities.
What I mean to say is that there appears to be a link
between the fungus skin growth and the bone disorder,
though for the life of me, I have no idea why that is
or what it is, but in any case,
the part which you indicated
would be unlikely to be afflicted, because...
Because
there's no bone in it.
(chuckles)
No bone at all.
(chuckles)
- Well we learn a little every day, don't we?
- I am horribly embarrassed.
- Are you?
Then he must be lonely indeed.
- He is making sketches for a model of St. Phillip's church.
John?
This is Mrs. Kendal.
She would very much like to make your acquaintance.
- Good morning, Mr. Merrick.
- Well, I must attend to a few matters,
if you will excuse me.
- I've planned to say so many things.
I forgot them.
You are so beautiful.
- How charming, Mr. Merrick.
- Well really--
- Tell me.
Is it lonely?
- That's what I planned to say,
but I forgot what I planned to say.
I couldn't think of anything else, I was so excited.
- The real charm is always planned, don't you think?
(laughs)
- Well,
I don't know why I look like this.
My mother was beautiful.
She was knocked down by an elephant in the circus
when she...
Was pregnant.
Something must've happened, don't you think?
- It may well have.
- It may well have.
But sometimes,
I think my head is so big
because it is so full of dreams.
Because it is.
Do you know what happens when dreams cannot get out?
- No, no.
- Oh.
I don't either.
Something must.
Well.
You are a famous actress.
- I am not unknown.
- You must display yourself for a living then, like I did.
- Well,
that is not myself, Mr. Merrick.
That is an illusion.
This is myself.
- This is myself too.
- Frederick says you like to read.
So, books?
- Oh, I am reading Romeo and Juliet now.
- Ah, Juliet.
What a love story.
I adore love stories.
- I like love stories best, too.
If I had been Romeo, guess what?
- What?
- I would not have held a mirror to her breath.
- What?
(exhales)
You mean the scene in which Juliet appears to be dead?
And he holds a mirror to her breath, and he sees--
- Nothing.
Well, how does he feel when he kills himself
because he sees nothing?
- Well,
my experience with Juliet has always been,
particularly with an actor I will not name,
(chuckles)
that whilst I'm lying there dead, dead, dead,
and he is lamenting excessively,
I start to think, if this slab of ham does not part
from the ham hock of his life toot sweet,
I shall scream, pop off the tomb,
and plunge a dagger into his scene-stealing heart!
(laughing)
Romeos are very undependable.
- Because Romeo does not care of Juliet.
- Not care?
- Well, does he take her pulse?
Does he get the doctor?
Does he make sure?
No.
He kills himself.
The illusion fools him because he does not care about her,
he only cares about himself.
If I had been Romeo,
we would have got away.
- But then there would have been no play, Mr. Merrick.
- If he does not love her, why should there be a play?
Looking in a mirror and seeing nothing.
That is not love.
That is an illusion.
When the illusion ended,
he had to kill himself.
- Well.
That is extraordinary.
- Before I spoke with people,
I did not think these things,
because there was no one to bother to think them for.
Now things just come out of my mouth which are true.
- John, John, look.
You are famous, John.
We are in the papers.
They published my report to the pathological society.
Well look, it's rather an apotheosis for you.
- Frederick.
I feel Mr. Merrick would benefit by even more company
than you provide.
In fact, by acquainting him with the best,
and they with him,
I shall make this my task, if you will permit me.
As you know I am a friend of nearly everyone,
and I do pretty well as I please,
and what pleases me is this task.
I think.
- By god, Mrs. Kendal, you are splendid.
- I must go now, Mr. Merrick.
I shall return again, if you will permit me,
and next time I should like to bring
my good friend Dorothy, Lady Neville.
She would be most pleased to meet you.
Let me tell her yes.
Then until next time.
I am sure your church model will surprise us all.
Mr. Merrick,
it has been
a very great pleasure
to make your acquaintance.
- Your hand, John.
She wishes to shake your hand.
- Thank you
for coming.
- But it was my pleasure.
Thank you.
(classical music)
(chattering)
- [Frederick] The transformation of John Merrick
was an amazing change to witness.
Suddenly everybody wanted to see him.
He must've been visited by everyone of rank
in the social world.
They came flocking from all corners of the realm.
An extraordinary step forward, I thought.
Frankly I wasn't sure, I had my doubts.
Where was all this going to lead?
In any case, there was no turning back.
- No no, Lord Ron, A Lady From the Sea,
now there's a play for you.
- Say as you like, Mrs. Kendal.
Ibson, after all.
Drury Lane for me.
- Ah yes, the pantomime.
Mr. Merrick and I are going next week.
Dick Wittington is playing.
- Merrick, going to the theater?
What do you think of that, Mr. Gomm?
- Don't ask me, my lord.
What says the church about the theater?
- Christmastime sirs, Christmastime.
- Mr. Merrick, I hope the decanter and the goblet
are to your liking?
- Many thanks, Countess.
- I'm so pleased to have met you.
The happiest of holidays.
(chattering)
- Is this the right moment, Sir Treves?
- Of course, Dr. How, after you.
- Your very own edition of the Psalms, Mr. Merrick.
Bound in ivory.
- Thank you, Dr. How.
- Silver topped walking stick, Merrick.
Keep up the good work, example to us all.
- Thank you, Mr. Gomm.
- Happy Christmas, John, and many more.
These are for you.
Ivory handled razors and a toothbrush.
- Thank you, Mrs. Kendal.
- And a silver cigarette case, John.
Full of cigarettes.
- Thank you, Frederick.
- Her Royal Highness, Princess Alexandra.
Certainly, your royal highness.
- The happiest of Christmases, Mr. Merrick.
- Her Royal Highness has brought you a signed photograph
of herself, John.
- I am honored, your royal highness.
It is a treasure of my possessions.
I have written His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales
to thank him for the pheasant
and woodcock he sent me.
- He was delighted to hear from you.
And how is the model of your church progressing?
(chattering)
- You have my idea, my lord, how forthright a Christian
Mr. Merrick is.
The model confirms it.
He's religious and devout and he knows that salvation
must radiate to us, or all is lost.
- Indeed, Dr. How.
For example, he knows I used him
to raise money for the hospital, as you do of the church
when you speak of him from the pulpit.
He's wary of any promise, yet he fits in well, like me.
- Why all of these toilet articles, tell me?
He's much too deformed to use any of them.
- Props, of course, to make himself, as I make me.
- You?
You think of yourself?
- Well, he is charming, almost feminine.
He's gentle, honest within limits,
he is a true artist,
he is almost like me.
- How odd.
I think of him curious, compassionate,
and concerned about the world.
Rather like myself.
Freddie Treves, AD 1889.
- The model of St. Phillip's church
is progressing beautiful, Mr. Treves.
- Yes, it is remarkable, I know.
- And I do it with just one hand, they all say.
- You are an artist, John Merrick.
An artist.
- I did not begin to build at first,
not until I saw what St. Phillip's really was.
It is not stone and steel and glass.
It is an imitation of grace, lying up from the mud.
So I make my imitation of an imitation,
but even in that is heaven to me, Mrs. Kendal.
- That thought has a good line to it, John.
Plato believed this was all a world of illusion,
and that artists made illusions of illusions of heaven.
- You mean we are all just copies of originals?
- Yes, that's it.
- Who made the copies?
- God.
The demi-urge.
- He should have used both hands, shouldn't he?
(laughing)
- Mr. Merrick, you are a credit to Mr. Treves.
And Mr. Treves, you are a credit to medicine,
to England, and to Christendom.
I am so very pleased to have made your acquaintance.
- You know, Lord John, when His Royal Highness
asked Mr. Treves to be his personal surgeon,
he said "dear Freddie, if you can put up
"with that elephant bloke, you can surely put up with me."
(laughing)
- I've come actually to ask forgiveness.
- I have found a good home, Ross.
I forgave you.
- I was hoping we could make a deal, something new, maybe.
- No.
- I was counting on it, see?
You being warmhearted the same as me.
Figure what I read about you in the newspapers,
you don't change.
Dukes and Ladies coming to see you.
Makes them feel good about themselves by comparison.
There but for the grace of God, eh?
(laughs)
So I figure you're selling the same service as always.
Only to a better clientele.
Only difference now is you ain't charging for it.
- You make me sound like a whore.
- Well you are.
I am, they are, most are.
No disgrace, John.
Only disgrace is being a stupid whore.
Give it for free.
Not to have a manager is stupid.
- You see this church?
I am building it.
The people who visit me are friends, not clients.
I am not a dog walking on his hind legs.
- I was thinking, charge these people.
The pleasure of the Elephant Man's company.
Do it in the right spirit, they'd pay happily.
I'd take 10%.
I'd do all right with 10%.
- Bad luck's made you daft.
- I helped you, John, I discovered you, was that daft?
No, what was daft?
Ross sows, Treves harvests?
It isn't fair, is it John, when you think about it?
And I do.
Cause I'm old.
Got something in me throat, maybe you've noticed.
Something in me lungs, something in me belly I guess too,
but I'd do all right with 10%.
I don't ask much.
- They are my friends!
I'd lose everything for you.
You robbed me.
48 pounds,
nine shillings,
tuppence.
You kept me like an animal in darkness,
you left me to die, you come back and want to rob me again.
Will you not be satisfied?
Now,
I am a man.
Like others.
You want me to return.
- Had a woman yet?
- Is that what makes a man?
- In my day, it'd do for a start.
- Not what makes this one.
Yet I am like others.
- Then I am condemned.
Might as well go to a doss house straight, with no future.
5%, John?
- I'm sorry, Ross.
That is just the way things are.
- By god, then I am lost.
(solemn music)
- [Frederick] Christmas had come and gone.
Winter set in, and with it, harsh weather.
Because of his declining physical condition,
Merrick was obliged to spend most of his days inside.
Mrs. Kendal's visits became a staple in his existence.
(humming)
- The Prince has a mistress,
that Irishman had one,
everyone seems to.
Or a wife.
Some have both.
I have concluded I need a mistress.
It's bad enough not to sleep like others.
- Sitting up, you mean?
Yes, it can't be very restful.
- Too heavy to lay down my head.
But to sleep alone, that is worst of all.
- The true artist expresses his love through his works.
That is civilization.
- Are you very shocked?
- Why should I be?
- Others would be.
- I am not others.
- I suppose it is hopeless.
- Nothing is hopeless.
However.
It is unlikely.
- [John] I thought you might have a few ideas.
- I can tell who has a few ideas here.
- You don't know something, Mrs. Kendal.
- Hmm?
- I've never even seen a naked woman.
- Oh, surely, in all the fairs you've worked?
- I mean a real woman.
- [Mrs. Kendal] Is one more real than another?
(chuckles)
- I mean in the theater, the opera.
- Oh, surely you cannot mean they are more real.
- Oh, in the audience.
A woman not worn out early, not deformed
by awful life.
A lady, respectful, kept up.
You don't know what fairgrounds are like, Mrs. Kendal.
- Do you mean someone like Princess Alexandra?
- She does not look happy, no.
- Dorothy Neville?
- Not so old.
- Lady Ellen.
- Too thin.
- Then who?
- Certain women,
they have a kind of ripeness.
They seem to stop
at the perfect point.
- My dear.
She doesn't exist.
- Probably why I never saw her.
(laughs)
- What would your friend Bishop How say to all of this,
I wonder?
- Oh, he says I should put these thoughts out of my mind.
- Oh, is that the best he can suggest?
- I put them out of my mind.
Snap.
They reappear.
- And what about Frederick?
- Oh, no, no,
he would be appalled if I told him.
- I'm flattered.
Too little trust has maimed my life.
But that is another story.
- What a rain.
Are we going to read this afternoon?
- Yes.
Some women are lucky to look well, that is all.
It is a rather arbitrary gift,
it hasn't a really good use.
Though it does have its uses, I will say that.
However, it does not signify very much.
- For me it does.
- Well you are mistaken.
- What are we going to read?
- Trust is very important, you know.
I trust you.
- Thank you.
Very much.
I have a book of Thomas Hardy's here.
He is a friend of Frederick's.
Shall we read this?
- Turn around a moment.
- Hmm?
- Don't look.
- Is this a game?
- I would hardly call it a game.
A surprise.
- Surprise?
Oh, what kind of a surprise.
- I saw photographs of you before I met you.
You didn't know that, did you?
- The ones from the first time in '84?
- Yes.
- Oh.
No, I didn't.
- I thought they were
unjust.
I don't know why.
I can't say my sense of justice is my
most highly developed characteristic.
You may turn around now.
Well?
A little funny, isn't it?
- It is the most
beautiful sight
I have seen.
Ever.
- If you tell anyone about this,
we shall never see each other again,
we shall not read, we shall not speak,
we shall do nothing.
Wait.
There.
No illusions now.
- What is going on here?
What is going on?
- For a moment, Freddie,
paradise.
- Have you no sense of decency?
And you.
Are you not ashamed?
Do you know what you are?
Don't you know what is forbidden?
- What is there to say?
I am
extremely pleased
to have made
your acquaintance.
(solemn music)
- Frederick.
He's in heaven?
Hell?
What about Christ?
What about God?
I believe in heaven.
The Bible promises in heaven,
the crooked shall be made straight.
- So does the rack, my boy.
So do we all.
- You don't believe?
- Right now I'll settle for a reliable general anesthetic.
I had a patient once though, a woman,
operated on her for a woman's thing.
Used ether to anesthetize, tricky stuff.
And she didn't come of it.
Pulse stopped, no vital signs, absolutely moribund.
Just a big white dead mackerel.
Five minutes later, she fretted back into existence,
like a lost explorer of the great scope of the undiscovered.
- She saw heaven?
- Well I'll quote her.
It was neither heavenly nor hellish.
Rather like perambulating through a London fog.
People drifted by, but no one spoke.
London, mind you, hell's probably the provinces.
- If you don't believe,
why did you send Mrs. Kendal away?
- You know why.
- [Frederick] If you don't believe--
- Don't forget, it saved you once,
my interference.
You know very well it was not proper.
- How can I tell if you don't believe?
- Because there are still standards that we abide by.
- They make us happy?
Because they are for our own good?
- Not always.
- Oh?
- Look, if you're angry, I wish you would just say so.
- Whose standards are they?
- I'm really not in the mood
for this chipping away at the edges, John.
- They do not always make us happy
because they are not always for our own good.
- Well everyones mind everyones.
- That woman's a Juliet.
- What, Juliet?
- Who died and then came back.
- [Frederick] Yes, yes, her standards too.
- So?
- So what?
- [John] Did you see her naked?
- When I was operating, yes, of course.
- Oh?
- Look, I am trying to read about anesthetics.
Oh what?
- Oh, is it all right to see them naked
if you cut them up afterwards?
(laughs)
- Good lord.
I am a surgeon, that is science.
- [John] She died, Mrs. Kendal didn't die.
- But the woman came back.
- And Mrs. Kendal didn't, if you mean that.
- There is simply no comparison.
- Oh?
- That woman came to me to...
Well what I mean to say is...
Well, it's just science, and that's all it is.
It's not love, you know?
- Is that why you worry about anesthetics?
- It would just be a boon to surgery.
- Because you don't love them.
- Love has got nothing to do with surgery.
- Do you lose many patients,
Frederick?
- I?
Some.
- Oh.
- Look, can't you understand?
What difference does it make if I, or any surgeon,
loves her or any patient or not?
And what conceivable difference to you?
- Because it is your standards we must abide by.
- Look, if you are angry, I wish you would just say so.
I'm not going to turn you out, you know.
Go on and say it.
Go on, I am angry, say it.
Say it, will you?
I am angry, say it!
Say it!
- I
believe in heaven.
- Yes.
Yes, I know.
It's not all right to see them naked
if you cut them up afterwards, eh?
Good lord, you make me sound like Jack the Ripper.
- Oh, Frederick.
You worry about anesthetics, you are merciful.
- Are you being funny?
- I myself am proof.
Is it not so?
Well,
is it not so?
- John.
About Mrs. Kendal.
Perhaps I was wrong.
I don't know what's been getting into me lately.
Taking too much on, I think.
- Will she come back?
Mrs. Kendal.
- Well I will speak to her again.
- But will she?
- No.
No, I don't think so.
- Oh.
- There are other things involved, John.
Just other things.
- Other things, sir?
Excuse me.
Must go to the loo now.
Why won't she...
Why?
- Because I don't want her here
when you die.
(solemn music)
(laughing)
(banging)
- The most striking feature about him, note,
the terrifyingly normal head.
This allowed him to lie down normally
and to dream in the exclusive personal manner,
without the weight of others' dreams accumulating
to break his neck.
The mouth, deformed by satisfaction
at being at the hub of the best of existing worlds,
was rendered therefore utterly incapable
of self-critical speech,
thus the ability to change.
The heart showed signs of worry at this unchanging
yet untenable state.
The surgeon's hands were well developed and strong,
capable of the most delicate carvings up.
The right was of enormous size and power,
but so incapable of distinction
between the assertion of authority
and the charitable acts of giving
that it was often to be found disgustingly beating others
for their own good.
The left was slighter and fairer,
and may be seen in typical position,
hand covering the genitals,
which were treated as a solemn colony
in constant need of restriction, governance, and punishment.
To add a further burden to his trouble,
the wretched man, while a boy,
developed a disabling spiritual duality.
He was thus unable to feel what others feel,
nor reach harmony with them.
Please.
He would thus be denied all means of escape
from those he had tormented.
We hope in 20 years we will understand enough
to put an end to this affliction.
Had we caught it earlier, things might have been different.
The truth is, I'm afraid,
we are dealing
with an epidemic.
(echoing)
(solemn music)
(gasps)
(solemn music)
- Still beavering away for Christ?
- Yes.
I got your report.
He doesn't know that...
The bishop?
- No no no.
I meant Merrick.
- No.
- I shall be sorry when he dies.
- Well it will not be unexpected, anyway.
- He's brought the hospital quite a lot of good repute,
you know.
Quite a lot of contributions too, for that matter.
No, I've never regretted letting him stay on.
I didn't imagine it would last this long.
- Well his heart will not sustain him much longer.
In fact it might even give out
when gets off his bloody knees with that bloody man.
(chuckles)
- And what is it, Freddie?
What has gone sour for you?
- Nothing has gone sour for me.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's just that, as he achieves greater and greater normalcy,
his condition edges him ever closer to the grave.
The parable of growing up, to become more normal is to die,
more accepted to worsen.
It is a mockery of everything we live by.
- Sorry, Freddie, don't quite follow you.
- Nothing has gone sour for me.
- Well then cheer up, man.
You're knighted, your clients will be kings.
Nothing succeeds, my boy, like success.
- I find my sessions with him utterly moving, Mr. Treves.
He struggles so.
I suggested he might like to be confirmed and leapt at it,
like a man lost in the desert to an oasis.
- Yes, he is very excited to do what others do,
if he thinks it is what others do.
- Do you cast doubt on his faith, sir?
- Oh no sir, I do not.
Yet he does make us all think
that he is deeply like ourselves,
and yet we are not like each other at all.
I conclude therefore that we have
polished him like a mirror,
and shout hallelujah when he reflects us to the inch.
I have grown sorry for it.
- Something is troubling you, Mr. Treves?
- Corsets.
How about corsets?
I have here a pamphlet that I've written,
due mainly to the grotesque ailments
I have seen caused by corsets.
Fashion overrules me, of course.
My patients do not unstrap themselves of corsets.
You know,
I have so little time in the week,
I spend Sundays in the poor wards to keep up with the work.
The work being 20 year old woman who look an abused 50
with worn outedness.
Young men with appalling industrial conditions,
who I turn out as soon as possible
to return to their labors.
Oh happily, most of my patients are not poor.
What then sir could be troubling me?
I'm an extremely successful Englishman
in a successful and respected England,
which informs me daily by the way it lives
that it wishes to die.
I am in despair, in fact.
- Sir, there is in Christ's church consolation.
- Yes, well I'm sure we were not born for mere consolation.
- Look to Mr. Merrick's happy example.
- Yes.
Oh yes, I do.
You know, I'm an awfully good gardener, did you know that?
I mean with Merrick, with...
John.
Good lord.
In taking such good care of anyone,
you're convinced.
Are you not convinced?
Him, I mean.
He's not very dangerously human.
And I, well.
What I have given him,
and taught,
of course I mean taken, when I say given, but,
you know that.
And I...
I'm...
- Mr. Treves, I cannot make out what you're saying.
- Help me.
Please.
Help me.
(soft music)
- It is done.
- Lunch, Mr. Merrick!
I'll set it right over there.
Perhaps you'd like to take a walk after lunch.
Rain's doing wonders for the gardens.
Oh, me mate Will?
His sister died yesterday.
28 she was.
Imagine that.
Yeah.
Now the wife was sick, and the sister nursed her.
Now the wife's all right, and the sister just ups and dies.
Well, it's all so...
What's the word, I forgot it.
It means chancy.
Well, I forgot it.
Chancy'll do.
Now you have a good lunch.
- Chancy?
Chancy.
♪ We are the queens of the cosmos ♪
♪ Beautiful darkness in all
♪ Darkness, darkness, light, true love ♪
♪ Here is eternity his finest hour ♪
♪ Sleep light as you learn to admire ♪
♪ Be like your mother
♪ Be like your father
(gasping)
- I remember it, Mr. Merrick!
I remember it now.
The word is arbitrary.
Arbitrary.
It's all so...
Oh.
Hey.
Hey.
The Elephant Man is dead!
- [Frederick] The coroner said it was death by asphyxiation.
The weight of his head crushed the windpipe.
- To the editor of the Times,
sir, in November 1886, you were kind enough to insert
in the Times a letter from me drawing attention
to the case of Joseph Merrick.
- John.
- Hmm?
- John Merrick.
- Oh yes, of course, John.
Known as the Elephant Man.
It was one of singular and exceptional misfortune,
et cetera.
Debarred from earning his livelihood
in any other way that being exhibited
to the gaze of the curious,
this having been rightly interfered with
by the police, et cetera.
With great difficulty he succeeded somehow or other
in getting to the door of the London Hospital.
And I go on about how he spent his time here,
that all attempted to alleviate his misery,
that he was visited by the highest in the land, et cetera,
that he joined our lives as best he could,
and in spite of all this indulgence,
he was quiet and unassuming,
grateful for all that was done for him,
and conformed readily
to the restrictions which were necessary.
Will that do so far, do you think?
- Yes, I should think it would.
- You wouldn't add anything else, would you?
- Well, he was highly intelligent.
He had an acute sensibility.
And worse for him, a romantic imagination.
No.
No, nevermind.
I'm not really sure of any of it anyway.
(solemn music)
- I am your obedient servant FC Carr Gomm,
London Hospital, the 15th of April, 1890.
- I did think of one small thing.
- Too late, I'm afraid.
It's done.
(solemn music)
(light music)