Alongside such cult classics as Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart and Blue Velvet, David Lynch’s filmography includes two highly-acclaimed fact-based films.
Best known as a highly original filmmaker who takes audiences on nightmarish and sometimes surrealist journeys into the dark corners of America, David Lynch is not an artist who’s usually associated with straightforward narratives and reality-based plots. However, his two forays into the fact-based film draw on true-life events to present moving, classically-structured and emotionally resonant character studies.
The Elephant Man (1980)
Director: David Lynch
Screenwriter: Christopher De Vore, Eric Bergren and David Lynch
Screenplay: The Internet Movie Script Database
Based on: The non-fiction books The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923) by Sir Frederick Treves and The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity (1973) by Ashley Montagu.
Synopsis:
*Spoilers* Nineteenth century London. Dr Frederick Treves finds a disformed man, Joseph ‘John’ Merrick, on display at a freakshow, where is he ill-treated. Treves pays the owner to allow him to examine Merrick in order to enhance his medical career by presenting a paper. On returning to the freakshow, Merrick is beaten and falls ill. He is taken back to Treves’ hospital. Treves discovers that Merrick is intelligent and cultured. He introduces him to London society. A night porter begins to charge people to see the ‘freak’. The freakshow owner turns up and takes Merrick away to France, where he is put on display once more. With the help of the owner’s son, Merrick escapes back to England. Seemingly close to death, Treves takes Merrick to the theatre. That night, he lies down to sleep and passes away.
Analysis:
Coming off the back of Eraserhead (1977) – which concerns a man who’s tormented by a mutant child – as well as a collection of experimental live action and animated short films, starting with Six Men Getting Sick (1966), the emotional true story of John Merrick became the subject of Lynch’s first studio film.
The film draws upon certain themes that we now view as his motifs. The most obvious of these is deformity. Many of Lynch’s works feature characters who are physically deformed in some way, or who have injuries, such as head wounds. Other Lynchian imagery, themes and motifs in Elephant Man include:
Dream-like imagery – A common feature in Lynch’s films, in Elephant Man , the story begins and ends with Merrick’s surrealist and somewhat harrowing dreams of his mother, reflecting the nightmarish quality often present in Lynch’s work.
Innocence / dark menace – The film juxtaposes Merrick’s gentle, simple nature with the horrors of life outside the hospital. While Elephant Man is one of Lynch’s rare forays outside of America, the landscape he paints is familiarly dark, presenting the underbelly of Victorian London society, with its back alleys and freakshows.
Industry – Factories, machinery and other ‘industrial’ themes often crop up in Lynch’s work. It is interesting that, as an artist, he once travelled to the UK to photograph the factories of northern England.
Black and white – Elephant Man is filmed in black and white, a technique Lynch often employs, notably in his short films and his art.
Evil – Much of Lynch’s work deals with the concept of evil, specifically lurking evil, which is shown in Elephant Man through the inhuman treatment of Merrick.
As with many fact-based films, quite a lot of liberties were taken in order to transfer Merrick’s story to the screen. Notably, it is accepted that Merrick was not ill-treated by the freakshow manager, Tom Norman, who was far from the drunk portrayed in Treves’ book and also in the film. In fact, Norman and Merrick were said to be partners who split the show’s earnings. Norman’s family has worked to clear his name since Treves’ book was published. Merrick was also not abducted and had an uneventful spell in the hospital.
Overall, despite its linear narrative, mainstream success (including eight Oscar nominations) and non-American setting, Elephant Man fits well into Lynch’s filmography, foreshadowing the features that he would subsequently release.
The Straight Story (1999)
Director: David Lynch
Screenwriters: John Roach and Mary Sweeney
Based on: The article, ‘Brotherly Love Powers a Lawn Mower Trek’, by the Associated Press, published in The New York Times, 25 August 1994. Accessed at: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/25/us/brotherly-love-powers-a-lawn-mower-trek.html
Synopsis:
*Spoilers* Strong-willed Alvin Straight, a 73-year-old man living in the small town of Laurens, Iowa, learns that his estranged brother, Lyle, is ailing. With bad eyesight and his own health failing, Alvin cannot drive to Lyle’s home in Mount Zion, Wisconsin. Against the wishes of his daughter, Alvin undertakes the 250-mile journey on an old riding lawnmower. After a false start, he completes the trip, meeting some interesting characters along the way.
Analysis:
Between Elephant Man and Straight Story, David Lynch directed some of his best known works, including the violent, hard-core films Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990), and the cult TV series, Twin Peaks (1989-91). He also made the bizarre character-morphing Lost Highway (1997) and, in the year Straight Story was released, he directed the TV pilot version of what would become the baffling insomnia-themed feature, Mulholland Drive (2001).
In short, a gentle human drama about a man taking a road trip on his lawnmower was somewhat of a departure. As Lynch himself said:
“The Straight Story is an unusual film for me. But I was so moved by the screenplay, that soon enough, I found myself in Iowa.”
As with Elephant Man, some of Lynch’s recurrent themes make an appearance, such as industry (in the form of Alvin’s lawnmower). We also have the familiar small-town America setting, a cast of unique characters, and hints of a darker world behind closed doors. These include the backstory of Alvin’s daughter and his background in the military, which has left its mark. The ‘evil’ in this case is the spectre of time and ageing. As Lynch said:
“This is a story about old age, and it’s a story about a
man’s life.”
An interesting side-note is that in an acting role in John Carroll Lynch’s Lucky (2017), David Lynch returned to this gentler world of meandering small-town USA, playing a man bereft over the loss of his friend, a centenarian tortoise named President Roosevelt, who has run away from home. This film has several parallels with Straight Story in that it tackles the ageing process and has a strong-willed elderly (in this case 90-year-old) protagonist struggling with the passage of time.
Straight Story was filmed in the locations in which the true story took place, highlighting the cornfields of Iowa, the mighty Mississippi River and the farmland of Wisconsin. The film was shot in chronological order, heightening the sense of authenticity and making us feel as if we are actually taking the trip alongside Alvin. Further, many of the locals that the film crew encountered remembered the day the real Alvin Straight rumbled through their town on his decrepit lawnmower!
Overall, Straight Story may stand out as the ‘misfit’ in Lynch’s filmography to the extent that he himself has referred to it as his most experimental film. Nonetheless, it does bear his unmistakable stamp and demonstrates that ‘Lynchian’ doesn’t always have to mean dark and foreboding.
In conclusion…
When an experimental artist takes on fact-based material, there is a danger that rampant creativity will overwhelm the underlying story. However, with Elephant Man and Straight Story, Lynch brought his unique vision to compelling true-life material with great success.
In both films, we get a melding of the factual and the original, with Lynch using his view of the world and the themes/motifs with which he is aligned to enhance the poignant stories of two sympathetic and memorable protagonists.