The Elephant Man & The Straight Story

Note: This post is written to commemorate David Lynch, who died last month. While I tried to keep it to a minimum, the post contains some spoilers for The Elephant Man & The Straight Story.

 

When I was younger, I spent a good amount of time thinking about Blue Velvet, in addition to frequently revisiting the scenes In Dreams play in the movie.

I take Twin Peaks (the original series, the movie, the revival, and all the extras) as a meditative experience and have no intention of delving deeper into its plot.

Watching Lost Highway or Inland Empire make me ask the question “Am I high?”

I am impressed by the new Dune movies, but I don’t have any desire to rewatch them, while I am happy to rewatch any David Lynch movie anytime including his Dune.

As someone whose tastes were often put into question during her 20s, I made my peace with the people treating me like an oddball because of what I like or dislike. So, when someone asks me if I like a film, book, artwork … and if my answer is “yes”, I sometimes add “but I also like David Lynch movies” to that “yes” to let the person decide whether they can trust my taste.

 

David Lynch was notorious for creating hard to comprehend and describe films. Despite creating confusion in viewers, his films were very clear on a few things: amplifying “there is more than meets the eye” both for the people and the places, unveiling the sinister behind the idyllic facades, and mixing up the usual and the unusual. Today, these patterns are called Lynchian.

Inspired by his patterns, in my attempt to commemorate him here, I pick the two David Lynch movies that are considered the most accessible to the viewers, hence the most unusual for David Lynch: The Elephant Man (1980) and The Straight Story (1999).

 

The Elephant Man is based on the real-life story of Joseph Merrick, who lived in London in the late 19^th century. Joseph, referred to as John in the movie, is treated as a “freak” by others due to the way he looks. He is admitted to a hospital by a well-intentioned surgeon, Frederick Treves. However, even at the hospital, the society keeps viewing John as a “freak”, and he becomes an object of display for the people, who pay to visit and see “The Elephant Man.”

During one of those visits, John hosts a high society couple, offering them tea and acting like a solid gentleman, while the couple acts odd and uneasy. It is a scene that subverts the labels we so easily put on people and makes you ask the question “Who is really the freak here?” Therefore, it is a scene that is as Lynchian as it gets.

I watched The Elephant Man back when I was as BSc student. I can’t remember the exact year, but it should be around 2007. After my watch, I thought it might be the best film I had ever watched, and this scene stayed with me. In my next chat with my father, whose love of cinema I inherited, I asked him if he had ever seen The Elephant Man. He said yes and immediately started to reminisce about this scene.

My dad saw The Elephant Man in theaters shortly after it was released. Despite the almost 30 years difference in our respective viewing of the movie, the same scene made a long-lasting impact on both of us. Yet that scene’s impact comes from being a part of the whole of The Elephant Man, making both the movie and that scene timeless.

 

The Straight Story is also based on a true story. It is the story of Alvin Straight, who made a journey from Iowa to Wisconsin on a lawn mower in his 70s, two years before he passed away, to visit his sick brother.

When we meet Alvin in The Straight Story, he is on the kitchen floor unable to walk. The movie juxtaposes him with a baby. Alvin is old, but for many practical purposes, he is like a baby.

Alvin hears about his older brother’s stroke. They have been estranged, and, as we have already established, Alvin’s health is not great. Both despite and because of these facts, Alvin decides to go on a trip to reunite with his brother. He can’t have a driver’s license due to his health, so he takes the lawn mower.

On the road, Alvin encounters various people. Each encounter represents a different phase of a human’s life, as the person/people Alvin meets gets older, and reveals a different dark story either from Alvin’s or the person’s/people’s past.

Eventually, Alvin reaches his brother, the person who is closest to his age among all the people he encountered on the road, completing both his personal and literal journey. As if this is not a satisfying enough end to this road movie, his brother is played by Harry Dean Stanton, who once played an iconic road-movie protagonist himself in Paris, Texas (1984).

While The Straight Story can be interpreted as the simple straight story of human life, all the human stories we hear in Alvin’s journey underlines the complexities behind all “simple” human lives, once again fitting the Lynchian.

 

I heard the news of David Lynch’s death when it was announced at Husets Biograf during the introduction for the screening of Revenge, the first feature film of The Substance’s director Coralie Fargeat. You could hear the audible gasps of the audience, including mine, as a reaction to the news, and we all raised our glasses to David Lynch right before Revenge started.

After I left the theater, I checked my phone, as we all do now as a reflex. There was a message from Illegitimate Daughter about the death of David Lynch. I texted a few people about the news as well including Sister in Movies. It was clearly a notable sad moment for all my close movie buddies.

 

David Lynch left a mark on so many people, especially because of his unique style. That style had the power to make us go through a cocktail of opposing reactions at the same time. For example, the In Dreams scenes from Blue Velvet, which I referred to in the beginning of this post, can make you feel fear, sadness, jealousy, love … due to what is going on in the foreground, and can make you laugh due to the figures in the background.

Overall, I am grateful to him for challenging us in all the good ways over the years.