We the Victorians

Rating: 7/10 (3 February 2016)

This movie touches upon many issues discussed in Academia by Michel Foucault, and I highly doubt it was coincidental. The Elephant Man is a character that could only come from the Victorian era and the rich duality that comes with it. The double personality of John Merrich, who goes from a gentle and refined man in the day to a poor beast that can only scream in the night, reflects the tension and evolutions of the power relations of that time. The oppressed goes from being a silent subject suffering from a brutal circus to being part of a much more subtle, scientific and bourgeois circus. Power structures are sharpened, but this comes together with an improvement of the objective welfare of the subject, who is now eternally grateful for this new form of control.
David Lynch is a very clever guy, and he manages to really convey the feeling of the time, with the use of sounds, black and white, and dialogs. You feel the sadness of the Elephant Man, you share it. What does it say of us that we are so interested in these Victorian characters, that we can relate so much to somebody like the Elephant Man?