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The Elephant Man PG rating

David Lynch's moving true-life tale of the severely deformed Joseph Merrick and his rescue from the hell of a Victorian circus sideshow.

Biopic 1980 124 mins

Director: David Lynch

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Overview

John Hurt, unrecognisable beneath the make-up, delivers a tender performance as the severely deformed Joseph Merrick (renamed John Merrick for the film), rescued by Anthony Hopkins' kindly surgeon from the hell of a circus sideshow to a more genteel world of scientific enquiry. Lynch's sensitive study of disability and difference was shot in lustrous black and white by veteran cinematographer and ex-Hammer director Freddie Francis.

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