Why are queer audiences drawn to David Lynch’s work? On ‘Elephant Man’ & the director’s outsider cinema
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, a month after David Lynch’s passing, we’re revisiting one of the iconic filmmaker’s great works that may have a special resonance with queer audiences, 1980’s The Elephant Man.On January 20th, the film world suffered one of its greatest losses in recent memory when it was announced that director David Lynch had passed away.
A forward-thinker and creative genius in every sense of the word, few directors had such a distinct sense of style, precise sensibilities, or left an indelible mark in filmmaking and storytelling like he did.To celebrate one of the best to ever do it, this week we’ll take a look at one of his earliest feature films (and—many would argue—one of his most straightforward narratives), and explore how Lynch always had a soft spot for the underdog and the marginalized, and told his stories not just with a tremendous amount of empathy, but with a filmmaking eye that always encouraged viewers to step outside the norm.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.With 1977’s Eraserhead, David Lynch immediately established himself as one of the most unique and vibrant voices in cinema.
A surrealist, black-and-white independent midnight movie, the film presented the world with key elements that would define Lynch’s career: a strange composition of seemingly unrelated imagery, stylized use of cinematography and mise-en-scene, bombastic scoring, and overblown performances, all seeped with deep psychological themes that left the interpretation up to the viewer.Some eyebrows were then raised when his next project was the much more traditional period biopic, The Elephant Man.
Loosely based on the life of Joseph Merrick, a man with severe physical deformities born in Victorian London, the film follows renowned doctor Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins), who rescues the titular Elephant Man (here called.
