There is no bias towards hope or despair, no bias towards accusing humanity or promoting the goodness of human nature, but to throw this question at us, let us ask ourselves: all things remain the same, human nature remains the same, are you ugly or kind? Are you desperate or hopeful? That's the great thing about The Elephant Man.
David Lynch has created an absurd existence this time: the Elephant Man. Unlike the later works, there are not so many erotic scenes in this work. I was impressed by two of them: one is the struggle and distortion of the elephant man's mother when he was raped by the wild elephant, the other is the elephant man dreaming of his mother and The scene of workers working - the fog makes people realize that this is a dream, and according to Freud's psychological dream interpretation, the action of these workers pulling the steam box undoubtedly means that this is a spring dream. It can be seen from the later Mulholland Drive that David Lynch was greatly influenced by Freud, regardless. This film is more macro-oriented towards all human beings rather than individuals. Therefore, people who are like people are themselves, and people who are like people are human beings.
The Elephant Man goes from the circus to the hospital, from being hated to being liked, whether it is men and men, women and women... There is a sharp contrast in the design of this aspect, so we will hate the abuse of the circus owner. He hated the workers who looked after the elephants at night but used them to make money. At the same time, he was moved by the kindness and acceptance of the doctor, and moved by the behavior of the women who did not despise him. The change of attitude, as well as the constancy of attitude, undoubtedly depicts an era and human nature. When everyone came to watch and left because of curiosity, when a doctor strongly objected to taking in the elephant man and said he was an animal, when the old nurse said that he would never change the original view of the target person, when the elephant man When I shouted "I am a human, I am not an animal", a human fear was revealed. We cannot deny that we are full of curiosity and fear of the unknown; we cannot deny that the so-called humanity is just a powerless resistance to the unknown. Is human nature ugly? Are human beings kind? We cannot define.
People cannot change anyone. Selfishness and kindness, lowness and nobility... are all born together and will not exist alone. As the doctor shouted: You are the ugly one. The human heart cannot be ruled, so the elephant tells everyone not to try to change others, but to be yourself. So the Elephant Man finally achieved himself, he shouted it out, and he was satisfied.
However, some people give elephants a chance to live, and some people refuse to give them a chance to live. Why does that person or a thing need others to give it a chance to exist? This comes to the question of clustering. When people get together, they form a vicious circle called society. In this society, our rule of doing things is "experience is better than everything". After all, the experience of our ancestors can never be wrong. On the other hand is influenced by Darwinism: survival of the fittest. No one can say whether the ancestors were right or wrong, because once there is right, there must be wrong, and the definition of right and wrong is naturally relative. We cannot deny that as long as we define beauty as ugliness at the beginning, our current orientation towards beauty and ugliness is decidedly different. Therefore, the so-called experience itself is limited. What we need to do is to recognize the opposite of things, that is, the opposite of experience, and admit the existence of negation. And Darwinism is even more ridiculous, he ignores the existence of will. As long as people stick to one side and continue, they will form experience, and then form a society with universal values. Whether it is given or not given a chance to survive, it is only the experience of the group. Fortunately, there are still some people who are different. In fact, these people are bound to exist.
People have a fear of being different, in other words, of things that are different from themselves, and, by extension, of things they don't understand. David Lynch captures this humanity and shows it to us from the perspective of the Elephant Man. But he did not directly criticize right and wrong, because he realized that right and wrong are one and the same, or that there is no right and wrong. This is the greatness of Elephant Man values.
In addition, I really like the soundtrack of Elephant Man and the dreamy and figurative shots, the surreal taste. Whether it's the Elephant Man reading the Bible, playing Romeo, staring at a portrait or practicing his language, it's touching. The doctor's wife said, you are Romeo! Who are we not? It's just that the selection part is missing Romeo. Perhaps the early David Lynch did not pay too much attention to details, but the performance of the macro value was very delicate and non-symbolic, and the temperament of his master has been seen here. I am even more surprised that David Lynch's thinking is inadvertently similar to our Zhouyi.
The Great Dao is constant, no matter how the inside changes, it will not affect the Great Dao, so it is said that everything is immortal. This is not a movie that criticizes human nature, but tells us that we can be subjective and have to choose subjective to complete the final self. We are elephants, and we will encounter his experiences. We are elephants, and we have to shout out: I am a human being, and I am not an animal. (here refers to the will)
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