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This review intends to explore the nature of body horror and what it means for the nature of humanity. Through natural or synthetic transformation of the physical landscape of the body can we transcend into superior beings, or are our body’s vessels of containment with boundaries that cannot be transgressed? Can the body and soul become incongruous? Or does the transcendence of ‘natural’ form enable us to become more than the sum of our limbs? In attempting to answer these questions, this review will concern itself with representations of body horror in ‘The Elephant Man’ (Lynch, 1980) and to argue that Merrick (John Hurt) represents the perfect specimen of the problematic body image and the control of internal identity and its desire to transcend its degraded vessel.
By exploring body horror and its connotations for the human condition it will be possible to come closer to answering some troubling questions. Questions of faith, identity, existence, and spirituality. However, before we come to answering these complex questions it is vital to understand exactly what body horror is and what it means to us.
Body Horror and Boundaries
A vital and intrinsic element to horror and abjection is the underlying and troubling recognition that our sentience is fundamentally contained and restrained by fragile vessels of bone and flesh. Separation from our conscious self and our physical self is desired and repelled against in equal measure. It is important to note that the body and the soul at this point are two different ideas that are emphatically linked but also that the ‘soul’ strives to attain more than what the vessel it is contained in will allow. And so by the recognition of ‘earthbound’ flesh and transcendental spirituality, we should be prepared to break all boundaries and relinquish all our bodily restrictions.
Life is filled with boundaries. Borders separate countries, dialects separate people, rules and ideals constitute societies and choices define us. Humans act on behavioural structures and do not rely on instinct for preservation and that is a defining notion that separates ‘us’ from animals. Our bodies and the way in which we understand them act in the same way. Though they come in many shapes, sizes, colours, and conditions, they are inherently the same: flesh, cartilage, organs, blood and membranes. They are a constant and a known, we are in control of our bodies and when something out of the ordinary occurs, something from the ‘unknown’, the ‘other’, presents itself we often find ourselves repulsed or violated. For a basic example one could look in their local newsagent. Society presents its bodily ideals at eye level on the magazine shelves. Magazines displaying the ‘ideal’ lifestyle and body image surround us. However, if we cast our eyes to the top shelf, we see magazines and images of ‘other bodies’ - bodies displaying examples of subcultures. Pornographic magazines, articles on tattooing, body piercing and extreme transforming of the musculature systems of the body are separated from the norm. Such is the feeling of ‘other’ when confronted with ideals outside the dominant ideology that they are placed out of reach, out of sight, out of mind and only available to those willing to step out of the ‘normal’ boundaries and transgress their fears of the body.
This ‘other’ is exactly what ‘body horror’ concerns itself with. Boundaries of the body, borders of the flesh sacred and essential, limitations of nature and the dangers of transgressing them; these are the key issues of body horror – a horror concerned with literally turning things inside out. It explores the possibilities that the vessel of the soul is not robust nor fixed but instead uncontrollable and persistent in its desire to transcend its form and exercise its own free will. It shows us the potential of our flesh to become self-aware and our inability to control it. Typically, this is represented in horror films as the expulsion of bodily waste such as urine, faeces, blood, semen, vomit, and menstruation. These incur abjection because we see elements of our internal form being expelled which causes a paradox. What it essentially waste, and therefore superfluous repulses us to our existence and yet it shows that our existence is nothing without these wastes.
And so, we can see that the horror film that concerns itself with blurring the boundaries of ingrained anxieties over our bodies is a vital arena in which we can confront these fears and perhaps learn how to overcome them and possibly rise above the socially imposed notions of the ‘ideal’ body. Films that deal with body horror, human waste, abjection, and the transformation of the body into something grotesque are positioned as horror films because by showing us these fears they confront and repel in equal measure. An established body image and its deformation cannot be better represented than in ‘The Elephant Man’.
Landscapes of the body
‘The Elephant Man’ is the tragic story of a boy born ‘normal’ and who, at an early age, develops a hideous condition whereby his limbs distort and grow beyond use and his skin becomes bulbous and pitted not unlike that of an elephant. Joseph Merrick the titular character, spends the early part of his life as the main attraction of a freak show when, after being rescued by a curious physician looking to make a name for himself, Merrick becomes the talk of London and is accepted into the upper classes. However, he is never far from exploitation – from the freak show gawking to the subject of upper-class charity. The film is a sensitive and harrowing depiction of body prejudice and horror with a strong sense of humanity as Merrick battles with his own identity amidst a society that deems him to be an animal until he proves that he can talk. The internal struggle of Merrick’s humanity and desire to understand his affliction, reveal his identity and allow his ‘spirit’ to regain control over his renegade body landscape is at once affecting, powerful and vital.
Lynch does not show Merrick’s body in full form until thirty minutes into the film. Up until this point he is shown in his mask, hood, and cloak, shuffling through shadows. When we finally see him, it is in a scene in an auditorium. Dr Treves (Anthony Hopkins) presents Merrick to his peers and gives a lecture about the physical appearance of his remarkable discovery. We see Merrick silhouetted behind a screen. His outline is human, but we are denied the opportunity to face his disfigurement as Lynch instead chooses to show the stunned reaction shots of the academics. This scene is vital because as we learn about Merrick, our empathy grows, and we are spared the sight of the problematic image of his horrific body. Our fears remain hidden and internal. This helps us to not be repulsed when we finally do see him. Although this scene ‘prepares’ us for our first sight of Merrick, it also plays on our own fears and desires about what is within. It is because the compelling desire to watch and be repulsed inherently titillates and reminds us of our own vulnerabilities and the precarious balance in which our flesh exists.
Though Merrick finds himself surrounded by aghast doctors and scientist’s intent on understanding his physical condition and the limitations and possibilities of his ‘affliction’ Merrick seeks not to alter his body landscape but to understand its meaning and regain the equilibrium of the internal and the external. Merrick’s identity, his essence is ignored and repelled because its vessel is degraded and ‘other’. It is this internal drive that is the heart of the film.
In a scene where Merrick is shown his own reflection for the first time, he pauses and then howls in terror. His mind is clear and intelligent, he can read and write (quite an intellectual achievement in Victorian England) and is knowledgeable of religion and philosophy, however when confronted by his outward appearance he feels betrayed by his feeble and deformed body. It strikes terror into him because the degradation reminds him of his own mortality and that his intellect can never transcend his physical failings. His journey comes to an intellectual end when, after being hounded by people through a train station he finds himself trapped. The gawking and repulsed people stare and jeer at him and, in a moment of shattering self-enlightenment, Merrick declares “I am NOT an animal! I am a human being!” and then collapses to the floor. He has won his battle over his body; his identity and humanity has shone through his deformation. His internal landscape is drastically altered if his outside is not which leads, tragically to his demise. Lying in bed, Merrick realises that his body can never be more and that his intellect is trapped by its confinements and he lies on his back which, given his crippled figure is a fatal position. Such is the corruption of his body that he becomes the agent of his own death. However, his body dies but his identity is restored. The equilibrium of internal and external is restored and his ‘spiritual ascendance’ is assured.
The idea of sentience and the true nature of it is a debate that constantly throws up more questions than it answers. The struggle to understand place and identity is self-contained and eternal. These eternal questions of mortality, humanity, identity, and the control of our bodies will remain eternal because whichever way we turn, we are confronted with new fears to conquer, new alternatives to ingest or repel, new forms to assimilate and new structures to understand. It is clear that forging answers is not unlike living with the problematic body we bare as signifiers to our existence. Spirituality cannot exist without flesh, and flesh cannot live without a soul. Whether one controls the other is definable only by the way in which the internal battles with the external. Identity and body landscape is both unique and universal, much the same way the body and the soul repel and attract each other. Equilibrium is maintained only by pushing these boundaries, by transgressing the norms presented to us as Joseph Merrick and ‘The Elephant Man’ so triumphantly shows us.
Country: UK/USA
Budget: £2.5million
Length: 124mins
Pub/2008
More like this:
'The Fly', 1986, directed by David Cronenberg
'Hollow Man', 2000, directed by Paul Verhoeven
'La Antena (The Aerial)', 2007, directed by Esteban Sapir