Directed by David Lynch, The Elephant Man is based on a true story of a man called John Merrick who suffered from a very rare disease, Proteus syndrome.
The film is set in the Victorian era and is filmed in black and white. I feel this contributes to the film being a period piece as it makes it look older which could perhaps allude to the more old-fashioned attitudes surrounding John Merrick. I thought maybe this choice could also infer to everyone's first impressions of John Merrick; they thought he was physically disabled and therefore also mentally disabled. This way of thinking is very black and white similar to how monochrome is used in A Matter of Life and Death (1946). In the afterlife you are either dead or living.
Another aspect I found intriguing in this film was the techniques to show time passing, in particular in the hospital scenes. Day swiftly moves into night without the camera moving and in black and white, which I image would have been quite a challenge to make the change successfully evident.
Lastly, I found the model of the church a very intriguing feature. It maybe seen to symbolise John Merrick's growth in faith and imagination as an individual. At the start everyone only sees his for his appearance similarly how he only sees the top of the church from his window. But as Dr Treves starts to treat him as a human being, his faith in humanity grows similarly to how his imagination grows to complete the model independently.
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