In recreating the story of John Merrick, the Victorian who was reputed to be "the ugliest man alive," David Lynch effects a study of prejudice, voyeurism and human dignity. Interestingly, and disturbingly, it is a reflexive study, for Lynch seems to be working with, or working on, his own discomfort with the so-called Elephant Man; working with, or working on, his own voyeurism, embodied in his film style. Merrick was born with neurofibromatosis, giving him an enlarged head, a twisted spine, and facial deformities. As an adult, he is a virtual prisoner of a traveling freak show until the surgeon Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) becomes his protector, finding funding for a private room in the London Hospital. Here Merrick very gradually reveals himself to be not only intelligent but an intellectual, and finds a measure of happiness equal to his measure of dignity. But he becomes another kind of sideshow-for high society-and Treves must ask if he himself is not a high-class carny. Lynch plays with point-of-view to make his point: aided by the actor John Hurt in a most extraordinarily moving performance, he shows us what it must be like to see through Merrick's eyes, hear with his ears. Merrick's inner sensitivity becomes what we "see" in him. But switch p.o.v. to that of the camera/viewer, and the operative emotion is pity; then Merrick's chosen way out-death-is a way out for us. Lynch has made us the mob, Merrick the monster. But more subtly, we become the voyeurs, Merrick the gentleman sideshow amusing himself in the assumption of privacy. David Lynch's complex and self-conscious relationship with disability-from Eraserhead through Twin Peaks-leads us to imagine that when Merrick shouts his famous line, "I am not an animal, I am a human being," he says it to Lynch behind the camera as well.