Director:
David LynchTHE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)
Director:
David Lynch
Music: John Morris
The life of John Merrick, a young man who, at the end of XIX century in London, suffered a terrible malformation that caused him to be known as "the elephant man" and was exhibited like a beast in a circus.
By Conrado Xalabarder
The
Music was slow in forming itself in my mind. It took several weeks to find the
musical language for the picture. I knew that it had to be symphonic in scope
to encompass the breadth of emotion that the story has, but it also needed to
be of the period, the late 1800's, and somehow personalized for John Merrick
(...) Lynch had played a tape for me of an instrument called the polyphone.
I thought it a perfect musical color for the period. But I wanted to use my
own theme, one that would evoke the Elephant Man's childhood and his life with
his mother, and there was no time to program a polyphone. Therefore I devised
a scheme for imitating the polyphone orchestrally
John Morris
1.-Musical Structure
The music from The Elephant Man is structured on the basis of the following thematic hierarchy, in which two of its themes are dedicated to the main character:
Circus
music, slow and melancholic. It is the music that the composer applies to show
the beast, as he is seen from the outside. In his later applications
it will combine the reality in which the protagonist lives (the world of the
exhibition), with the deep sadness and desperation of its existence and, as
Morris
explained, it will serve as evocation of the missing mother and the lost childhood.
Its melodic and instrumental tonality will mark most of the rest of the music:
a music with appearance of being in black and white.
A beautiful slow melody, supported by winds and strings, seemed to an adagio, but more bucholic. Its duration is brief, but it serves to emphasize Merrick's sensitivity and emotivity, in contrast to the Principal Theme and will be applied more ahead. It is the theme that Morris applies to the human figure of the protagonist, to his rising dignity. In his idea - aborted by Lynch, as we'll see- this theme would end up replacing the principal one, in a clear emulation of the mutation from beast to human being.
It
is the famous piece written by Samuel Barber in 1936, it is applied in the sequence
of the death of the protagonist and, therefore, it is a preexisting piece. Morris
was openly against its use from Lynch, alleging (and this is one of the main
reasons against the unjustified use of preexisting music) that broke completely
the stylistic unity of music in the film. Morris
did not deny its exquisite beauty, but he reasoned that it had nothing to do
with the music he had been building throughout the film and which, theoretically,
it had to find its logical conclusion in a scene such as important as that.
But Lynch imposed his condition of director and maintained his intention of
incorporating the theme. Years later, Oliver Stone did the same in Platoon
(1986), which was a great success. The consequence was catastrophic for The
Elephant Man: the new generations of spectators, when the death's scene
arrived, inevitably exclaimed is the music of Platoon!.
And the sequence, the most important of the film, lost all its dramatism.
But the worse thing was that the insertion of the Barber's Adagio for strings interferred with the natural evolution that the Central Theme 1 was taking throughout the film. The Morris' theme appeared for the first time in the first scene that demonstrated that John Merrick, far away from being a beast without conscience, was an intelligent and sensible young person: when he recites a poem in front of doctor Treves and Carl Gomm, the director of the hospital where he lodges. At that moment the John Merrick's theme is born, the one of the human being. It is brief, but in its second appearance is more extensive: in the sequence in which Merrick begins to construct the Cathedral's scale model. What this scene does is to fortify the theme and to seat it as the definitive melodic expression of the character, of his sadness and his fight to reach normality. That so, the idea that the John Merrick's music was growing at the same time that the protagonist recovers his dignity should have, by overwhelming logic, its conclusion in its complete development in the scene of the death. It was not so and, by an unjustified application of the Barber's Adagio, this theme not only become castrated, but also couldn't replace, in importance, the one which at the end would become the Principal Theme.
The
first one is a piece with fair music with diegetical application, which accompanies
the first scene, when doctor Treves visits the fair where he'll meet elephant
man. The second is an environmental and support theme, also diegetical, applied
while actress Kendal reads in the newspaper about the elephant man. The third
one corresponds to the visit that Kendal makes to John Merrick, a romantic theme
that is put under
the words and supports them, but soon it grows in volume and intensity to reinforce
the emotion and the moment on which Merrick is kissed and spills a tear. Finally,
the last one is a ballet that is heared in the representation attended by Merrick,
at the end of the film.
Some musical fragments sounds through the picture, neither of which derives nor derivates from any theme, and are applied to reinforce very certain moments. For example, when doctor Treves enters in the place where the elephant man is exhibited it is applied a shady fragment, with strings, that moderately increases the tension before beginning the presentation of the spectacle. Another fragment, equally shady but more dramatic, is inserted when Treves sees the elephant man. This encounter is raised from the perspective of the doctor, of whom we see his reaction, but not to John Merrick, not yet been seen in his totality. For that reason, the fragment reflects the impression of Treves and serves to emphasize his sensation of pity and mercy for the man. The entrance of Merrick at the hospital is accompanied by other shady fragment, giving again a mystery impression.
2.- Application of the Principal Theme
In
the initial title credits sounds the Initial theme, that will become
the Principal Theme of the score (when, finally, Central Theme 1
will not get consolidated, due to reasons already explained). This music reappears
in a brief fragment when Merrick, that has been just exhibited to a group of
doctors, goes to a covered cart to return with his owner. Treves observes him
from a window and says he trust he is a lunatic, which causes that, then, the
musical fragment demonstrates that the doctor also sees him like a beast.
In the nocturnal scene, when Merrick rests on his legs, the watchman from the hospital -a robust man- checks his post and arrives at the room of the elephant man. With bad manners, he speaks and scares him. As the watchman comes near to Merrick's room, sounds another fragment of the theme, and finish when he enters. Here is inserted with a greater extension than in the scene before commented. The spectator already has seen the elephant man and, therefore, its use can be more opened and specified.
The dramatic moment par excellence is the sequence of the humiliation and later kidnapping of John Merrick, when the watchman bursts in into his room with drunkards and whores and, with several men, holds and shake him vigorously, before his proprietor takes him away. The theme reappears very dramatized, even degenerated, maintaining its circus tone but with shady and tenebrous look. It intensifies gradually and gives step to one repercussion of the same one in a ballet form... and what makes a ballet there?. Morris had the option to apply a circumstantial music (an horror music, for example), but he considered that the scene, by itself, was already sufficiently dramatic and that a music that followed that same pattern wouldn't do too much for it. With that caliber of tension and anguish, the spectator would be waiting for a music to accompain the image on the conventional way. But the surprise was that he applied a ballet, taking off guard to the spectator. But why a ballet?: in the first place, to accompany dramatically the balances and pushes suffered by the elephant man. The compasses of the ballet are intensified, soon they are stopped when the shocks stop and then they are reinitiated, with greater brutality, when they return, after seconds of rest. A macabre ballet, of course. But secondly, and it is the most important because doing so Morris removes the guts of the spectator and makes them feel truly the pain of the humiliation, because the spectator knows (previously he has been informed bythe plot), that the greatest dream of John Merrick is to attend a representation... of ballet. And there he has his ballet. More efficient than a circumstantial music and, of course, much more paining.
At this moment John Merrick has lost all his human condition and returns to be an elephant man. By grace of Lynch (and his option by Barber) it will be an irreversible process, musically speaking.
In the Belgium scenes the theme does not appear, due to the shining decision of depriving the character even from the circus music, since he is in his lower and degenerated degree. Not to have left, it does not have left him nor the music. Nevertheless, it reappears, also repercutted and dramatized, when he returns to London and is at the train station. There, some children begin to bother him. Merrick walks more and more quickly and, accidentally, pushes a girl who falls. The crowd begin to pursue him, surround him and they take off his coat from the head. Merrick breaks through and runs to the toilets, where again he is surrounded. Scared, he shouts I am not an animal!. I am a human being!. Music acts in a similar way as in the beginning of the humiliation scene. It is a degeneration of the theme with increasing intensity, reinforced by strings, that arrive to its maximum level of emphasis with the shout of the protagonist. It appears after many minutes without an extensive musical block and for that reason it receives greater force.
The theme will be heard again, for the last time, in the final credit, an afflicted and dramatic variation.
© Conrado Xalabarder, 2005
Tracks from the cd
1.
The Elephant Man Theme (03:44) 2. Dr. Treves Visits the Freak Show and Elephant
Man (04:08) 3. John Merrick and the Psalm (01:16) 4. John Merrick and Mrs. Kendal
(02:02) 5. The Nightmare (04:38) 6. Mrs. Kendal's Theater and Poetry Reading
(01:57) 7. The Belgian Circus Episode (2:59) (*) 8. Train Station (01:54) 9.
Pantomime (02:19) 10. Adagio for Strings (09:28) 11. Recapitulation (05:35)
(*) It does not appear in the film