The Elephant Man

Director: David Lynch

1980 / 124min / 4K DCP

Directing his first feature in 1962, Francis hadn’t been credited as a cinematographer for 17 years when he made his triumphant return as DP for Lynch’s sophomore feature, one of the great black-and-white films of the ’80s or, indeed, of any decade, in which Francis conjures up a gaslit, cobblestoned Victorian London of our collective dreams and nightmares. John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins are remarkable as, respectively, John Merrick, the young man whose deformities mask a soul of unusual delicacy, and Frederick Treves, the surgeon who helps to restore Merrick’s dignity, but Francis’s contribution is no less vital. “It got down to two names, so we decided to flip a coin,” Lynch would remember of the film’s pre-production. “Freddie lost the toss. We looked at each other and said, ‘No, no, no, it’s got to be Freddie!’”

The 4K restoration of the original camera negative, overseen by director, David Lynch.