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Making The Elephant Man: A Producer's Memoir Paperback – October 21, 2016
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The true story of John (Joseph) Merrick--a.k.a. the Elephant Man--has captured the imagination of generations of audiences, critics, actors and filmmakers. In 1978, producer Jonathan Sanger received a screenplay from two unknown writers about a hideously disfigured man who refused to fall victim to despair and instead exemplified human dignity. Reading it (twice), Sanger was determined that Merrick's story would be told.
This book is Sanger's unvarnished first-person account of how The Elephant Man (1980) was made. His adventure in filmmaking--itself a study in triumph over despair--involved special effects nightmares, scheduling conflicts, location issues and many risky decisions. Assembling a team that included Mel Brooks (executive producer), David Lynch (director) and actors John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins, Sanger persevered in making this inspiring, award-winning film.
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Print length208 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherMcFarland & Company
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Publication dateOctober 21, 2016
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Reading age18 years and up
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Dimensions6 x 0.42 x 9 inches
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ISBN-101476666628
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ISBN-13978-1476666624
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- Publisher : McFarland & Company (October 21, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1476666628
- ISBN-13 : 978-1476666624
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Item Weight : 10.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.42 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,296,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,055 in Video Direction & Production (Books)
- #1,225 in Movie Direction & Production
- #2,670 in Movie History & Criticism
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These are all apt words to describe the 1979, black-and-white, independently financed “miracle of a film” known as “The Elephant Man.” The film was created by a small, but extremely gifted and determined group of individuals who poured their hearts and souls into the telling of the bizarre story of John Merrick, a man born at the tail end of the 19th Century with deformities so severe that he was considered for most of his life to be a “freak of nature.” Equal, perhaps, in brilliance and genius to this “classic” film, is film producer Jonathan Sanger’s fascinating and lovingly told memoir that expertly details virtually every important event that occurred in the making of this film. Reading more like prose than nonfiction, Sanger’s incredible companion book, “Making The Elephant Man: A Producer’s Memoir,” is a masterpiece, in and of itself.
Written some thirty years after the film’s release, Sanger relied on detailed notes he kept from the time he was introduced to the film’s script until the film’s debut. The film was the debut scrip from two unknown young men named Christopher Devore and Eric Begren. Devore just happened to be the boyfriend of Jonathan Sanger’s babysitter: just the first of a multitude of serendipitous events surrounding the genesis of the film.
Fortunately, Sanger’s copious notes and incredible memory of this life-changing project enable him to spin such a captivating and vivid portrait of this great work of modern art. Together with period photos from the set of the film, Sanger details the incredible path that led him to the man with the power to make his dream a reality, the great American funnyman Mel Brooks. But as Sanger illuminates so effectively, that was only a crucial beginning. Also revealed in the memoir are the funding, casting, costuming, and detailed makeup components that went into creating “The Elephant Man.”
And there is so much more to recount including Sanger’s first meetings with film director David Lynch, who was at the embryonic stage of his luminous career. There was also the search for a cinematographer who would be able to create the look of late 19th-Century London, where the film is set. Then there is the actual filming, editing, scoring, advertising and eventual presentation to the public, each of which is told with such lovely anecdotes and flourishing details. But Sanger is not satisfied with just telling a great story. Rather, he provides the broader context and conceptualization that made “The Elephant Man” so courageously innovative for its time. Like the doctor who “discovered” John Merrick in a traveling freak show, Jonathan Sanger and his colleagues on the project were light years ahead of everyone else. And perhaps this accounts for why this film looks so fresh more than 35 years after its initial release.
The countless stories of the sacrifices that were made by everyone involved in the making of “The Elephant Man” gets to the very heart of a different time for filmmakers; a time when love was more important than money, when the bottom line was not the most important aspect of any film endeavor. Sanger and his close-knit band of filmmakers instinctively knew, as you can tell when you read his memoir, that they had embarked on a project that was, in fact, more important than profits at the box office. For Sanger, this endeavor was a true labor of love and, as famed actor John Hurt once remarked secretly to Sanger, he would be willing to do his work for free. Such was the dedication and commitment that each of these great creative minds felt about this collaborative effort.
Early in the film, when the doctor first sets his eyes on the Elephant Man, he stares in amazement and empathy and a single tear falls from his eye. Like this incredible memoir, “The Elephant Man” is a story of man’s need for connection and, ultimately, for love. And that need to communicate the most basic of human emotions is the fuel that would be needed at the start of the Industrial Age to carry us on our way through the many horrors that were still to come in the two World Wars. Without sympathy, empathy, love and human connection, there was, perhaps, very little that separated us from the beasts of the jungle. “I am not an animal. … I am a human being,” John Merrick famously says in “The Elephant Man.” That distinction was key in understanding the very essence of the human condition. And that distinction, and the exploration of it, is what makes this such a fascinating read.
Highly recommended!