The Elephant Man (film) me hate acting." Because of the strain on the actor, he worked alternate days. Lynch originally wanted Jack Nance for the title character. "But it just wasn't in the cards," Lynch says; the role went to John Hurt after Brooks, Lynch and Sanger saw his performance in "The Naked Civil Servant" as Quentin Crisp. Lynch bookended the film with surrealist sequences centered around Merrick's mother and her death. Lynch used Samuel Barber’s "Adagio for Strings" to underline the end of the film and Merrick's own death. The film's composer, John Morris, argued against using the music, stating that "this piece
The Elephant Man (play) manager of a freak show, invites a crowd on Whitechapel Road to come view John Merrick, the Elephant Man. Treves happens upon the freak show and is intrigued by Merrick's disorder. He insists that he must study Merrick further; Ross agrees, for a fee. Ross then gives a lecture on Merrick's anatomy, making Merrick stand on display while Treves describes his condition to the audience. The freak show travels to Brussels after being driven out of London by the police. Merrick tries to converse with three freak show "pinheads", or people suffering from microcephaly and mental retardation. The "pinheads" go