Editing The Elephant Man (1980 film) (section)

===Filming===
The budget was $5&nbsp;million, $4&nbsp;million of which was raised from [[Fred Silverman]] of [[NBC]].<ref name="AFI" /> The remainder came from [[EMI Films]].<ref>{{cite news|title=At the Movies: Seriously, Folks, There's a Serious Mel Brooks|last=Ryan |first=Desmond|work=[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]]|date=3 Nov 1985|page=L.2}}</ref>

For his second feature and first studio film, albeit one independently financed,<ref name="TimeOutInterview" /> Lynch provided the musical direction and sound design. Lynch also tried to design the make-up himself, but the design didn't work.<ref name="AFI">{{cite web |title=The Elephant Man (1980) |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/56402 |website=[[AFI Catalog of Feature Films]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Carroll |first=Rory |date=June 25, 2018 |title=David Lynch: As a father and husband 'you gotta be selfish' |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/david-lynch-as-a-father-and-husband-you-gotta-be-selfish-1.3542802 |access-date=2024-02-05 |newspaper=The Irish Times |language=en}}</ref> The makeup, now supervised by [[Christopher Tucker]], was based on direct casts of Merrick's body, which had been kept in the [[Royal London Hospital]]'s private museum. The makeup took seven to eight hours to apply each day and two hours to delicately remove.<ref name="AFI"/> [[John Hurt]] would arrive on set at 5&nbsp;am and shoot his scenes from noon until 10&nbsp;pm. After his first experience of the inconvenience of having to apply the makeup and perform with it, he called his girlfriend, saying, "I think they have finally managed to make me hate acting."<ref name="Vincent">{{cite news |last1=Vincent |first1=Alice |title=When John Hurt broke the mould: the story behind The Elephant Man's radical make-up |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/john-hurt-broke-mould-story-behind-elephant-mans-radical-make/ |work=The Telegraph |date=31 March 2020}}</ref> Because of the strain on the actor, he worked alternate days.<ref name="AFI"/> 

The film is bookended with [[surrealism|surrealist]] sequences centred around Merrick's mother and her death. Lynch used [[Samuel Barber]]'s ''[[Adagio for Strings]]'' to underline the climax and Merrick's own death. Composer [[John Morris (composer)|John Morris]] argued against using the music, stating that "this piece is going to be used over and over and over again in the future... And every time it's used in a film it's going to diminish the effect of the scene."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/obituaries/john-morris-composer-for-mel-brookss-films-dies-at-91.html|title=John Morris, Composer for Mel Brooks's Films, Dies at 91|first=Richard|last=Sandomir|date=January 29, 2018|access-date=January 29, 2018|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>