Anne V. Coates on Editing The Elephant Man

“It was fascinating working on those montages with David [Lynch.] Now by doing it with video, it would be easier to get inside his mind, but it was very difficult on film because he didn’t know exactly what he wanted until he saw it. Something complicated like the mother and the elephant we did hundreds of times before we got it right. David would be telling us what he wanted, my assistant was very patient and kept ordering it over and over again, and it was always wrong.”

From Selected Takes: Film Editors on Editing by Vincent LoBrutto

Not surprising to read that Lynch fixated on these montages. He had served as his own editor on Eraserhead and the opening montage to The Elephant Man feels very much a part of that world: dreamlike imagery scored with an industrial soundtrack. That opening can be viewed courtesy of StudioCanal who have put the first 10 minutes of the film on YouTube in order to promote their recent 4K UHD release.