10 Saddest Character Deaths In Movie History
1. John Merrick - The Elephant Man
Like Michael Haneke, David Lynch is not a director you would think of when looking at sad and moving films. Lynch's films are more often concerned with the subconscious drives which lurk beneath the surface than he is with the emotions of daily life, sentimental or otherwise.
Lynch might have a reputation for the surreal but isn't afraid to tell more straightforward stories, his early film The Elephant Man standing as one of the most artfully crafted and heartbreaking films of all time. Based on the life of Joseph Merrick (John Hurt, a performance for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor), it charts his journey from Victorian freak show to London hospital where he is carefully studied by Doctor Frederick Treaves (Anthony Hopkins), who shows him the compassion which had been utterly absent in his life up to that point.
Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings may have become overused in films as an emotional cue, but Lynch's use of it for Merrick's final scene, as he lies down on his back to sleep, knowing that his condition will cause him to asphixiate and die, is entirely fitting for such a poignant, heart-rending moment. Few people can watch it and not mimick Treaves's reaction upon first meeting Merrick, when a solitary tear rolls down his cheek.