To say Eraserhead (1977) is an enigma, is definitely an understatement. It is also a remarkable low-budget underground film that has lived on in infamy. Directed by David Lynch, (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Wild at heart, Elephant man) this film put Lynch on the map and he became known for surrealist/weird films and became known as “Jimmy Stewart from mars”.
The film starts with the Man in the planet (Jack Fisk—who is known as an art director on some famous films such as Carrie and Badlands) pulling levers and you see the head of Henry Spencer (played by Jack Nance—Pete from Twin Peaks) falling in a void and a dark planet behind him. Then some kind of creature (maybe a sperm) comes out of Henry’s mouth. Spencer lives in a horrific industrial cityscape. He has been told by a neighbor that his girlfriend Mary (Charlotte Stewart) has invited her to meet his family. There is a very strange dinner scene (and pretty damn funny) involving a carving of a chicken roaster that moves around and when the knife cuts into it, blood spills out. Another odd scene happens when Mary’s mother comes on to Henry and informs him that Mary has had a baby, they have to get married.
Henry and Mary move into his one room apartment. They begin to care for the baby, a humanoid of some kind with a snake-like face, and its body is covered in bandages. The baby will not stop crying and refuses any food. The crying drives Mary nuts. She leaves Henry, and he has to care for the infant all by his lonesome. Henry discovers the child has problems breathing, also it has developed some very painful sores. Henry is left in the dark when it comes to child-care, Dr. Spock he ain’t.
Henry has visions again of the Man in the Planet and the very surreal Lady in the radiator (Laurel Near). The Lady in the radiator sings to Henry and crushes miniature replicas of the baby while she dances. After a sexual experience with woman across the hall, Henry’s head pops off, showing a stump underneath that looks like the child. A boy finds Henry’s head and takes it into a pencil factory to be manufactured as erasers. Henry is then seen standing in front of a cloud of eraser shavings.
Henry goes to see the woman across the hall. He discovers she has men coming and going at all hours. Henry’s heart is broken. Henry returns home to an infant who will not stop crying and without a girlfriend. He decides to cut the bandages and see what the child looks like under all of those bindings. The child has no skin. The bandages is what was holding together its internal parts and they spill out after the rags are removed. The child cries out in pain and Henry stabs the organs with the scissors.
A black liquid gushes from the child’s wounds, covering it like a blanket. A power surge emerges and the baby grows to immense proportions. The lights flicker and electricity is completely out. The baby’s head is replaced by a planet, and the Man in the planet has problems pulling his levers.
Lynch had previously made short films such as The Grandmother, and decided to switch his primary focus from painting to films. Just at the age of 24, he accepted a scholarship from American Film Institute, and actually decided to drop out because he disliked the course. He was persuaded back when given the chance to produce his own script.
Gardenback was the beginning of what became Eraserhead, concerning Henry living with his wife and the seeds of infidelity growing on the back of his neck. Kafka was a huge influence on Lynch as well as Nikolai Gogol's 1836 short story "The Nose". Definitely the works of those two writers mood are felt through all of Lynch’s films. The film took Lynch and his collaborators six years to make. In the mean time when money was low, Lynch had a paper route. Fredrick Elmes and Herb Cardwell’s cinematography is exquisite. Soundscape throughout the movie helps with eeriness a viewer feels.
Jack Nance’s performance is the anchor in this film. Besides the creepy baby, which Lynch will never give up the ghost on how the child was created (I have heard it was a cow fetus.) there is a strong black comedy elements in the film. But those expressions of Jack Nance and of course the ridiculous hair that was designed by Lynch, is the hallmark of a great actor because he can say so much without having to speak.
When Lynch was preparing for the shoot he screened Sunset Boulevard. When Kubrick was preparing for The Shining, he screened Eraserhead to his staff and actors. The film went on to become a midnight movie sensation. When Mel Brooks watched this film, he thought Lynch was a deranged inmate from a crazy house. It also gave him the idea to hire Lynch to direct The Elephant Man. In 2004, it was included in the in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress for preservation. Selection for the Registry is based on a film being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Not bad for a small, low budget film that took six years out people’s lives to make.
Mark Slade, HMS
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