{"id":46167,"date":"2025-01-20T11:24:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=46167"},"modified":"2025-01-20T11:24:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:24:32","slug":"the-pictures-of-david-lynch-eraserhead-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/20\/the-pictures-of-david-lynch-eraserhead-1977\/","title":{"rendered":"THE PICTURES OF DAVID LYNCH: ERASERHEAD (1977)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>David Lynch, one of the most monumental filmmakers of all time, has died. To say that I am devastated is an understatement. Because the man was so much more than a filmmaker to me. He was a doorway into art and beauty and soul. He was a mentor and father figure and shaman. He provided philosophy and council and entertainment. He was the sort of person that I aspired to be like, to the point where I\u2019ve been subconsciously dressing like I was a character in one of his movies for last forty years. He influenced my taste in religion, food, music, movies, books, painting, sculpting, fashion, cars, and even architecture. No other filmmaker made me feel the way he did. No other filmmaker transformed me as much as he did. Without him, I would not be me. It\u2019s as simple as that. <\/span><\/p>\n

So I wanted to talk about his life and his movies and how he\u2019s affected me as an artist and as a human being. So let\u2019s talk about Eraserhead, because that\u2019s where it all began.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Eraserhead takes place in an industrial dystopia which seems to solely inhabited by the doomed and the damned. It\u2019s this black and white and grey netherworld in which we follow protagonist Henry Spencer, an awkward and aimless young man, who discovers he\u2019s going to be a father and is pushed into marriage and domesticity. However, he and his wife Mary struggle with parenthood because their baby was born with a birth defect, which puts a strain on their relationship and mental health. Mary eventually becomes overwhelmed and leaves, after which Henry tries to daydream himself away from his stressful and lonely life with fantasies about sultry neighbours and women in radiators, but the baby just cries and cries and cries…<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If you think about it, the film\u2019s story is surprisingly \u201cordinary\u201d for something so arthouse. I mean, this whole thing would be an ABC Afterschool Special if it wasn\u2019t considered a surrealistic masterpiece. It\u2019s also written with the kind of detail and nuance and sensitivity that makes me think that a lot of this was autobiographical for Lynch and that he was trying to work through a lot of real feelings under the guise of making a movie. Because, beyond the weirdness about electricity and mutants and planets and erasers and deformed men pulling levers, there\u2019s a lot of truth to be found here. Lots of little moments that genuinely feel relatable, not in spite of the strangeness but often because<\/i> of it. <\/span><\/p>\n

The thing to remember about surrealism is that it isn\u2019t supposed to be just weird for the sake of weird. It\u2019s supposed to be a form of exaggeration and distortion upon reality, and this sort of exaggeration and distortion then sets a mood that often mimics real emotions and feelings. So surrealism is not meant as nonsense but as a story told through poetry and dream instead of ordinary prose, and this can help a viewer experience the story more purely than if it was told any other way. Surrealism\u2019s purpose is to create a more immersive form of art than a simple comedy or drama could. Movies, all too often, only seek to make you laugh or cry or scream in terror or whoop excitedly. Surreal movies try to make you feel things that aren\u2019t always simple yet still have a powerful hold over us. Eraserhead all but bursts with a sense of alienation and longing and dread and the kind of sadness that can\u2019t be expressed only through tears.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

One bit of specific genius in the film is the sound design, which was done by Lynch and Alan Splet. It makes you feel as if you\u2019re perpetually alone, even if you\u2019re not. Creating a world filled with the echoing sounds of life, but always far away. Music that fades in and out of existence, so ephemeral that you wonder if it was ever there in the first place. It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s as close to perfect as you could get. Likewise, the sets were designed and built by Lynch and every location manages to feel both empty and claustrophobic at the same time. It\u2019s a nightmarish place, but also so very strange and beautiful. You can\u2019t look away. You almost want to live there, almost. As for the acting, it\u2019s excellent. Every character has quirks, but it never impedes the mood or story. It adds to it. Even back then Lynch knew how to direct his people to give the best possible performance they could. It\u2019s the same with editing. Some scenes go on for a long time, but they always have purpose and place, and there\u2019s not one moment wasted. The film feels exactly as it should.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll finish this review with a thought I just had about erasers: Not only do erasers not create anything, they remove what was created. Maybe that\u2019s what was in Henry\u2019s head? The biggest fear of any artist, for your mind to become more of an eraser than a pencil. No wonder he was so haunted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Goodbye David. Thank you for filling me with so much love and light and beautiful sadness. Thank you for showing me that dreams are real and that we can sometimes share them through art. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I\u2019ll miss you for the rest of my life. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eraserhead is a 1977 movie starring Jack Nance as Henry Spencer, Charlotte Stewart as Mary X, Allen Joseph as Mr. X, Jeanne Bates as Mrs. X, Jean Lange as Grandmother, Judith Anna Roberts as Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, Laurel Near as Lady in the Radiator, and Jack Fisk as The Man in the Planet. It was written and directed by David Lynch.<\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Lynch, one of the most monumental filmmakers of all time, has died. To say that I am devastated is an understatement. Because the man was so much more than a filmmaker to me. He was a doorway into art and beauty and soul. He was a mentor and father figure and shaman. He provided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[266,3600,1011,3601],"class_list":["post-46167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-david-lynch","tag-industrial","tag-surrealism","tag-twin-peaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46167"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46177,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46167\/revisions\/46177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}