In 1977 David Lynch released Eraserhead, a film which he had been tediously working on for some time. The film, shot entirely in black and white, follows Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) who is a printer on vacation for the duration of the film. He lives in a run down, highly industrial part of what is implied to be a larger city. He visits his estranged girlfriend, Mary X for dinner. The dinner consists of a miniature roasted chicken which kicks its thighs and oozes at the touch of a fork. The conversation is awkward (Dialogue is very, very scarce and few and far in between) and ends with Mary's mother telling Henry (after many aburt and emotional outbursts) that Mary has just had a child after an abnormally short pregnancy and he must now Marry Mary. The baby is sick, fits in the palm of Henry's hand and resembles a prehistoric creature. They live in Henry's small, shoty apartment and soon after Mary leaves him. Henry has to tend to the baby by himself and is soon seeing visions of a man in a planet pulling levers and a woman with chipmunk cheeks creepily singing "In Heaven everything is fine/ You've got good things and I've got mine/ In Heaven everything is fine." In a dream, Henry's head pops off and is found by a boy who take it to a pencil factory to which Henry's brains are turned into an eraser. The film ends with Henry taking off the baby's bandage, and accidentally exposing its vital organs. As it screams in pain, Henry stabs it with the scissors which causes the apartments electricity to overload. The baby's head soon turns into a planet which soon explodes. We last see the man with the levers struggling to control everything and Henry, with eraser shavings billowing from his head, walking into a bright light and white noise builds and builds up to a crescendo then stops. The screen goes black and the credits silently roll.
After viewing this film, I felt violated. My first exact words when I looked at my dad were "What the hell did I just watch?" I had never felt so uncomfortable watching a movie before until Eraserhead. The main reason involves the question "What is this about?" Is it about God and vengeance? Is it about the cruelty of man? Is it a giant anti-industry ad? Or is it simply about how a mundane life can drive a sane man insane? It's so difficult to watch because you feel as though you're trapped and can't get out. Everything is so bizarre and twisted, you feel unsafe. A lot of people can make a movie about nothing and it would be a horrible mess, but David Lynch somehow crafted a masterpiece of intense strangeness. It defines his career for every film he makes is some what off the norm. He himself is a bit off the norm and is a true dark poet's artist making everything pretentiously long and tedious yet it works. Eraserhead screws with your mind in ways you never thought possible and for this, it is truly a cult cinema classic.
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I'm glad that you can open my eyes to all these different movies that you have seen. This movie sounds really weird and I now I would like to see what your talking about, but I doubt that will ever happen. Plus where would I find such a movie? And how did you ever come across such a movie?
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