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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Sept 29, 2020 23:22:28 GMT
So I was looking at the 1977 film Eraserhead again and I just dont have words for this film. I really dont get it. I have heard theory's on what the film is supposed to be and represent but I just think its weird for the sake of weird.
But the damn thing is I like it. Its a weird ass film that I have no clue what is going on some of the time but I have to admit for what the film is I find it enjoyable. Not great or anything but oddly good. I give it a 6/10.
What are your thoughts on this film?
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Post by Popeye Doyle on Sept 29, 2020 23:28:34 GMT
I just was checking to see if on Netflix and it is. Might check it out tonight.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Sept 29, 2020 23:36:13 GMT
Interesting trivia, to this day Lynch still won't reveal how he made the mutant baby.
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Post by dwightmachinehead on Sept 29, 2020 23:40:53 GMT
Lynch wrote it when his wife was pregnant with his child. It deals with the anxiety and nightmare of becoming a father.
I like it. I think it's a movie you have to feel.
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Reynard
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Post by Reynard on Sept 30, 2020 0:23:32 GMT
Interesting trivia, to this day Lynch still won't reveal how he made the mutant baby. I know Lynch had sex with a woman who gave birth to it But yeah, the baby is the single most memorable thing in the movie for me. Oddly sympathetic thing, I felt really bad when it fell sick and started crying. As for Eraserhead's themes, I don't think it's anywhere near as hard to understand as many of his later films, but maybe you need to have some interest in surrealism and share few of Lynch's interests to "get it". It's a great film, though I can understand why many also hate it. Something that especially fascinates me in Lynch's films is his use of sound. Most directors concentrate so much to visuals that the soundscapes remain kind of obvious and not very effective. With Lynch, you always end up listening his works just as much as watching them, which is very rare.
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Post by wmcclain on Sept 30, 2020 1:12:18 GMT
Eraserhead (1977), directed by David Lynch. I had serious qualms about seeing this again. I attended many midnight viewings back then and thought about it more than any other film in those days. But now: did I really want to put that stuff in my head again? Well, many years have passed and my response is less visceral. I also think this is a film that doesn't work very well in home theater, at least on modestly scaled displays. It needs to be (a) on film, to catch the dark grayscale textures, and (b) larger than the viewer, a size more intimidating than a TV set. A plot summary would be pointless, and Lynch is not that kind of director anyway. It's a series of surreal vignettes about Henry and his dread of everything: fatherhood, babies, sex, machines, the city, shabbiness, poverty, and apparently all other aspects of reality. It suggests those half-waking thoughts in the middle of a restless night when the filters of the mind are down and the dark stuff emerges. All set to a background of Lynchian howling wind and ominous industrial drone. I love the way the camera glides through the apartment like a spaceship discovering a new solar system, revealing the surface grittiness of fixtures as if they were giant planets. It discovers strange shadowy loathsomeness in the corners: an unpotted plant on his nightstand and what look like piles of seaweed on the dresser. Again: grayscale reproduction is vital here. If reality is disgusting, what else do we have? Have you noticed that his films always end with a glimpse of Heaven? Other thoughts: - It's a long 88 minutes.
- Let's not forget the grotesque humor.
- The title is a dumb joke.
- It was made over five years because of lack of funds.
- Special thanks to Sissy Spacek.
- I have a sudden urge to see Industrial Symphony No. 1 again.
- It would not stick with you, it would not be so effective if it were just a chaotic jumble of scenes. It has a dark design which is difficult to analyze and impossible to entirely forget.
Lynch displays a disturbed genius here. And I mean that literally. Genius. Disturbed. While watching every one of his films I have thought "Mental illness is sad and scary". From what I have seen of him he behaves more or less normally. He chain-smokes and swears like a sailor on the set. I've always thought him an intuitive director without much planning or need for storytelling. It varies. After Inland Empire I've given up on him, but I've said that before. In my thumbnails below I could not bear to record some of the more grotesque scenes, although they are perhaps the most memorable bits. Later: since I wrote the above a Criterion Blu-ray has appeared. 
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Post by thisguy4000 on Sept 30, 2020 1:16:36 GMT
Lynch wrote it when his wife was pregnant with his child. It deals with the anxiety and nightmare of becoming a father. I like it. I think it's a movie you have to feel. The theme of it dealing with the anxiety of being a parent seems like a pretty baseline interpretation of it, though. That still doesn’t explain other stuff, like the bleeding chicken, the worm thing, the Lady in the Radiator, or that whole sequence where Henry’s head falls off.
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Sept 30, 2020 2:34:34 GMT
Lynch wrote it when his wife was pregnant with his child. It deals with the anxiety and nightmare of becoming a father. I like it. I think it's a movie you have to feel. Yeah I have heard of that before that thats the true meaning of the film. I find it very believable.
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Post by Vits on Sept 30, 2020 8:56:26 GMT
6/10
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Post by dwightmachinehead on Sept 30, 2020 13:02:33 GMT
Lynch wrote it when his wife was pregnant with his child. It deals with the anxiety and nightmare of becoming a father. I like it. I think it's a movie you have to feel. The theme of it dealing with the anxiety of being a parent seems like a pretty baseline interpretation of it, though. That still doesn’t explain other stuff, like the bleeding chicken, the worm thing, the Lady in the Radiator, or that whole sequence where Henry’s head falls off. It's hard to say. It's a surreal movie. I took the bleeding chicken as part of his hellish experience of meeting the parents, I found it funny more than anything, especially when it looks like the mother is trying to communicate with it. Not sure about the lady in the radiator, if I remember she squishes sperm like creatures and sings that song about heaven. I think the worm scene was perhaps Lynch messing about with special effects, seeing as it was first movie. I think the Henry's head falling off scene is to represent his feelings about the whole situation.
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Post by novastar6 on Apr 30, 2021 4:45:55 GMT
Just saw this movie last night and gotta say, this is the weirdest acid trip I've ever seen and I watched Phantasm, so that's saying something.
Not knowing any of the trivia connected with this movie, as soon as I saw the lady in the radiator, first thing that came to mind was 'The Elephant Man'.
Today after reading all the trivia for the movie, it makes slightly more sense given Mel Brooks' own take on it, that it's the adolescent fear of responsibility, you can kind of see that. I mean that WOULD be like a teen's nightmare, 'oh we had sex once, she's already been pregnant, already had the baby, and now it's all dumped on me, etc'.
To correct some previous posts, David Lynch's daughter was already 3 years old when he first started this movie, and 8 when it was finished, he may have been inspired by her needing numerous corrective surgeries for her club feet she was born with.
Now, supposedly that baby was an embalmed calf fetus...to which I gotta say, HUH? But anyway, did anybody else think it looked like E.T.?
Oh and what was the deal with that dead/catatonic/whatever grandmother at the X's house?
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