There are movies that are difficult to explain, and then there is Eraserhead. I’ve watched some strange movies over the years, but David Lynch was playing in a different league here. I could tell you exactly what happens in this movie, and I’m not sure it would help you understand it. It would probably confuse you more. I’m not completely sure Lynch wanted us to understand it.
Eraserhead was David Lynch’s first feature film. He worked on it for years during the 1970s, largely at the American Film Institute, with a very small crew. It was completed in 1976 and appeared at Filmex in 1977 before eventually finding its audience as a midnight movie. That seems appropriate. I’m not sure Eraserhead was ever meant for a Saturday afternoon showing between Smokey and the Bandit and Star Wars.
Jack Nance plays Henry Spencer, a quiet and nervous man living in a bleak industrial world that looks like it hasn’t seen sunlight in years. Henry learns that his girlfriend Mary, played by Charlotte Stewart, has given birth to a baby. Calling it a baby is probably the easiest description, although anyone who has seen the movie knows that doesn’t quite cover it.
From there, I’m going to be careful. There is a story in Eraserhead, but the story isn’t really the experience. Henry tries to deal with Mary, the baby, his strange surroundings, and what may or may not be happening inside his own head. There is also a woman who lives inside a radiator.
Yes. I just typed that.
The movie is in black and white, and that is a huge part of why it works. Lynch makes Henry’s world look dirty, lonely, and almost mechanical. Pipes hiss. Machinery rumbles. You hear industrial sounds in the background even when very little is happening. The sound may be as important as anything we see. Lynch worked closely with Alan Splet on it, and the result makes you uncomfortable before you even know why. Criterion credits Splet and Lynch with the film’s sound work and Frederick Elmes and Herbert Cardwell with its striking black-and-white photography.
Then there is the Lady in the Radiator, played by Laurel Near. She performs “In Heaven,” written by Peter Ivers. In practically any other movie, a woman singing inside a radiator would be the strangest thing in the movie.
Not here.
I’m not going to tell you what Eraserhead means because I don’t know that there is one answer. You can see fear of parenthood in it. You can see isolation, sex, responsibility, anxiety, and someone trapped in a life he doesn’t understand. You can also watch it and say, “Max, what in the hell did you just tell me to watch?”
Both reactions seem perfectly reasonable.
What amazes me is how much of David Lynch is already here. This was his first feature, but the strange humor, dreams, uncomfortable silences, disturbing images and ordinary people surrounded by things that don’t make sense are already present. You can draw a line from Eraserhead to things Lynch would do later. Criterion describes it as his 1977 debut feature and notes that Lynch himself wrote, produced, directed and edited it.
This isn’t a movie I would recommend to everyone. If you need a conventional plot with everything explained before the credits roll…run. Run fast, don’t walk. But I do admire it. Lynch created his own world with very little money, spent years getting it finished, and made something that nearly fifty years later still doesn’t look or feel quite like anything else.
Discover more from PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I didn’t see this until several years after its release. It’s a curious and odd thing to be sure. But it was as I recall, worth the watch. Not that I would watch it again mind you. That said I don’t have much taste for Lynch’s work.
It’s out there…I enjoy it but in a different sense of the word…
I have an old friend who loves movies. We’d walk out of a movie and he’d say “That’s in my top ten”. I knew him long enough that his “top ten” seemed to hold more than ten films. He admitted this. But “Eraserhead” is the only movie I knew him to hate so much he walked out of it. That’s why I still haven’t seen it.
You mention that “Eraserhead” premiered at Filmex and was produced at the American Film Institute. A bit of trivia – at the first Filmex (in 1971), “The Last Picture Show” (directed by Peter Bogdanovich and featuring the breakthrough performances of Cybill Shepard and Jeff Bridges) premiered. I was there and recently donated my copy of the program to the archives at the Wisconsin Institute for Film and Theatre Research. I was a (short-lived) college student and the college campus became home to the American Film Institute when the college went bankrupt.
This one is quite different of course as your friend will attest to…
I’ll finished the reply…my fingers slipped… I do like this movie but in a different way… you have to have that frame of mind goin in.
I love the Last Picture Show…that is in my top 20 at least…just a great movie.
Ben Johnson is who I like best in that movie…he was so good.
I’m glad they put that college to that use.
Chic hair style. Looks like Elvis after sticking his hand into a power outlet! 🤣
lol…yea it’s entertaining to say the least…in a weird sort of way.
Never seen it, but I recognize the character. Never knew what it was about…and I guess I still don’t, LOL
You wouldn’t anyway…but who knows…you might. I like it because it’s a different experience.
“In heaven, everything is fine” That’s what we can ear in this film. But in this head, everything is scary, depressing, and completely weird. You’re right, all Lynch already was in his first release, a window opened in a tortured mind. He opened with dark vision of the world and left us with a promise of bright future. Hope it was a prophecy.
Such a great review. I made one too on that movie.
I’m sure you found more than I did…but it leaves itself open for differrent things. I love the film and the way it challenges people to think as well. I will read yours!
🙏 no need to search :
https://letourdecran.wordpress.com/2021/10/31/eraserhead/
😉
Max, great to reconnect with you. (Sorry it’s on such a bizarro flick like this, haha!) The more I see this Lynchian masterpiece, the more it reminds me of my own postpartum anxiety and depression as a new dad. There’s so much “what the hell do I do with this crying baby?” and when even the outside doesn’t provide relief in the industrial “banging” noises, you’re left with being stuck in the claustrophobia with that squidmonkey/alien baby to just sweat it out. It’s truly horrifying. In fact, I think this movie scares me more today than when I first saw it as a cocky, young bachelor. That dinner scene still cracks me up when the dad just kind of freezes at the table, hahahaha! Hope all is well, good friend!
So glad to talk to you dude! I haven’t been to your site either…of course only blogging on the weekends does that and I started that ship blog that I’m at on Fridays….I will be by soon though Bernie. I hope everything is going well…and yes…I get what you are saying about all of it…it’s a far out movie…but worth it.
My wife’s nephew was a fan of this movie, and I watched it with him, but I told him that I watched a much weirder movie called El Topo and then I played that for him.
I have seen that movie! Around 3 years ago…it is out there!
Nothing like a Romcom.
LOL…best response of the DAY!
Ive actually caught Nance in a few other flicks. He was part of Hopper’s gang in Blue Velvet.
Thats another movie that hit me as well…I like different and the ones that challenge you…and they certainly do.
‘Lets go for a joyride!’ Stockwell singing the Orbison song and Hopper getting all messed up by it.
Lynch always delievered something interesting…maybe not for the masses…but for the ones that want a challenge.
Yes he makes interesting films. ‘Straight Story’ is a different swing for him. He plays it straight. Good little film.
Oh…I’ll check that out…
Max, you got guts. Eraserhead is one of a few movies that people would allude to and that was about it. You have captured a reaction to it. My hat is off to you.
By the way, Peter Ivers made two fascinating, if weird, albums for WB under the name Peter Peter Ivers Band. Just like Eraserhead, I acknowledge their existence, know that I was fascinated by them for a long time, but stop short of recommending them.
I like when directors shoot for something different…and this…is that. A traditional movie this is not.
Now…I’ll have to check him out lol.
I don’t need neat and tidy movies, but I have never seen this, and honestly am afraid to watch it, just based on the descriptions of the baby I’ve read. I don’t have the capacity to handle horror or gory scenes anymore. If it’s something that gets in my head and I can’t get it out, I stay away. It sounds like a monumental piece of work, but for now, at least, I’ll admire it from afar.
Yea I understand…it’s not that bad but that is subjective…this is coming from a guy that loves A Clockwork Orange.
Once was too much for me. It was surreal and triggering but I left it in the dust before trying to figure out why.
Lol…thats alright! I’ll be by tonight Lisa…I’ve had a busy weekend…we were given a solid wood bar today by a older German lady who wanted space…really nice and a Margarita machine…. yea I have no idea.
Sounds like a party to me!
YES! I’ve always wanted a bar…just to have one.
Hi,
I’m Luca, editor of Critick, an arts and culture magazine of essays and reviews on Substack. I’ve been reading your stuff, and really enjoyed your work.
We’re open to submissions and I’d love to have you contribute. That could be a guest essay, a review, or something you’ve already been working on. Pitches are welcome too, and there’s no rigid format or length.
You can find the submit details in the Critick bio (critickmag.com / critick.substack.com). If you have an idea, feel free to just reply here and we can talk it through.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you.
Luca
I’m flattered…thank you! I will check it out and get back with you!
Thank you.
A bit too way out for me, and I tend to appreciate the weird and freaky far-out stuff. But when you play around the flaky edge of Cinema you’re not going to please everybody sitting in there in a darkened theatre. However, if it’s on at the Drive-In and your girlfriend thinks it’s an icky flick you can always adjust your seat and make the best of it. (Nash/Rambler Ambassadors were the perfect Drive-in car, apparently.😉)