Eraser Head (1977) David LynchWatch it at: http://tinyurl.com/DLynchEraserhead [Date Link Last proved Active 3/2/09]
EraserHead is an American Surrealist-Horror movie. Directed by David Lynch (who also directed The Elephant Man, Darkened Room, Dumbland, and many more small-time hit films). EraserHead is something of a sepcialised cult film today, and definitely and aquired taste.
It was a ground breaking film of its time, encorporating both live-action and stop-motion animation.
I remeber wathing this film as a child and being completely enthrawled by the eerie music and fascinating mixture of stopmotion animation with impressive prosthetics and off-beat acting.
Perhaps the moct surreal element to the film is the straight acting and the total lack of acknowelgemen that the setting and feel of the movie is completely surreal and obsurd.
Lynch was born in 1964 in Missoula, Montana -precicely the kind of small-town characteristic of his films.
Lynch spent his childhood being relocated from small town to small town as his father's job as a research scientist forced him to move from place to place in search of knowlege. During this time he attended various art schools, and married to father future director Jennifer Chambers-Lynch, at just 21 years old.
Lynch's films continually represent his ideal that films that represent life should be complicated; and in some cases [and sequences -regarding his work in film], be inexplainable.
Only Lynch knows why he puts the scenes, shots, props, cuts, effects, filters, lights, colors, actors, costumes and music in the scenes in the manner typical to his work, but he'll never divulge his method.
For this reason, and due to the beautiful confusion characteristic of his films, he will always be recognized as [if not one of the greatest filmmakers], one of the most original.
One of his Art schools was situated in a particularly violently run-down area in Philidelphia and it is assumed that this fuelled his first big-hit EraserHead. He began procution in 1970 and for the next five years worked obsessively to finally complete and bring EraserHead to the big-screen in 1977.
Lynch's film was initially judged to be unreleasable, bizaare, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz The film secured its compulsive cult-following [allowing Lynch the funding to release his first mainstreem film starring Mel Brooks, The Elephant Man]
*WARNING THIS TEXT CONTAINS SPOILERS*
"In Heaven everything is fine..."
Eraserhead is characteristically set in a slum in the heart of a satyrically industrial town.
The scenary is rife with urban decay, disused machines, abandonned factories, and the film boasts a soundtrack composed almost exclusively of the noises of machinery.
Our protagnist, Henry Spencer is a printer from the outide world, who is on vacation from work.
The film opens to reveal Henry, has not heard from his girlfriend, Mary X [Typically all the characters in Mary X's family Host also the scientifically generic surname "X" -adding to the sterility of the setting, and giving the film the hint that perhaps the characters are test subjects], has come to believe that she has ended their relationship.
He has ventured to her neighbourhood to try and salvage their relationship, only to find there is nothing wrong, and their relationship is fine.
Our protagonist is invited to have dinner with Mary X and her parents at their house.
As the character enters the house, we are allowed a brief glimpse of Mary X's grandmother in the kitchen.
The shot then block-cuts to Mrs. X mixing a salad with the grandmother's hands. [This scene played so straight that the audience are instantly accepting of the circumstances, and it is a few seconds before we realize there is anything wrong with this scene -adding to the intense element surrealism].
At the dinner table, by way of fooling the audience: the conversation is obviously strained and awkward -as it is imaginable with a first meeting of 'the parents'. This is the first time we experiance any aparation of intentional catharsis in the film.
For dinner is 'artificial chicken', which promptly starts to twitch on Henry's plate (Stop motion animation) -this again, is played deadly seriously and nobody else appears phased.
When Henry attempts to politely oblige the situation and carve his dinner, it emits a large amount of blood through its rear.
The Characters stare in shock, the two women bursing into tears and leaving the room. - This is the first and last aknowlegement from the characters that something is wrong; and despite the tearful reaction, it is still obvious that this is now unexplained normality for these people, -they are just growing tired.
After the failed meal Henry learns that Mary X was not ignoring him, but had just given birth to his child [after an abnormally -yet, again, unaknowleged -short pregnancy]; and Henry is obliged to marry her.
Mary X and the baby move into Henry's one-room apartment.
This is the first time we see the baby: It is gender ambiguous, and is hideously deformed. It has a reptilian appearance: a large snout-nose with slit nostrils and thin neck; -characteristically of reptiles: the eyes are situated on the sides of its head, it has no external ears, and an almost snake-like limbless body covered in bandages.
The child continually emits a chilling whine throughout the night.
Mary X cannot cope with the child, and abandons Henry and the baby.
After Mary leaves, and Henry realizes must care for the baby by himself, ant the body of the film reveald Henry becoming involved in a series of strange events:
These include several bizarre encounters with [as every subsequent character is categorically, and descriptively named] "the Lady in the Radiator",
She is a woman with grotesquely distended cheeks who inexplicably lives inside Henry's his radiator.
(She sings Henry the iconic [to the film] song "In Heaven". The song, which is pre-empted with 2 min 39 seconds of droll background music and the character shuffling around a grim stage continually fooling the audience that she is about to sing, -instead continuing to stand silently).
Henry also experiences visions of "the ominous Man in the Planet" who lives inside the earth, tirelessly fixing his machines.
Then Henry embarks on a sexual liaison with his neighbor, "the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall."
The film's title comes from a dream sequence occurring near the end of the film.
In Henry’s dream his head detaches from his body and sinks into a growing pool of blood on a [characteristic of this movie] tiled floor.
In the next shot his head sinks through the tiles and falls from the sky, finally landing on an empty street; cracking open.
A nameless young boy finds Henry's broken head and, as if protocall for such situations, takes it to a pencil factory.
Inside the factory, Paul [the receptionist] summons his ill-tempered boss to the front desk by repeatedly pushing a buzzer, creating a jarring rhythm, and a grating monotonous melody.
The boss, clearly angered by the repetitious summons, screams at Paul; immediately regaining his composure when he sees what the little boy has brought.
The boss accompanied by the boy carry the head to a back of the factory, where "the Pencil Machine Operator" [Again a descriptive character title] takes a core sample of Henry's brain-tissues.
He contemplates the results for a while, and determines that it is, indeed, a serviceable material for making pencil erasers. The boy is handsomly paid for bringing in Henry's head, and "The Pencil Machine Operator" sweeps a pile eraser shavings off of the desk and sends them billowing into the air -accross the screen, blanking it out.
Upon awakening from his dream, Henry looks out his window and sees two men [framed in a long-shot] fighting in the street.
Disturbed, he then seeks out "the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall" only to discover she is not home.
Henry's baby begins to cackle mockingly from its crib, and enraged, Henry opens his door again to see "the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall" bringing another man back to her apartment.
She glances at Henry, standing crushed in his doorway; and momentarily we see what she sees: Henry's head transforms into that of his baby. "The beautiful girl Accross the call appears frightened by her vision, and promptly exits.
Henry stumbles back into his apartment, and seases a pair of scissors.
He leans over the crib, and cuts open the baby's bandages.
-The bandages turn out to be its flesh [or simply what is holding all of its organs together].
By cutting the bandages, Henry splits open the baby's body and exposes its throbbing organs.
As the baby screams a piercing cry of pain, Henry violently stabs its lung with the scissors.
Bizarrely, this causes the apartment’s electricity to overload, -the lights flash on and off furiously, and Henry remails still.
An apparition of the baby's head, grown to an enormous size, materializes in the apartment.
Henry's planet explodes, and through a gaping hole that appears in it we see "the Man in the Planet" struggling to asuage his machines.
In the final shot Henry is seen with eraser shavings billowing like snow around his head.
The last scene featuring Henry being embraced and calmed by "the Lady in the Radiator".
The characters are bathed in a calming white light, and a juxtaposing white noise builds to a crescendo emphasizing the cathartic value of this moment. At culmination point the sound stops as the screen goes black... The credits begin to roll.
EraserHead is a wonderfully confusing film, a piece of cinema with no answers and a category of questions posed that only the secretive Lynch knows the answers to.
It is so surreal, with its straight acting and total lack of acnowlegment of its failure to comply with normality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Date: UNKNOWN
Author: VARIOUS
Date Link was last Proved Active: 04/02/09
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraserhead
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