ERASERHEAD (1974) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: David Lynch Starring: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near
I'm not the most intelligent person on the face of the earth, or anywhere near to it, I admit. Maybe that accounts for why when I don't understand a movie, I don't immeadiately jump to the conclusion that IT'S the one confused, or that it's just crap. Or maybe I'm just a nice guy or something.
But, anyway, David Lynch's first film, "Eraserhead," is a film combined of scenes that individually make almost no sense the first billion times. And even entire parts of it (the whole spiel about the baby) make almost no real sense, and may never. But as a whole, this film gives off mood, and perhaps even a message, which may be totally different for each person. While "Lost Highway" was ambiguous in that annoying way, "Eraserhead" is ambiguous in that magnificent way.
Don't ask me what this film is really about. There is no one sentence that could describe this film. As much as I can understand, it deals with a very depressed man named Henry Spencer (played by the recently deceased Jack Nance), who lives in what seems to be a post-apocalyptic future of sorts. During the tenure of the film, he's on vacation from his stupid job (which we never see him do), and finds out that a woman (Charlotte Stewart) he once (or several times) boinked has given birth to a...something. And it's his. This is only the first 30 minutes of the film.
Soon Henry is married to this girl, living in his crappy and claustrophobic apartment with this...thing, which is like a monster baby. Shaped like a tiny dinosaur or something, and wrapped in a tight cloth, it looks absolutely hideous, yet makes authentic baby sounds. After awhile, his new wife has left him with the baby, and we start to see Henry go gradually insane, although we start to suspect that from the first time we see him.
Henry Spencer is one of the most interesting of film characters. Kind of in between of sincere and bizarre, he almost willfully accepts taking care of the baby when its mother up and leaves it, for no other reason than it's making a lot of annoying noise (which it is). And he is equipped with hair that seems to stretch towards the sky, hinting that he is reaching for heaven, and also that he might be in some kind of personalized hell.
As I said, this film is highly ambiguous. That is an understatement. Of all the films I've ever seen, this film is one of the top five (if not the most) ambiguous films ever made. Of course, the other four are probably Lynch films too. This flick gives us numerous unsettling images, scenes, and characters, which we are to figure out on our own. Lynch is not up for spoon-feeding us what he thinks are his takes on everything. Watching this film is like negotiated viewing: he gives us only partial information, and we are to make our own assumptions or explanations for it. This makes "Eraserhead" one of the more interesting of films to watch.
So what is my take on it? Well, I've only viewed it once, but what I got out of it was that the film is about the inability to escape from reality, which can be hellish or heavenly - it's all how you view things. Henry says he is on "vacation," but this seems to be a metaphor for dreaming, explaining some of the more weird aspects of the film (i.e. the baby), as well as why his fantasies are in this flick (like his bizarrely erotic love scene with the sex-pot across the hall as they fool around in a tub that seems to suck them in). There is also a bit about a girl inside a radiator who sings about heaven, but is in a radiator, which seems to be hell. At the end, he has grasped the girl in the radiator, and has a big smile on his face, as he seems to be enjoying life. Or maybe I looked way too much into it.
Although I'm not a huge fan of Lynch (I didn't like "Blue Velvet," "Dune," and "The Lost Highway," and only saw a bit at the end of "The Elephant Man," which I liked), I will agree that he is one of the most intereseting directors. And I actually loved "Eraserhead." Granted, it's not one of my all-time favorite movies, like "The Graduate" or "Annie Hall," but it's a fantastically interesting film, which offers so much to look into, and decipher for yourself.
MY RATING (out of 4): ****
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