David Lynch is a respected filmmaker with a distinct cult following because of the way he styles his films. David Lynch’s first feature length film Eraserhead, is a testament to the spirit of independent film making. He went through numerous trials and tribulations to get the film completed over a span of five years including going on a paper route to secure funds towards the end of the film. Lynch has followed Eraserhead up with numerous films that have been independently and commercially produced.
Eraserhead is a very dark film which explores Henry Spencer’s fears and concerns about the responsibility of caring for an unexpected child. His girlfriend, Mary, whom he thought he was no longer seeing, invites him to dinner. When they are about to eat a bizarre miniature chicken dinner, Mary’s mother tells him about he has fathered a premature child and corners him into marrying Mary because of it. Henry accepts the marriage proposal and his life turns into a tailspin of hatred and regret for his new life. Henry drifts in and out of fantasies about his life and how he can escape the darkness. Some of the scenes in the film, especially the beginnings to the dream sequences are lit extremely dark to the point where you can not see anything on the screen. However Lynch reciprocates by using extremely sharp sound effects to compensate for the darkness. Every movement in the picture has a coinciding sound effect to go with it which helps tell the story.
Henry Spencer lives in what can be described as a wasteland, a place without any vibrancy or soul. When Henry walks to Mary’s house you see that everything is plain and industrialized. Lynch tries to show the lifelessness of Henry’s situation by showing dead plants in front of Mary’s house as he walks inside. Everyone in the Mary X’s household is suffering from the pains of life. The father has emotional outbursts and lack of feeling in his hand, the mother has an epileptic fits which according to the father seem to be normal and the grandmother is in a constant state of sedation. Lynch is trying to paint the picture that everyone in the film is living through their own personal hell.
Lynch portrays the baby not as a joy brought into the world but as an evil burden. The baby cries frequently and is extremely grotesque in appearance, almost reptilian. The baby starts to laugh and mock Henry when he is alone with it after Mary leaves him. In the end Henry retaliates when he kills the child by taking off his bandages, freeing himself from the baby. The baby was a product of the environment he was a part of. He was born into an unwanted marriage in a terrible hell and he turned to be demonic in nature.
A major scene in the movie is when Henry’s head falls off. Instead of the child investigating to find the body, he instead takes the head to a pencil factory where he paid for the head to be used for erasers. I believe that this trying to portray the obsession with money certain people have in the hellish world they live in, going as far to use somebody’s head as profit. This goes with the theme of total disregard of human life in the film. Other examples are when Mary leaves the baby, when Henry kills the baby and the mother’s existential reaction towards the grandmother.
It is very difficult for a film with the nature of Eraserhead to be commercially produced. A film like this one would scare away many companies because there is a strong chance that it will not perform well at the box office, like Eraserhead did. Cinema is a business and a good amount of time producers would rather produce a film that is less artistic but has the greater potential to make money rather than take a flier on an art film like Eraserhead.
In 1986 David Lynch came out with the movie Blue Velvet, in which he tells the story of a college student named Jeffrey who turns into a detective after he finds an ear in a field. This leads Jeffery into the house of Dorothy Vallens, whose husband and son have been kidnapped by a psychopathic killer and rapist named Frank who is brilliantly played by Dennis Hopper. One of the greatest assets to Lynch was being able to use Dennis Hopper’s facial and verbal expressions to convey the message of anger and pain in the film. At every point in the film Hopper has a different facial expression to express his mood his mood of despair. Frank’s constant use of the f-word shows that he is somewhat insecure of who is in life. At times in the movie he is sadistic killer and at other times in the movie he is crying for his mother and putting on lipstick. This shows that Frank is unaware who he truly is, yet he only recognizes his evil.
Lynch lit this film to show what the inner feelings of the characters portrayed. Lynch has it that Frank is always on the darker side of the shot, symbolically to the inner state of his soul. The only part when Frank is well lit is when he is threatening at Jeffrey with his lipstick on. I believe Lynch does this to exaggerate the uneven mental state of Frank because his face is extremely pronounced in comparison to everyone else’s in the shot. On the other hand, when Jeffrey or Sandy is in the shot, they are much lighter drawing the fine line between good and evil.
The editing in the movie done very well by everyone involved. I like the way the editors juxtaposed various images throughout the movie. A juxtaposition that really struck was the blind man who worked at the hardware store. It was ironic because even though he lives in a world of darkness he is all knowing. For instance, even though he was blind he knew how many fingers Jeffrey held up and he knew the exact price of the hatchet. Another juxtaposition is how impulsively and neurotically Dorothy reacts to her situations. Her husband is kidnapped, yet she finds it alright to have an affair with young Jeffrey because of her fear and loneliness. In addition she enjoys physical pain and she constantly asks Jeffrey to hit her. In the scene where Frank rapes her, she smiles when Frank smacks her across the face. I believe that she is doing this because of her guilt that she is living her life while her husband and child are being kidnapped and tortured.
A film like this one is extremely hard for a major studio to pick up because of the graphic nature of the film. The character of Frank is violent psychopath who may scare off major studios because of his extreme language and actions. Studios may fear that people may not come out to see the movie because of it. Also the film deals with problems such as rape and emotional withdrawal which are not major ticket sellers.
PART 2
Nathan Lee of the Village Voice reviewed the film Eraserhead and gave it an extremely positive review. Lee states, “The discovery that to see the film means nothing—one must also hear it.” I have to disagree with his comment for various reasons. First off, I do believe that the sound in Eraserhead is tremendous and totally enhances the movie. The drowning sound effects almost tell the story and give an aura of the film’s subject matter. The music has a negative tone to it and increases in severity as something bad happens. For instance when Mr. X introduces himself to Henry, the tone to music is uneasy like a storming brewing and as he talks and goes into the plumbing business you can actually hear a storm raging as he speaks.
However I believe that the imagery portrayed in this film is far too important to just disregard. If you watch the film without seeing it, you can assume that the baby is normal, the only problem that it cries excessively. Another seen where visual is important is when the girl with the large cancerous cheeks is singing “In Heaven.” She sings this song so beautifully providing the juxtaposition between her beautiful voice and horrid face.
Nathan Lee also praised the texture of the film, “What a masterpiece of texture, a feat of artisanal attention, an ingenious assemblage of damp, dust, rock, wood, hair, flesh, metal, ooze.” I agree with the above quotation because in my opinion David Lynch created art when he made this film. He assembled all of the right ingredients such as the acting, the sound, the imagery, the scenery and cinematography and turned it into his interpretation of an everyday hell. Each ingredient worked hand in hand in creating this. He described the part of society in which the well to do, may not even know about.
The Variety Staff also gave a short negative review of the film, “Eraserhead is a sickening bad-taste exercise made by David Lynch under the auspices of the American Film Institute.” I agree with the statement that at times the film can be sickening at times especially with when you see the sickly baby slowly dying yet torturing his parents. However I believe that a film like this is necessary to because it shows that the world is not a beautiful place to live, it shows that world is full of pain and suffering. With a limited budget partially provided by American Film Institute Lynch was able to accomplish making this brave new world.
Another negative excerpt from the review is, “…but little substance or subtlety. The mind boggles to learn that Lynch labored on this pic for five years.” I disagree that the film does not have any substance or subtlety. I believe that this film is filled with all sorts of meaning. It has plot, interesting dynamic characters and a theme of desperation. The beauty of this movie is that is open to numerous interpretations. Different people who view this movie will come out with different theories and learn different lessons from it. I also mind it mind boggling that a magazine such as Variety would give such a low blow to an aspiring director. If somebody makes a film and thinks it good, he is willing to nurse it and work on it until it is completed. What was he supposed to do? Just get up and quit after four years because Variety Magazine finds it mind boggling that he worked on the film for a long time. This shows the importance gaining thick skin in Hollywood.
Janet Maslin of the New York Times gave Blue Velvet an extremely positive review. She states, “Mr. Hopper and Miss Rossellini are so far outside the bounds of ordinary acting here that their performances are best understood in terms of sheer lack of inhibition; both give themselves entirely over to the material, which seems to be exactly what’s called for.” I agree totally with the above statement, both Hopper and Rossellini give up everything to become their characters. Rossellini does a tremendous job and humiliates herself when she is standing naked outside Jeffrey’s house. She constantly gives up her body to be abused by Hopper. In this film I believe Hopper turns into Frank because of the method acting he employs. You see Hopper internalize every movement thus bringing out the true monster.
Maslin also states, “The cinematography, by Frederick Elmes, has a constant edge, in both its exaggeratedly sunny stages and its murky ones.” I agree with Maslin that the lighting gives the film a constant flair that draws the viewer to differentiate between good and evil. I also agree that the lighting is very exaggerated almost to a fault though. The scene where Jeffery and Sandy first meet the screen fades to black with just dialogue showing the unknown. In the many of the scenes where Jeffrey and Sandy are talking it seems like the light is only concentrated on them and not anybody else.
Roger Ebert like with many of Lynch’s films, gave Blue Velvet a negative review. Ebert states, “Occasionally, perhaps sex and violence should be treated with the seriousness they deserve. Given the power of the darker scenes in this movie, we’re all the more frustrated that the director is unwilling to follow through to the consequences of his insights.” I disagree with Ebert on this statement because I believe that Lynch provides the consequences of Frank’s rape of Dorothy. She becomes attached to Jeffrey and emotionally unstable leading her to wait outside of Jeffrey’s house naked. This shows that Frank’s constant visits are paying negative effects on Dorothy’s physical as well as emotional well being. Dorothy begging for pain is another negative consequence what Frank has done to her.
Ebert also states, “Rossellini goes the whole distance, but Lynch distances himself from her ordeal with his clever asides and witty little in-jokes. In a way, his behavior is more sadistic than the Hopper character.” I totally disagree again with Ebert because I believe that Dorothy’s storyline is adequate and that her scene where is publicly humiliated does not go to waste. Her ordeal is a major part of the story and is delved into. You also have to remember that there are other storylines going on that intertwine with hers. And for Ebert to go as far as saying that Lynch is more sadistic than Frank for not adequately using Rossellini is totally inappropriate. It would be appropriate if Dorothy had one line in the movie and no storyline and she was thrown out naked, but she did have story and depth and I’m surprised that Ebert did not see it. I also believe that wittiness and cleverness of the film plays well because it adds some humor to a film that does not have much of it. I find the scene when Jeffrey was urinating because of the Heineken very funny yet it is extremely important to the plot development.
David Lynch has come a long way since he made Eraserhead but he always stayed constant in providing characters that are both dynamic and interesting. Lynch has the rare ability to make the viewer feel for his characters and root for them as they go on with their ordeals.
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