Language: English
Direction: David Lynch
Writers: David Lynch
Cast: Jack Nance, Judith Anna Roberts, Charlotte Stewart,
Genre: Horror, the psychedelic kind.
IMDB : Eraserhead (1977)
Eraserhead. A film dialled with idiosyncrasy unto kingdom come.
As Kirk Lazarus from Tropic Thunder would say, “You never go full retard!” Eraser head is beyond full retarded. Assigning it a level of crazy is simply inane. People call it horror. Some call it weird. I call it that one movie which creeps towards ya visually and due runtime has you knocked down on the floor. You don’t watch this film to pass time. This film is not ordinary and it isn’t meant for the ordinary. If you like convention in your cinemas, please take any other road, for this movie is not your cup of tea. Or, you are one of those select few, and you pride yourself on your variegated tastes, and are willing to try something snazzy and a bit kinky, knock yourselves off.
From the mind of artist David Lynch, cometh his debut film.Lynch, known for eldritch content, visually appealing cinematography, and motley crew of characters, didn’t start soft. Eraserhead despite being his first film on Hollywood forefront is still the most audacious piece of work he has directed. This is, keeping in mind The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mullholand Drive, and more that I control myself to not mention to not sound like a Wikipedia page.
Eraserhead tells the tale of a man with good hairdo (quite like Lynch himself) having to take care of his “deformed” child in conflicting industrial surroundings.
While the plot in a nutshell sounds like a case study headline out of a thesis paper from Suburban economy, Eraserhead can’t be farther from that boring reality. The film is as surrealist as it gets, and is quite smart in social commentary too. Shot in black and white, and from 1973, Eraserhead is perhaps one of few films to not get “old”.
Now, you as audiences might have some reservations about watching a black and white, oldie, insane flick. I implore you all to lose your reservations. Watch the film.
You have been watching enough commercial blockbusters that studios have you binging. Stop. Think for yourself once! Or my pedantic self shall show you the path.
PS: Don’t Watch With Family, Pet Dog, significant other if they are itsy boring peeps. Else, where’s that tub of popcorn?
Verdict: 7/7 stars.
Bloody Brilliant.
Trivia:
Stanley Kubrick made the cast of The Shining (1980) watch this film (among others) to get in the mood for filming a horror picture.
The film’s star, Jack Nance, never knew, nor cared exactly what Eraserhead meant. In an interview with the Twin Peaks (1990) fanzine Wrapped in Plastic, Nance said: “You guys get way too deep over this business. I don’t take it all that seriously. It’s only a movie.”
David Lynch refuses to say anything about Eraserhead (1977), because he wants to let viewers decide for themselves what they think it means.
The script was influenced by David Lynch‘s reading as a film student. Franz Kafka‘s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis and Nikolay Gogol‘s 1836 short story “The Nose” were strong influences on the screenplay.
David Lynch performed many duties on the film himself, e.g. directing, writing, producing, production design, special effects, etc.
David Lynch began his interest in Transcendental Meditation during the film’s production, adopting a vegetarian diet and giving up smoking and alcohol consumption.
