Director Report Card: David Lynch (1977)

There's no shortage of words that have been written about the enigmatic, baffling, bizarre, absurd, hilarious, and terrifying works of David Lynch. The mysterious nature of his films and television shows have generate endless debate, discussion, and analysis. This is further aided by Lynch himself, who often projects a genuinely eccentric all-American persona and refuses to confirm nor deny any question fans have. Lynch's work is highly personal to him, inspired by his dreams and meditations. Originating as a painter and a craftsman, Lynch's movies are truly works of art first and foremost, to be appreciated from a subjective and interpretive angle.

He's a true cult figure and it's way past due that I give my own thoughts and opinions on David Lynch's output. Yet Lynch is also a multi-media artist. While I would love to indulge myself and write about every song he's record, commercial he's shot, and painting he's painted, for the sake of my sanity I'll limited my search some. In addition to reviewing all of Lynch's feature films (and a few of his shorts), I'll also be looking at every single episode of “Twin Peaks.” Making this one of the most ambitious Report Cards I've done in a while. But it had to happen eventually and, considering “Peaks” passed its 30th anniversary last month, now seems like the ideal time.

1. Eraserhead

What is “Eraserhead?” It is not such an easily answered question. David Lynch's films are not so much concerned with narrative. Instead, they seek to evoke a certain feeling, an emotion washing over the viewer. Lynch's feature debut causes people to feel a great many things, ranging from amusement to repulsion to everything in-between. Lynch himself has described the film as “a dream of dark and troubling things.” Thus, “Eraserhead” can best be approached as an act of surreal horror. And if “Eraserhead” isn't a horror movie, what the hell is it? This is a question I will attempt to answer as I dissect what is, perhaps, one of the greatest American motion pictures ever made.

Attempts to describe “Eraserhead” may usually end in baffled confusion but the film, in fact, contains a very straightforward story. A young man named Henry Spencer, with frizzy Harold Lloyd hair, is living in a harsh industrial city. He is called to the home of a former girlfriend, Mary. There, her eccentric parents inform him that Mary has had a baby, the result of a recent dalliance with Henry. The child is deformed. Henry and Mary attempt to raise the sickly child together but she is soon driven off by its incessant crying. Left alone to care for his demanding offspring, Henry slips into a series of increasingly disturbing daydreams and nightmares.

“Eraserhead” is most usually interpreted as a film about the fears of parenthood. Every parent is fearful that something will be wrong with their baby. And there is something very wrong with Henry and Mary's baby. It's always sick, always crying, always demanding attention. Moreover, its shriveled form – invoking a premature baby, a stillborn fetus, a worm, a sperm – is utterly inhuman. Everything that can go wrong with a newborn child has gone wrong here. And so the hideously deformed baby becomes a symbol of every fear expectant parents can have. (Also symbolic of that: A mother dog swarming with puppies, a sight that frightens Henry.) All the unnerving imagery that unfolds over the course of “Eraserhead's” 88 minute run time is a manifestation of the anxiety incoming parents feel. Considering Lynch's own daughter was born with two club feet, it's widely assumed Lynch was drawing from his personal feelings here.

I watch “Eraserhead” and I see a film more broadly about a fear of intimacy. The film is awash with sexual imagery. Ovum like planets float in the cosmos. Sperm like creatures pulsate from mouths and from under bed sheets. They splatter against walls and floors. Vaginal like openings in cooked chickens gush blood. Penis-like appendages sprout from neck stumps. Mary grunts sexually while attempting to pull a suitcase from under a bed frame. Her mother launches into hysterical, seemingly orgasmic moans at the dinner table. It's not just sexual intimacy “Eraserhead” is afraid of. Henry's meeting with Mary's parents could not be more awkward. The two attempt to share a bed together but this is horribly uncomfortable for both of them. He couples with the Beautiful Woman Across the Hall but the proceeding and following interactions only make him quiver with uncertainty. No wonder the Baby is so horrifying. In “Eraserhead,” all human interaction, sex most of all, is strained and uncomfortable.

Yet the challenges of parenthood, which Henry is woefully unprepared for, do inform much of “Eraserhead.” We don't know how old Henry and Mary are but they seem pretty young. Henry is too afraid to tell his girlfriend's mom they've had sex. (It's heavily implied Henry and Mary were not long-term boyfriend and girlfriend but rather a spontaneous hook-up.) In conversation, he mumbles without saying much at all. However young Henry is, he's not too young to accept the advances of the woman across the hall. When doing so, he covers the screeching baby's mouth. Often, when his child cries, Jack stares into the radiator, fantasizing about escape. And so Henry Spencer is an overgrown boy, making adult choices but too immature to handle the consequences of those actions. Jack Nance perfectly captures that feeling.

Lynch's films often, usually operate in the realm of the absurd. “Eraserhead” utilizes the absurd to both horrify and amuse the viewer. There is definite humor in many scenes. Such as Mary's dad making extremely uncomfortable small talk – talking about his numb arm or worrying dinner is getting cold – with Henry, while the girl and her mother verge ever closer to an emotional breakdown. While the “artificial chickens” have always struck me as utterly nightmarish, I've heard other people amused by the scene. A scene similarly likely to cause laughter or gasps involves the Baby sprouting pulsating sores over its skin in the course of seconds. That's the world of “Eraserhead,” where bizarre things that might amuse or horrify happen all the time.

Still, I think “Eraserhead” generates more discomfort than chuckles. Much of this is owed to the movie's setting. “Eraserhead” was largely inspired by a time in David Lynch's life when he was living in an impoverished, crime ridden part of Philadelphia. From its second scene, “Eraserhead” invokes that feeling of urban discomfort and isolation. Henry walks through broad, flat, deserted streets that can't help but feel apocalyptic. A moment I suspect Lynch took directly from his own life has Henry looking out his apartment window, seeing two homeless men fighting. It always feels overcast, cold and desolate. That coldness extends to the cramped apartment where most of the movie takes place. There's no warmth or love in the city of “Eraserhead.”

Furthering this feeling of isolation and discomfort is the absolutely brilliant sound design. “Eraserhead” doesn't have a traditional score. Ragtime music is heard playing in a few scenes and, of course, the Lady in the Radiator sings. Most of the soundscape is blowing, sucking wind. The electric whine of a faulty light bulb. The baby's endless cries. Churning noise from just off-screen. This is what really makes “Eraserhead” feel so lonely and unnerving. There's no sounds of other people outside, of animals or human personality. Henry is alone in this freezing, rough world with his hellish offspring. The audience feels and understands the isolation of this setting. It's no surprise that Lynch worked the hardest on the film's sound design, as “Eraserhead” would be half as effective without it. (You can draw a direct line between the film's “soundtrack” and the ambient and industrial music that would arise in the next decade.)

The final aspect of the film that makes it so deliciously disturbing is the production design. The interiors of “Erasehead” can almost be recognized as from our own world. The lobby of Henry's apartment – a predecessor to the checkered floor of “Twin Peak's” Black Lodge – feels instinctively like something out of a classical film noir. The apartments, both Henry and Mary's, are decorated with random lumps of dirt, spindly plants growing out of them. Everything else is composed of rough-hewn industrial iron and flat, wide walls. It all feels intuitively uncanny, similar enough to reality yet not quite right. This, when combined with the sound design, successfully creates a world that feels like a waking nightmare.

If you accept that “Eraserhead” is a horror movie, it does have elements easily recognized as horrific. Mostly, the baby is such a very disturbing creation. Lynch has always refused to confirm how the puppet was created. Rumors persist that it was a somehow preserved flayed rabbit or animal fetus. Either way, it's a incredibly unsettling sight. The thing moves so fluidly, as if it's alive.  It's very.. fleshy, in a distinctly unpleasant way. That squishy quality only grows as the creature gets sicker, peaking with the utterly nightmarish conclusion. That same oozing, tumor-like quality is visible in the chubby cheeks of the Lady in the Radiator and the spermatozoons that she stomps on.

I don't personally believe that the images of David Lynch's films are meant to be interpreted in any one way. There are no secret meanings in his movies. His films are not puzzles. The images themselves are the messages, forming the fabrics of Lynch's dream logics. Still, one can't help but wonder what the more inscrutable elements of “Eraserhead” might mean. Who is the Man in the Planet, who pulls the levers and sends events into motions? Is he the loveless God of this world, pummeling more misfortune in Henry's path? What of the Lady in the Radiator, who dwells inside the only warm place in Henry's apartment? She calls it heaven and he joins her there at the end, suggesting our protagonist dies – escaping his horrible waking world – either by his own hands or by succumbing to the horrors of his life. What about the lengthy nightmare he has, which features the literalization of the title? Is Henry “loosing his head” in the dream representative of him loosing total control of his life? Like I said, I don't believe Lynch composes films that way. What I see in “Eraserhead's” images might not be what you will see.

The story of “Eraserhead's” production has long since passed into cult movie legend. How Lynch began production of the movie while studying at the AFI, how it was shot over the course of six years by a small but dedicated crew, is all well known by now. Still, any story is worth hearing again straight from David Lynch's mouth, spoken in that particular American accent. Included on the “Eraserhead” DVD is a 85 minute interview with Lynch called “Eraserhead Stories.” Lynch expounds greatly on the film's production, going into exact detail when discussing how the movie was made. We get peeks at deleted scenes, involving petrified dead cats and a pair of woman bound to a bed. We see behind-the-scenes photos and brief footage. Better yet are the digressions he tells about blind drivers, space pilots, Dutch apple pie, and Woody Woodpecker dolls. Even though the interview is mostly just Lynch's talking head, still images, and howling wind on the soundtrack, it's absolutely fascinating for a fan of the movie.

And there are many fans of “Eraserhead.” The film would find its audience as a midnight movie, which is fitting. People usually sleep, dream, have nightmares, at night. This is when the mind is most acceptable to “Eraserhead's” immense power. It remains one of the most original films ever made in this country, distinctly and uniquely American in its settings and themes. The only other things like it are Lynch's other work and other movies directly trying to be “Eraserhead.” The film maintains a power to unnerve and fascinate unlike anything else I've ever seen. The Cult of Lynch would take root here and there's no question why. “Eraserhead” remains as bold, as shocking, as beguiling a cinematic statement now as when it first unspooled in the late seventies. [Grade: A]