ERASERHEAD

David Lynch´s first full-length movie took ages to shoot - 5 years. Slowly gaining a small group of devoted followers, Eraserhead entered "regular" cinemas after the release of Fire Walk With Me, including a "refreshed" soundtrack i.e. after being digitally remastered.

Many symbols appearing here will occur later on in many of Lynch`s works:

the idea of parallel worlds,

highly contrasted female figures (black and blonde),

the use of certain patterns (the carpet),

the threat of anything related to birth or intercourse, losing your head (Henry and the torn photography of Mary X),

photographs as fetishes and false representations of real human beings (the 2 images of Renee / Alice, Laura Palmer, Jeffrey`s misleading pics of the 'well-dressed man' in Blue Velvet, the 'this would look nice on your wall'-picture of Mrs Chalfont is a 'three-dimensional' picture

the connection between food/drinking and sexuality (the 'ecstatic' chicken), 'Here`s to your fuck' (Frank Booth), 'Cone - I like to lick' (Audrey Horne), the vampiresque / sexually agressive Baron Harkonnen, "Agent Cooper loooves coffee"- "Audrey!", the 'freshly squeezed" grapefruits when Agent Cooper eyes Audrey, 'How would you like to take me to dinner?' (Lost Highway)

most of Lynch`s protagonists are like Henry 'on vacation': The Elephant Man starts with John Merrick losing his 'profession' as an exhibited freak, Jeffrey leaves college, Alvin Straight doesn`t work anymore, Sailor Ripley is a man-slaughterer breaking parole

the 'dreamy quality', his works rather rely on visual and aural aspects than dialogue and explanations, (so one might replace 'dreamy' by 'filmic' in comparison with most mainstream movies)

the protagonists don`t 'act' but rather react to absurd, dangerous situations into which they are thrown in



the use of 'onscreen'-music (Lady in the Radiator, Julee Cruise, Fred Madison, Love Me Tender, In Dreams, ...)

The script is only about 22 pages, spoken words are like aliens in this movie, therefore there are only subtitled versions abroad.

davidlynch.de/head