Few directors have captivated audiences and inspired more discussion thanDavid Lynch. FromTwin PeakstoMulholland DrivetoWild at HeartandBlue Velvet, Lynch’s body of work is as thought-provoking as it is diverse. Perhaps no other film has raised more questions and intrigue than the director’s full-length debut,Eraserhead. Released in 1977 and still considered by many to be one of the most fascinating films ever made, a common saying aboutEraserheadis that six different people will give six different interpretations. All these years later, scholars and critics are still dissecting the imagery and the abrasive tone thatEraserheadpossesses.
In 1977, the same year that audiences flocked to seeStar WarsandClose Encounters of the Third Kind, Lynch turned the world upside down in a film that captured both the desperation of a cold industrial wasteland and the director’s own fear of fatherhood. WithEraserhead, Lynch crafted the antithesis of the Hollywood narrative, shredding the final vestiges of the idealistic American dream as it was once depicted by artists such as Norman Rockwell and directors such as Douglas Sirk. While some might describeEraserheadas a perversion of ideas once looked at through rose-tinted glasses, others might see it as a far more objectivelook at life in America, particularly with its themes of commodification and production.
Stranger in a Strange Land
The focal point ofEraserheadis Henry (Jack Nance). The farthest thing imaginable from the charismatic leading man that Hollywood tends to use, Henry exists in an unforgiving, isolating, and bleak world. An employee of a printing shop, Henry is a cog in the machine, as it were, a character whose existence is one of production in a mechanized world. One of the film’s earliest sequences sees Henry navigating the city in which he lives, a barren urban wasteland where liveliness and color are completely void.The setting of this semi-dystopia allows Lynch to set up a backdrop of mass production that will be prevalent throughout the entire duration ofEraserhead.
Besides the harsh landscapes that depict the cruel urban wasteland,the harsh noise of industry mimicked by the film’s abrasive soundtrack furthers the illusion of a life where one is born to produce and consume in a never-ending cycle. What Lynch depicts inhis industrial dystopiais the polar opposite of the white picket fence and well-manicured front yards of the suburban nuclear family. If anything, the landscapes that possess no life and Henry’s apartment, a confined space in a high rise, are far more reminiscent of the living conditions of the Industrial Revolution and the plight of the poverty-stricken inner-city.
There exists a dichotomy in how one can interpret the world in which Henry exists. The optimist might deduce that this is simply a perversion of life, a world that solely exists to allow Lynch to paint a harsh and forbidding landscape. An optimist might also note thatEraserhead, as with any film, is a manufactured reality that exists completely separate from our own.
The pessimist and the realist might see things differently. A realist, particularly one who comes from a middle-class background, might findthe lifeless wastelands depicted by Lynch as an accurate portrayal of life, one in which someone’s life is entirely focused on navigating hardships and discomfort while being afastidious part of a consumerist cycle, work, home, and not having much hope of having larger goals to aspire to.
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A Perversion of the American Dream
Henry being a cog in a machine and the overarching theme of an industrial wasteland of ceaseless production ties into one of the dominant themes ofEraserhead: the fear of fatherhood.The cycle of production that comes from industry is closely tied to the cycle of poverty and the process of human reproduction.Many melodramas that were produced beforeEraserheadmirrorred the so-called “American dream,” the aspect of wedded bliss, beginning a family, and everything that comes with it is sometimes glamorized to a fault.Eraserheadtakes this concept, warps, and mutates it into an unpleasant experience, transforming the typical American dream into a living nightmare.
Take, for example, Norman Rockwell’s painting,Turkey Feast. The image of a family sitting down to enjoy a meal, celebrating togetherness and unity, smiles on their faces as everyone is gathered together in a moment of domestic bliss.Eraserheadtakes this concept and provides a complete inversion. Henry, meeting the parents of Mary X (Charlotte Stewart), with whom he’s had a child, is a nightmarish situation and one that finds a way to mimic Rockwell’s idyllic and stylized utopia and mirror the industrial consumerist wasteland thatEraserheadtakes place in.
The family sits down for a meal with manufactured chickens that move and emit foul chemicals. The family themselves, consisting of an injured father, prevented from work, and an overbearing mother, are far closer to a domestic situation brought on by the never-ending cycle of poverty.Henry and Mary begin their new roles as parents in this situation of domestic dread.
The child that Henry and Mary welcome to the world isn’t accompanied by the blissful tranquility that one might expect, but is rather grotesque, decrepit, and can be attributed to another inversion of the so-called American dream that Lynch deconstructs inEraserhead.The “child,” taking the form of a worm wrapped up in bandages, has often been compared to “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka. Kafka’s story, in which an ordinary man inexplicably transforms into a giant bug, is one of a tranquil domestic situation becoming perverted and the main character becoming a burden and drain on his family.
There is a considerable amount of validity to this observation, asthe “child” of Henry and Mary becomes a source of division, drives them farther and farther apart from one another, and forces Henry to seek comfort in escapism. Here,Lynch’s depicts a vision of futility and fantasy. Henry imagines a woman in his radiator and obsesses over his promiscuous neighbor who lives across the hall from him. As grandiose and otherworldly as these sequences appear, they provide a sad truth about the futility of existence; fantasy and escapism provide our only means of solace in a world that is all too confining and traps us within its grip.
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A Surrealist Depiction of American Life
One can take away many things fromEraserhead, whether it’s a first-time viewing or a recurring visit. Lynch’s seminal work, which can be described as everything from a surrealist vision of industrial dystopia to an exhibit of the fears of fatherhood and the monotony of human experience, is almostcomparable to Federico Fellini’s8 1/2. That is to say;it’s an autobiographical statement of an artist’s tortured existence, a world in which the real and fantastic become seamlessly intertwined in a vehicle that deconstructs societal expectations and the typical Hollywood narrative.
In the several decades that have passed since the release ofEraserhead, Lynch has continued to challenge everything pertaining to filmmaking. Not content with delivering easily digestible material that leaves little to the imagination, Lynch has systematically forced us to ponder the content he presents us with.Eraserheadcertainly raises more questions than it answers, but the importance of film as an art form serves as a means to challenge perception. Whatever one walks away with after the ending credits roll onEraserhead, there’s no denying that it’s made a decisive impact on you.Stream on Max.
