Movie Review: Eraserhead
Reason for Watching: Has been one of my favorite films since I saw it back in the mid-90s. Rented this so that Tara (a Lynch fan) could finally see it. Wanted to see if it would hold up after ten years of personal growth.
Capsule Reaction: This is movie heaven and everything is fine.
The baby scares me. This malformed mockery of human reproduction taps some primal ganglia in my cerebellum. It terrifies me on a very deep and personal level to watch the thing as it wails, spits the food it's been fed, gets sick, and lies there, wriggling. Without hyperbole, I will admit that the intensity of my abhorrence is such that I struggle to even continue watching this film, though it's a personal favorite. It is one of the best special effects ever put on film, utterly convincing from its appearance to its departure.
Put in such a state of fear and anxiety by this nightmarish creation, I, staunch atheist that I am, am relieved to hear the pleasing voice of the Lady in the Radiator assure me that, "in heaven everything is fine." What's more: I actually believe her. There are no atheists in a fox hole and no atheists staring at a sputtering, hideous demi-child.
Eraserhead scared me so much when I saw it in high school, I had trouble sleeping that night. It was the last movie to affect me in this way, the last to inspire fear of the dark. From this earlier viewing, I remember only the thrill of being so terrified and the thrill accompanying the click of previously underutilizied neurons firing with abandon. Thinking about Eraserhead helped me learn how to read films better than I had been trained to by my more mainstream viewing habits.
So many of the conversations I've had about this film have focused on the topic of "what does it mean?" This may have more to do with the company I keep, but I suspect this experience is not unique to myself. And, while it can be fun to try and suss out the meaning of Eraserhead through its symbolic imagery and all that, it's depressing to me that so many feel that the film needs to have any objective meaning outside of the viewer's own imagination. Even more befuddling is the anger I often hear expressed at this marvelous work, a reaction from those who feel they are having their leg pulled by some sort-of con man who's had the good luck to be recognized as an "artist" by the "establishment."
This isn't to say that not "getting" Eraserhead makes one a philistine. The film, like much of David Lynch's work, is asking for this hostility. After some confusing imagery at the beginning of the film, it settles into what seems to be a strange, yet conventionally handled narrative. The movie has characters, establishing shots, dialogue, and the normal sort-of narrative criss-cross in the editing. When the non-literal, confusing imagery from the beginning begins interfacing with all of this (relative) normalcy for reasons defined only in the creator's head, it feels arbitrary at times and even a touch malicious. And maybe it is. I don't know. I don't care.
The imagery in the movie is, alone, enough to recommend it. The baby is terrifying, but it would not be so if it were not surrounded by such a hostile, howling landscape of urban decay. The black and white photography is brilliant, hearkening back to the wonderful imagery found in German Expressionism films of early cinema while simultaneous forging ahead with new images all its own. The movie is scored with a collection of masterful sound effects. These serve to heighten and broaden the scope of the film outside the boundaries of its frame, revealing the character of the world that cannot be seen but is most definitely felt by the people that inhabit it.
Combine these elements with the fractured, abstracted narrative and we're effectively in the world of dreams. I'm pretty sure it's become a cliche to say that Eraserhead captures the feeling of a nightmare, but this aspect of the film cannot be dismissed. That the characters express themselves mainly in terms of heightened emotions enhances this feeling as well. Everyone in the film is bouncing from one extreme emotion to another, sometimes within the space of seconds. This makes a lasting imprint on the memory, though, like a dream, it is incredibly non-specific. You can't remember exactly what was said, just that someone was furious or ecstatic or horrified. Further: because these people seem to live in purely emotional states, their actions can seem irrational or unmotivated. Thus the linear progression of events in the film becomes jumbled when trying to remember the film.
Describing the film and the horror it tapped in me feels like transcribing the hazily-remembered beats of a powerful nightmare from two weeks ago. In either case, stating plainly what terrified me about the experience sounds banal or even dull. The more one tries to grasp one detail, the more others slip away. Few films in my memory have been as successful at creating the stream-of-consciousness feeling of dreams as this one. And fewer have embraced the non-literal qualities of film, eschewing the realism that comes so easily to the photographic medium in favor of an impressionistic quality that somehow feels more true. This remains one of my all-time favorite films and is, I think, one of the greatest films ever made.
Capsule Reaction: This is movie heaven and everything is fine.
The baby scares me. This malformed mockery of human reproduction taps some primal ganglia in my cerebellum. It terrifies me on a very deep and personal level to watch the thing as it wails, spits the food it's been fed, gets sick, and lies there, wriggling. Without hyperbole, I will admit that the intensity of my abhorrence is such that I struggle to even continue watching this film, though it's a personal favorite. It is one of the best special effects ever put on film, utterly convincing from its appearance to its departure.
Put in such a state of fear and anxiety by this nightmarish creation, I, staunch atheist that I am, am relieved to hear the pleasing voice of the Lady in the Radiator assure me that, "in heaven everything is fine." What's more: I actually believe her. There are no atheists in a fox hole and no atheists staring at a sputtering, hideous demi-child.
Eraserhead scared me so much when I saw it in high school, I had trouble sleeping that night. It was the last movie to affect me in this way, the last to inspire fear of the dark. From this earlier viewing, I remember only the thrill of being so terrified and the thrill accompanying the click of previously underutilizied neurons firing with abandon. Thinking about Eraserhead helped me learn how to read films better than I had been trained to by my more mainstream viewing habits.
So many of the conversations I've had about this film have focused on the topic of "what does it mean?" This may have more to do with the company I keep, but I suspect this experience is not unique to myself. And, while it can be fun to try and suss out the meaning of Eraserhead through its symbolic imagery and all that, it's depressing to me that so many feel that the film needs to have any objective meaning outside of the viewer's own imagination. Even more befuddling is the anger I often hear expressed at this marvelous work, a reaction from those who feel they are having their leg pulled by some sort-of con man who's had the good luck to be recognized as an "artist" by the "establishment."
This isn't to say that not "getting" Eraserhead makes one a philistine. The film, like much of David Lynch's work, is asking for this hostility. After some confusing imagery at the beginning of the film, it settles into what seems to be a strange, yet conventionally handled narrative. The movie has characters, establishing shots, dialogue, and the normal sort-of narrative criss-cross in the editing. When the non-literal, confusing imagery from the beginning begins interfacing with all of this (relative) normalcy for reasons defined only in the creator's head, it feels arbitrary at times and even a touch malicious. And maybe it is. I don't know. I don't care.
The imagery in the movie is, alone, enough to recommend it. The baby is terrifying, but it would not be so if it were not surrounded by such a hostile, howling landscape of urban decay. The black and white photography is brilliant, hearkening back to the wonderful imagery found in German Expressionism films of early cinema while simultaneous forging ahead with new images all its own. The movie is scored with a collection of masterful sound effects. These serve to heighten and broaden the scope of the film outside the boundaries of its frame, revealing the character of the world that cannot be seen but is most definitely felt by the people that inhabit it.
Combine these elements with the fractured, abstracted narrative and we're effectively in the world of dreams. I'm pretty sure it's become a cliche to say that Eraserhead captures the feeling of a nightmare, but this aspect of the film cannot be dismissed. That the characters express themselves mainly in terms of heightened emotions enhances this feeling as well. Everyone in the film is bouncing from one extreme emotion to another, sometimes within the space of seconds. This makes a lasting imprint on the memory, though, like a dream, it is incredibly non-specific. You can't remember exactly what was said, just that someone was furious or ecstatic or horrified. Further: because these people seem to live in purely emotional states, their actions can seem irrational or unmotivated. Thus the linear progression of events in the film becomes jumbled when trying to remember the film.
Describing the film and the horror it tapped in me feels like transcribing the hazily-remembered beats of a powerful nightmare from two weeks ago. In either case, stating plainly what terrified me about the experience sounds banal or even dull. The more one tries to grasp one detail, the more others slip away. Few films in my memory have been as successful at creating the stream-of-consciousness feeling of dreams as this one. And fewer have embraced the non-literal qualities of film, eschewing the realism that comes so easily to the photographic medium in favor of an impressionistic quality that somehow feels more true. This remains one of my all-time favorite films and is, I think, one of the greatest films ever made.
posted by David Wester at 9:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home