7 replies to this topic

[Thom]

For those Eraserhead or David Lynch or avant garde fans Eraserhead as well as the DAvid Lynch shorts, are set to a hard to pass up price.

[M. Leary]

This description is hysterical:

The lights flicker on and off, he has bowls of water in his dresser drawers, and for his only diversion he watches and listens to the Lady in the Radiator sing about finding happiness in heaven. Henry has a girlfriend, Mary X, who has frequent spastic fits. Mary gives birth to Henry's child, a frightening looking mutant, which leads to the injection of all sorts of sexual imagery into the depressive and chaotic mix

The extras on this edition are great. I am pretty sure this is the one that has the lengthy feature about the "making of" Eraserhead, in which Lynch talks with Jack Nance's wife (the Log Lady).

[Russ]

So, wait, is this version not done by Lynch himself? I thought he had exclusive R1 rights.

[Sara]

I just watched Eraserhead (on the new DVD that has David Lynch talking at length about making the film.)

Honestly, it was the weirdest, most surreal movie I have ever seen.

Perhaps Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou would come close. And maybe Bunuel's L'Age d'Or and Phantom of Liberty.

It was a strange experience, and I enjoyed it even though I scratched my head throughout.

What did others here think about it?

Sara

[yank_eh]

Sara, I'm with you. That was the strangest film I've seen. I don't know if I "liked" it. I definitely laughed out loud and felt some genuine emotions and was thinking the whole time. But I felt illiterate. I would love to hear someone who has more experience with this kind of film talk about it. Perhaps it is good to feel illiterate sometimes and just let your intuition and body process the images. But that's a little scary and maybe dangerous.

[Persona]

It's one of my all-time favorites, but I haven't seen it in probably 12 years. I feel a little unqualified to talk much about it having not seen it recently. The surrealism is great, and I think your comparison to Buñuel is perfect, but Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet comes to mind even more.

It's a great experience but an understanding of everything Lynch went through to make it enhances it all the more. As I understand it, the artists lived together in community for five years to create and work together. It must've been so fascinating for everyone involved. There was also a death during that time... There's some great trivia to be found here.

Perhaps when I watch it again, I'll try to dig deeper into it. Your post about its strangeness makes me want to go back and take another look. But I swore that the next time I'd watch it would be on a movie screen, and I've not yet had that opportunity.

-s.

[anglicanbeachparty]

It's one of my all-time favorites, but I haven't seen it in probably 12 years. I feel a little unqualified to talk much about it having not seen it recently.

Same here, only for me, it's been more like 25 years. I saw it 10 or 12 times in theaters when I lived in Manhattan during the late 1970s. I just love this film, but its been so long that I'll have to see it again before commenting too much. I love the buzzing lamp that he has with (if I recall) both inandescent and fluorescent bulbs. And I'll never look at a roast chicken the same way again!

[Overstreet]

Since this GIF troubled me today, I feel compelled to share it: