Eraserhead Stories

MOVIE #1,392 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 02.22.24 This doc, produced and directed by lynch for DVD or blu-ray re-release of the movie, is interesting because Eraserhead is probably the movie he's most notoriously cagey talking about (or maybe that's just the baby, and naturally there's not a single mention of it here). Speaking in front of the same mic from the iPhone meme, he begins by stating the tried and true Lynchism that this is his most spiritual film and we branch out from there. There's a lot of stuff I've heard before, mostly in books, about his moving to Los Angeles and his time at the American Film Institute, but there were some new (to me) nuggets as well. It's a sparse document with Lynch providing the main voice throughout the 85-minite run-time, intercut with still photography. It's all about the process and the production. About halfway through we start to get some behind the scenes footage which, obviously you want more than what they have, but anything is great (Lynch is actually really beat up about losing some of the cut footage).

The only other (speaking) participant is via a telephone call Lynch has with Catherine E. Coulson (Twin Peaks’ log lady) who worked on the film, and these conversation snippets and stories are great.

Lynch sometimes seems or feels like this mythological, unknownable presence in cinema, but he's clearly interested in putting down these memories on record, which is fundamentally an act of demystification. These documents, including numerous other documentaries (like 2016’s The Art Life) and books (the authorized biography, Room to Dream, etc.) exist, officially sanctioned and/or created by the artist himself.

They close with the famous Woody Woodpecker story: just pure Lynch. It almost feels like a put-on and maybe it is. I think that's the beauty and genius of lynch: there's really no way of knowing so you must relent and accept it or reject it completely. But this was a very fitting final note to leave on, reminding us that there's always a line dividing the artist and the viewer…

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The enduring hope that humanity may or may not persevere. A tale of love and abandonment. It was released on September 6, 2001.