It's been a few weeks since David Lynch passed, and this is the first time I have been able to bring myself to watch one of his films. I mulled it over for a long while, trying to figure out the best way to approach his ouvre. Which to watch first?
I wanted to dive into films like Mulholland Drive or Lost Highway (my favorites), which represent his late period and have an amalgam of tropes that were applied more intermittently in earlier pieces. But that didn't feel right because I also wanted to go over mid-era pieces like Wild at Heart. It's also February and time for my yearly Twin Peaks re-watch.
I finally decided that, although I have done it before, going in order of release will provide not only context but will also detail a creative road map from this film to Twin Peaks The Return (which I see as not only a culmination of all of Lynch's ideas and bromides, but also as the ideal swan song for an amazing career). As a tribute to the art life lived by this beautiful soul, I felt it only right to not only watch his films in order, but to also try to decode the tropes and ideas at play in the majority of his work, and attempt to understand their meaning.
Lynch has long been tight-lipped about what things mean in his works, but it is also no secret that for him there are definite answers and specific reasons for all the seemingly weird happenings in his movies. Many of these concepts are used and re-used across multiple films, and one can see their refinement as you go through chronologically. I noticed a significant amount of imagery that would appear in later films when viewing Eraserhead. The idea of small things spouting impossible amounts of fluids, imagery suffused with tension and terror, moments of seeming weirdness which nevertheless have their own internal and consistent logic.
The visual language of David Lynch is vast and myriad, filled with commonalities and intricacies, such that one can approach each work from a different perspective, and find an endless variety of interpretations and reactions to the material. Viewing Eraserhead for the first time in a couple of years, I found that certain scenes which had previously evoked a sense of disgust or revulsion, now gave a feeling of elation.
I noted how a number of elements in this film correlate with the Black Lodge mythology of Twin Peaks, and an idea started to form. It was nothing new, I have often supposed that many, if not all, of Lynch's films are connected. If not part of the same universe, per se (see: Dune, The Elephant Man) then at least elementally and thematically aligned.
Of course, they would be, since Lynch directed them all! On a deeper, more subconscious level, patterns begin to emerge. Just as Lynch states that while he does have a specific meaning for why and how things happen in his films, he leaves it up to the viewer to provide their own answers and famously refuses to elaborate. It is interesting to note that he is willing to discuss where ideas (or sometimes just the seeds of ideas) come from, which does allow audiences to connect them with the intended meaning in his work. Lynch has also indicated when an interpretation is incorrect, as for Eraserhead he flatly denies that it's about fatherhood and fears of such.
But we do also know that often what a person says is the opposite of what they think or believe. So who is to say? I, personally, view this film as a commentary on fatherhood. But it goes beyond that. It also seems to give a view into the idea that, no matter what a parent tries to do, there is a world outside full of forces (often oppressive) that will shape a child outside of their control. There may also be innate forces beyond the parent's comprehension.
Several scenes in Eraserhead deal with forces similar to those in The Return. The film opens with a sequence where we hover over a planetoid, upon which sits a figure who looks out a window. He pulls a lever and a sperm-like object is hurtled through a void, landing in what appears to be a small puddle of water. Perhaps this is a visualization of the psychological issues Henry faces when engaging in intercourse with Mary X. Theirs does not appear to be an emotionally stable pairing, but considering her parents Henry is probably her best option.
In The Return we see several sequences where people in industrial settings pull a lever or turn a dial, and something or someone is hurtled through a void and lands on Earth. Aside from being repeated motifs, I get a sense that these things are connected in some way. In particular, the sequences where Laura Palmer is created by The Fireman as a counter to the negative entities sent by Judy is very reminiscent of the ideas at play in the first several minutes of Eraserhead.
Repeated imagery in Eraserhead is consistent with what will become the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks: red curtains (the stage The Lady In The Radiator may have red curtains despite being in black and white given their gradation); the black and white chevron floor pattern; an appearance of a sculpture which looks quite a bit like The Evolution of The Arm (which itself is topped with a head that looks quite a bit like The Baby).
The Lady in the Radiator dances while a number of sperm-like things drop from above. She steps on them, squirting out various fluids, and smiles. In the end, after The Baby has ascended and Henry is encompassed by bright white light, The Lady comes to him and they embrace. Could this be Henry giving in and releasing his garmonbozia for her to consume? Could The Lady in the Radiator be Judy?
If we break down the sequence of events, this can make sense: After The Baby is born there is an altercation with Mary in which she storms out and goes home. Henry has an affair with the woman across the hall, who is horrified by the appearance of The Baby. Later, Mary has returned, and is seen in bed, sweating, digging into her eyes, and Henry pulls out one sperm-like construct after another from beneath the sheets, dashing them against the wall. After this, Mary is absent and Henry sees the woman across the hall taking home a gentleman suitor (also implied is that she is a prostitute taking home a john).
The dream sequence in which Henry's head is used to make literal erasers is perhaps the most visceral moment in the work and leads directly into the final sequence. It appears Mary has either died due to illness, or possibly was killed by Henry. If she was killed by him, the apparent filicide of the final moments, where Henry cuts into The Baby's body wrap, then stabs at the internal organs, would be a logical conclusion. In this case, the Lady In The Radiator would have plenty of garmonbozia to consume due to the suffering and horror he has caused.
It is also worth noting that the editing of many of the more horrific sequences, particularly once Mary and The Baby move in with Henry, is done with the timing of a comedy. Which pushes against the horrific and dramatic arc of the imagery and narrative being presented. It seems that Lynch wants to do many things at once, including instilling the audience with both a sense of dread and making them laugh (or at least disarm them with humorous trappings while setting up a terrifying premise).
Whatever the case may be, the final moments of Eraserhead are confounding, confusing, and ultimately lead this reviewer to different conclusions with each viewing. Which is exactly what David Lynch prefers when crafting his denser material.
These are just a handful of possible connections I noticed, and as I work through Mr. Lynch's body of work, I will look to find others. Next up will be The Elephant Man, in which Lynch gets backing from Mel Brooks and is given free reign to present the life of John Merrick as he envisioned it. Stay tuned, kiddies!