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broken part
- FB Fan -
226 Posts |
 Posted - 05/28/2004 : 21:23:43
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| Just seen it. You gotta love it. It's a complete nightmare. And the opening sequence is the best I have ever seen in a film. Plus the In Heaven song is pretty good. I don't think th Pixies relly topped the original. It sounds pretty and decietfully evil at the same time. |
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Malax
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
1340 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2004 : 15:38:54
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It is nightmarish and it evokes an incredible amount of loneliness and sadness. But its to confusing, without going off and reading that 1000page article about what everything means tell me what happened? Whos the guy grinding? Whats the deal with worms? Whats the deal with the beaver girl? The baby?
I know the answers but you tell me, honestly.
I May've Joined The Cult Of Frank If I Knew What The Balls Was Going On.
*Adapted By Carolynanna* |
Edited by - Malax on 05/30/2004 19:38:15 |
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broken part
- FB Fan -
226 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2004 : 21:39:18
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| I really could't care less about answers. Its a mysterious splendor I want to leave unspoilt by reason. There is the scene where Jack Nance opens the door and the attractive woman from across the hallway comes in from out of the dark and he has this terible uncertain and worried look on his face. The film here looks like its been washed and even the deep black has a grayish tinge to it. Its pure cinematic brilliance. |
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Jason
* Dog in the Sand *
1446 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2004 : 22:04:02
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| It's a more coherent movie when you look into David Lynch's life at the time. Eraserhead is about his experience being a father too early in life. He was only 21 when his daughter was born. His daughter also had a deformity (a club foot). And he and his family lived in a miserable, crime-ridden part of Philadelphia while he made Eraserhead over an agonizing 5 year period. Add all that together and the movie starts making sense. It's a picture of what he was going through. |
Edited by - Jason on 05/29/2004 22:09:07 |
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Malax
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
1340 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 10:46:13
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Um hmmm, well apparently, don't quote me on all of this but its more about life, death, sin and god than anything else. The child is a symbolism of his 'problem' the worms represent sins and with him cutting the baby at the end its essentially him ending his own life hence the embracing at the end.
How can you watch a film and say you love it and have no idea what just happened.
Read this, he goes into more detail
(its also amusing): http://maddox.xmission.com/david_lynch.html
Im not saying I hate his movies, I enjoyed mullholland drive in the same way as eraserhead but then it fucks up at the end and without watching it 3 or 4 times Im left wondering what the balls just happened.
I May've Joined The Cult Of Frank If I Knew What The Balls Was Going On.
*Adapted By Carolynanna* |
Edited by - Malax on 05/30/2004 10:48:16 |
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apl4eris
~ Abstract Brain ~
USA
4800 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 11:14:13
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Malax, do you know exacly what Frank is talking about in his songs? I'm curious why it's an issue if something isn't cut and dry about its meaning.
If the only tool you have is an elbow macaroni,
all your problems look like Schroedinger's cat. |
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Malax
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
1340 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 16:23:50
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I don't know all the time but you and me both know its completely different. By your suggested logic there should be no such things as instrumentals. You can't watch a film without a story, a story and knowning whats going on is integral to the experience. A songs lyrics are nowhere near as important as a story. Im not denying that once I found out what exactly just happened I thought it was quite cool but surely thats not the way it should be. Problem is eraserhead is so far from cut and dry its unbelievable. I liked donnie darko by the way you know enough but its no exactly clear cut...
I May've Joined The Cult Of Frank If I Knew What The Balls Was Going On.
*Adapted By Carolynanna* |
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Malax
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
1340 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 17:21:49
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Also the amount of praise heaped on it around here is immense. I'll admit the only reason I watched it was cos of the whole pixies thing. I doubt very much many other boards have this many posts about it and so regular as well. I suppose however, alot of boards won't have seen it cos 'their' band hasn't covered it. Hmmm should probably delete this post now....
I May've Joined The Cult Of Frank If I Knew What The Balls Was Going On.
*Adapted By Carolynanna* |
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broken part
- FB Fan -
226 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 17:48:47
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Boooo.
The films I enjoy the most are those that I don't understand and particularly those that have no particular plot. Wes Anderson fimls for example. And your rebbutal on the analogy with song is flawed. You enjoy a Frank Black song despite not knowing what its about. Instrumentals don't send you into deep thought and make you wonder about meanings. Lyrics do that. So the music is the equivalent of the visual imagery and cinematography in a film, while the plots are represented by lyrics in songs. Liking Frank goes hand in hand with liking Lynch. It thus follows that you have been digging up on all the info about Frank's lyrics else you coulnd't bare the walls of confusion pressing down on your thoughts. Evolve.
ehemm. Excuse the psychoanalytic rant. |
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Malax
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
1340 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 18:16:43
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Your rebbutal of my analogy of song is flawed. I don't care about going into deep thought about a song its there for me to enjoy, over analyse something and you ruin it. Music has nothing to do with this its just a pointless argument. You don't stop listening to a song and think oh man that song was weird Im confused about what its about. People don't do that, but people do with eraserhead.
Wes Anderson films aren't what Im talking about, they may not have to much point but they have a story to tell, you can follow it and finish watching it and know essentially what you just watched. Theres something not quite right about saying:
Person 1:"Did you enjoy eraserhead?"
Me:"Yeah it was great didn't have a clue what the hell was going on though"
Person 1:"Oh....whats it about then?"
Me:"Well....oh.."
At no point am I saying you shouldn't like the film but it just doesn't seem right that you don't really know whats going on. Being confused can be cool but with no explanations in the slightest its just frustrating.
I May've Joined The Cult Of Frank If I Knew What The Balls Was Going On.
*Adapted By Carolynanna* |
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TheCroutonFuton
- Mr. Setlists -
USA
1728 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 19:11:39
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"it just doesn't seem right that you don't really know whats going on."
But is your idea of "what's going on" the only one? I know you said not to quote you on it, hehe, but throughout the rest of your argument you act as though you know exactly what's going on in the movie. Don't you think that books are like movies and that if the author/director doesn't give you a trail to follow that you should use your imagination and create one yourself? I sure do. Lynch has never spoken about what the movie is about, to my knowledge. You're wrong, if I do hear a song that I like and I don't know what it's about I'll try to find out. I don't know...with a movie like Eraserhead I don't think this would be right to say, especially to someone who hasn't seen it yet:
Person 1: "Did you enjoy Eraserhead?"
Malax: "Yeah, it was great. I knew exactly what was going on the entire time, though."
Person 1: "Oh....what's it about then?"
Malax: "It's a story about life, death, sin and God than anything else."
Also...Movies are just moving images. Art. When you see a painting that you like do you try to find the story hidden in it? Movies, like music and art, are there for looking at and listening to. When there isn't a clear-cut story it makes sense to view it as art and appreciate it as that. That's all he was doing. I don't see how you can argue with him doing that.
"Freedom is a state of mind and the condition and position of your ass. Free your mind and your ass will follow." - Funkadelic |
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Malax
* Dog in the Sand *
United Kingdom
1340 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 19:33:58
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Look, like I said I appreaciate it in terms of "It is nightmarish and it evokes an incredible amount of loneliness and sadness" and the general use of light. However I do dislike the whole not knowing whats going on AT ALL. If its considered art I may have never bothered watching it as you can see, its not my thing, but I've never seen it described as anything besides a horror. For example the back of the box is misleading.
Im sure you would all be interested to see the page Im refering to cos it is very interesting to read what the film is about or atleast have some insight into it. But it appears to be offline I just can't find it.
*Oh...found it, read it or just read a bit its cool. http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/2093/papers/wolfe.html
I May've Joined The Cult Of Frank If I Knew What The Balls Was Going On.
*Adapted By Carolynanna* |
Edited by - Malax on 05/31/2004 07:24:35 |
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TheCroutonFuton
- Mr. Setlists -
USA
1728 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2004 : 19:38:07
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hehe, you may want to cut the "*" out of the end of the link, haha.
"Freedom is a state of mind and the condition and position of your ass. Free your mind and your ass will follow." - Funkadelic |
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GypsyDeath
Zapped Profile
3575 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 02:59:47
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I just bought an eraser head badge. hehe.
Lynch rocks
I love you for what I am not,
I did not ask for what I have got.
You will get used to me.
Welcome to your new joy. |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 09:36:25
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I was talking before about an exposition I´d seen of the wonderfully bad in art called the Potholes of Taste, w/ Florence Foster Jenkins, Ed Wood, William Shatner, Heino (that´s Heinz Georg Kramm - Jello Biafra used to play his records before gigs to work the crowd into a state of catharsis) et al, and one wall had splitscreen shots from Eraserhead and Ed Wood´s Glen or Glenda running, former taken directly from the latter.
-Owen |
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SpudBoy
= Cult of Ray =
Equatorial Guinea
649 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 12:21:05
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I don't get what all the fuss is about. The first time I saw Eraserhead it all gelled for me. I don't just mean the movie, either - I mean *everything* came into perspective. It may have been the right combination of the film, plus my diligent study of the Tao Te Ching, and heavy use of psychoactive compounds at the time, but whatever - a catalyst is a catalyast. I think it is a beautiful story. Melancholy at times, but given the way that the world visits things upon us, having erasers made from one's own brain seems relatively innocuous in the scheme of things. Thanks - now I'm craving cornish game hen. Bastards.
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Homers_pet_monkey
= Official forum monkey =
United Kingdom
17125 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2004 : 14:20:25
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I only just realised that I watched this at quite a young age. I thought I handled it quite well considering.
Hansel and Gretel have formed a band, .....And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Breadcrumbs!!! |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 08:16:00
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http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0703,lee,75564,20.html
David Lynch Made a Man Out of Me
Our critic comes of age as Eraserhead just gets better with time
by Nathan Lee
January 16th, 2007 2:24 PM
Like every touchstone of my nascent cinephilia, I first encountered Eraserhead on crap VHS. It was the late 1980s, I was 15, and I didn't know what I'd seen, but it was love at first sight. Nerds in space. Mutant babies. Domestic derangement. Radiator ladies. Inexplicable seizures. Enigmatic orifices. Weird routines. The hardcore bizarre and ineffably beautiful. Totally. Like. Awesome. David Lynch became an instant culture hero. I all but draped myself in Blue Velvet (movie, soundtrack, poster) and was soon hosting Twin Peaks geekfests indulgently catered with cherry pie and strong black coffee. Along with Heathers, the Pixies, shoplifting Marlboros, and hatred of Orange County, Lynchian surrealism played a major role in defining my suburban artfag weltanschauung.
Hand in glove, my brain with Eraserhead. Even more than Blue Velvet, Lynch's non-narrative nightmare scratched an itch in my imagination. Here were my two favorite genres, horror and science fiction, spied through a murky crevice of the underground, a perv-o-licious perspective that forever altered my taste in movies. Out of similar fissures, the philosophic horror shows of David Cronenberg would strike deeper and sustain me longer, and I would come to find Lynch's Hollywood Hallucination mode his richest ( Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire). But Eraserhead came first, its swarming spermatozoa impregnating a love of the avant-garde that rapidly metastasized.
Some years later in San Francisco (still smoking but now into Stan Brakhage, Sleater Kinney, and moving to New York), I returned to Lynch's debut rather reluctantly, as you might pick up a writer beloved in adolescence and now suspected of irrelevance—hello, Hermann Hesse. A new print was booked at the Castro Theatre, drag-queen mothership of Bay Area cinephila, a movie palace in the old style, or at least what a degenerate film nerd like me imagined that to be: frescoed walls, red velvet curtains, chandeliers, uncomfortable seats.
I remember one thing only of my reunion with Eraserhead: the discovery that to see the film means nothing—one must also hear it. Viewing it alone in the dark in my bedroom, its aphonic oddities may have been diminished on TV, but they well enough amazed. Watched on an appliance, it sounded like one: a refrigerator on the fritz perhaps, or a vacuum cleaner stuck in the bathroom. In the larger reaches of a grand old space, bounding off marble and chandelier, the soundscape of Eraserhead opened a vast new dimension. Choose your onomatopoeia: clang, drone, hiss, buzz, squawk, howl, khzzsh-shzz- frphft. All of which echoed as if housed in an intergalactic seashell cocked to the ears of an acid-tripping gargantua.
(Speaking of which: "Eraserhead's not a movie I would drop acid for," wrote J. Hoberman in his very first assignment for the Voice, "although I would consider it a revolutionary act if someone dropped a reel of it into the middle of Star Wars." Was Tyler Durden reading?)
New York, 2007: Committed to smoking, bored with rock, into Inland Empire, and dreaming of expatriation, I preview the restoration of Eraserhead at the Museum of Modern Art. At the ungodly hour of 10 a.m. And for what? A chance to play the auteur game, for starters, dutifully noting the first appearance of motifs from Inland Empire, parallels with the production design of Blue Velvet, etc., and . . . yawn. Some new observations. The debt to silent comedy. And perhaps a Cocteau influence? Eraserhead feels steeped in Blood of a Poet.
One thing is clear on third viewing: the genius of Eraserhead as sculpture. What a masterpiece of texture, a feat of artisanal attention, an ingenious assemblage of damp, dust, rock, wood, hair, flesh, metal, ooze. The immaculate restoration brings all this to new light. It doesn't deliver a visual revelation on par with the aural adventure in San Francisco (although the rumbling of the subway beneath MOMA's Titus 1 makes for a fantastic effect), but it well enough amazes. I'm captivated by floral wallpaper, plastic flowers, rose-patterned drapes, twists of dead tendrils, and especially that dry mound of earth by the bedside from which sprouts a dead twig, and which resembles something you'd see installed at Matthew Marks. This dense, consistent iconography keys to the overall parody of natural process, and calls for further analysis.
Shanghai, 2015 . . .
Nathan Lee, after multiple viewings of Eraserhead
photo: American Film Institute/Photofest
Eraserhead
Directed by David Lynch
January 18 through 24, MOMA |
Edited by - Carl on 01/17/2007 08:16:43 |
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pixiestu
> Teenager of the Year <
United Kingdom
2564 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2007 : 09:39:40
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I only watched it because of the Pixies. I like it, but I prefer Mulholland Drive out of the David Lynch films I've seen, even if I don't know what the hell happens at the end.
"The arc of triumph" |
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Homers_pet_monkey
= Official forum monkey =
United Kingdom
17125 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 05:03:21
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Try Blue Velvet.
 I'd walk her everyday, into a shady place
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 10:22:46
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And don't forget Twin Peaks. The Lynch-directed episodes are magic.
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pixiestu
> Teenager of the Year <
United Kingdom
2564 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 13:50:46
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I've seen the film Twin Peaks but not seen any of the series, which I'm told is better. I've got Blue Velvet on video, I'll probably get round to watching it soon.
"The arc of triumph" |
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edbanky
= Cult of Ray =
Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
388 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2007 : 14:07:12
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I always saw this film as a pretty straightforward documentary on the poultry industry.
Tiny Axe (MySpace)
Me singing |
Edited by - edbanky on 01/18/2007 14:34:17 |
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Eraserhead
