by David Lynch, 1977.
Starring: Jack Fisk, John Nance, Laurel Near, Judith Anna Roberts, and Charlotte Stewart.
Rating: 5/10, 8/10.
In heaven everything is fine
In heaven everything is fine
In heaven everything is fine
You’ve got your good things
And I’ve got mine
In heaven everything is fine
In heaven everything is fine
In heaven everything is fine
You’ve got your good things
And you’ve got mine
This was David Lynch’s first real film, and boy is it a doozy. It’s about...well, can one ever really say what a David Lynch film is about? And should one, ever, try to do so? I don’t want to give anyone my notion of what the film is about, and prevent them from independently forming their own. But there’s a main character, Henry Spencer (John Nance, later Jack Nance who played the loveable Pete on Twin Peaks), that guy you’ve seen on the movie cover with the crazy hair. He’s an awkward, seemingly lonely man. How he ever got his girlfriend, Mary (Stewart), is a mystery to me. He seems to have no idea of how to interact with other human beings.
The film definitely has some very Lynchian touches, even aside from the dreamlike quality (and obsession with actual dreams) and the abject bizarreness of it. Check out the carpet in the apartment building’s lobby—the same zigzag pattern as the floor in Twin Peaks's Red Room. Then there’s the stage that the Lady In The Radiator (I can’t explain...you’ll have to see her for yourself) sings on...very Lynch, reminiscent of, among other things, the "El Club Silencio" in Mulholland Drive. Oh, and guess who the cinematographer for Eraserhead was? That’s right, the Log Lady.
That said, the film reminds me even more of early German film than of later Lynch. It has the feel of old, foreign, expressionist, silent film (though of course it is not a silent film, large chunks of it pass with little or no sound). It is undeniably a statement, though of what I cannot say. Lynch calls it his "Philadelphia" film, meaning that it was inspired largely by his experiences living in Philadelphia. This frightens me. I don’t think I will ever, ever go there.
Look at me. I’m not talking about the film itself, but only the film in relation to other things—Twin Peaks, German expressionism, Philadelphia...this is what this kind of movie does to me. I’m sorry.