Movie Notes: Eraserhead

October 4th, 2008

= 4 stars

Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates
Directed by David Lynch

Synopsis

Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), living in a decaying industrial center, gets his girlfriend Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) pregnant. After meeting her odd family, he finds himself in the care of their deformed child in his small, dark apartment.

The Good

• Henry (“Eraserhead”) is played by Jack Nance, who later played Pete Martell in Twin Peaks.
• Many unforgettable images and scenes — a bleating, mutated baby, the “chipmunk” lady, Henry’s awkward dinner with Mary X’s family.

The Bad

• Unquestionably bleak and cynical, the humor and twisted romance of Lynch’s later work is absent.

Conclusion

My personal explanation: Eraserhead is Henry’s subconscious mind displayed on screen, which depict a crippling fear of women and the biological processes behind reproduction. He’s plagued by giant sperm. Oozing fluid resembles menstrual blood. His child is a horrifying mutant and a burden on his relationship with Mary X. His parental responsibilities make him feel he’s missing out on sex with the promiscuous girl next door. There’s the horror of meeting your girlfriend’s parents, where “mom” asks penetrating sexual questions and comes on to you. It all adds up to a very male, Freudian view of childbearing as a disgusting, crippling burden.

These fears combine to create some truly unforgettable scenes, like one where Henry lies in bed with a sleeping woman, who tosses and turns while clenching her teeth. Henry can’t sleep, and pulls giant sperm from under the sheets, tossing them away from the woman.

There’s a sense that Henry is trapped by the social conventions of reproduction. Near film’s end, we see how his head becomes nothing but material for pencil erasers. After bearing children, his life is reduced to being entirely functional yet disposable. Yet another disturbing male fear.

Then there’s the guy in the planet, which I think represents Henry’s animal, lustful nature. In the opening sequence, the man in the planet pulls some levers, shooting a sperm out of Henry’s mouth and into a pool of water. This is Henry copulating with Mary X. At the end of the film, Henry kills himself, destroying the man in the planet, so he can meet the “chipmunk” lady in the radiator. This lady is a good, pure angel, uninterested in sex, as seen in an earlier scene where she cutely crushes sperm on a stage. Virgin, whore, etc.

Eraserhead presents a castrated male’s fears of life in the modern world. There are a lot of scary truths contained within. I want to forget this film, but unfortunately, I can’t.

IMDB: Eraserhead
Wikipedia: Eraserhead
Rotten Tomatoes: Eraserhead 89%