Welcome to Sci-Fi Monday. Every Monday I randomly select a film from a list of over 1000 titles. My goal is to watch a large variety of Sci-Fi movies over a long period of time. Not all of the selections are 'great' movies, and I hope you join me each week as I explore the wide universe of Sci-Fi Cinema.Today’s selection is Eraserhead (1977). If you don't have a physical copy, you can find places to stream it online here. You may also be able to find it at your local library."I think everyone can remember where they were the first time they saw Eraserhead. It caught me at just the right moment in my life, a screening during my first year at art college – when we were studying Surrealism and experimental film. And, as I’m sure it did with most people, it blew me away! Because love it or hate it, David Lynch’s inaugural feature from 1977 is one of the most important in cinematic history, not least because of how it was made and the way it found its audience. Now Criterion are giving us the chance to watch the ‘Director-Approved Special Edition’, but does the movie still hold up after all this time?A nightmarish fever dream of a film, we’re introduced to the setting via a sideways view of Henry’s (Jack Nance’s) head with its trademarked backcombed hair – juxtaposed with a rocky planet, which a diseased man controls by pulling levers like he’s working in an old-fashioned railway station. Presented in stark black and white, Henry wanders this post-apocalyptic industrial hell of a world on his way home to his tiny flat, where he lives opposite a seductive ‘Beautiful Girl’ (Judith Anna Roberts). She passes on a message that Mary (Charlotte Stewart) has invited him round to her family’s place for dinner…Once there, Henry meets her bizarre clan which includes mother (Jeanne Bates), father (Allen Joseph) and grandmother (Jean Lange), who all have their particular Lynchian quirks. At the dinner table, Mary’s father tells Henry all about his numb arm and encourages him to carve up an individual man-made chicken which pumps out gouts of blood when cut into. The purpose of the visit? To confront Henry with the fact that he and Mary have conceived a malformed baby which needs picking up from the hospital; oh, and by the way they need to get married immediately.What follows is a delirious series of events which include the couple’s attempts to look after said baby – which more closely resembles the chestburster from Alien than any infant – encounters with the Lady in the Radiator (Laurel Near) who has hamster-cheeks and does a shuffling dance from side to side, Henry having an affair with his neighbour when it all gets too much, and finally his head popping off and forming the basis for some kind of pencil production process, hence the Eraserhead of the title.So much has been written already about the meanings in this film, in articles, essays and books, but in the end as they say in the special features section, like all good art it’s best just to let it all wash over you and experience it personally. For me, at its core, Eraserhead is about a fear of the adult world and its restrictions: becoming just another one of the working drones; being trapped by wedlock and kids; the attraction of a fantasy world just beyond reach that’s much better than ‘reality’. It’s also a terrific example of the Body Horror subgenre (one of my favourites; I co-edited a Mammoth Book on it and wrote a collection of stories, Traumas). The baby in particular – apparently inspired by Lynch’s dissection of a cat he acquired from the vets – is as horrific and tragic as anything you’d see in a modern monster movie (or even something the Baron Harkonnen might cook up as an experiment). As are the sperm-like things that fall on the Lady in the Radiator which she tramples without any qualms.Fans of Lynch’s canon will also have fun playing spot the jumping-off point for future work. From the zig-zag carpets in the lobby of Henry’s block of flats and curtains in the radiator theatre (Twin Peaks) to the resemblance of the neighbour to Isabella Rossellini’s Dorothy Vallens (Blue Velvet), a lot of the famous director’s later visions have their roots in Eraserhead.The transfer is as excellent as you’d expect from a 4K restoration, but this set also comes with new hi-def restorations of six of his short films – Six Figures Getting Sick, The Alphabet, The Grandmother (which is possibly the most interesting of the lot in terms of where Lynch was heading as a filmmaker), The Amputee Pts 1 & 2 and Premonitions Following an Evil Deed, all complete with introductions from Lynch himself.There are a multitude of fascinating interviews with the cast and crew from over the years, but the real treat here is Eraserhead Stories, a 2001 hour and a half documentary which has Lynch with a mic basically recounting the film’s history from start to finish, ranging from his attending Film School at the AFI and getting frustrated with changes to the script of Gardenback (‘They said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “I want to make Eraserhead.” So they said, “Okay, make it!”), to the production at what he called ‘The Stables’ there which lasted 5-6 years (“I was living on set, which was illegal. Only a few people knew about it.”), right up to a failed attempt to send the movie to Cannes and its release on the midnight movie circuit, where it did great guns for 4 years or more (“At the premiere, someone turned to my mother and said to her, “I wouldn’t like to have one of those dreams!”.’). To be honest, it’s worth the price alone to hear him having a phone conversation with Nance’s wife at the time and assistant director Cathy Coulson (also known as the Log Lady from TP), who credits the production with their divorce! And to hear the story about the stuffed, tortured Woody Woodpeckers…Verdict: An essential purchase for fans of Lynch and cinema history in general. ‘In Heaven, Everything is Fine…’ 10/10"Paul Kane via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3tjdTe9
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