by Flack » Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:30 am
The first time I ever heard of Eraserhead was at a guy's house that I used to trade Commodore 64 games with many years ago. This guy was four or five years older than I was and in the mid-80s I went over to his house and he had two posters in his room, one for the Rocky Horror Picture Show and one for Eraserhead. He showed me VHS bootlegs of both movies, although we did not watch either film. I got the impression that these were both "underground" cult films.
Fast forward to the late 90s. While driving through the city I ran across a movie rental place called D.V.D. (Digital Video Depot). It was one of the first places around here I found that rented DVDs, but they also had VHS tapes. I went in and the place was like an indie movie house. That place was where I discovered Troma films (I had heard of some of the films, but didn't know about Troma, the company). D.V.D. was the first place I remember having an anime section. It was just an odd, quirky little place. I think the first time I went there I rented Suspiria, Zombi, and maybe Sgt. Kabukiman. Anyway, this place also had an Eraserhead poster, and I ended up renting the movie (on VHS) from there. I'm pretty sure I made a copy of it but I don't think I watched all of it. It was just too weird. I didn't get it. I wasn't ready for it.
Fast forward to the mid-00's. I had spent years buying/collecting/hoarding DVDs. My collection had ballooned from a hundred to maybe 500 or 600 original DVDs and over 1,000 DVD-Rs of Netflix-ripped rentals. If it was a throwaway film or something without any extras I would either download it or rent and copy it, but the stuff I really wanted sitting on my shelf, I would buy. When Eraserhead finally came out on DVD I bought it because of its reputation. I still hadn't seen the film in its entirety.
I tried watching the film a couple of times and didn't get very far. It's a weird film, a jarring film, one you have to be in the mood to watch.
I went on a trip for work in 2007 or so. On those trips I would often grab a stack of DVDs to watch in my hotel room. I can't remember what city I was in, or why I was there, or anything else about the trip other than I opened my laptop, popped in Eraserhead, and pressed play.
And, something clicked. It was the combination of a couple of drinks from a hotel bar, the depression of being on the road again, the wisps of cold air blowing in around the window-mounted air conditioner, and occasional knocks and raps on the wall from other people in the hotel... it all just clicked at how utterly depressing life is -- not my life specifically but just life in general, the whole process of going through the motions, of going to a job you may not love or just repeating the same actions day after day. Whatever it was, in that moment, I connected to that film. For 90 minutes I sat glued to the screen. Before tht viewing I had never been able to sink my brain into the film's deeper meaning. Once you get past the literal images on the screen, it's fairly profound.
I spent the next few months digging up everything I could about the film, starting with the extras on the disc including the two hour talk by Lynch about the film.
[youtube][/youtube]
I've tried watching the film a few since then and I find I am never in in the mood or a dark enough place to fully embrace it again.
The first time I ever heard of Eraserhead was at a guy's house that I used to trade Commodore 64 games with many years ago. This guy was four or five years older than I was and in the mid-80s I went over to his house and he had two posters in his room, one for the Rocky Horror Picture Show and one for Eraserhead. He showed me VHS bootlegs of both movies, although we did not watch either film. I got the impression that these were both "underground" cult films.
Fast forward to the late 90s. While driving through the city I ran across a movie rental place called D.V.D. (Digital Video Depot). It was one of the first places around here I found that rented DVDs, but they also had VHS tapes. I went in and the place was like an indie movie house. That place was where I discovered Troma films (I had heard of some of the films, but didn't know about Troma, the company). D.V.D. was the first place I remember having an anime section. It was just an odd, quirky little place. I think the first time I went there I rented Suspiria, Zombi, and maybe Sgt. Kabukiman. Anyway, this place also had an Eraserhead poster, and I ended up renting the movie (on VHS) from there. I'm pretty sure I made a copy of it but I don't think I watched all of it. It was just too weird. I didn't get it. I wasn't ready for it.
Fast forward to the mid-00's. I had spent years buying/collecting/hoarding DVDs. My collection had ballooned from a hundred to maybe 500 or 600 original DVDs and over 1,000 DVD-Rs of Netflix-ripped rentals. If it was a throwaway film or something without any extras I would either download it or rent and copy it, but the stuff I really wanted sitting on my shelf, I would buy. When Eraserhead finally came out on DVD I bought it because of its reputation. I still hadn't seen the film in its entirety.
I tried watching the film a couple of times and didn't get very far. It's a weird film, a jarring film, one you have to be in the mood to watch.
I went on a trip for work in 2007 or so. On those trips I would often grab a stack of DVDs to watch in my hotel room. I can't remember what city I was in, or why I was there, or anything else about the trip other than I opened my laptop, popped in Eraserhead, and pressed play.
And, something clicked. It was the combination of a couple of drinks from a hotel bar, the depression of being on the road again, the wisps of cold air blowing in around the window-mounted air conditioner, and occasional knocks and raps on the wall from other people in the hotel... it all just clicked at how utterly depressing life is -- not my life specifically but just life in general, the whole process of going through the motions, of going to a job you may not love or just repeating the same actions day after day. Whatever it was, in that moment, I connected to that film. For 90 minutes I sat glued to the screen. Before tht viewing I had never been able to sink my brain into the film's deeper meaning. Once you get past the literal images on the screen, it's fairly profound.
I spent the next few months digging up everything I could about the film, starting with the extras on the disc including the two hour talk by Lynch about the film.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-0c-y5aN_g[/youtube]
I've tried watching the film a few since then and I find I am never in in the mood or a dark enough place to fully embrace it again.