Hubby and I watched Eraserhead. Very bizarre film. I’m not even going to try and interpret it. Lynch says it is a very personal film for him and calls it his Philadelphia story. (What the Hell happened to him in Philadelphia?) He says that none of the reviews or interpretations he has seen are how he would interpret it. So what I will do is tell you how it affected me.

First, I have to admit I’m still upset about the cat attached to a wire of Henry’s foot during the deleted scene that is used for the DVD set-up. Lynch said he asked a vet for a cat because he wanted to study it’s internal parts (and I suppose make use of them) for the film. The Vet at first thought he was a nut case (which maybe he is? ) but for some reason took his number. Immediately the vet called back saying he had a cat, but Lynch had to promise that he wouldn’t use the cat in the film, or if he did, that the cat wouldn’t be recognizable. I’m sure Lynch got the cat free. He was on such slim funds that he helped patch up the roof of the local BBQ place just to be able to get free take out for the crew.

I have to ask myself, why am I fully willing to donate my entire body to science in case of an accident, but get the willies about a cat being donated to Lynch for the sake of art? Is there really a difference? On the surface, perhaps. But dig a little deeper and it becomes a little murky. Lynch wasn’t being disrespectful toward the cat’s body - just inquisitive. If I die, I’m not at all concerned about what happens to my body. So why does it bother me that Lynch used the dead body of a cat for artistic purposes? I sense a double standard here!! (Although I have to say the thought that my tar bloated body might be attached to a string at the end of someone’s foot and used for effect in a film absolutely horrifies me!)

So OK SPOILER WARNING - I guess…

The film is set in a slummy area that is apparently in the middle of an industrial area based on all of the sounds. (Lynch said he imagined that there were places like that in Philadelphia - little hovels people lived in inside of the factories that could not be gotten to by ordinary means). The affect that had on me is that there is no comfort anyway. The inside is ugly and dismal with the muted sounds machinery which lets you know the outside is equally dismal - if not worse.

The dual world theme is present like in most of his films. “Everything in heaven is alright” or something like that, is sung by a chip-munked face looking woman dressed in white living in Henry’s radiator (the other world). But there is nothing even remotely heaven-ish about the film at all. Life, if you can call it that, is totally distorted. There are twigs planted in the dirt by the bed (just a pile of dirt on the table - no pot to contain it). The baby, (but they aren’t even sure it is a baby) is some mutated lump of crying mess wrapped in swaddling clothes that they leave lying on the dresser counter. (It looks more like a reptile than a human being.) There are bizarre looking, I don’t know - fetus like sperm? that the lady in the radiator happily steps on and squishes while singing in a sort of radiant way (do people who live in radiators look radiant?) and that Henry pulls out of someone - I’m not sure who - someone who just shows up in his bed in maybe a zippered bag (a death bag?) which doesn’t surprise Henry in the least. He throws the things against the wall in disgust. But what are they? I haven’t a clue. Distorted ugly births born of a distorted, ugly world?

There are sexual overtones associated with food - which seems to be a Lynch thing. This one was especially bizarre - man-made chickens! You should see how tiny they are!! Henry is asked to carve the little teeny tiny man-made chicken with a large carving knife and fork. It’s hilariously absurd. And then the chicken starts making bizarre movements and has blood come out of it’s inner cavity which makes the mother go into some sort of epileptic fit which leads to the news that Henry is the father of what we aren’t sure is a baby. (What Lynch made that baby out of I haven’t a clue. He supposedly has never told and I am pretty sure I don’t want to know.)

Henry’s head falls off and is found by a boy who runs it to a factory. A sample of Henry’s brain is taken and it is discovered to be suitable material for erasers. The boy gets paid for bringing in Henry’s head.

So here is my feeling about it - no matter how absurd a situation, human beings will figure out how to live in it, even if it makes their brains more suitable for erasers than for being human. Lynch seems to forever be screaming at us - WAKE UP!!! Henry’s not a bad guy. But nothing makes sense in a world where people don’t act, they only react to the bizarre situations they find themselves in.

Because I’ve been into Camus lately - I just have to go here:

Camus inspired the Theater of the Absurd based on Absurdism. The Theater of the Absurd subverted logic in an attempt to mimic “real life” which was seen as absurd. Because it’s absurd, nothing makes sense at the logical level - trying to figure it out logically will only give you a headache. The purpose of Absurd Art is to shock you out of your faulty sense of reality. I think this is what Lynch is doing and why his films “don’t make sense”. But unlike Camus, Lynch doesn’t think there is anything heroic about absurd repetition. Lynch flips Camus’s understanding on it’s head. What is absurd is that Sisyphus does NOT commit suicide because repetition is not absurd, it’s absolutely normal.

We think we think, but we don’t think. We react. The more absurd the situation becomes, the more absurd our reaction becomes. And the more absurd our reaction becomes, the more absurd our perceived reality becomes. Until what? We destroy ourselves and most of the planet?

How do we quit reacting and gain the awareness necessary for conscious action?

David Lynch, of course, says the answer is Transcendental Meditation. Don’t think I could swing the $25,000 or whatever it is for TM training, but I do think Meditation, in whatever form, is extremely important. Lynch says he started TM while working on Eraserhead (wonder how he afforded it when he could barely afford to finish Eraserhead?). I found this video really interesting. Lynch explains why TM works, why he makes dark films, and his ideas on the subconscious:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzuTXnY8ShY&hl=en&fs=1]