| Author | Message | ||
     Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=940&p=10036#p10036 Maybe you want to comment on this mad theory. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
The answer's in 'Blonde' by Joyce Carol Oates. Love the sound in 'Eraserhead' | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.4.67 |
Why does it have to mean anything? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
I have a theory concerning the Drake equation and Fermi Paradox. Maybe there's no sign of vast super intelligent alien species inhabiting the universe because as soon as super intelligent alien species work out the theory of everything they realise it's all pointless and that this is all there is, a suffering multiplicity of universes without hope of rationale. So they just quietly implode in happy insanity, leaving not a ghost of their being. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
And hey! Happy solstice everyone! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.3.131 |
ERASERHEAD goes down as probably the only movie I ever stopped watching halfway through, for being too disturbed. I stopped when the lady's dancing on stage, with the wormy things dropping around her. It was too much, and I've never seen the rest. Admittedly, this was many years ago; maybe I was, I dunno... not quite sober?... I should give it another shot, but it's such an ugly-looking movie, or I remember it being so, that I'm always put off by actually going out and renting it again. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
'Eraserhead' is the only film I can watch, these days. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.193.75 |
Craig, when I saw it in the cinema a few people walked out at that point. I was more upset by the family meal scene. I've never stopped watching a film entirely for any reason other than its being shit, but I did take a break halfway through watching THE PIANIST on DVD because the tension and distress were getting to me. I also stopped reading John Franklin Bardin's noir classic THE LAST OF PHILIP BANTER halfway through because it made me feel panicky and desperate. I finished it a month or two later. Oddly for a horror fan, I don't wanna be as scared as that. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.228.226 |
I also stopped reading John Franklin Bardin's noir classic THE LAST OF PHILIP BANTER halfway through because it made me feel panicky and desperate.... That's quite the endorsement, coming from Mr. Lane! Methinks I'll have to go find that one out.... Something about that dancing scene, Joel, that just made me cringe and not be able to go on. I also remember that, at least up to that point, the film is virtually "in-offensive" - i.e., no sex, drugs, bad-language, nudity, etc. It could be Rated G. Why not? I could see Mr. Eraserhead as a Saturday morning cartoon - crazy-kooky guy in a wacky-zany world, like "Spongebob Squarepants." Maybe I should work up a pitch.... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I have that experience, Joel, but in a more sleight-handed way: I avoid reading Aickman and watching Cronenberg simply because they get under my skin too much, but it doesn't feel like a rational choice to stay away, more a kind of emotional disinclination. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.171.45 |
Aickman is the master of telling you things without you realising it, so you don't know quite why the story makes sense to you but it does. Uncomfortable, yes. And he can be upsetting. A couple of the stories in his last collection, INTRUSIONS, freaked me out quite a bit. It's the antithesis of the 'pleasing terror' ghost story experience where you shut the book, shiver delicately, pour yourself a glass of sherry and warm your feet by the fire. Aickman goes on gnawing at you all night. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.171.45 |
Conversely, I find Cronenberg's radical and subversive stance so fresh and exciting that it leaves me in a great mood. Every monotonous, anal, sadistic horror director should be forced to watch Cronenberg films: it will enable them to go through the psychic adolescence they missed out on. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Aickman goes on gnawing at you all night. Agreed. Amid the sound of windlasses and locks. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.171.45 |
Of course, Gary, I'm not suggesting that your reaction to Cronenberg shows an inability to understand his themes. You may be seeing more there than I am. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I don't know what it is about Cronenberg, Joel. Can't figure it. I thought it was just the body-horror thing, which I really struggle to cope with, until I saw DEAD RINGERS and found myself equally perturbed... But you're right about Aickman. Different people find different things unpalatable. I used to know someone who, after reading Stephen King's IT, couldn't sleep until she'd taken the book outside and put it in her dustbin. She was an recovering alcoholic - dunno if that's significant. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Whatever it is, it reminds of all the people I know who claim to be never scared by anything in fiction. There's a kind of smugness in their attitude, as if their response to any such material is a matter of their firm embeddedness in adulthood, as if they've left those emotions behind where they belong in childhood. Never once does it occur to them that it may be a failure of their ability to relate their inner lives to fictional representatives - ossified imagination. | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.4.67 |
I think I've only ever managed to sit through Eraserhead once. Every time I've tried since it's left me so uneasy I've had to switch it off. There's something about a lot of Lynch's films which disturb me on such a deep level that I can barely put my finger on what exactly is wrong - and that's why I love them all so! I'm with you on Cronenberg, Joel. I've always found the ending of Shivers quite life-affirming in a strange way. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.69.81.187 |
Eraserhead is bonkers, I love it. Some of it I find very funny, some of it is bleak and disturbing. The family meal scene is indeed one of the most intensley disturbing scenes in the movie, it's also the funniest. It's like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner seen through the eye of Cthulhu. (Or something). Some Lynch films I prefer to others. I've been putting off Inland Empire because its very long and I can find the weirdness a bit of a struggle sometimes. It's like Trout Mask Replica (bear with me on this), sometimes I just want to lie in the dark and listen to that intensley weird and brilliant album, sometimes I'll put it on and think: "Nah. Not today thanks." I have the same response to Lynch movies, I have to be in the right frame of mind. As for Cronenberg, I agree with Joel. His approach, his method, is always refreshing. He's evolving as a director and his films are never boring or forumlaic. His horror stuff made a huge impression on me as a teen and Cronenberg on Cronenberg was my (other) Bible at University. As for fiction scaring the bollocks off you or being too disturbing, Ramsey's stuff has done that to me on a number of occassions. I was literally frozen with fear by the conclusion of the short story "The Trick" and the last hundred or so pages of both The Incarnate and Grin of The Dark, made me feel panicky. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
'INLAND EMPIRE' is a masterpiece. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.71.248 |
I'm confident Eraserhead is about the fears and alienation involved with becoming a parent -- particularly with becoming a father. Lynch has always resisted interpreting his own work (wisely so, I think), but in early interviews he was somewhat less reticent. Over the years he's made it pretty clear that this was at least partly his intention with the film. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.93.30.31 |
Eraserhead is a masterpiece. I can always watch this film. It was painstakingly put together over years and years. Also a big Cronenberg fan. I always look forward to watching his next film. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
ERASERHEAD is about Lynch's life and having a kid and splitting up with his wife. But the symbology around that seems to suggest more. The opening scene, as I said, mirrors the assassination. The man in the planet... http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e222/halftone1/eraserhead1.jpg ...looks like a guy with a rifle. He even pulls the levers in accordance with the shots fired. The first is pulled quickly (The first shot missed) the second and third levers are pulled slowly after consideration (the second and third bullets hit their mark). And look at the smashes in the window. Two holes and a chink in the glass. Just like the bullet strikes. The number 26 turns up twice. Henry lives at flat 26 and his wife/girlfiend MARY lives at house number 2146. Marylin Monroe was born 1926 and died 1962. The sort of thing Lynch would be interested in. Symbols etc. Little clues. The woman in the radiator... http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/7833/137eraserhead25nt2.jpg ...could be Marylin, who died a year before JFK. And who is luring Henry away from the world he is trapped in to a higher brighter heaven. Lynch doesn't like to talk about the meaning of this film, and there is one -he's said so. I wouldn't want to broadcast the meaning of this film if it was talking about a popular dead president who has entered a hell and kills a deformed baby. I wonder if this shows Lynch's view of JFK and the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He's basically saying JFK died and went to hell. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYYN7QhcKs http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/030107_lynch_art.html Lynch is no stranger of conspiracy theories. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Lynch has frequently used the iconography, fashions, and sensibilities of the American 50s in his work. (The early 60s weren't so different.) Still, I seriously doubt he would be so directly allegorical. On the other hand, help yourself, if you're so inclined. I understand The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon have some amazing coincidences as well, if you play them together. Knock yourself out. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Yet, he's being allegorical about his own life? His child was born deformed, so they tell me. A club foot. Not the same thing as a...sack thing. But the shape of it could be a club foot. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Gary - I thought it was only us girls who were supposed to get freaked out and squirmy over DEAD RINGERS! And man oh man, I watched it again and again and again... The only film I couldn't watch through was IRREVERSIBLE. I felt queasy after the first five minutes and it only got worse. I was later told that the camera stopped spinning after the rape scene, but I'd seen enough by then anyway. Lynch and Cronenberg: geniuses. I can't get enough of either one. VIDEODROME changed my life, but then I did see it at an impressionable age. ERASERHEAD disturbed me, but not nearly as much as some of the scenes in TWIN PEAKS or INLAND EMPIRE. "In heaven... everything is fine..." | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Lynch wrote the lyrics to that song. It is the same tempo as the version of Happy Birthday that Marilyn sang to JFK. I see your ways, Lynch. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Oh, mairzy doats and dozy dotes and liddle lamzy divy, A kiddly divy too, wooden shoe? Oh mairzy doats and dozy dots and liddle lamzy divy, A kiddly divy too, wooden shoe? Now, if the words sound queer, and funny to your ear, A little bit jumbled, and jivy, Sing 'Mares eat oats, and Does eat OATS, and little lambs eat ivy And Joyce Carol OATES wrote a 'conspiratorial' novel about Marilyn Monroe called 'Blonde'. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
You're frightening me!  | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.226.149 |
TWIN PEAKS did become laughable after a fashion, and the film was no great shakes; even so I was very fond of the girl at the telephone switchboard, remember her (especially her voice)? Horror-wise, my favourite Lynch moment is from MULHOLLAND DRIVE, when the girls discover the *shudder* thing on the bed. As for Cronenberg, THE BROOD is the one that does it for me. Even the mere silhouette of Samantha Eggar is delightfully creepy. An extraordinary actress to pull a role like that off. I fell asleep during SCANNERS. VIDEODROME I still have to see. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
I'm frightening myself!  | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
I also feel hungry...are you doing that too? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Just eaten. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Leland Palmer is in da house! Oh yeah, that thing on the bed in MULHOLLAND DRIVE freaked me out too! I had to double-check the locks after that one. Hubert: If you've never seen VIDEODROME, treat yourself to the Criterion DVD. It has the uncut "Videodrome" footage as an extra! (For them as like such things... **whistles**) | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
VIDEODROME is a marvellous piece of work that I think was seriously ahead of its time. Certainly I seem to appreciate it more these days than when I saw it first in the mid-eighties And Niki's right - the Criterion DVD is very nice indeed. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.226.149 |
Thanks for the info, I'll keep my eyes peeled. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.71.248 |
I had never heard that Jennifer Lynch had been born with a club foot, but if she had -- that is, if Lynch was the father of a "deformed" baby -- then his creating a fiction about a father of a deformed baby is not an allegory. There's no intermediary metaphor. It's too direct. On the other hand, Eraserhead, like all of Lynch's work, is so indecipherable as to make all discussion of allegory meaningless. You may catch glimpses of meaning in Lynch's work, but to say any of his works are solely about one thing is to miss the point, I think. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
"Thanks for the info, I'll keep my eyes peeled." An image worthy of the directors currently under discussion. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
 | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.103.184 |
I suppose a film consciously made of random images whould have meaning to anyone, especially the director, unless he made himself direct another writer's stroy and deliberately ignored his instincts regarding casting, location, music etc. But even then... | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
>>I had never heard that Jennifer Lynch had been born with a club foot, but if she had -- that is, if Lynch was the father of a "deformed" baby -- then his creating a fiction about a father of a deformed baby is not an allegory. There's no intermediary metaphor. It's too direct. I figured you'd say that. The man in the planet isn't an allegory of Oswald firing on JFK, in the strictest sense of the word allegory. They are just similar. No fancy word needed. But why wouldn't Lynch be allegorical about real events anyway? because he hasn't done it overtly before? And no, they are not just about one thing. But Lynch has said that HE has a meaning for the film. A definite meaning, other than the interpretations we could come up with. One he won't discuss. And this is just my theory of what it is, due to the fact that so much of it matches. If it quacks like a duck... Lynch is quite obssessed by Monroe and has tried to make a film about her and her murder. The studios pulled out when he wanted to name the person he thought killed her. http://www.geocities.com/~mikehartmann/projects.html So I see no reason at all why he wouldn't tackle such subjects. I don't believe all the film is about JFK. It isn't. Unless JFK sired a deformed baby and we didn't get to hear about it. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.103.184 |
People sometimes make things without realising. It's in their heads and then it comes out because it's all that can. We can only work with the clay we have inside us. Unless we're very clever, of course. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
"Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana on January 20, 1946.[4] His father, Donald, was a U.S. Department of Agriculture research scientist and his mother, Sunny Lynch, was an English language tutor.[4] He was raised throughout the Pacific Northwest and Durham, North Carolina. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout and, on his 15th birthday, served as an usher at John F. Kennedy's Presidential Inauguration.[4] Lynch is a Presbyterian.[5][6]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lynch | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Eraserhead was written in 66. Just 3 years after the assassination of a president he helped inaugriate. Bound to have affected him. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.103.184 |
I agree. I just also think it was about other stuff, like it was a fantasy based on his life, not solely that. It's certainly interesting though. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Albie, as I have said, you can believe whatever you want. Makes no difference to me. But I'm not gonna buy it. Lynch doesn't make movies to decipher, he makes movies to interpret. If that's you interpretation, that's cool. It's just not mine. And while Lynch has given hints from time to time about the "meaning" of Eraserhead, those hints have always suggested a connection to the difficulties inherent with become a first-time parent. I stand by the interpretation of the film I related earlier, not least because it echoes those hints. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
>> The man in the planet isn't an allegory of Oswald firing on JFK, in the strictest sense of the word allegory. Well, that's true, but your ERASERHEAD=Assassination of JFK original post above suggested that the film had many more connections to JFK than just the "man in the planet" sequence. The link you included offered a great many such connections. In the strictest sense, then, you're saying this is a deliberate "allegory," which is an extended metaphor in which elements of the narrative have additional meanings outside the narrative itself. Is this a fancy word? Didn't mean it to be ... | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
The link you included about the proposed (and abandoned) Monroe film, contained the following quote from Lynch on his involvement: "I always, like ten trillion other people, liked Marilyn Monroe, and was fascinated by her life. So when this came along I was interested, but, you know, what's the drill? I got into it carefully...We met with Anthony Summers, who wrote the book. The more we went along the more it was sort of like UFOs. You're fascinated by them, but you can't really prove if they exist. Even if you see pictures, or stories, or people are hypnotized, you never really know. Same thing with Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys and all this. I can't figure out even now what's real and what's a story. It got into the realm of a bio pic and the Kennedys thing and away from this movie actress that was falling. I got cold on it. And when we put in the script who we thought did her in, the studio bailed out real quick." This does not sound to me like a man "obsessed" with Monroe (or with any of the Kennedys, for that matter). He sounds like he's saying he was as interested in Monroe as anyone else was, but that the details of her life did not seem (to him) like promising film material -- even when he intended to include Monroe's life intersecting with the Kennedys. I don't think this helps your case much. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Semantics. Meh. >>Albie, as I have said, you can believe whatever you want. Makes no difference to me. But I'm not gonna buy it. I don't seem to recall asking you specifically to buy it. You seem dead set to talk about it though. Fine, but you seem a little stressed about putting your point across, like I called you out or something. >>And while Lynch has given hints from time to time about the "meaning" of Eraserhead, those hints have always suggested a connection to the difficulties inherent with become a first-time parent. That's just some of the film. There's stuff that he doesn't talk about and that he says has never matched anything said about the film by other people. Since other people have come up with the obvious autobiographical stuff there must be more to it. Do you imagine Lynch killed a baby that came back to life and had his brain used as eraserheads for pencils and then joined a fat cheeked woman in a radiator? I am completely right.  | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
>>The more we went along the more it was sort of like UFOs. You're fascinated by them, but you can't really prove if they exist. Sounds pretty much more than interest. >>Even if you see pictures, or stories, or people are hypnotized, you never really know. Same thing with Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys and all this. I can't figure out even now what's real and what's a story. It got into the realm of a bio pic and the Kennedys thing and away from this movie actress that was falling. I got cold on it. He got cold because it became too real. ERASERHEAD Style is much more his style of doing it. As he did. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Waddya know. He even wrote a song called Marilyn Monroe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueBob Lynch also had Laura Dern base her character in WILD AT HEART on Monroe. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
http://potrzebie.blogspot.com/2007/10/joyce-roodnat-interviews-david-lynch.html Here he is again, going on about Monroe. But let's not forget that Monroe in ERASERHEAD is a sub character. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Went cold did he? "David Lynch and Mark Frost were originally working on a screen adaptation of the Marilyn Monroe biography 'Goddess'. When they failed to get the rights to the book, the project they embarked upon instead, 'Twin Peaks', contained many elements of Marilyn Monroe's story - particularly the fact that she is killed just before she mentions in her diary that she is going to tell the world the truth about the famous and important man she is having an affair with (Ben Horne)." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098936/trivia He went cold on doing a direct documentary, not on the story of Monroe. So here we have evidence that TWIN PEAKS contained elements of Monroe's life. Just as i'm saying about ERASERHEAD. How could I be any more right?  | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Monroe is a Lovecraftian monster as envisaged in 'Blonde' by Joyce Carol Oates. Seriously. I'm all in favour of finding things in things. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Lynch is a great place to find things one didn't know one was seeking until one finds them. One must be catholic (little c) AND eclectic. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Good for you. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.143.25 |
I'm all in favour of finding things in things. Well, those are the best places to look for them... | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.93.30.31 |
You know Lynch does resist when asked to interpret his own films. When I met him last year he certainly wasn't too keen on discussing his films. He describes his films, as any artist would do, as the collision of different ideas, fished from the subconcious. Blue Velvet, he said for example, came from two images, the red lips and the white pickett fens... Personally I see some of his work relating to the infamous Black Dhalia murder, and the mystery surrounding it and the connections between small town denial and show business strawmen...There is always (mostly) a narrative dream logic to his work, but it is carefully structured, and the collage of concepts then creates more and more dynamic interpretations. So, theories about his work are always relevant and welcome, especially if he himself, the artist, is mining the popular subconcious. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.161.241.208 |
Exactly, Karim. Agreed. I note the name-dropping...  | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.93.30.31 |
Lynch is very approachable. He comes to Denmark quite often. A film school was opened in his name here. I just wish he'd talk more about film than meditation techniques. But he's peachy keen, thumbs up, a-alright, now where's the apple pie. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
>> I don't seem to recall asking you specifically to buy it. Nope, you asked me (and all others at this forum) to comment on it, which I did, and then you offered your own in response. I thought we were having a dialogue. Now you're acting as if my comments weren't invited in the first place or that you never directly addressed anything I said. >> Fine, but you seem a little stressed about putting your point across, like I called you out or something. I'm not stressed. Don't know why I'm coming off that way. I'm a happy guy. And I wouldn't say you "called me out," but you did directly dispute the comments you invited me to give. Let me refresh your memory: First you disputed my assertion that Lynch wouldn't be allegorical by misusing the term "allegory,", and then by disagreeing with me when I corrected you. Then you suggested he was "obsessed" with Monroe -- as though this proved something about Eraserhead and JFK -- and offered as evidence a quote that showed no such thing. Now you're offering further evidence of this obsession, but the quotes you provide only show that Monroe was on his mind. He was working on Goddess just after Blue Velvet. Shortly thereafter he wrote (or co-wrote) Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart. This all happened relatively close together, so why wouldn't these projects influence each other? He wrote the screenplay for Goddess with Mark Frost, the co-creator of Twin Peaks; isn't it possible Frost was the one encouraging the Monroe stuff? >> You seem dead set to talk about it though. I enjoy our little talks, Albie. You must, too, or otherwise you wouldn't continue them, right? >> Do you imagine Lynch killed a baby that came back to life and had his brain used as eraserheads for pencils and then joined a fat cheeked woman in a radiator? Yes. Of course I do. That's what I've been saying all along. Finally, you understand me! | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.4.67 |
I suspect that there were a great many things circling around the inside of Lynch's head when he wrote Eraserhead and, if he did indeed write it in the years following the Kennedy assassination, then it's entirely possible that he's subconsciously (or otherwise) fed certain images into the film. Whether that equates to Eraserhead being about the Kennedy Assassination is debatable. It may just be a strange record of the point where the damaged psyche meets the ruined landscape of its surroundings. Or he may have just been taking the piss. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Chris. All you points stem from greyness. Your interpretation of vague words. Supposed mental states of Lynch. You may say I base my theory on grey images, that could mean many things. I would say there are so many grey connections to JFk that it becomes suspicious. Given there's a connection between Lynch and JFK that was only five years before he wrote the film I think I could be right. I don't know if it was intentional. But you haven't earned the right to say " I'm not buying it." because you haven't actually tackled the core of my theory, just the greyness. Which anyone can do. You can at best say " you could be right, you could be wrong." Because nobody here can say they know enough about Lynch to be definite about anything he does. If you have a theory that the film wasn't about JFK (how could you) then let's hear it. So long as it is convincing enough nobody can deny that it MIGHT be right. I feel I've shown enough that it MIGHT be right. And many have said so, here and on other sites. Including a forum of David Lynch fans (who don't even like me btw). Did you watch the film to see if my take on the images worked? You really need to, because there's more to it than I've outlined. Like Henry's neighbour looking like Jackie Kennedy, who goes off with an older man. Like right after the first dreamlike scene we see Henry enter the large doorway (or whatever it is) like he's entering the underworld. There's no waking up scene right after the dream scene, which leads us to see it as an event and not a dream. Hence it fits that the dream was his death. Jack Nance's acting also shows a possibility that all he is seeing, of his flat, of learning of his girlfriend calling him, are new to him. Like the memories are growing in his mind to fashion the fake persona of Henry. Like I've said before, the idea of the film being a dead person dreaming to hide from a horrible truth is probably the theme of MULHOLLAND DRIVE. And what was that film about? A blonde actress trying to make it in the movies who comes to a sticky end and kills herself. Sounds familiar? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
>>Now you're offering further evidence of this obsession, but the quotes you provide only show that Monroe was on his mind. Grey words. Obsession. On his mind. Really interested. Fascinated (his own word) Grey. >>He was working on Goddess just after Blue Velvet. Shortly thereafter he wrote (or co-wrote) Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart. This all happened relatively close together, so why wouldn't these projects influence each other? Because he's made or tried to make several films with elements of Monroe in them, you see that as proving your point? This wasn't just a short time fad. >>He wrote the screenplay for Goddess with Mark Frost, the co-creator of Twin Peaks; isn't it possible Frost was the one encouraging the Monroe stuff? Back that up with evidence from Frost. Does he often have projects with Monroe in them? (I know he's labelled as "obssessed" about her.) More than Lynch? Provide evidence. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
The only things I can find are the two projects he did with Lynch. Not that interested then. Considering Lynch has done far more. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
87 was Goddess. Mulholland Drive 2001. Hardly a short term thing for Lynch. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Seems ERASERHEAD was written in 71 not 66. But it was inspired by that time. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Albie, my good man, I can only respond with statements I've already made, and I really don't feel like making them again. You're asking for evidence, but proving a negative is notoriously difficult. I've already offered my own view of the film's content -- a view you don't disagree with, and one backed up by more "grey words" from Lynch, who has only hinted at the film's meaning. I'm not gonna buy your theory, as I said, not because there isn't any "evidence" for it, I guess, but because the evidence to me seems suspiciously like conspiracy-theory claptrap, the sort of thing you get when you connect dots that don't deserve connecting. As I've brought up before, there are a great many suspicious coincidences found when you play The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon together, but that doesn't mean Pink Floyd intended any of them. (Although some people indeed believe that.) Apparently the US stock market rises every year the American League has won the World Series (and falls every year the National League wins). Does that mean these two things are connected? On the other hand, you've obviously been doing a lot of digging in Lynch's work, a valuable exercise no matter how right or wrong you are. (I don't see the connection between Monroe and Mulholland Drive, btw; there are far too few similarities there.) I like John's response -- I agree that it's possible some residue from JFK or Monroe or any of a hundred other fifties/early sixties American pop culture icons found its way into the mix that became Eraserhead -- but that doesn't mean it's about any particular icon. However, I don't dispute your right to believe whatever you want about Eraserhead or any of Lynch's films. As I said, knock yourself out, old boy. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
"As I've brought up before, there are a great many suspicious coincidences found when you play The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon together." Man, what an evening that would make: Follow the yellow brick road Follow the yellow brick road I'll see you on the dark side of the moon | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Conspiracy theorists have been telling us for years that Roger Waters had a letter from Dorothy. But whether he replied to it is not known. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
http://tinyurl.com/jnpao http://tinyurl.com/29wq2l | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.231.98 |
Even if David Lynch were to come out and publicly state that he, unequivocally, didn't intend ERASERHEAD as an analogy - of any kind and to any degree - of the JFK assassination, Marilyn Monroe, etc.; it would be a moot point regarding the work itself, and its interpretation by viewers. Only a complete moron would confuse Albie's point that ERASERHEAD "is" about these issues, to mean IS about these issues. Albie is looking at the film with a critical eye; and every good critic knows that the author him/herself is the worst authority for his or her own work, in that regard....  | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Hear! Hear! (Intentional Fallacy) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
I would comment, but if my remarks could as plausibly be read as a recipe for lemon meringue pie as a comment on these issues, what's the point? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.231.98 |
Interesting analogy there of America's general decline from the end of the second World War, through the bloody conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, finally culminating in the Watergate scandal, Joel. Intentional? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Shouldn't that be cherry pie? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.58 |
Don McLean, anyone? | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
>> Even if David Lynch were to come out and publicly state that he, unequivocally, didn't intend ERASERHEAD as an analogy - of any kind and to any degree - of the JFK assassination, Marilyn Monroe, etc.; it would be a moot point regarding the work itself, and its interpretation by viewers. True dat. As would Lynch's explicit revelation of any intended meaning of the film. >> Only a complete moron would confuse Albie's point that ERASERHEAD "is" about these issues, to mean IS about these issues. Well, that pesky equals sign in the name of this thread that would suggest otherwise. Also, Albie presents a great many "connections" between Eraserhead and JFK and between Lynch's work and the life of Marily Monroe. He doesn't seem to be saying that these are accidental inclusions -- in fact, I'm the one saying these are accidental inclusions. Btw, are you calling me a complete moron, Craig? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Sorry for coming late to the party, but my opinion falls roughly in line with a lot of Chris M is saying. "I'm confident Eraserhead is about the fears and alienation involved with becoming a parent -- particularly with becoming a father." If one is looking for allegory in the film, that's certianly the allegory I read into it. But asa Chris also says (well, kind of), Cronenberg beats his own drum. Only the man himself could ever know what the film means. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Erm, I mean Lynch. :-/ Sorry; still spaced out after me jollies! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Stuff like this can mean lots of things, which is not to say it can mean anything. There's a word for art, isn't there? That its elements are poly-something - meaning there are always multiple meanings depending on who's watching and when. Don't we have this discussion here every few months? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Yes. And yes. I guess we're all just fusing those horizons... :-) | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
What happened to fusing horizons? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
The fuse blew. ;-) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 67.116.103.246 |
Btw, are you calling me a complete moron, Craig? Absolutely not, because you are not claiming Albie big-IS making that connection. Can I say that the "Yes he is!"/"No he's not!" school of critical interpretation can be taxing? I think we tend to analyze too much every particular of every nuance of every tic of every jot and tittle of every-other's statements. Sure, Albie headed this thread with the "equals" = sign... but context should have borne out what he meant.... However, the problem could lie in the use of the term "allegory"; which, it is true, has come over time to mean the artist's intended under-"storyline" in a given work. Much of what's above does, upon reflection, in emphasizing this, seem to imply Lynch intended the found allegory. And on this point, I would agree with Chris - nope. So me, I would ditch the use of the term "allegory," and instead insist upon using "seems to be about...", even "seems to really be about...". But then, I'm anal that way.  | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I've said that ERASERHEAD is about more than one thing, Chris. It is about Lynch's life around the time he moved to Philadelphia. I know, because he's said so. No argument there at all. But he says it is about more. You say my theory reads like conspiracy claptrap. Considering Lynch wanted to make a film about that claptrap, and about the very same subjects I'm talking about, completely negates your argument. He WOULD make a film about conspiracy. Eraserhead isn't about conspiracy anyway. There's no pointing of fingers. The elements are disguised (a much better word than allegory) to a degree that hides any meaning. Unless you know what to look for. The imagery stands for itself. You cannot argue with that. You can see it as coincidence. But the only reason you have for that is because you feel it is coincidence. I feel it isn't because there are too many coincidences. I don't think you made an effort to believe. I think your mind was made up when you read the title of this thread. Maybe you don't believe anything that looks like a conspiracy theory? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
There's more coincidences. The Kennedys had a stillborn premature baby. The baby in the film was premature. JFK had back problems that affected his walk. He was known as a hunchback by some. Henry walks with a hunch occasionally. JFK was known for his restlessness. His hands would continually pick at things. There are several scenes in the film which are nothing more than Henry picking at things. His bed. His nightgown. etc. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.153.231 |
Maybe Eraserhead is about the effect of Kennedy's death on his (Lynch's) life, hence his family life too. The two can happily get along. It could be a weird autobiography. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Suppose Lynch read about Kennedy, after he'd been an usher at his inauguration and seen his death on TV. When you read about someone you naturally look for similarities between them and you. A natural means of developing a story. And if a blatant image in the film is needed, how about this. http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k151/besek/eraserhead1.jpg The image that appears on the DVD cover. What is that dust flying about behind Henry's head? When his brain is used to make rubbers for pencils, the man tests the rubber on a piece of paper and then sweeps the little rubbery bits into the air. The particles behind Henry's head are his brains. A cloud of his brains. You cannot get a more blatant image of JFK's death. Immediately after this dream he wakes, clutching his head, as if protecting it from being hit. |