MetaChat - So I'm watching Eraserhead and it's not what I expected.

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04 January 2007

So I'm watching Eraserhead and it's not what I expected. →[More:]

So I know this film is supposed to be all interesting and symbolic and groundbreaking and shit, but really, it's just kind of slow-moving and gross and... well, boring.

Am I culturally inept? Please advise.

post by: Specklet at: 02:04 | 35 comments

I had the same experience with it. I watched about 30 minutes and called it good. Note: I'm almost certainly culturally inept.

posted by agropyron 04 January | 02:11

I thought it would have been better to watch it stoned rather than drunk.

posted by brujita 04 January | 02:15

Huh. I just rewatched Lost Highway tonight. Must be...something?

posted by gaspode 04 January | 02:19

David Lynch is personal and idiosyncratic and about 40% as funny as Stanley Kubrick. I love this movie but I have never been able to explain it well. It was one of the first of the punk generation movies and is infused with Luis Buñuel's influence.

Not Buñuel or Kubrick but damn good.

Also, I have never known a women who liked it.

posted by arse_hat 04 January | 02:24

I've watched it twice: once when I was 10, and once when I was 23. I actually made less sense of it when I was 23, and I don't think I'm culturally inept. You are not alone!

The only people I've ever met who claimed to understand David Lynch movies were those whiny kids in high school who prattled on about how they were planning on "going into film" and then years later it turned out they were kinda right because they had graduated college with BFAs and were making minimum wage selling tickets in the booth at a crappy movie theatre.

posted by cmonkey 04 January | 02:45

BFA? Barely Fuck All?

posted by TheDonF 04 January | 02:48

The only people I've ever met who claimed to understand David Lynch movies were those whiny kids in high school who prattled on about how they were planning on "going into film" and then years later it turned out they were kinda right because they had graduated college with BFAs and were making minimum wage selling tickets in the booth at a crappy movie theatre.

*raises hand*

*also is no longer a David Lynch fan*

posted by mudpuppie 04 January | 02:51

"The only people I've ever met who claimed to understand David Lynch movies were those whiny kids in high school who prattled on about how they were planning on "going into film" and then years later it turned out they were kinda right because they had graduated college with BFAs and were making minimum wage selling tickets in the booth at a crappy movie theatre."

I still like the movie.

heh.

Big Farting Arse?

posted by arse_hat 04 January | 02:52

BFA

posted by Rhomboid 04 January | 03:01

A BFA is a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. I should be clear that I don't mean to paint everyone who sat around talking about the "metaphors for sin" in Eraserhead poorly. The people I'm thinking of were just not particularly motivated and also really liked to hear themselves talk.

posted by cmonkey 04 January | 03:05

cmonkey, we are just pulling your leg. No need to apologize.

posted by arse_hat 04 January | 03:09

I have watched Eraserhead probably a good half dozen times, and listened to the soundtrack (which is really just the full audio track) countless times.

I can't say I like it nor dislike it. It can certainly be explained but I do not see the point in trying. It is a study in setting up atmosphere and then delivering. No more, no less.

Did I mention 'socks'?

posted by mischief 04 January | 03:24

Eraserhead is definitely one of those "either you like it or you don't" kinda movies, as most of Lynch's are. I like it, and it's still a hard slog to get through, especially the first couple of times. There's no way a person who dislikes it will be convinced to like it, nor vice versa, and those kinds of discussions are pointless anyway.

I think a lot of folks hate it the first time through, but then find that they keep going back to the images in it in their head in the next days, months, or years. Sometimes they get curious and want to see it again, many times they don't. There's nothing inept about either reaction, though. Just different ways of responding to it (or any piece of art, really).

posted by BoringPostcards 04 January | 06:37

From The diary of David Lynch:

"Tuesday: The radiators are making an eerie clanking sound. Must remember not to get it fixed"

posted by dodgygeezer 04 January | 06:42

I've never seen Eraserhead (although the hype surrounding it has always made me curious), but I concur that David Lynch is way overrated.

And I don't even believe in the concept of cultural eptitude.

posted by jonmc 04 January | 09:21

The last half-hour or so just draaaaaaaagggggssss, huh? I mean, yeah, I get it, I get it.

posted by mrmoonpie 04 January | 09:48

Eraserhead is much better if you watch it in a theater. If you just watch it on your TV, it easily seems silly or boring. But even so, I agree David Lynch is overrated.

posted by halonine 04 January | 09:51

I never got that movie. I went to a midnight screening of it in college (my third or fourth attempt to watch it all the way through) and half an hour in ended up going to the next theater to see rest of the midnight screening of Apocalypse Now.

My wife is a big fan of Eraserhead, and she said that in high school it was one of the movies she'd take with when she stayed at her Dad's for the weekend. The movie would practically give him an aneurism, which may be partly why she loves it so much. When he was about ready to snap she'd offer to put in another movie, which was normally the Forbidden Zone.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 04 January | 09:53

Eraserhead is the creepiest movie I've ever seen. Pure nightmare. Way bad juju.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 04 January | 09:54

Pure, unadulterated Lynch (Eraserhead, Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, parts of Mulholland Drive, INLAND EMPIRE) is like atonal music -- it's so different from what we're accustomed to that we either like it or really hate it

posted by matteo 04 January | 10:21

I dunno, matteo. I thought Twin Peaks was entertaining, and all the Laura Dern flesh on display in Wild At Heart was certainly nice. But for the most part, I neither love nor hate him. He's just kind of..all right.

posted by jonmc 04 January | 10:25

i saw eraserhead when i was in high school...stoned. the chicken moving around on the table...hilarious.
as an cold sobber adult, i found it boring...

posted by karim satasha 04 January | 10:27

Eraserhead is much better if you watch it in a theater.

That's right. It doesn't work unless you feel trapped and confined in its world, which doesn't happen with a TV set sitting in the corner.

posted by StickyCarpet 04 January | 10:42

The only people I've ever met who claimed to understand David Lynch movies

They were lying. Nobody can understand David Lynch movies. If you claim to have understood it, you either didn't watch the whole movie or didn't pay attention. The (only) thing you have to understand is, you cannot understand David Lynch movies the way you do, say, Steven Spielberg. The moment something finally starts making sense, reality takes a sharp turn to the left and you're lost again.

posted by Daniel Charms 04 January | 10:45

Note that being lost is a very personal feeling. I like it if a movie does this to me, but it's not something everyone has to like.

posted by Daniel Charms 04 January | 10:49

I liked parts of Wild At Heart, most of Lost Highway (the soundtrack especially), most of Blue Velvet, almost all of Mulholland Drive and loved every single frame of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (and the television series, of course). The Elephant Man is brilliant, as well. Dune? Well, it could've been better.

But Eraserhead just bugged the hell out of me. And still does. Even as much as I like Jack Nance, I don't feel the need to ever watch it again.

So I'd say that you could easily be a Lynch fan and not like 100% of his output.

posted by grabbingsand 04 January | 11:19

I've always found Lynch to be surprisingly inept for all the indie worship he gets. Like a film-school geek who's trying too hard to impress his girlfriend from the continent. I generally like creepy, moody, freak-out stuff, but his work always struck me as very ham fisted and obvious.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 04 January | 11:49

I think Flo just voiced my opinion.

posted by Specklet 04 January | 12:27

When I first saw it I tried to make it important. Even had a few people over my crib for the "event".
It just didn't happen for me...at all.

posted by Joe Famous 04 January | 12:33

Say what you will about Eraserhead. I enjoyed it at the time, but wouldn't watch it again. You cannot be my friend, however, if you don't love Twin Peaks.

posted by danostuporstar 04 January | 12:43

I will just say that when I lived in New York the Waverly was showing Blue Velvet as a midnight movie. There were about eight people besides me in the theater.

And I was the only one laughing.

Boy, has that stuck with me. If you can't find people who get Lynch in Greenwich Village at midnight, where the hell can you find them?

posted by stilicho 04 January | 12:43

I remember when my sister and I saw Blue Velvet in the theater, and when we came out she looked at me and said, "That was a WONDERFUL movie. I NEVER want to see it again!"

posted by JanetLand 04 January | 12:44

Blue Velvet was the first ever Lynch movie I saw. It was haunting, not funny, but maybe that had to do with the fact I was quite young. I've seen it many times since and I now I find his dark dark sense of humor prevalent. As in all his movies, I personally think.

Lynch is one of the few directors I want to watch over and over again. I do not mind, I find so many new things every time. In fact I re-interpret what I see again in different way. I don't know of anyone else who does this to me consistently.

posted by carmina 04 January | 12:49

ahem! I will not attempt to edit my above comment, no hope, really. Just to say: young, at heart :)

posted by carmina 04 January | 12:57

Huh. I've been ruminating about "Eraserhead" for the last few days, despite not having seen it for years. So far I've resisted the urge to watch it again, since I'm not sure I want to revisit those images. (It's been easily 18 months since I last watched "Lost Highway" and, mediocre film or no, I still sometime jolt awake to the image of Robert Blake looming up out of the dark. I'm susceptible, what can I say?)

Liked it? Ummm, I don't know that I've liked a Lynch project since "Twin Peaks." My feelings about his work are less straightforward than liking or not liking. I'm intrigued, I will say that.

posted by Elsa 04 January | 15:26

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