In Heaven, Everything Is Fine

Eraserhead
1977, David Lynch. 90 minutes
starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Jack Fisk

If you've seen Eraserhead, and you're talking to someone who hasn't, their inevitable question will be "what is it about?", and that will probably be a question you dread. Most people who have watched the film will probably argue that it is also an irrelevant question, but for the sake of simplicity, let's just say that, loosely, Eraserhead is about a man who finds out that he fathered a child prematurely, so he moves in with the mother and the child, and discovers that the child is severely deformed. And yet as I write that, the plot seems even more irrelevant than ever.

Eraserhead isn't really a narrative film, per se, and yet it does have a fairly straightforward plot line. In that way, it's one of the mot narrative surrealist films. If you were having a party and wanted weird video installations throughout your home as decoration or art, Eraserhead might be a wise DVD to purchase. David Lynch shot it on a shoestring budget over a period of 5 years, which adds to its disjointed feel. Upon this viewing, for the first time on a big theatre screen, it struck me how much its style and plot foreshadowed most of Lynch's later work, for everything from Blue Velvet to Lost Highway to INLAND EMPIRE. If you do get a chance to ever see this film on the big screen, be sure to check it out.

4 stars out of 5

Steph, Gary and I made our first trip to the new Mayfair, where I wanted to have popcorn, but they were sold out, something I've never seen in 23 years of going to the movies. Poor form Mayfair, poor form. Also, someone please turn on the furnace in that place ... it's freezing.


Fun Fact of the Day: The general rule of thumb for film screenplays are that one page of script equals one minute of film. So, for example, a 90 minute film should have a script between 90 and 100 pages. Eraserhead's script was about 18 pages long.