Back in the mid-1980s, my friend
Pete Dargue and I sat down to watch what we thought was going to be a horror
film. We got some beers in, turned on the telly and shoved the video into the
machine. But, unbeknownst to us at that time, we were about to embark on a strange
vehicle that would transport us through the weirdest ninety minutes of our entire
lives. Nothing in it made any sense to us and I have seen nothing quite like it
before or since. It was filmed in black-and-white and was about – well, we
weren’t sure what it was about – but when it finished we were both left
speechless, staring at the screen in quiet disbelief and wondering whether we
had just witnessed the work of a madman or a genius.
Eventually, after I had regained my
power of speech and returned to the real world, I said to Pete, “That was incredible,
I have absolutely no idea what it was about or what it was trying to say, but
it was incredible.” I wasn’t sure whether Pete nodded his head in agreement or
the result of an involuntary reaction to my statement, but I did notice a small
droplet of saliva dribble from his open mouth as he continued to stare incredulously
at the screen while the credits rolled, having been subjected, as I had been,
to the most cryptic, surrealist, sensational mind-fuck he had ever experienced.
I received a Facebook message from Pete a few months ago that read: I have never quite recovered from your recommendation
to watch Eraserhead. WTF was that all
about!
What indeed!
More recently my son, William,
expressed a burning desire to watch Eraserhead
after reading the IMDB synopsis that read: ‘Henry Spencer tries to survive his
industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his
newly born mutant child.’ I thought it prudent to warn him of what he was about
to let himself in for and so, just before I slid in the DVD and pressed PLAY I
said to him, “OK, now be prepared for the weirdest film you will ever see. And
I mean ever.” We have watched many a
weird film together over the last couple of years, but at the end of this one
William turned to me and said, “Dad, you have just mentally scarred me for the
rest of my life.”
 |
| Original poster for Eraserhead |
Eraserhead was the 1977 debut film from The Sultan of Strange
himself – David Lynch, an independent writer, director, producer,
cinematographer, editor, cartoonist, animator and actor who never treats his
audiences like idiots and has final cut on all of his films (with the exception
of Dune (1984), which he described as
being ‘a painful experience’ and a subject that he refuses to talk about in any
detail when interviewed). There are no chapter stops in any of the DVD releases
of his films because he thinks they are meant to be viewed from beginning to
end and you’ll not find any director’s commentary on them either because he
believes the films speak for themselves. He also refuses to say anything about Eraserhead because he wants viewers to
decide for themselves what they think it means, but apparently the mutant baby represents
his fear of becoming a father for the first time and the insistent industrial
background sounds reflect his hatred for Philadelphia (not the soft cheese).
“I’ve said many, many, many unkind things about Philadelphia,” he is quoted as saying
once, “and I meant every one.” This is the man who, after winning the Palme
d’Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival for Wild
at Heart, discovered that his shoelace was undone. He decided that it was
his lucky shoelace and left it untied at every Film Festival he attended where
one of his films was in competition. Dennis Hopper, who played Frank in Blue Velvet used the F-word in just
about every line he uttered, but Lynch hated to swear himself. “He would point
to the script and say, ‘Say that word,
Dennis,’” claimed Hopper in an interview, “He could write the word ‘fuck’, but
he couldn’t say it.”
Whatever I or my friend Pete or my
son William thought Eraserhead was
about, its style and imagery was so powerful that Mel Brooks, after watching it
on the insistence of his wife, Anne Bancroft, immediately hired Lynch to direct
The Elephant Man (1980).
OK, so here I have a confession to
make – I love David Lynch’s films – I
even sort of like Dune. They are
challenging, funny, violent and infuriating in equal measure. He is also
responsible for one of the most original TV series ever broadcast, Twin Peaks (1990-1991), a programme described
by Jonathan Ross as “a masterpiece. The scariest, weirdest, funniest, sexiest
TV series of all time,” that was so strange that the only other series I can
equate it to for sheer unadulterated weirdness is Patrick MacGoohan’s The Prisoner (1967-1968). Both of these
series’ have massive cult followings and both have spawned annual conventions
organised by dedicated fans that continue to this day.
Here’s just a few of the strange
things that happen in David Lynch’s films:
·
In Blue Velvet
(1986), Kyle MacLachlan discovers a severed human ear in a field in a quiet
suburban neighbourhood and Dennis Hopper breathes amyl nitrate through a mask
to get himself sexually aroused.
·
In Lost Highway,
(1997), a jazz saxophonist is sent to jail, where he inexplicably changes
overnight into a young mechanic and begins to lead a new life.
·
In Wild at Heart
(1990), Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, go on the run after Dern’s mother, played
by Dianne Ladd, sends an assortment of weirdo hit-men after them and the film
morphs into a twisted version of The
Wizard of Oz.
·
In the TV series Twin Peaks, FBI agent Dale Cooper
describes the minutiae of his daily life to the unseen ‘Diane’, via his
Dictaphone and his boss, Cooper's hard of hearing supervisor Gordon Cole, played by Lynch himself, mishears everything and shouts all the
time. Entertainment Weekly described Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as
‘like watching A Nightmare on Elm Street directed by Michelangelo Antonioni’.
·
The events depicted in Mulholland Drive (2001) may (or may not) be a dream.
·
In Inland Empire
(2006), a film actress begins to adopt the persona of her character and her
world becomes more and more surreal.
·
In The Straight
Story (1999) an old man travels over three hundred miles on his ride-on
lawn mower to visit his sick brother.
Actually The Straight Story is not as weird as it sounds. It’s based on the
true story of Alvin Straight, a 73 year old with bad eyes who can barely walk,
who has no driver’s licence and refuses to let other people drive him and who
makes the long journey to fix his relationship with his estranged brother after
he finds out that he has suffered from a stroke.
It’s a beautiful, emotional and
thoughtful drama about forgiveness and the value of basic human decency that is
both moving and funny and the weirdest thing about it is right at the start
when you see the words A Walt Disney
Production, followed by the words A
David Lynch film. It also tells a simple linear story and is his only U
Certificate. “Some people still wait for something bad to happen in the movie,”
Lynch said in an interview. “Also somebody was standing in line for a preview
screening and a lady behind them said, ‘Isn’t it odd that there are two
directors named David Lynch.’”
I think it’s true to say that The Straight Story is his most
straightforward film (Lynch described it as his most experimental film), but
that’s not to say that it doesn’t contain flashes of his trademark strangeness – the woman driver standing next to her
wrecked car who rants on about driving up and down the same stretch of road
every day to get to and from work and who ploughs into a deer three times every
week and wonders aloud as to where they all come from is just one of the pure
David Lynch moments you’ll witness throughout this wonderful little film.
Sissy Spacek, as Alvin’s mentally
retarded daughter with a tragic past that’s not revealed until later in the
film, is excellent, but the main reason for watching it is the commanding
performance of the great character actor Richard Farnsworth as Alvin. With his
wonderful voice, he brings a wise innocence and sadness that bears no trace of
sentimentality to the role. The deeply etched lines on his face tell you
everything about the man when he is not speaking and you can see from his
expressions that he is someone who has lived too long and seen too much. He is
a man who knows his own time is running out and wants to make peace with not
just his brother, but himself. Farnsworth himself was dying of terminal cancer
when he made this film and he was in excruciating pain throughout the
production. It was to be his final film as he committed suicide shortly after
he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. Lynch later said of Richard
Farnsworth: “a lot of people say someone was born to play a certain role. If
there ever was a case for that, this is it. The film hangs on his performance.
There’s nobody who could have done it like he did. He has a quality, which is
in all the films he’s been in, that makes you want to instantly love the guy.
He fits the definition of an actor – a person who makes something real.”
The cinematography in the film is
exquisite, and it was also to be the final film from the great Director of
Photography Freddie Francis. He was 81 when he photographed The Straight Story and his list of
credits as both Director and Director of Photography is impressive: Room at the Top (1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
(1960), The Innocents (1961), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) The Elephant Man (1980), Glory (1989) and Cape Fear (1991) are to name but a few.
The Straight Story was described by critics at the time as David Lynch’s best film
to date and it’s certainly different from the rest of his canon in its loving
story about family, friendship, the dignity of old age and the kindness of
strangers. It's a film that will appeal to die-hard fans of Lynch, as well as those
who are unfamiliar with his work and people who find his usual stuff just too
weird. It will not appeal people who only like high octane, shoot 'em up action
movies or films in which Jason Statham is playing himself (which is all of
them).
In other words,
if you’re looking for a great film with a great story, great photography and
great performances, then you should watch The Straight Story
immediately.
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