“It’s like a guy with a hunchback growth, and you meet a pretty good surgeon who takes it off, cleans it up, hardly any scars, and you go away. And you’re very thankful that that’s gone.“
That’s David Lynch – what am I talking about, of course, it’s David Lynch – explaining why he didn’t release any deleted scenes on the initial DVD release of his feature debut Eraserhead. This presents a problem for Criterion, whose Blu-Ray upgrade of the film hits Region 2 on October 19th. What can a company who specialise in bagfuls of extras and context do when the director responds to queries about how he achieved the film’s signature effect – the mutated baby that torments Jack Nance’s Henry – by saying “Maybe it was found”?
As it turns out, quite a lot. Before discussing extras, though, let’s get on to the simplest reason to buy this disc, which is the film itself. Not only is Eraserhead as bizarre, brilliant, repulsive and bleakly funny as it always was, this pristine Blu-Ray makes its technical genius more apparent than ever. It’s incredible to think that a five-year process of piecemeal production could result in a final product as unified and insular as this. Lynch and his production team display a keen eye for any parts of industrial Philadelphia that match up with their aesthetic, allowing this low-budget film to feel like it takes place in an expensively-realised science fiction world. The booms, echoes and mystery reverberations of Alan Splet’s famous sound design also come through with new clarity – anyone who first saw this classic ‘midnight movie’ on late-night TV has a revelation awaiting them.
… the late Nance is genuinely immaculate as Henry. It’s a performance no-one else could have given, like a slapstick comedian lost in an avant-garde drama – imagine Adam Sandler if Punch-Drunk Love was his only film lead
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Prior to making Eraserhead, Lynch had been working on a mid-length script called Gardenback, which the American Film Institute recommended he turn into a feature. According to Lynch, the expansion process destroyed Gardenback but it did teach him about story structure. Perhaps this is one reason why Eraserhead reached an audience; underneath it all is the skeleton of a conventional, satisfying story. After the surreal prologue with production designer Jack Fisk as ‘The Man in the Planet’, we are swiftly, unfussily introduced to Henry’s everyday routine. The introduction of his ex-partner Mary – Henry is seen rejoining the two halves of a torn-up photo of her – is a remarkably economical way of communicating backstory in a film too often written off as incomprehensible. At some point in a story this dark, it’s customary to introduce a note of hope, and Lynch obeys this rule as well. The fact that the note of hope is a tiny hamster-cheeked woman living inside Henry’s radiator who sings a song and stamps on umbilical cords is really neither here nor there.
Eraserhead is generally remembered as Lynch’s launchpad, as well as the film that made Nance a cult icon. This isn’t wrong: the late Nance is genuinely immaculate as Henry. It’s a performance no-one else could have given, like a slapstick comedian lost in an avant-garde drama – imagine Adam Sandler if Punch-Drunk Love was his only film lead. Time has shown, though, that it’s more than a two-man show. It’s easier to appreciate the poise and control of Judith Roberts’s performance as the woman Henry has a fling with now we’ve seen her very different performance as Joaquin Phoenix’s mother in You Were Never Really Here. Likewise, it’s astounding to think of Charlotte Stewart putting in nights playing Mary X, then going back to her day job – Little House on the Prairie! I can’t even imagine changing channels between those two, let alone working on them both at the same time.
Famously, two cameo appearances from Lynch’s assistant and future Log Lady Catherine Coulson hit the cutting room floor. Unless there’s a very well-hidden Easter Egg, the hunchback seems too pleased with his surgery to allow any deleted scenes on the disc. There are, however, five David Lynch shorts included, which is frankly a much better deal. The first three take you from 1967’s Six Men Getting Sick, essentially an experiment by a painter and sculptor, to 1970’s The Grandmother, in which nearly every element of Eraserhead is already in place. Skipping over 1974’s throwaway jape The Amputee, the set concludes with 1995’s Premonitions Following an Evil Deed, less than one minute long and one of the most astonishingly original short films ever made. YouTube has made short films far more accessible than they once were, but there really is no substitute for seeing them properly restored at Blu-Ray quality – even Six Men Getting Sick, which I’d previously written off as humble beginnings, looks more elaborate and cared-for than I’d ever given it credit for.
As well as a personal instruction from Lynch on how to calibrate your TV settings to best appreciate the feature, there’s also some background material that preserves the film’s big mysteries – no blueprint for making your own mutant baby, alas – while adding valuable context about the film’s production. In a nice, enigmatic touch, these are listed with their year of production and no other information, not even a title. No surprise that Lynch’s own warm, feature-length documentary Eraserhead Stories is one of them; as for the rest, I’ll preserve the surprise. All I’ll say is that my favourites were 1979, 1982 and 2014: do with that information what you will.
ERASERHEAD IS OUT ON CRITERION COLLECTION BLU-RAY
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