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I love pretentious shit and am myself a pretentious shit. I want to make it clear beforehand that I view Lynch and his work very negatively. The point of the Lynch Watch is for me to see all these classic, beloved movies that inspired my favorite creators and to possibly change my view. It is not an avenue to merely shit on the guy for the small list of things I have against him. The openly biased list.

That aside, the background for the Lynch Watch a scene from his famous piece: "Lynch X Interpol NFT" (2021).

Now, I'm starting with Eraserhead rather than Seven Men Puking Seven Times simply for simplicity's sake, I just want to watch his movies. If you're a real Lynchian, Lynchite, Lynchhead, Lynchcel and you genuinely think my watchthrough would be enhanced by a viewing of his non-movie pieces then please say so.

Eraserhead is a movie I watched when I was very very little. Maybe the 9-11 range? I remember the movie very well despite that which is probably a good sign as to Lynch's evocative directing. Interestingly what stuck out the most, and remains my favorite visual, is the chicken doing a pained little jig of writhing and gushing blood when shanked with Henry's fork.

As a kid I was pretty entranced with the idea of someone breaking the norms of filmmaking to jerk off, which at the time was a bit of a dream of mine. Being deeply autistic, I always struggled with the notion that something that was 'bad' was definitively 'bad' and that 'bad' things shouldn't ever exist. That notion is the basis of film critquing itself and so is echoed pretty half-heartedly by most everyone else. But it was difficult to hear "Oh you can't do X or he shouldn't do Y" when it came to creative endeavors because it always felt like, to me, "why not?" and the response was always "that it's bad" and that's that. Also why I don't have it in me to be an artist. There's only so much I can do with the same few lines but give an illiterate boy a keyboard and he can write all day without learning shit!

That's not to say I was particularly in love with Eraserhead. I mean, obviously I never followed Lynch's career or went out of my way to view his other films. I've seen Eraserhead and Twin Peaks. That's it.

As I grew up I saw a lot of work inspired by Eraserhead and none could properly strike the balance of "Clear cut story, blatant 200LB message and emotional expression, obsfucating visuals and ambiguous cutaways."

See, I think I have a tendency to create a binary, I put pretentious films in them far too often, much like the adults I disagreed with as a child- movies use heavy visual symbolism to obscure the message or to help tell it. Those are my two. However, Lynch goes a third route in Eraserhead and creates essentially two films. One where the obvious message is heavily underlined by heavy-handed imagery and the other where the ambiguous message is further obscured by absurd imagery. Eraserhead bounces between these seamlessly and can give you a mixed feeling of "Yeah, I completely understood it. I completely understood it even when I was nine." and "Huh? What the fuck is he on about?".

After rewatching this I asked my brother his opinion and he gave me an answer I'd call kind of embarrassing. Paraphrasing, obviously "As a kid I couldn't grasp the message, it was beyond me. Now that I'm an adult and have had adult expriences, the visuals made more sense. I feel now, that the movie was even a little too simple to understand. I guess that's growing up though..." It's been a few days or maybe even a week or two since I asked but that's roughly the gist of what I remember.

The point is, when asked about any specific details he would immediately yield that, yeah, he didn't really understand much. I think he just understood the concept of sex which is briefly shown. Which, not to pile on here, my brother understood very late in his life.

I give it that he perhaps had a better view of the struggles and burdens of relationships, meeting the parents or even having to split important duties. Those moments where you're guilty of ignoring an issue so the other person handles it. My brother doesn't have a child, if he ever has one then I'll ask his opinion again.

To be clear, perhaps it's my cynicism talking. But I don't really think Lynch does everything with intent, I recognize that his filmmaking language is far more emotional that logical. When someone comes and tries to describe Eraserhead they'll say "X symbolizes Y" which I feel is and unfair, and potentially even mean, way of putting it. It's just not that kind of film. The overgrown foliage in the bedroom doesn't symbolize decay but it does express the feeling that things are falling apart. The chicken doesn't symbolize the way we harm children inadvertently, but if you have something like that on your mind- that feeling of children and their harm on your mind then you may very well portray eating baby chickens in such a gruesome way. What I mean when I say that Lynch doesn't do everything with intent is that I don't even think he's always expressing that feeling. In the world of symbols (within the given definition that symbols are really X as a stand-in for Y, because that's just what the word means now) this is a chair that one can sit in, in the world of words this is a blank page in the middle of a book, in the world of feelings this is a scene where the main character's head is turned into erasers.

What I'm accusing Lynch of is randomly throwing overthinking nothing-burger scenes into stream of consciousness film. It's not the most damning thing but it does kill my vibe and somehow offput me. In an interview he'd state that he came up with a name first: Eraserhead. Then do everything around that.

I didn't always know that and when watching that's the one scene where I felt emotionally disconnected and where I felt that I couldn't put words to my feelings, that's the scene where the conversation between myself and the film just randomly stopped. To further compare it to a conversation it'd be a bit like asking someone how their day went and going on a long talk where the two of you are surprised how much you get along but the other person suddenly stops midsentence to ask you what you would do if Spiderman broke in and attacked you.

The extended scene of his noggin getting turned into erasers was that one scene I really couldn't form one good thought on and felt nothing about. Learning that he came up with the name first made it kinda click in my head that such a scene was forced in simply to justify the title. I can't escape that feeling

I will say that when I sit in think of it, I am assured by the fact that I recognize some parallel visuals between this and Twin Peaks. It's a good sign when you see shit like that, it's a sign that shit actually gets stuck in their head, that they really do have certain ideas stuck in there. I consider it a sign of a good creative to see the same few things crop up every now and then. It's a bit like checking for a pulse.

The cum swooping in like Judy, the fuck-ass tree looks a bit like The Arm, obviously the patterns and such, and a few other little things.

This movie is soo cliched but that's because it came out in fucking 1977! This movie made those things cliche! It's honestly funny how often pretentious movies are parodied to be black and white films about meeting your girlfriends parents with stilted acting, poor audio mixing and spontaneously holding the camera still at shit. It's seriously a real badge of honor to get shittier by way of Seinfeldification.

Of course, the baby is awesome and it's design is still magnificent nearly fifty years later. I can't applaud that enough, such a joy to see move around and be interacted with. There's a reason you can just casually refer to the baby from Eraserhead to this day and people know what you're talking about. I couldn't do the same with my beloved chicken scene.

Eraserhead

LYNCH WATCH