There's this phenomenon when you create art
where images or sounds of the piece come rushing
into your head and become the piece you want
to create.
This can occur in the midst of making something
or these things can be dreamed.
These images rarely even make sense to you,
so it puts you as the artist in the same position
as the audience, that of the interpreter.
This is one of mine.
It's fascinating to me how I can utilize images
I may not fully understand to make something
incredibly close and personal.
It's working from dreams, and the artist who's
taught me to be open to these things is David
Lynch.
Lynch's approach to filmmaking is unrivaled.
Lynch is a avid practicer of transcendental
meditation, for better or for worse, which
like all forms of meditation, opens him up
to images his subconscious will provide him,
and those images are what go directly into
his films.
While all of Lynch's films, as well as his
television work with Twin Peaks, feature these
images, his debut film, Eraserhead, is composed
entirely of them, and puts the viewer in the
position of the one experiencing those visions.
Eraserhead's production took five years to
make, primarily because of monetary restraints,
but this production time allowed Lynch to
ponder every minute detail of the film, adjusting
things ever so slightly to match his vision
exactly.
He even lived on set for a number of years,
again for monetary reasons, but allowing him
to always be there to adjust things.
This is an admirable dedication to the art,
and one that only really could have been done
with the intense passion for the project Lynch
had.
The film, like many of Lynch's films, explores
the notion of dreams, or more specifically,
levels of reality.
Many have speculated that the entire film
is a dream, with smaller dreams contained
within it, and this is 33 years
before Inception!
As the film opens, we see Henry's brain physically
leave his head, and a man pulling levers.
I interpret this to be the separation of mind
and body that occurs in a trance state, with
the man pulling the levers representing a
controlling of consciousness.
When entering a trance state, the first stage
is that of entoptics.
These are flashes of light and patterns that
the trancer sees before being able to interpret
them or have a vision closer to their reality.
In the beginning of Eraserhead, we see this,
a white light in a circle.
The audience has entered the trance state.
However, in order to embrace it like an artist
does, they have to feel an investment to it.
In ancient Native American cultures in the
Southwest a shaman would likely stare at rock
art, such as this, as they entered their trance
state, so that the images they stared at would
be there in the trance.
The third and final stage of entering a trance
is environmentally influenced, whatever is
in your life comes with you, and Eraserhead
translates that through the entirity of the
world of the film being viewed through Henry's
eyes.
The film is produced through a profoundly
subjective lens of the characters, and has
a relatively blank canvas of a protagonist
in Henry, who is easy for audiences to latch
on to.
Speaking visually, much of the surreal images
and moments can be influenced by Henry's own
perspective.
Because he is in this trance state, it's very
likely that Henry sees the baby exactly as
it is depicted, but this viewing hints toward
a feeling outside of the trance that Henry
might have about a real child.
In other words, the baby in reality is likely
normal, but regretted by Henry because of
its accidental nature.
This subjectivity in what we see transcends
large plot points, and hits home on a smaller
scale.
At the beginning of the film, Henry enters
an elevator and it takes the doors 18 grueling
seconds to close.
However, when Henry uses the same elevator
at multiple other instances throughout the
rest of the film, the doors close like normal.
So in this case there are two readings that
fit into the film having a subjective nature.
Either Henry's real elevator seems to him
that it takes forever to close, which is translated
literally into the dream, or that Henry is
focused on the doors, which makes them take
longer, like how a minute seems like forever
when you're staring at a clock.
Furthermore, the lady in the radiator is likely
Henry's imagination, seeing as she only appears
in the dream within the dream sequence, or
when Henry is clearly daydreaming while staring
at the radiator.
While the Lady in the Radiator is most definitely
a hopeful figure for Henry, hence why she
sings that in Heaven, everything is fine,
she is the very figure that Henry sees in
visions.
That's right, like an artist using Lynch's
approach, Henry sees things he may not understand,
but feels connected to.
The Lady's expanded cheeks fit perfectly into
the notion of these conjured images being
surreal, even if those cheeks have an interpretation
of giving her a cherubic and innocent look.
As a final visual note, the film does change
perspectives at key moments.
When Henry hears a noise outside his apartment,
he opens the door to find a disgusting looking
man with the neighbor he is attracted to.
At this point, though, the perspective shifts
for just a second to that of the neighbor.
She sees Henry as having the head of the baby,
she cannot look past this hideous baggage.
This is how she sees Henry, clearly not how
Henry actually is.
This is why every visual item in the film
is brought into question.
Is it actually like that, or is it how Henry
sees that?
All of it can be Henry's perspective, the
man with his neighbor may not be actually
that gross, or the neighbor that attractive.
But Henry's viewpoint is not only found in
the visual style of the film, it's also omnipresent
in the sound.
While these images mentioned and many more
unmentioned serve to convey Henry's subjective
viewpoint visually, Eraserhead cannot be discussed
without mention of its sound.
Lynch put such care into the sound design
of this, and all his other films, and it shows,
with a droning series of sounds that also
serve to convey the subjective nature of Henry's
vision.
From the very beginning of Henry's vision,
the sound of Eraserhead is unlike most films.
There's a wind pervading every second of this
film, not loud enough to be overwhelming,
but not so quiet that it goes unnoticed.
Now I'm going to stop talking for just a second
and I urge you to just listen to the quiet
you hear.
Did you hear all those subtle static-ey noises.
Maybe they're coming from your speaker or
headphones, an air conditioner, lights, or
outside, but it's almost impossible for a
person to actually hear nothing.
There's always that ambient noise.
ambient... noise.
This noise is amplified in Eraserhead to make
it noticable, allowing the sound to put the
audience not only in a related state to Henry,
but in his head, hearing what he hears.
More so is the sound of Eraserhead subjective
in the score.
Outside of the Lady in the Radiator's song,
Eraserhead's music is dotted with quiet ballpark
organs.
However, these organs only appear in the soundscape
when Henry is engaged in a mundane task.
For example, in the beginning of the film
Henry's just on his walk home.
When the mind is engaged in a mundane activity,
like showering, it puts up a screensaver of
sorts, in the form of a song, which is why
so many people sing in the shower.
Sometimes these songs can be freeform, or
one that's known.
So, the organs tracks are those inner songs,
again putting the audience literally in Henry's
head.
Perhaps the biggest use of subjective sound,
however, stems from volume.
Whatever Henry is focused on determines the
volume of a sound.
We see this whenever Henry stares at the radiator,
the sound of the radiator amplifies.
When Henry has sex with his neighbor in the
dream within the dream, at first the crys
of the baby are heard, causing Henry to cover
its mouth.
However, when Henry's more focused on..
Other things..
He can't hear the baby's cry, but the neighbor
can, again showing the film switching perspectives
to that of the neighbor's for a brief moment.
This subjectivity in the images and sounds
of Eraserhead make Henry's vision your vision.
Throughout this video I've tried to give as
little plot analysis as possible, focusing
more on film form, because what happens in
Eraserhead is not as important as what you
get out of Eraserhead.
It's a pure translation of Lynch's subconscious
images to film celluloid, and through that
film form, makes his vision your own.
Everyone in the audience is tasked with the
same challenge Lynch, as an artist, has, to
give these images understanding and meaning.
What I've personally gotten out of Eraserhead
isn't a narrative on parenting, anxiety, or
regrets, it's a guidebook on how to translate
from thought to work, and stay as true to
the idea as possible.
Sure, I can talk about Eraserhead all day.
But, to really learn Lynch, you have to practice
it.
I have to practice it.
I have to make art.
I have to make art.
Is that what I'm doing right now?
Is this just 
ambient noise... some distraction?
Is this just ambient noise?
