Category: 1977

David Lynch | 1hr 29min

The wild shock of hair that leaps up off Henry Spencer’s head in Eraserhead has become somewhat of an icon for David Lynch’s debut film, exploding from his dazed expression like an electric current illuminated in harsh black-and-white light. Like Charlie Chaplin, our main character is a man of few words who waddles around industrial urban landscapes, though unlike the silent comedian there is no spring in his step. His existence in Lynch’s dystopian modern city is joyless even before he meets the malformed product of his intercourse with Mary X, but as he takes on the daunting task of fathering a child, he is only confined further by his anxious nightmares. Suddenly, his entire purpose is dedicated to a tiny, wailing creature, and his claustrophobic apartment has become his entire world.

Within Lynch’s disturbing creation, Henry is not a vivid character filled with a rich inner life, but an empty vessel of melancholic frustration, absorbing whatever fears we imprint upon him. Even more archetypal all those secondary characters who are given titles such as the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall and the Man in the Planet in place of real names, which might incidentally imbue them with depth. As far as we are concerned, they do not exist outside of Henry’s solipsistic prison.

Neither does Lynch offer much explanation for what they represent, leaving us to question whether the puffy-cheeked Girl in the Radiator might be a symbol of death’s welcome relief, or Henry’s ideal woman. That she sweetly sings the haunting seduction “In heaven, everything is fine” to him and crushes large, sperm-like creatures beneath her feet could suggest either, or perhaps both. All that we know is that is that within this existential dream of mutant babies and urban isolation, it is the raw impression of Eraserhead’s surreal imagery which carries far more impact than any attempts to derive its literal meaning.

When measured up against a young Lynch at the start of his career, there are so few filmmakers who can craft cinematic surrealism as provocative as this. The evidence of this being his first feature is apparent in the meagre $100,000 budget he had to work with, though not even this is a hindrance to the incredible imagination on display, much of which is poured into grotesque practical effects. Clear parallels can be drawn to contemporary David Cronenberg who would also begin working around the same time at the peak of the American New Wave, and though one would veer more into body horror and the other into surrealism, there is a relatively even intersection of both here.

Also integral to this anxiety-ridden slow burn is the low-level hum of machinery and crying, constantly droning through its sound design. It is often as if Lynch has filtered the incidental noises of a near-deserted city through several layers of consciousness, until the faint creaking of factories, the hissing of a radiator, and the muffled patter of rain combine in muted distortions of reality. Considered with his bleak monochrome photography which mesmerises in its offbeat framing, Lynch effectively crafts entire dream worlds branching off from Henry’s singular fear of fatherhood, often with barely more than a few lines of dialogue.

Most of all though, it is Lynch’s design of the deformed baby that stirs up a primal disgust in Eraserhead, and which in turn induces Henry’s self-loathing recognition that he is capable of producing something so incredibly vile. It is also a vaguely humanoid extension of those giant sperm creatures that frequent Henry’s nightmares, appearing under his bedsheet and writhing around in stop-motion animation. This child is utterly dehumanised in his eyes, no more than a low-level organism that can barely support its own existence.

The stress that comes with caring for this monster is a whole other ordeal too – it only takes a second while Henry is looking away from it to suddenly develop measles and catch some respiratory virus that leaves it wheezing. Even worse are those sleepless nights spent listening to its incessant mewling, driving Mary to pick up and leave, and pushing Henry to harbour an even deeper resentment of his repulsive offspring.

On a sociological level too, there is a deep fear embedded in Eraserhead of what Henry’s future might look like should he fully adopt the mantle of patriarch and begin his own family, illustrated in Mary’s uncomfortable home life. The disjointed rhythms and vague non-sequiturs of their conversations paint out lives of total banality, wilfully oblivious to the peculiarities seeping in – the half-alive roast chicken for example, or the direct sexual advances of Mary’s mother. The psychosexual depths of modern American families would later become even more central to Lynch’s interrogations a decade later in Blue Velvet, but they also mark the point in Eraserhead where its dialogue is densest.

Elsewhere the influence of silent films is tangible; specifically the 1929 surrealist short Un Chien Andalou, where Luis Buñuel innovated a cinematic language of dream logic that Lynch would develop even further in his foggy, discontinuous editing. Every bit of his visual storytelling measures up against the greatest films of that era, drawing visual connections between Henry and his child in one horrific nightmare that sees the baby grow out of the neck stump where his head has fallen off. The fear of one’s self-image being consumed by parenthood is conveyed in a series of sinister images far more evocative than any passage of dialogue Lynch might have written instead, and when the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall later sees this same mutated hybrid in Henry’s place, these terrors continue to reverberate through the film’s formal structure.

When his decapitated head is taken to a factory and manufactured into erasers, there is no harm in pondering whether this scene implies the erasure of Henry’s identity or his desire to rub out his own mistakes, but it would be foolish to dwell too much on the specifics of Eraserhead’s meaning. Lynch is a master of provoking those ugly, primal impulses which we shy away from, and that often can’t be captured in words alone. The jarring shift from Henry gruesomely killing his baby to the heavenly comfort he finds in the arms of the Girl in the Radiator produces an unsettling peace in the film’s final minutes, and one that cannot be easily reconciled within traditional narrative conventions which might position him as our hero. Instead, Lynch would much rather let us consider Henry as a vision of humanity at its weakest, falling prey to psychological influences that have taken terrifying physical form in his world. From this dark, tortured perspective pushed far beyond the limits of mental forbearance, there is no nightmare more profoundly frightening than young parenthood.

Eraserhead is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Robert Altman | 2hr 4min

For a long time in 3 Women, there are only two women taking up the majority of Robert Altman’s story. It isn’t until the final act that the significance of the third woman emerges – a figure whose appearance has been subtly laced all through the film. While Millie and Pinky have been engaged in a covert battle of identities, the middle-aged Willie has lingered in the empty swimming pool of the apartment block where they reside, painting freakish murals of mythical, reptilian creatures. Many of them seem to be locked in one-on-one duels with equally grotesque clones of themselves, their tongues lashing out and sharp teeth bared in anger. Rendered in light pastel hues, these two-dimensional frescoes form unsettling backdrops to several scenes of conflict between Millie and Pinky, but Altman also often weaves them in with simple camera movements and cutaways, dissolving close-ups of our characters over their grotesque features.

The formal connections he is drawing are abstract but powerful. These are the monsters who live in Millie and Pinky’s minds, fighting for the right to inhabit a singular, unique identity in a culture where individuality is everything. In this case, Pinky is the aggressor impeding on Millie’s territory, threatening to force her from the space she inhabits in society. Shelley Duvall is incredibly well-defined in this role, immediately establishing herself as a well-liked, slightly vain, and innocently flirtatious young woman living in smalltown California. Also, she has a clear fondness for the colour yellow. It is a strong motif that is never referenced in dialogue, and yet one which Altman deftly draws through her matching twin beds, furniture, clothing, and even her car. When Pinky starts taking some of these for herself and shrouding herself in Millie’s favourite colour, the purpose of his sunshine-hued production design grows even more apparent.

Sissy Spacek’s portrayal of Pinky on the other hand is a blank slate of a woman, gazing at Millie with perceptive eyes and slowly picking up on her mannerisms from a distance. When she first starts working at the same health spa as Millie she lets on little about her past, and even when they eventually become roommates, she still feels strangely detached. Everything we learn about her comes through those small, bizarre mannerisms which Altman subtly lingers on, such as the way she stalks and imitates a pair of twins passing by. When she expresses her desire to be one, it is brushed off by others as a mere quirk, but in the accumulation of these formal character details we recognise how integral these copycat eccentricities quirks are to her being.

“Do you think they know which one they are?”

“Maybe they switch back and forth. And one day Peggy’s Polly. Another day, Polly’s Peggy.”

It doesn’t take a lot of conjecturing then to realise why Altman lays out so many mirrors across his mise-en-scene, creating doubles of his actors who interact within some creatively blocked compositions. It is almost as if this is how Pinky sees the world, watching it through reflections and wishing to become “real” herself. The roving camera zooms and overlapping dialogue that Altman is so frequently associated with brilliantly matches her shrewd perspective as well, picking out random lines of trivial conversation and specific individuals within busy settings that she attentively fixates on. Accompanying these odd observations is Gerald Busby’s horror-tinted score of droning flutes and atonal horns, as nervously erratic in its movements and dynamics as Spacek herself.

On the other side of Pinky’s incredible obsession is a past which she has an equally intense aversion to. When her mother and father enter the film, it is easy to see why those instincts are so strong. As warm and cordial as they initially appear, their odd behaviour implies a childhood for Pinky that was marked by a lack of boundaries, especially when they disturbingly make love in her bed. Quite notably, they are also unusually old to be this young woman’s biological parents, and she even outright denies knowing them. Most telling of all is her adoption of a new identity in the moniker Pinky, shunning her birth name Mildred – though given that she shares this name with Millie, it doesn’t take long for her to start using it again.

Which brings us back to that woman who has been a consistent present in the background of this psychodrama, painting those horrific frescoes. Willie is the pregnant wife of Edgar, the ageing Hollywood stunt double who owns the apartment block much of the film is set in, and the love interest of both Millie and Pinky at different points. By taking the position of Willie in that relationship, Millie is effectively stealing another’s identity for herself, while Pinky is merely just copying her idolised roommate.

The realisation that Edgar is a pitiful, deadbeat husband who has left his wife to give birth alone marks a shift in this dynamic. While Millie rushes to Willie’s aid and delivers her baby, Pinky watches from a distance like a clueless child, and taking her point of view, Altman’s camera dreamily drifts in and out of focus. Edgar’s subsequent disappearance may be a mystery to the police, but it is plain enough in the conclusion’s subtext to surmise what has unfolded.

Between these three women, new bonds have formed over mutual disenchantment – almost like a family that has found stability in its distinct roles. In Willie’s incapacitation, she becomes a surrogate grandmother figure, passing on her wide-brimmed hats, flowing dresses, and managerial job at that local tavern to a more maternal Millie who has shed her stylish yellow clothing. Meanwhile, Pinky finds comfort in her new status as the daughter she could never be to her biological parents, playfully scorned by her mother and cherished by her grandma.

Much like Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Altman finds great tension in the enigmatic blending of identities, considering each side as conflicting parts of a whole. In the tiny yet complex ensemble of 3 Women though, Altman narrows his focus down to an intricate family portrait of ageing women, recognising when the time has come to let younger generations usurp one’s position, and consequently doing the same to one’s own elders. Only in these clearly defined roles and compassionate female relationships can any sort of harmony be found within the chaos of a worldly, modern society.

3 Women is currently available to buy on YouTube.

Dario Argento | 1hr 39min

As brutal as the gore and carnage may be in Suspiria, Dario Argento’s assault on the senses in his Technicolour cinematography and imposing set pieces is more confronting than anything else we witness. The film is brimming with subtextual readings of fascism and sexuality, and yet the Italian director is no slave to his subject matter. Instead, he constructs one of the most audacious displays of stylistic horror to emerge from the genre since its cinematic inception, breaking from the tradition of dark, dreary aesthetics by reinterpreting its expressionist roots through an entirely different filter altogether – one that tunes into the striking contrasts of opposing colours rather than low-key shades of black and white. Most predominantly, conflicting neon tones of red and blue battle it out across Argento’s wildly violent mise-en-scène, lighting up this vibrant German dance school and its ugly, demonic heart.

Suzy’s arrival at Tanz Dance Academie is not a welcome one, as she is immediately met by another student running away in the rain, muttering obscure words. By the end of the film we will have learnt the meaning of the clues “secret” and “iris”, but until then we are strung along a series of mysterious hints and murders, many of which hold little significance other than an immediate, visceral impact. In other words, Suspiria operates on dream logic, where a maggot infestation and a room full of barbed wire exists for no other reason than reaching deep into our subconscious and drawing out our deepest, most disturbing fears. On this primal level, the Hitchcock influence is immense, particularly in the suspenseful sequences of various characters wandering long, haunted corridors, many of which are ruptured by terrors emerging from the most unexpected places.

Running beneath these images of sensory and symbolic significance is a high-pitched, eerie score from progressive rock band Goblin, ringing out like an inescapable music box where ballerinas are manipulated, trapped, and forced to dance to the point of exhaustion. As each victim runs towards their grisly fates, its frantic pace keeps driving up our anxiety, flooding the atmosphere with a psychological terror that matches Argento’s wandering tracking shots and unnervingly fluorescent hallways. His disturbing sound design refuses to let up even when the music is absent, reverberating in a seemingly never-ending drone of disembodied echoes, and in one particularly haunting scene becoming a rattling, raspy snore emerging from the silhouette of the sleeping headmistress on the other side of bright red drapes.

Even as Suspiria begins to move into extreme violence, realism is the least of Argento’s concerns, as he focuses his camera on rubbery skin being torn and bright orange blood spilling forth from his victims. One particularly monstrous figure whose skin is peeling off in coarse, grey flakes is horrifying to look at from a wide shot, but even more so when we cut from its gaping mouth, to its rolling eyes, to its trembling, clawed hands in a montage of extreme close-ups. Of course, all of this serves to corrupt an innocent fairy tale world of ballerinas and adventures, plunging us into a hellhole that is only revealed for what it is when it goes up in flames, destroying both witches and schoolgirls alike in an image of infernal punishment.

Indeed, this is a bold experiment in stylistic horror that Argento doesn’t spare any effort in fashioning according to his very specific Art Deco-inspired vision. The yellow rehearsal room with stained glass windows, the red, black, and white geometric shapes of the cavernous entrance hallway, the massive mural of stairs and doorways that look as if they have been ripped straight from the mind of M.C. Escher – this school is a piece of architecture built to look like an inescapable trap, and then when the fluorescent lights are added to this aesthetic, it becomes even more confounding. Even the world immediately outside this school seems to exist beyond the natural realm, as a storm rolling by flashes through windows in similarly vivid colours as those which wash its interiors. Virtually any director who has worked with neons, from Nicolas Winding Refn to Gaspar Noe, has credited Suspiria as a major influence, particularly those who have also worked to destabilise our sense of security. But in working within Italian Giallo cinema, Argento effectively delivers a colourful electric shock to a film genre otherwise known for its dreary aesthetics, mapping a carnal nightmare onto a fable of witches, magic, and dancers.

Suspiria is currently streaming on Kanopy, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.