Originally Posted By: afsaneh77
Originally Posted By: Capo de La Cosa Nostra

What do you mean by this?


I simply say it has the "Eraserhead" feeling. Feelings are very subjective and I see no reason as to explain why some settings and atmosphere echos a certain deja-vu, do I?
Subjectivity goes without saying.

I meant what did you mean by, "there was actually sense behind this movie" (as opposed to Eraserhead's implied lack of sense). Do you mean you didn't understand Eraserhead's story? Or did you not find "sense" in its events? Or do you think there's a lack of conscious intent behind it, authorially?

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But then I can't recall "Eraserhead" without recoiling from the taste it has left.
What was so disagreeable about it? The imagery (eg. raw chicken evoking the female torso, blood drippage and all; or the baby)? The action (eg. Mary X having a fit; stirring dinner with the grandmother; Mrs X kissing Henry, evoking incest)? The general aesthetic (the industrial sounds married with overwhelming, bassy drones)? The story (of a man suddenly thrown into the responsibility of fatherhood)? The representation of that story (fatherhood told as an inescapable nightmare)?

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As I say the need seems to be subjective to your own perception.
Oh yeah, totally; but that's a truism. You can't escape the feelings you feel. But I was just saying, there's little in common between the two films.

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So would you mind explaining the sense behind it?
You need to define what you mean by "sense" in order for my to answer this.

If you didn't understand the literal story, fair enough. It's about a guy who becomes a father due to his own irresponsibility, and how he can't come to terms with the responsibility now required of him as a father.

That's extracting allegory, too, though.

If by sense you mean authorial intent, ie. a conscious presence behind the work saying, "I am now doing this because I want to portray that, I will now do this in order to evoke that," etc., I see what you mean. Lynch is very vague and elusive about his own working method.

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Lynch isn't putting together "random bits with little purpose". Though he might work more intuitively than the Coens (or any other filmmaker), it's not really random at all. Each of his scenes, even the unscripted ones, are set up to specific lighting requirements, with consciously chosen locations, with actors consciously casted in certain roles; then when he pieces it together in the editing room he's not leaving anything to chance - there's a conscious decision being made with each and every cut, dissolve or other transition. Like any artistic judgement, there's a reason, conscious or not, why you'd juxtapose this image with that image (for instance), why you'd go in for a close-up there and not an establishing shot, why you'd play this music or that music over certain types of images.

Random's an odd word when describing a product of conscious decision-making.


Well, he says so himself. I remember reading something to this effect in one of his interviews...
That he referred to his own method as "random"? I'd object both to that and to him for saying it, because it isn't random. The film-making process inherently forbids randomness. More instinctive, more intuitive, sure. But there's a lot more things going on than a mathematical term.

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And you know, I used to be a fan, but then I watched "Eraserhead." Well, I still like "The Elephant Man" and "Mulholland Drive" I suppose.
Have you seen The Straight Story? You should like that very much.

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