Eraserhead

“Oh, what do we have here? I know that probably a million people talk about Eraserhead, but this was my first experience of David Lynch, and I was probably way too young to see it. Freaked me out. I couldn't quite wrap my head around what was going on, but to me, it was one of the gateways into this whole world of arthouse film, just having that idea of there are other things besides Hollywood movies, and the fact that movies don't always have to make you feel a certain way, like always feel good. It can make you feel confused and also maybe a little bit sick, too. So I'm going to take that one. Got nostalgic value.”

“But, as we said, there were two poles. And there was a European pole, but there was also the American pole. Now, American filmmaking, of course, was not just Hollywood, and a film that I could relate to more in terms of my own filmmaking was… David Lynch’s film Eraserhead. Very American and saying some really interesting kind of sublime things about American culture and the American ethos and zeitgeist that you wouldn’t see in a Hollywood film, but you also wouldn’t see it in a European film. This is a really special film that had a big impact on me. I can’t say that it was an influence because I had already been making films by this time, but it was… it was significant for me. And I met David and we got along very well. I went with him to Bob’s Big Boy, where we would eat hamburgers for lunch. And we got along very well. And it’s a really… of course, it’s a tragedy that he died so young. Eraserhead.”

“I like thinking about David Lynch before he was David Lynch, when he was just some dude in a warehouse or wherever the fuck he filmed this, you know, using all of his savings and essentially abandoning his family to make a movie that at the time I can't imagine that too many people understood. Filmmaking is an act of faith, and I think it's like beautiful to imagine, you know, someone like Lynch before he was the brand David Lynch putting it all on the line to make something as insane as his first feature film, Eraserhead.”

“Next is Eraserhead, which I love. I love Eraserhead, it’s my favorite Lynch. It was actually the only Lynch I’d ever seen for a very long time. So inspiring to me to this day, was super inspiring for the last album that I put out. It left such a mark on me. And yeah, I don’t know. I love, love, love, love Eraserhead. And hopefully someday I can… I aspire to create something even as half as good as Eraserhead. Love you Eraserhead baby.”

“Eraserhead. This is David Lynch's debut, but I remember watching this and getting to the end and being like, I have no idea what the this film is about, but I love it. It's so bold, it's surreal, it's fantasy, it's, you're in a dream state. It feels like you're probably on five different drugs at the same time. Like I don't know what David Lynch was thinking about when he wrote it. I, I, I heard an interview with him that he doesn't even remember writing it. If you're a lover of horror and you're looking for a new language, this is going to give you your new language.”

“[Translated] David Lynch is someone else I love, and his power over images, here as a very young man. This is his first film, and we see it clearly. He's inspired by the poetry of silent film, with its phantasmagorical lighting. And I draw a lot of inspiration from that too. I think Eraserhead totally inspired one of the shots in Anatomy of Hell.”

“Eraserhead. All right, we have to do this because we are both a) obviously lovers of Lynch. Yes. Devotees. B) When Karen went on tour recently… He left the earthly plane right before it. Yeah, and she integrated something for him into her music. It all goes back to Eraserhead for me. It’s just, like, this is the perfect summation of a person’s… Inner world. …artistic vision. This is it. It just, like, all starts here and ends here, and you can see it in every one of his films, and it’s just… it’s just beautiful and really funny as well, so we’re gonna laugh all night long watching Eraserhead. I would say that I’ve seen this clip going around about… where David’s complaining about having two days to shoot something that he wanted to shoot, and he’s really pissed off. He’s like, “If I had more time, the amount of magic I could make…” He’s just really upset about it, because I feel like, with Eraserhead, he had, like, ten years to really make all that magic and go into his world. Simmer in his world. And I wish he had ten years for every film that he wanted to make. We all wish we had that much time. I’m sure you do.”