Tag Archive: Eraserhead


Twin Peaks 3 : In dreams we walk with fire

Filed under: Movies, Music, Television — Leave a comment
September 10, 2017

‘Twin Peaks Season 3 – The Return’ directed by David Lynch

twinpIt goes without saying that David Lynch divides audiences. His surreal visions of the world and the tall tales he weaves are never going to be to everyone’s taste.

The naysayers continually complain of the absence of linear narrative in his work, or point to the wilful weirdness, the stilted dialogue and the wooden acting. Actually, a lot of the time, all these criticisms are valid but what count as weaknesses in other auteurs turn into strengths in the Lynchian universe. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

ERASERHEAD : A DREAM OF DARK AND TROUBLING THINGS

Filed under: Modern Art, Movies, Music — Leave a comment
March 9, 2015

ERASERHEAD directed by David Lynch (USA,1977)

Seeing Eraserhead in a small arts cinema in Birmingham soon after its UK release was a kind of epiphany. Everything I thought I knew about movies suddenly had to be reimagined.

Here were images that defied logic yet were recognisable as the world I had read in the stories of Franz Kafka or seen in the surrealistic paintings of Max Ernst.

The low-budget horror sequences were at once comical yet hideously grotesque. The creation of mood through Alan Splet’s extraordinary analogue sound design was like nothing I’d heard before.

Watching it again in a brilliantly restored DVD version is a different experience because now there are so many more points of reference. Body horror is a recognized sub-genre and we can refer to images as Lynchian to give a context which was entirely absent in 1977.

Yet even from this more knowing perspective, you will struggle to explain what connects a black planet in space, a man pulling levers in a shack, a singing lady in the radiator, worm-like fetuses or a severed head being turned into pencil erasers?

 With typical perversity David Lynch says Eraserhead is the most spiritual of all his films yet this is a secular, nightmarish world that, for all its absurdity, many will still find sick and horrifying.

It remains totally unique and stands as one of the most terrifying movies in the history of cinema.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comment

ARONOFSKY’S PI IN YOUR EYE

Filed under: Movies, Music — Leave a comment
April 8, 2012

PI (π) directed by Darren Aronofsky (1998)

Darren Aronofky’s directorial debut is a horror movie about maths; or , more precisely, a horror movie about a man obsessed with maths.

The protagonist is Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) who began his lifelong obsession with the power of numbers as a child after he disregarded his mother’s advice and stared too long into the sun.

In his fried mind, he is convinced that there’s a mathematical explanation in everything.

He directs most of his energy, helped by a room full of primitive computer devices, in attempts to decipher the pattern recognition in the stock exchange. Given that he rages against “petty materialists” his motives for this appear to more cerebral than financial.

He is pursued by a group of unscrupulous money grabbers from Wall Street and his numeric know-how lures another bunch of Hasidic Jews ( Kabbalah scholars) who want him to direct his mind towards the higher goal of solving the mysteries of the Torah.

Along the way there are some techno-mumbo jumbo from his math-mentor Sol about computers becoming conscious and humans turning into machines

The movie is shot in saturated black and white as though the movie reels have also been exposed to too much sunlight. This heightens the surreal, claustrophobic quality which makes it reminiscent of the other-worldly industrial landscape in David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Both movies centre on bizarre individuals hovering on the edge of sanity.

The excellent score by Clint Mansell adds to the brooding menace, this music is augmented by tracks in a similar vein by Autechre and Massive Attack.

The complex intelligence and restless energy of Aronofsky is singular enough to keep you watching even if you haven’t got a clue what was going on in his head when he made this.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

CRAZY CLOWN TIME

Filed under: Movies, Music — 3 Comments
October 20, 2011

My Mom always said to me that I should ‘play nicely’ but such advice would, I suspect, be anathema to David Lynch.

Pouring beer over a woman and ripping her shirt off, screaming so loud you spit and running around crazily in the backyard are some of the antics described in title track of his forthcoming debut album Crazy Clown Time (released the first week of November on  Sunday Best recordings).

If you are prepared to entrust Lynch with your e-mail address you can download this track for free (for a limited period) from his website.

Lynch recorded  the 14 track album at his own Asymmetrical Studio with engineer Dean Hurley, who contributes guitar and drums to several songs.

If this track is anything to go by, the album as a whole promises to explore the same surreal, backwoods territory of his movies. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment