Eraserhead (1977)

In honour of David Lynch who died last week - though serendipitously we recorded the episode a few weeks before - this episode we discuss his feature debut, Eraserhead. A film so freaky, so funny and utterly unique. Just like the man himself.

References
David Lynch’s documentary, Eraserhead Stories
Interviews with the Eraserhead cast
‘The Epic Influence of David Lynch's Eraserhead, from Kubrick to Star Wars’ by Garin Pirnia for Esquire
Interview with Lynch from Chris Rodley’s 1997 book Lynch on Lynch

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Edited and produced by Lily Austin and James Brailsford
Original music by James Brailsford

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Transcript

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Hello. The episode you're about to hear was recorded several weeks ago before the tragic passing of David Lynch. We're releasing this episode a little earlier than planned as tribute to him, but just if you're wondering why we don't reference his death in the podcast, that's why enjoy the episode. Wait what you Music. Welcome to groovy movies. My name is Lily Austin, and my name is James Brailsford, hello, hello. And this week, we are taking a kind of dark and stormy turn, much like these January skies. James, what are we talking about? We are talking about David Lynch's debut feature film from 1977 Eraserhead. I'm beyond excited to talk about this. I had I wanted to talk about a David Lynch film because I have to admit, this is a bit embarrassing, but I'm quite late to the David Lynch party. I only watched Twin Peaks during lockdown. Oh, did you watch? Did you watch the like from the beginning, the and friend of the pod, Emily watched it together. Oh, really. And it was like our thing for the second lockdown, which was so appropriate for kind of the wintry Do you remember how grim that second one was and we were we would just, I think it started because we both came back, we were living together. This is far too much detail, but here I'm going with it, and we started watching it together, and we'd be like another Twin Peaks tonight. But actually, I don't think I I think we got as far as season three, maybe, but it was, but I don't think we finished it, because it really does lose its way once. David Lynch, well, as you explained to me, I was like, James, why does it go so crazy? Like too crazy go so far of peace. Well, well, well, season one and two were the original run. Season Three was when they brought it back in 2017 so this is two seasons from the from the OG 90s run. But didn't David Lynch only write and direct the first one series. It was only it was only heavily involved. He was heavily involved with season one. Then he didn't have much to do with the first half or most of season two, but he came back for the final two episodes, right? Yes, and that was the thing. It was losing its its magic a bit, see, but rather perversely, which is a very classic how, if you you know, from anyone who's listening to this show, I started what I didn't watch season one. I only started watching from season two, which is the season where it lost its way, but I still loved it. I still loved it. I didn't know any better. What can I say? But how did you So, okay, so I haven't actually seen any other David Lynch movie. I'm embarrassed to admit, and so I really wanted to do one, and I think I suggested Blue Velvet to you, but you said to me, no, no, we need to start with we need to do a raise ahead, because the production story is bonkers. Yeah, I just thought, because we're kind of, we're talking about the production behind the films in kind of detail. At the moment, I just thought, by far and away, the story behind a razor head. There's a lot. There's a lot there. It's a rich a rich story, once you start diving into it, and boy, were you correct. I mean, part of me, it made me think, should this series be director's debuts? That could be the thing. But I think that David Lynch is a very particular man. And actually I think for most directors, often the really interesting stuff comes when they get a bit of money and a bit of more the financial backing to do more creatively, whereas David Lynch is so creative, and so I don't know, has such a strong vision and such an insane work ethic that he that it was already there from the very first film. He just needed the crew. That's it. And I do wonder if he's struggled since he kind of worked on subsequent more like traditional Hollywood films, where you have a crew and you have a budget and you have a time scale of a few months, whereas, as we're going to get into it, he spent five years making a raise ahead, you know, he was able to go at his own pace, which, you know, I wonder how much it frustrates him having to kind of fit into a schedule where it's like, right, Dave, you've got 90 days. But James, tell me, before we get into attempting to discuss a plot and full disclosure, guys, there are going to be spoilers, because I don't think this is the kind of film where spoilers can really spoil anything, because no words are going to be able to do justice to the insanity that is this movie. So if you haven't seen it, I actually don't think it matters, but equally, you have to see it, so just pause and go watch it now. Okay, well, we'll let you do that. Okay, great. Now you're back. Thank you. Okay, James, how are you feeling? Oh, yeah. Are you okay? Oh God, because I mean my feeling of seeing it, but we'll discuss that in a bit. I want to hear first of all, so how did you come to a razor head? What's your origin story with the film? Well, um. Mean, here's the here's the plot twist. Lily is the first time watched it all the way through. Was this week for this podcast. Oh yeah, God, yeah. So it's one of those things where, as a film, as a student in the 90s, a lot of people had the eraser head poster with Jack Nance with his shocking, like electrified hair on their wall. So it was very much a student kind of cult classic in the 90s. But of course, I was like, ah, everyone's watched this cult classic. I'm not watching it. Blah, blah, blah or and also, there's a part of me where I'd seen Twin Peaks first. My first exposure to David Lynch was either I can't remember which one came first, either Twin Peaks or watching Blue Velvet in my film studies extra class at college. So those are my and I just thought, oh, Razor heads. This like early work where it's clearly not going to be as well produced. And I want, I don't know, I just had my I just didn't quite ever want to watch it. And then, as I've gotten older now, you've seen a razor head, you know, you do have to wonder, when in your life, do you think you know what I fancy doing? Tonight, I'm going to sit down, kick back, get a pint of beer and watch your razor head. You know that that time has never really come. I tried what I tried watching it during lockdown, right halfway through, No, exactly that time and a place Lily, and that was absolutely neither the time or the place. So I got halfway through and abandoned it. So okay, well, that that's good, actually, that makes me feel a lot better because I actually, I really had no real understanding of what Eraserhead was. I realized I wasn't in my head, eraser head and jar head. There's a lot of heads in this sentence, but they was, they had sort of merged. So I thought it, I I wasn't sure, but I thought it was some kind of war film, war film. A whole surprise, but I didn't really know, and it's and I sort of thought it's strange that this film has this reputation, this cult reputation, amongst serious film fans, if you will. And I don't know anything about it. But then the minute you watch the film, you start to understand why you know nothing about it, because it is so strange and particular and heavy and gives you a very for me, a very dark feeling in my stomach, but like in the pit of your stomach, that, like I get why people aren't talking about this film all the time. Because, like you said, yeah, there's very rarely a moment to watch it. So, yeah, you know, it's a film that I think probably is best experience going to the cinema and watching it, you know, in a dark room. I think that's where it's like it found its audience. Because initially, I don't, you know, it was one of the, one of those ones where it found its audience at these midnight movie screenings, which, you know, it's a shame those kind of traditions don't exist anymore. But, you know, late night at these kind of fringe cinemas, it found its audience there. So imagine at midnight watching it with a bunch of friends in a darkened room, never not knowing what's about to happen. That is definitely its home. But, um, yeah, the whole film just feels like you are witnessing, uh, David a nightmare that David Lynch has had a recurrent nightmare. That's what it feels like, yeah, yeah. So that's, yeah, let's talk about it. So it's, it's a black and white film, and you meet this man, played by Jack Nance Henry, and he's in this suit that feels quite 50s, so, or maybe 60s. So, initially, the darkness of this film, because the whole thing was filmed at night, and it's it's lit in a very particular way. In every shot, it feels oppressively dark, and the world that they're in feels oppressively dark, like, emotionally speaking, it's grim. And the thing that really gets into your bones is the sound design, right? It's haunting, like, what like, how to even have come up with that. It's just like, kind of extraordinary to me. There's a quote that I put on a slide when I'm teaching the students at film school about sound, and it's from David Lynch, and it just says, sound is 50% of the picture. And so, like, my filmmaking has definitely been inspired by and influenced by the sound design of David Lynch, because he put so much effort into building this Sonic World. So yeah, absolutely kind of the the oppressive soundtrack matches the visuals that you're seeing so well that you can't imagine the two things separated exactly and and props to Alan Splatt, who was the sound designer musician who came up with the soundtrack, as it were, though it's very much sounds. It is truly soundtrack in the literal sense of the word Yeah, and and they, and they worked on it for a year, coming up with the sound of the film, which, again, kind of speaks to like the particularness of this film, the amount of detail, yeah, and you can hear it like it's a detailed soundtrack. It's not just like they've got a bunch of sound effects from a record and plonked them on. You know, everything you can tell has been custom recorded, has been considered, and it's something that I tell film students as well. And anybody who's interested in making the film is put a lot of work into your soundtrack, because compared to shooting with actors on a set with a camera and a crew. Two sound design can cost you essentially, that your own time is the only cost really You gotta, you know, nowadays, with a computer, you can sit and you can sound design entire world, and it doesn't cost you a fraction. In fact, you can say it almost costs nothing compared to actually shooting the visual aspect of the film. So put as much effort, if not more so then you shoot into your sound design. That's a very, very good tip. So come here for your tip. There listen tips as well. Bonus. And I think something about that sound design made me feel like I was watching a initially, my sense of what this film was about, knowing nothing going in, interesting, how it unfold. Yeah, I thought this was a film about a post nuclear world. Possibly could maybe so interesting reading interpretations after you've watched the film. Because, because, yeah, that was my understanding, especially because we follow Jack mounts back to his apartment building, and he meets this sexy lady. What was this? The name she's listed as a beautiful girl across the hall was was the character's name in the credits? Played by Judith Anna Roberts, very well. And he's a bit scared of her. And she has this energy of being quite lonely to me that, you know, she's kind of desperate for it, for some connection with someone. And obviously, I know she's beautiful, because you wouldn't think that like Jack Nance is so perfectly cast in this. But he's not like a heartthrob, right? He's like this kind of awkward man with this, oh yeah. So even that, just that made me feel it is quite locked down, like it feels like everyone's in lockdown and all desperate for human contact. And we'll try it with anyone. But for some reason, Henry is intimidated by her sexuality. Was the vibe I got. And then he goes into his apartment, and it's just like, filled with mulch. It's like, so dirty and and he looks out the window, and the view is just bricks out, which also gives you a sense of the comedy that's going to come through in this film. That's what's so amazing about the film, is the mix of dark. I laughed so hard during this film, like it's hilarious. It's as hilarious as it is disturbing, and that's a really beautiful combination. Yeah, absolutely. And for me watching it, oh, should we discuss the plot? Are we discussing the plot? I think we should. Let's just go for it. I'm sorry. I don't want to hold back on talking about this, because it's so crazy. So so like, I'll give it a go if you want, and you chip in. So Jack Nance plays Henry in this world that we've described as very strange and nightmarish. And essentially, from the get go, he seems like he has a baby, like an egg of some description. A little swaddling is delivered by a guy who pulls a lever, the man in the planet. So, so it's always, that's, yeah, but that's like the opening scene before we meet Henry. We have this, well, actually, no, Henry's in that. Oh God, he it's his head, is there? Isn't it? It pops up. You know, the phrase fever dream. I think it was made, oh yeah, to do for this, for this film. But it's more than a fever dream. It's like I was trying to think. I was like, Is it a volcanic explosion tree? That's not quite it's just like a million times the power of the 1000 fever dream. But yeah, we start with this strange man in the planet is, is? Is how he's described in in the credits, I think. And yeah, he delivers across space. Rights. They're like, weird sperm. It looks like giant sperm. Sorry. Carry on. Yeah, no, no, it. I know that is all correct and, and I really couldn't tell you what the plot is beyond, he has a baby, and he kind of goes to see his girlfriend, who I think he's had the baby with, and it's just a subsequent it's a series of bizarre encounters, either with other people or with Henry back in his flat, looking into his radiator. And there's a woman in the radiator, and it's essentially the baby gestating and looking after the baby. And then his head pops off. Henry's head pops off, and there's like an alien, like the baby's heads, there something. And then at the end, he meets the girl in the radiator, and the embrace, and they all live aptly ever after, I think I don't know, no, no, not at all. You remember the very end, what happens to the baby? Wait, what Hang on? What he does to the baby? What Hang on? What you know, he's driven crazy by the baby's crying, and then he stabs the baby, and all this mush comes out. Oh, yep, sorry, sorry. Jesus Christ, that's the very end of the film. Guys. Okay, so fully this. A lot. There's a lot going on. There's, there's a lot going on in this film, kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand I said, to be honest, I slightly missed, I don't know at what point. This is why you do need to watch in the cinema, because you need to be fully distraction free and completely focused. Because I understand that they lay in my subsequent research. I understand the lady in the radiator was an idea that came to save at lunch, and it was like, it's, it's Henry's fantasy of happiness and comfort and joy. So it's sort of like an he's, he's imagining. It's a fantasy of that there's this woman in the radiator, and I don't know. I somehow missed that, that part of it, I didn't know. I didn't realize she was in the radiator. I just suddenly see Laurel near, singing with these big cheeks, these strange, sort of like, yeah, Pape mache cheeks, singing this amazingly haunting, creepy song in heaven. That's like another iconic moment. It kind of again, goes back to the to my belief that, like all films, should have a dance sequence and, like, similarly, dance sequence, singing sequence. We need, we need this in every film. I think, Oh, absolutely. And, well, you get one in the razor head. Like, What? What? Surprised me watching it. So, so this is my first time properly watching the whole thing, giving my full attention. It just is like, it's like the key to all of David Lynch's work, and especially its relationship to Twin Peaks. I was very surprised at how, you know, Henry is wearing a suit that's very similar to Dale Cooper's the check pattern on the floor of his, of his where he lives, I know, and even the the room that is in where he's dancing with the girl in the dress in the girl in the radiator. Sorry, it's very much like the the Black Lodge, the kind of the strange space where there's a character dancing in Twin Peaks. I didn't quite realize how, how very closely linked they all were. And even, and Jack Nance pops up in loads of David Lynch's work. I mean, I was, I was watching Lost Highway the same this week as well. So two Lynch in one week. It's quite a bit too much. But he's even in Twin Peaks. So it feels like that they exist in the same universe. Somehow, I don't know absolutely, absolutely, I think that every it seems like, I think it's completely unusual to spend so long making a film, five years. Is is pretty much unheard of, especially in terms of not that it often takes that long for the film to come out. But you're not usually working through that, shooting it, yeah, shooting that pretty much that whole time. And I feel like what the benefit of that for David Lynch was it really got him to, like, refine his artistic style and his like, auteur vision, you know, and and so it kind of, yeah, it sort of tracks that the things that he figured out that were part of his work in a razor head would then go on to be refined in Twin Peaks. But it's interesting, because this is definitely, I think, his most sort of art house, the surreal film. You know, you watch peaks having never watched a David Lynch on, and you think it's completely bonkers and Matt, but actually, there is a very clear kind of, for the most part, linear plot, and there's some kind of familiar characterization and the way it's all put together. And there are just odd there's oddness that kind of almost sort of invades it surreptitiously. But where this it's just all that craziness. And I think that's kind of interesting, that he he went crazy and then pulled it back. I feel that often it goes the other way around. You know, first time filmmakers maybe aren't quite so sure of their vision and and what they want to say and do, and he just knew from the get go. Yeah, and I think watching like especially because I've watched Lost Highway. But what I know, what I kind of very quickly picked up with most of Lynch's films after razor head, is that he seems to gravitate towards very film noir, almost archetypal plots about mobsters and damp, you know, kind of, what do you call them? Femme fatales, you know, like, and there's lots of there's lots of duplicates and clones and so, and lots of things to do. We've got to get the money. And I don't know, it's just very kind of, you almost say, like, B movie thriller, film noir stuff, which he then kind of allows, that's the plot line. But then on top of it, he does, he does his David Lynch thing over the top of that, whereas, whereas a razor head. He doesn't do any of that plot technique. He's just, it's just the David Lynch stuff. It's just the pure main line stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. We need to circle back, because I feel like in our plot summary, we haven't really gotten into the real what makes us exactly so crazy, which is, I mean, there's so much, but the main thing I would say is the baby. Okay? Because this baby, this baby, is not like other babies. No, it is. How would you describe the baby? James, do? Well, I mean, the simplest visual for anyone listening, it's, think of the chest burst scene from alien, and it looks like that. And, yeah, I didn't really I as soon as I watched a razor head, I thought, oh, right, so that's kind of must have been the inspiration for Geiger chest burst, because it's so so similar, the kind of the gooey liquid, the little the shape of the face, everything, it's yes. And apparently David Lynch was furious when he saw alien because they totally copied his baby for alien. And of course, you got to think back in the 70s, when this film came out with the only place you would see a razor head were these midnight screenings. You would physical media didn't exist. VHS, I think only just was a was happening. In fact, there's some great behind the scenes of a razor head, where they shot on black and white VHS tape, or early video tape, anyway. So the point is, the only place you're going to see it at razor head was at very limited screenings by a very particular audience. So what that meant was you could steal stuff a bit more readily, and no one could call you out on it. So clearly, people saw a razor head thought no one will have seen this. Let's just copy it. And yeah, there it is. Yeah. So you have this, yes, alien, almost a bit dinosaury, but also tadpoli, fishy creature, but it's just the head, and then it's, it's little body is bound up in bandages. But it's, it's, almost like just a the the shape of the body is like a, like a wooden spoon, a large wooden spoon, something like that. You know, it's very much a particular kind of a creature and and it this, the film is sort of about, it is about parenthood, right? Because Henry discovers that he will be a He is a father by being invited to dinner by his girlfriend, Mary X, played by Charlotte Stewart. And when he arrives there, there's a very oppressive, creepy, strange energy, because he's having dinner with her family. And, I mean, I laughed so hard because it's, it's the most uncomfortable, hellish dinner you can imagine. The the father is really strange. They they serve this tiny chicken that's apparently like man made, which, again, was why I was sure it was a film about a post nuclear world, because the food is weird. It's like, tiny, and when he cuts into it, all this blood gushes out. It's like, Yeah, but then, but then you say the father's weird. The mother starts screaming and rolling her eyes back at the dinner table. And then at some point, she kind of starts making a move on Henry. Yeah, she kind of, she's, like, telling him the habit he's she's asking him inappropriate questions about whether he had sexual relations with with her daughter, and then he sort of, she makes out with his neck or something. And then Mary's like, Get off him. Yeah. Very, all, very odd. So they basically tell him, Mary's had a baby. Mary, at that point, says, I don't it's it? Is it even a baby? Or you get some idea that this is not acute, just going along maybe, and and they have to get married, is the general consensus. And you can tell Henry maybe isn't really down for it, but he just does once it's not he's just going along with it. It's not good situation. And he's surprised. And I love the detail that Henry is on vacation. Apparently, he's on vacation. Yes, again, that is all these little details that paint this brings together this strange, surreal worm. Yeah, you know he's doing this kind of menial factory job that he's on vacation in this hellish place, hellish world, like you'd leave, wouldn't you, but it really feels like you can't. Again, the this is definitely a lockdown COVID film. The more I think, yeah, I mean the lockdown idea as well. So just to kind of brush into the five year production that we mentioned, is that it was, this was this was while he was at the American Film Institute, essentially a very grand film school that occupied, like a mansion, and it had a stables as part of this mansion. And he basically took over the stables. And the myth behind it is that essentially the film school forgot about him, because you're only meant to be at the AFI for two years. So he just holed up in the stables, started making this film, and nobody got rid of him. And he was there. And he was there for five years, but, but the thing is, it was shot. He said the stables became his own, like mini studio. So it wasn't that big a space, but they had space to build sets. And so you can feel watching the film that all these sets are crammed into a claustrophobic space that probably isn't quite big enough to comfortably shoot it. So every set feels claustrophobic the way it's lit. You can almost feel the light. Everything just feels on top of you. So you get that like, you know, the lockdown feeling is the fact that it was made in these very cramped, confined space where you almost got the impression that David Lynch probably didn't leave that for days, because they would shoot in the evening. He was probably editing and sleeping throughout the day. So it was. Like it does have that claustrophobic not leaving the house feel to it absolutely. I mean this again, goes back to this idea that the financial restrictions of your film can often be in service to your film, because the atmosphere of the film is what makes it so successful, the oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere, as you said, it was absolutely, it was a requirement. But what's crazy is the film was made for$10,000 and okay, it was the 70s, but that is nothing. That is nothing for a feature film, yeah, for a feature film. And that's partly why the film took so long to make, because they had to do it so so slowly. David Lynch, for two years of the film, had a paper round, a nighttime paper. Again, this was partly because of necessity. There were gardeners who worked on the lawns of this mansion, where the where the stables were every day. So for that, and for the for not wanting background noise around them, they absolutely had to film at night, though, also it's totally fits with the vibe of the film and the look of the film. But they would shoot from about midnight till sort of five, six in the morning, until they could hear birds singing, and then there was down towards birds, birds. Can you hear the birds? But sort of halfway through, David Lynch would have to pause on shooting and go out and do a paper round for an hour, which he said he could do it if he needed to. He could do it in an hour, but it was an hour and eight. Yeah, if he could just get it, you know, hour and eight. Usual hour, if he needed to, it was probably meant to be like a four hour shift. But he he would just like race, and sometimes Jack Nance would go with him on the paper round and do the other side. They'd both be throwing the papers out the windows. I mean, I mean, here he what, researching all these behind the scenes stories. This is like living the student filmmaker dream. This is it. You know, you, you're not making a short film, you're making a feature. You've got your own mini studio. And, you know, he was talking about how, because he was friends with the guy who ran the kit store that basically gave him a cup of 235 milliliter cameras. So they had an entire kit room full of stuff. You know, he befriended the the guy who did the audio mix was also, I think he was actually also involved with the sound department at the school, so they got all the gear they want to see. Basically, had his own mini production studio, and he was left alone for five years. Like, and another reason why it took so long, I think, is because they did not have a big crew. Like, when you look at the behind the scenes, it's like four or five people so and they just did everything. Yeah, and shout out to Catherine Coulson log, lady again. Log lady from two weeks, uh, met and worked with David Lynch here because she auditioned for a part as a nurse that never even got filmed. But she just, but she was married to Jack Nance, so when he got cast as Henry, even though, ultimately she never actually starred in the film, she was there with them, and she just, she just made herself part of the crew, and she did everything like she learned how to be a photo a camera assistant, you know, clapper loading and everything so and camera systems like, an entire job in itself that she just learned as one of the many things to do. And I didn't realize that it was during the four years worth of filming that they just took, I guess, to keep the spirits up. Her and David Lynch created this character called the log lady while they were making a razor head. So then, years later, he puts it into twin pieces, like Jesus Christ. There's, like some, you know, you maybe there's not, even if it's not on the same like if it's not in the same universe. The fact that these things that were created in the 70s in this unique melting pot of creativity found an outlet years later on, like what was at the time the most talked about TV show on the planet. Maybe, yes, and let's just pause to reflect on the fact that to keep spirits up, they came up with a character called log lady who has essentially a sort of pet or baby log. I just, you know, when I was watching the film, I was so kind of perplexed, but also like, wow, this is amazing, because I really feel like what I'm watching is the interior of David Lynch's brain, and it's unsettling and eerie, but I'm also quite enjoying being in that. And then I saw that Danny Lee, one of the Guardians film critics, had basically said the same thing about about what a raise ahead is. And again, this creation of this character of a long page on set again, just sort of reflects the the particularness of David Lynch's mind and and the fact, oh, yeah, everyone around him, okay, it was a very small crew of five people and the actors, but I feel wanted to help him make this thing. They really bought into the thing that he his vision. And that's amazing. The fact that the actors would work for four years on this film with him. Yeah, it's just extraordinary. But I think there is something about working with someone who knows exactly what they want to make that is, it's very inspiring, and you want to be part of that. Yeah, absolutely. I suspect there were a lot of people who dismissed him, who didn't get it, but then, you know, he had his the people who. Were into it. Who got it? They were really into it. I mean, like Catherine Coulson, she, you know, she worked a day job as a waitress. She said, one of four jobs that she had, but one of them was a waitress. And then she would also, she started being, she started cooking food for them, as well as being a camera assistant. And it's just like, you know, to want to do all those jobs, you know. And then, of course, David Lynch did the classic thing that the myth of the student filmmaker is help me out for free on my film, and when I make it big, I'll make sure I don't forget you. And David Lynch absolutely stuck to his word, though, I will say, actually, what's amazing about David Lynch is he didn't make people work for free. He, on principle, paid everyone $25 a week to work on this film, until it got to a point where they, the AFI weren't giving them any funding anymore, and they were pretty much broke. Then it went down to$12.50 and then towards the very end it was, he was basically like, okay, we're completely out of money. I'm also completely out of film. We're nearly there, but we're just gonna have to stop. And everyone said, no way. And so actually, so everyone side, when they came to set each day, they would stop by, like a film shop and buy and buy film for the camera. Everyone contributed. So only at the very end were they working for free, which is kind of I love that. I love David Lynch's complete respect for an appreciation of everyone who worked with him. It's so amazing. But sorry, carry on with the next story, because I love it. Well. I mean, nobody even, like say, even the 25 pounds, not much. You know, it was more a token, but still something. But the fact is, there would have been more in those days, but, yeah, but being a bit, but Jack, Jack Nans pops up in blue velvet, and also Twin Peaks and in Lost Highway, Catherine Coulson worked with him throughout, I think, in various roles, and as the log lady and his cinematographer, Frederick elms, who they went to shoot, I think, Blue Velvet together and thing Lost Highway. But, you know, basically the collaborative, like the collaborators he worked with there, they continued to be a part of his career when he had the money and he was able to pay them, you know, didn't, he didn't forget about them, which is, can often happen, yes, but the best thing is that at the very end, once they'd finally finished working on this film, after, actually, I think at that point, six years had gone by since the very inception, they all sat down together. I think it was at hamburger Hamlet, and David Lynch said, I want everyone to have a bit of this film, because you all worked on it. It's all yours too. So they sort of on napkins, wrote up their agreement on on what percentage everyone would have. And Catherine Coulson said that still, to this day, she gets an annual check for a raise ahead. Obviously, at the time, no one thought it was gonna do anything, but of course, it has. And she said that that money helped put my daughter through college. I'm so grateful to David Lynch for that. What a great guy. He's an angel. So, yeah, I mean, that just shows what a kind of you know he he's a real filmmaker, you know, he's, he's, he's the real deal. But what was interesting was all watching the credits, because I love especially on these first films, watching the credits, especially the thanks credits, and sissy SpaceX got a thanks. And I was like, Oh, I wonder how what her involvement or help was for that film. Oh, I do know. If you don't know, do you not know? I don't know, please tell me. Okay, well, oh, I'm having to pull out of my brain. So at the time, sissy space was married to Jack Fiske, who plays the plays the man in the man in the planet. And besides that, she she basically just really believed in the film. So they both contributed lots of money. They financially backed the film. That was the basic thing. I think she also helped it. I helped out a bit on it, doing a bit of doing odd jobs to help and readily donated to the cost of filming. Amazing. All these quirky people who got it, they just got David Lynch's thing, exactly, I mean, and it was a 70s man you work at a razor head. That's, you know, that's the filmmaker dream. But, yeah, just, just, just to have that much control, to be able to take that much time on on a film, you know, like that. That's again, as a filmmaker, you want to be able to get your vision exactly as as you imagine it. And yeah, it must be, must be tough. It must have been tougher, because think, like not many years later. So I think his next film was Elephant Man, which is, I've not seen Elephant Man, but from what I understand, it's much more a straight narrative. Yeah, because Mel Brooks. Mel Brooks the producer of that who's obviously known for his comedies, but you know, Elephant Man is a straight film. He saw a razor head and thought, you're the guy for this. And then, then Dino De Laurentiis saw, saw Elephant Man, and thought, You know what? He's the guy to direct dune. So he within less than a decade, because I think dune went into production like in the early 80s. So let's say, four or five years after erase ahead, he's now got a huge crew with a massive, multi million pound budget, and he's got visual effects, but he's, you know, it's not just him and his friends. I mean, he got Frederick helms to shoot some second unit in Dune, but, you know, but it wasn't the same. You know, I mean, and he said, he said those making June was four years of his life that he just wished, you know, it was a waste of four years for him. He said, Oh yeah, I can. I loved it, you I loved, I love, I love that June because it's mad, because it is mad, because it's David, it's David Lynch trying to do a fucking Star Wars film. And he does. So there's a lot of my but, but I can understand where he came from only, you know, only a few years earlier, the environment and the conditions he's working under, it must have been, it must have been very, very exhausting for it, yeah, completely different. Because, I think you mentioned that the He not only was filming in this, these stables, almost sort of secretly, because, like you said, like he'd sort of been forgotten, but he was all also from a certain point he he moved in, because at the point where he had the idea for razor head, he was married and had just had his first daughter, which is an interesting one given the subject matter of the film. I know so there is like some debate about whether or not the idea for the film came from the fact of him being a first time father and his daughter was born with club feet, is the phrase that I've heard online. I don't know if that is still the term correct one would use, but that's what I read. And she herself has thought about understanding that to be the inspiration for the film. But David Lynch, interestingly, basically disagrees with that. He kind of amazingly says that, like, I don't really remember where the film idea came from, other than I know that Philadelphia was the main inspiration, because he said that he was born in the northwest, but then moved to Philadelphia and spent five years there as a kid, which he described as being filled with violence, hate and filth, and and so it's kind of under he also describes a raise ahead as his Philadelphia Story, which, if you've seen a Philadelphia Story, right, kind of quite funny. Which to complete that quote, I actually it's HE SAYS IT'S MY Philadelphia Story, but without James Stewart, like that's the only difference. There's no James Stewart. That's the only difference, which is personal trivia. That's my dad's favorite movie, a Philadelphia Story, The Philadelphia Story. Sorry, so yeah. So we don't really know exactly where the idea came from, but that was that was going on in the background. And then during filming, he he broke up with his wife and then moved into Henry's bedroom, the bedroom that you see, oh my god, are you kidding? He was no in Henry's bedroom, and he said that he wasn't allowed to be that. So what they would do is they would shoot at night, as we said, until about five or six in the morning, and then he would put a big piece of wood across the door, bolt it across, and they would the cast would padlock him inside. So then if you as if you're a security guard walking past, you'll think, Oh, it's just a locked room. Obviously, no one's in there, because it's padlocked from the outside. And it was, you know, it was, he said, it was the perfect place to sleep because there were no windows, so it was very dark, so I sleep very well. That's man, and he'd be sleeping during daylight hours, obviously, because he would sleep from the men, basically from when filming ended until sort of the early afternoon, when he would start writing up his storyboards for the day, because he didn't have a script. Basically, he just had an outline, and he would draw these little boxes of a story, a storyboard that no one else could understand, and then they start filming. So he must have basically got about, if he was lucky, if he ever left maybe an hour or two of sunlight once he actually left that bedroom, but he was sitting in a razor head for four, five years. My God, I did not know that little bugger. But again, all makes sense. You know, he was, he was literally living that film. He was living, sleeping, dreaming about the film and random little tangent. But I heard that on again. This is one of these, like unsubstantiated claims, but apparently, so don't come for us. It's not true. Yeah, don't come for us, but, but Stanley Kubrick made um Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman sleep in their apartment set. I mean, maybe, yes, I'm Well, I'm glad we've been brought on to Stanley Kubrick because, as we like to in every episode, mention the coubs. And if you can Christopher Nolan. I don't know if you have a Christopher Nolan connection, but we have a Stanley Kubrick one, which is that David Lynch loved Stanley Kubrick, and Stanley Kubrick saw a raise ahead. Loved it. Thought it was the best movie you'd ever seen. Started telling everyone it was his favorite movie, and he made the cast of The Shining and the crew watched a razor head before they started filming to get the right vibe and energy. Atmosphere, atmosphere Exactly. And you can see there are certain you can absolutely tells that are inspired by the by eraser head right in the and the music and the music and the soundtrack that kind of on, you know, omnipresent, kind of like claustrophobic soundtrack that just seems to kind of get inside your head. Yeah, you can really tell do. Have a Nolan connection. Can you make one? It's like six decoration. I can make it. It's really glam at the off the top of both their debut features were shot on black and white film. Okay, good. That's a, it's a little bit and, you know, and the central characters both wearing black suits, you know. So there's, there's a little something there. I'm sure that Nolan was completely aware of a razor head when he was making, when he was making a following. But it's interesting how you said at the very start, actually, about how some directors, it's not quite their first film, it's when they start getting a bit of money. Absolutely the case with Nolan, following is, following is not an eraser head. Kind of like amazing. This, like the film that unlocks all of his work, and it's like, it's, it's the film that got him the budget to make me mentor, which is, like, really, where the Christopher Nolan story starts? I would say the thing with it is that it's, it's very, it's very much an art house film, like, it's not clear what David Lynch is trying to say and, and that's definitely completely deliberate. You know, when he's been interviewed a lot about race ahead over the years, and he's very he's never explained what the film means from his perspective. And he's taught, oh, you should never do that. Never, yeah, no, you should never do that. But, and most directors don't really, but at the same time, usually it's quite obvious, right? At least in Hollywood, yeah, American cinema, you know, a clear narrative is what you expect. And actually, when he was first given the funding, it was not for a razor head, but it was for a script he'd written prior to that. And the kind of people at the top of AFI liked it, but then other board members didn't like that. They were going to give money to David Lynch because they said, No, this isn't the kind of films we should be making. So there was definitely, it's kind of a miracle that he even got the film made, because there was definitely some resistance. Because it isn't, it's not, it feels much more European than like a Hollywood movie, right? Yeah, and I think he's very much about it's the experience of his films, that's what's the important thing, which is why, you know, I think he wanted to watch it in the theater. He wanted to feel it and the sound. You know, he puts a lot of effort into the soundtrack. I mean, interesting note. I when we screened Lost Highway for the student cinema last week, the disc failed, and I had to restart everything. So I was gonna, I was going to the menu to try and skip to the scene that we're at. And there was no skipping scenes. It was just one long clip. You couldn't actually skip to your scene. Didn't have it. I was like, He's done that deliberately. It was a Criterion Collection. So he's like, he doesn't want you to skip around the film. He wants you to sit there and watch it from the start to the end to get the whole the vibe of it. I think, you know, I because I watched this now about a week ago. I was like, Oh, should I watch it again just before we talk. But you know what it was? It was such, so heavy going. You know, when I watched it, I was, I was going to see Conclave, you know, the the Stanley, oh, I'm going to see that tonight. Oh, really, yeah. Well, I was, yeah, I was about to go see that. And actually, I was so grateful to be seeing it, because I just really needed a palette cleanser. I was like, Yeah, I need, I need some popes in a scandal, in a in a psychological thriller, that will just like, cleanse me of this intensity, you know, the heaviness, even though it was like a real thrill to watch, and it's amazing, and I would recommend it, but yeah, you definitely need to, like, steal yourself for the experience. But I want to talk a bit more about this, about how the film got its cult following, because I think it definitely is a sad thing to learn about, like when you look at how the industry has changed since the 70s, because the film basically Once, David Lynch had finally made the movie. No one really wanted it, you know, like it wasn't getting into film festivals. People didn't get it. And finally it got a release at the film X festival in LA and apparently, once the film was screened, there was just dead silence, and everyone was like, Oh, fuck. But then there was a plot, so we've all were kind of shocked, but then we're into it, but it basically didn't really get picked up after that. But thanks to you mentioned these, these midnight screenings, well, there's a guy called Ben Baron Holt who I'm now obsessed with, and I feel like we should do an episode just on him, because he's the grandfather of the Midnight film. That's how it's described, because he was the one who came up with this idea. He opened the cinema in New York, the Elgin cinema, and would do these midnight screenings on Fridays and Saturdays. And it was there on a Friday night, you could see a raise ahead every single Friday at midnight for four years. And because of that, it got this notoriety. You know, people at that time, people, it was a thing to go to the midnight screening of a film, yes, you would see something truly unique, art house, different. And that was how this film came known and and because of that slow burn, and you know, he wasn't he, they didn't have to pay anything for that. By the way, Ben said, I love this movie. I want to show it. Just give me, give me the film. You know, I'm like, I won't charge you for it. And so there basically wasn't even any marketing for for a raise ahead. But it just slowly built this cult following, right? And like, would never happen now. And I really feel like someone needs to bring that back. We need because I think part of it is that, like, the fact that it was on every single week for this many years, you get to know it, just like with the room. You know, the room being shown at the Prince Charles cinema regularly for years since it first came out, has made it a thing and made Oh, yeah. And you need that slow burn. And I wish, I wish more cinemas would do that, because that would be a way, I think, to get people to come back to the cinema, because it's that's such a thing, that's such an event. I want to see a raise ahead in the cinema. You want to see these strange films. You don't want to see them on your bed, on your laptop, on your phone. You know absolutely not. You want to be and you want to be around other people. So it's not just you having a strange experience. So maybe afterwards you can all go, what the hell was that in the everyone go for a drink and decompress after seeing that crazy film. It's, it sounds perfect. I about 20 years ago in Manchester, there was a cinema that sadly long gone. And it would be, you would be calling it a flea pit, and that would be accurate. It was a rundown old cinema, but they have midnight screenings. I've seen the thing, and Stanley Kubrick's the shining for a quid, the tickets for a quid at midnight off a really scratchy old film print, you know? So, like, just the atmosphere and, you know, and everybody there they, they've made a concerted effort to come and see this film at midnight. They haven't just rocked up at the cinema at five and gone. Let's see what's on. So the even the crowd of people there, we're all into it. So yeah, the midnight movie, maybe we need to stage a comeback with it. I think we do. I think that's what that should be our mission. Going forward for groovy movies, we're gonna bring back the midnight screening. Okay, okay, well, yeah, on that note, guys, thank you so much for listening to another episode of groovy movies. And if you liked what you heard, please leave us a review. Leave us a like it all helps get this podcast out and about into the world, and we'll see you next week. Bye, bye. Groovy movies is produced and edited by us, Lily Austin and James Brailsford. And James also produced the theme music. Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok at groovy movies pod or email us groovy movies. Pod@gmail.com for more information about the films discussed, check out the show notes you.