WEBVTT - FROM THE VAULT: David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’: Everything You Didn't Know 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:08.400 Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.160 Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.200 that gives you the little known, fascinating facts and figures 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.560 behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music, and more. We 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.440 are your two guides to the deep dive. I'm Alex 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.079 Heigel and I'm Jordan Runta. And Jordan I sat in 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.159 thought for a long time about how I was going 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.440 to introduce this, but there is no introducing what we're 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:36.520 talking about today. There is no introducing David Lynch's Eraserhead, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.720 which turned forty five this year. There are two camps 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.199 to this movie. You have seen it and are haunted 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.720 by it. And even if you can't stand this film, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.120 it will haunt you to some degree. Or you've never 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.680 seen it and are therefore only biding your time until 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:50.800 you become haunted by it. 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.240 Yeah, they used to sell lapel buttons that just read Eraserhead. 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.640 I saw it, and that about sums it up. Lynch 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.520 has repeatedly said that he will never reveal his intended 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:02.480 meeting for this what I guess I'll just call a 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.759 lucid nightmare, saying only that it's a dream of dark 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.759 and troubling things and you can say that again. Most 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:14.440 critics describe it as an abstract meditation on urban isolation, fatherhood, 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.000 and sexual repression, but Freud called it the feel good 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:18.640 film of the year. 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.959 I will get into this later. I refuse to believe 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.280 that the beating of this film is as oblique as 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.800 he would like it to be. It seems pretty straightforward 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.720 to me. But we're putting the head ahead of the eraser. Now, 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.920 that was terrible. I apologize for that. Jordan. Are you 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.160 a David Lynch guy capitol d LG No? 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.520 I just his daily YouTube weather reports and his guest 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.560 spots on Louis as the comedy coach. I went to 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.200 NYU for film, and I think that just kind of 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.920 spoiled him for me because I knew Lynch people. I 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.920 knew a guy in class who literally had the words 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.080 club Celensio from a Holland Drive tattooed on his wrists. 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.800 So I too much David Lynch in my life. Sure, 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:02.880 which is weird because I didn't watch much of it, But. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:04.600 Just well, wait, what have what? What of it? Have 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.960 you watched Mulholland Drive in school? And really that was it? 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:15.440 I know? The worst? No? Oh, I'm so excited for this, Folks. 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:17.959 Let it be known that Jordan pitched this, I believe 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.000 with the intention that I would not take him up 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.400 on it, and he's regretted ever since. 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.400 Yeah, I'd never seen it, and then I watched it 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.120 for the first time about a week ago, and I 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:28.480 haven't slept since. 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:31.200 But you know, why do you? Yeah, why do you 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:31.880 love David Lynch? 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.280 I have? There are three reasons why I love David Lynch. 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.440 Like me, he's a massive Beatles fan, and he attended 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.240 their first ever concert in the United States in Washington, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:40.520 d C. 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.080 In February of nineteen sixty four, so that's cool. 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.560 He also spent his fifteenth birthday in front of the 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.280 US Capitol watching the inauguration of JFK with his Scout 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.320 troop and heigel like you, he's an Eagle Scout. 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:54.920 We don't talk about that. 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.000 And finally, when he was in college in Boston, he 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.200 was the roommate of Jay Giles band singer Peter Wolfe 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.480 aka the guy who sang Centerfold and Freeze Frame, but 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.000 apparently Lynch kicked him out of the dorm because he 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.440 was too weird. He was too weird for David Lynch. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.359 I love that the popular log line with David Lynch 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.120 is Jimmy Stewart on acid right, because he's like this 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.679 midwestern you know, if you will see, if you put 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:23.359 me at ease enough, I might bust out the David 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.960 Lynch impression. Oh woh, but yeah, I would be hard 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.760 pressed to think of another person so genuinely avant garde 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.960 and bizarre who has had such an impact on mainstream 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.320 American cinema in such a short amount of time. I mean, 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.640 you think about Eraserhead. Eraser Head to Mulholland Drive is 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.640 like twenty five years in that neighborhood. I'm really bad 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:50.320 at that in that neighborhood. Yeah, that's wild. To coming 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.200 in within spitting distance of an oscar in a quarter 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.000 century of your career after this, that's nuts. 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.280 I was shocked about how comparatively little he'd done. I mean, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.920 for somebody who has, you know, such a legion of followers. 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.960 I was just very surprised that his cannon was not Yeah, 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:11.360 I was very very surprised by that. 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:16.240 I didn't know that. But folks, enough banter. Yeah, we're 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.279 delaying the inevitable here, Yeah, join us now as we 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.960 take in the industrial wastelands of both Philadelphia and David 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.719 Lynch's subconscious pierce the veil of Jack Nance's haircut and 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.320 attempt on my part at least far too many Gordon 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:42.479 Cole impressions. Here's everything you didn't know about eraser Head Jordan. 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:44.480 In the late sixties. You might say that David Lynch 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.479 was at a crossroads. Never get sold every time, but 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.360 that crossroads was in Philadelphia. He's talked a lot about 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:54.720 how he had a very very happy childhood, a very 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:59.360 stable and happy childhood. Do we believe that, I kind 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.160 of do. I mean, we'll get into mel Brooks's what 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.800 mel Brooks thought of David Lynch later, but yeah, so's. 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.240 He bounced around the US a good bit. His dad 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.240 was in the USDA, and by the late sixties he's 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.080 been enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.640 Philadelphia to study painting. Have you seen his paintings? His cartoons? Oh, well, 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:19.320 his cartoon. 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.440 He had a cartoon in The Angriest Dog in the World, Yes, 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.680 the Los Angeles Daily Reader for like a decade, and 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.560 it's just still images of this dog, and it's always 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.200 prefaced by this thing. It's like this dog is so 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.280 angry that he can't move, he can't speak, he can't eat, 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.119 rigor mortis has set in, and it's just this still 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.360 images of this dog with like morbid thoughts, like what 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.440 if this is as good as it gets? It's pretty amazing. 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.159 So yes, I have seen that. Then his paintings. His 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.520 paintings are like Francis Bacon meets John Wayne Gacy. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.360 Oh boy, I'm loving this already. Anyway, So he's there 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.919 to work on that aesthetic, and he marries a fellow student, 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.080 Peggy Reve in nineteen sixty seven, and she's the mother 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.599 of their daughter, Jennifer. Jennifer was born in nineteen sixty 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.000 eight and would go on to direct Boxing Helena, which 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:15.440 is a really bad movie. Anyway. This little nuclear family 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.600 is living in a North Philadelphia neighborhood called Fairmont, which 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:20.800 was not a great place to live at the time. 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.000 David Lynch's quotes about Philadelphia are their own art form. 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.920 I want to do a David Lynch style surrealist podcast 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.440 that's just me reading his quotes about Philadelphia. We lived cheap, 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.680 but the city was full of fear, he told Chris 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.480 Radley in a book called Lynch. On Lynch, a kid 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.840 was shot to death down the street. We were robbed twice, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.440 had windows shot out, and a car stolen. The house 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.800 was first broken into only three days after we moved in, 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.760 and according to another Lynch site by Mike Hartman, called 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.120 the City of Absurdity, Lynch said that Erase Herhead was 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.800 born in Philadelphia, and my favorite quote, I had my 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.800 first thrilling thought in Philadelphia, which sounds like a Paul 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:04.480 Anka song. 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.200 The less successful follow up till I left my heart 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:10.120 in San Francisco. I had my first thrilling thought in 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:14.280 Philadelphia talking about a racerhead. In later years, I think 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:15.840 it might have been in the Lynch and Lynch book, 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.000 he said. I call it my Philadelphia story. It just 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:20.520 doesn't have Jimmy Stewart in it. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.960 And that's for damn sure, I'm gonna get into it. 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.120 I lived at fourteenth and would right Kitty corner from 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.360 the Morgue. That's real industrial. There's my first Lynch. That 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:34.640 was good. That was really good. Thank you. It's a 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.360 tough one to nail too. I'm impressed you very flat 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.000 for that. It's very Western. You gotta unless it was 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.640 at five o'clock. There's nobody in that neighborhood, No one 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.080 lives there, And he says, I really do like that. 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.280 It's beautiful if you see it in the right way, 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.280 which is such a great thesis for so much of 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.200 his work with this industrial stuff. And it's beautiful if 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.160 you look at it in the right way. His roommate 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.760 at the time, a childhood friend named Jack Fisk, told 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.960 The New York Times in nineteen ninety that David would 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.280 dress up to visit the Morgue. Oh, I love it. 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.760 He was fascinated, and he would always wear at least 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:12.200 two ties, one for luck. Have you seen the set 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.120 photos of him around this time when he's wearing like 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.559 the big wide brimmed hat and like and three times 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.480 neck ties. Yeah. I saw a woman in the backyard 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.280 squawking like a chicken. No, it's going, it's getting away 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:31.560 from me. I saw a spopping that chicken. I saw 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.400 a grown woman grab her breast and speak like a baby, 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.080 complaining her nipples hurt. This kind of thing will set 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.840 you back. And hey, so we're hearing about it, all right, 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.480 We're gonna I gotta stop. I got a sub subjected 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.640 you to David Lynch quotes about Philadelphia. One time I 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.200 was walking around with it at night with a stick 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.840 with nails driven through it, and a squad car pulls 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.040 up alongside of me and he says, what have you 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.199 got there? And I showed this stick with nails driven 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.760 through it. He said, good for you, Bud, and took 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.520 off Jesus. So, now that we have the set and 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.640 setting of a raiser Head, it's important to know that 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.440 it was not his first choice for a project, based 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.640 on the strength of some early shorts that he did. 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:13.880 Around this time, Lynch had been accepted into the American 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:18.200 Film Institutes Center for Advanced Film Studies in nineteen seventy 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.920 in Beverly Hills, and while he was there, he studied 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.640 with the Czechoslovakian filmmaker named Frank Daniel. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:25.560 Yeah, and you know, not a lot of people know this, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:27.960 but Lynch actually moved to la after getting into a 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.760 fight on the basketball court with two guys who were 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.679 up to no good making trouble in his neighborhood. So 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.200 he went to live with some family members in bel Air. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.520 He didn't I'm sure I'll cut that out if I 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:42.600 really committed to it. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.400 Something had come but No, this is gets into like 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.800 David Lynch's thing about being like, that's not what the 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.400 movie's about, but it's like, obviously what the movies about. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.320 He had a script for a film called Garden Back, 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:59.040 which is really bizarre obviously, but it's about infidelity because 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:04.680 he had cheated on Peggy, I believe repeatedly. But yeah, 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:06.720 tell us about garden Back. Yeah. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.240 A lot of these characters were inspired by characters in 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.960 his paintings, which we touched on earlier. Is that before 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.840 he was at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.680 studied in Boston at the School of the Museum of 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.280 Fine Arts. So he's very accomplished painter and musician. Like 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.680 he almost sat during breaks of filming. 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.200 He used to like play trumpet, just like for the 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.520 heck of it with Have you heard his record Crazy 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:34.000 Clown Time? I haven't it? Is it what I imagine? 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.160 It's weird, it's weird, imagine it's just weird. A lot 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:40.800 of the quotes were taken from this come from Eraserhead 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.679 comma The David Lynch Files, Volume one, the full story 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:46.720 of one of the strangest films ever made by a 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.280 guy named Kenneth George Godwin, really incredible book. But it's 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.120 funny given that Lynch became such an iconoclass because there 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.440 was a lot of interest in him at Afi at 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:59.960 the time. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, who is Yes, Zoe's dad 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:05.160 and her mom is in Twin Peaks. She's Mama Heyward. 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.319 She's Doc Heyward's wife who's in the wheelchair. So Caleb 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.280 introduces Lynch to a twentieth century Fox producer who wanted 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.400 to option Garden Back from a short into a feature, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.720 and the process of doing this, and these negotiations and 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:26.200 talks exasperated Lynch so much that he quit. I mean, 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.480 he has in various interviews he talks about basically the 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.040 storming into the Dean's office. Yeah, I'd be like, I'm 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.360 done with this, and then getting home and Peggy being 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.760 like they can call and non stop. Yeah, like he was. 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.000 He was, they really wanted him, and she's crazy. 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.360 I mean, but I cannot imagine a film institution doing 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.160 that now. Apparently the deed even said to him, Hey, 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.680 if you're this unhappy, we're doing something wrong here. 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:51.959 What do you want? What's wrong? 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.880 Which is I cannot imagine getting a vote of confidence 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.880 like that. It's really artistic institution. Now there's something that 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:00.040 I mean, you know you. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.040 Alluded to this with the weather reports, but there is 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.560 something magnetic about him. Yeah. The fact that he was 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.240 able to get people on board with this his ridiculous 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.880 ideas is really a testament to his charisma. I don't know, 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:17.600 powers of persuasion anyway. Garden Back crashes and burns, Lynch 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.960 almost quits the afi and Daniels is like, whatever we 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:22.600 got to do, let's do it. And that turns out 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:26.400 to be Eraserhead twenty one page shooting script is where 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.960 this comes from. And there's a great documentary from two 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.120 thousand and one that is called eraser Head Stories. It's 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.280 just him talking into a mic, pretty tight close up 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.960 on his shoulders and head, and at one point the 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:40.600 log lady Catherine Colson, who is part of this film, 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.480 we'll talk about her. She's like conference called in and 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.000 half of it is just him like yelling at her, 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.880 like on speakerphone off the mic, like yeah, yeah, you 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.160 did cut his hair for that, didn't you. How many 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.680 years were you on this, Kathy? Yeahh oh oh, I 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:57.440 don't remember that. 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:04.240 Oh, and I can't he in like very big text. 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.880 At the beginning of it, it said that this is documentary's 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.560 directed by him as well, which I think is hilarious 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:11.880 that it's just a tideshot of him and an old 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:13.320 nineties speakerphone. 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:17.080 What. I can't remember when I got the idea, when 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.720 the word eraser Head or any part of the idea 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.400 came to me first, He says, I can't remember if 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.000 it was in Philadelphia or when I came to California. 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.960 Don't remember writing the script, and don't remember the ideas 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.880 coming in. It all came from Philadelphia, but I don't 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:35.600 remember when. And it's I mean, not only was he 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.640 at a crossroads, but he was at a low point 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.560 when he started filming this in seventy two with a 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.880 projected runtime of forty two minutes. Dorian Small, who's Eraserheads 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.520 production manager, there's a theme in David Lynch's movies in 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.040 which he has affairs with the women he's working on. 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.760 Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet was one of them, and 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.000 so he split from Peggy around this time because he 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.719 was having an affair with Dorian Small. And Jennifer was 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.600 born with clubbed feet, which is a deformity that I 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.200 guess was a lot more common back then, and you 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.400 had to wear like corrective footwear. I don't know where 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.880 I'm going with this. The point is is that this 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:18.280 movie is almost certainly about the dissolution of his relationship 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.120 and having a daughter who had medical challenges when she 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:27.480 was born, and his complete uninterest in being a father, disinterest, 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.000 lack of interest, I don't know, but he's you know, 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.560 if you're listening to him or Jennifer. Apparently that is 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.920 not what it's about, because she said I don't think 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.800 David credits that directly as where eraser Head comes from. 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.400 But then she says, it's not just that, it's a 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:43.280 million other things. 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:45.640 So I just think that the fact that she calls 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:50.680 her dad David is very interesting. Yeah, I mean, I imagine, 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.240 despite what he says, that fatherhood and the anxieties surrounding 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.640 it was a major inspiration. But I've also read that 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.760 some of these other things that they mentioned could include 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.920 the Kafka novel Metamorphosis, for which I think he actually 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:09.720 wrote a script adaptation, and the Goggle short story from 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.480 eighteen thirty six, The Nose. Both of those may have 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.200 helped sow the seeds of this idea for eraser Head. 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.520 The Kapka influence is really apparent in the character of Henry, 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.200 who is just like so many of Kafka's characters, just 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.880 simultaneously bemused by the world and terrified of it and 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.800 extremely paranoid. And Lynch himself is copped to the Kafka thing, 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:31.640 and he said that in I think it was in 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.840 Lynch on Lynch that he's quote the one artist I 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:36.240 feel could be my brother. 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.400 Yeah, And so many of these characters are just like 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.800 caught up in institutions and machinery bigger than them. That's 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.640 actually really interesting because like so much of you think about, 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.000 like the Trial and like a lot of the other 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.240 Kofka stuff, that's just about like being stuck in some 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.720 kind of institutional machine that is far bigger than you. 0:15:55.800 --> 0:16:01.080 And David Lynch literalizes it with people actually stuck in machine. Well, 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:01.640 I mean just. 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.640 Even the famous picture of Henry, the main character in 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.800 eraser Head, that's you know, on T shirts and posters 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.920 and dorm rooms across the globe, just that look on 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:17.160 his face that's completely unidentifiable. Is that mix of amusement 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:22.440 and paranoia and terror, which is I just think is 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.080 interesting because that's such a hallmark of Kafka's work. I mean, 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.960 that's not an especially groundbreaking thought for you know, you know, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.800 for either of Lynch scholar but or a Kafa scholar, 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.080 neither of I. I was an English major, so theoretically 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:36.960 I should have closer I should be closer to it 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.640 than you, and I am not. David Foster Wallace was 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.560 a big David Lynch fan, and he yeah, he read 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:45.240 about I remember on of the first things I read 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.600 from him as that essay about Lost Highway. Yeah, and 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.160 I think he described Lynchi and as the unbelievably grotesque 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.080 existing in a kind of union with the unbelievably banal. 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.280 There it is speaking of Jack Nance, David went through 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.240 his spiritual crisis when he was making Eraser head Nance 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.560 told the New York Times for that article we cited 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:09.480 earlier from nineteen ninety and Lynch has it's become a 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.800 meme at this point of David Lynch, the thing that says, 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.359 believe it or not, Eraser is my most spiritual work. 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.840 And somebody that the interviewer says, elaborate on that, and he says, no. 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.159 I don't talk about that is the thing that he 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.600 usually says in these interviews that I've seen, I don't 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:25.240 talk about that. 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.040 The other thing that I heard is that he opened 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.359 a Bible randomly and was inspired by a Biblical verse, 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:32.520 but he says he doesn't remember which one, or even 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.760 if it was the Old or New Testament. So you know, 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.560 we've had a lot of unreliable narrators on here. I 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.359 don't think Lynch is up there with Neil Young or 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.400 Jimmy Page, who are very interested in or Robert Planet even, 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.560 who are all very interested in their own hagiography. But 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:52.040 Lynch just does not seem to remember things or wants 0:17:52.080 --> 0:18:00.159 to consciously obfuse skate anyway. The shoestring this thing is 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.920 made on is so fascinating to me. AFI gave him 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.240 ten thousand dollars to make this, but everything else on 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.679 this was done so close to the bone. He was 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:14.119 living at a property in Beverly Hills called Graystone Mansion 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.080 that was owned by the AFI and this this place 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.880 is its own weird vibe. It was built by the 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.760 oil tycoon Edward Doeny or Doheiney, I don't know. He 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.800 was the inspiration from Daniel Plainview in there will be blood, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.600 and he gave it to his son ned who in 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.720 nineteen twenty nine died in a guest bedroom in a 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:37.600 murder suicide alongside his secretary Hugh Plunkett. And this thing 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.359 has been in everything. It would take less time for 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:41.879 us to name what it hasn't been in. 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.040 I preferred to zero in on two in particular, that 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.760 this property has been featured in It's in The Big Lebowski. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:54.159 It's the other Jeffrey Lebowski's house. Mistere Lebowski is in 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.000 seclusion in the in the in the West Wings. 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.240 I think all the interiors were filmed there for that, 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.720 and it was also used in the video for meatloafs. 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.080 I would do anything for love. I just love the 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.119 fact that David Lynch lived at this place. It costs 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:11.960 the equivalent of sixty three million dollars when it was built, 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.200 making it the most expensive home in California at the time, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.760 and certainly one of the biggest. It's forty six thousand 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.560 square feet fifty five rooms. Thinking about where Lynch was 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:27.679 living in Philadelphia, and it's just an insane jump, but 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.720 you know, predicting the stinky cologne of death that would 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:36.280 follow this film for the next few years. Several people 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.560 associated with the eraser Head production, including star Jack Nance, 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.320 claimed to have seen the ghost of Ned Doheny while 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.400 they were filming. I think it's Doheny because I think 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:46.480 Doheiny the street in la is named. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.000 After him or to the family. I think, you know, 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:51.520 this is a crazy connection. My mind just made. David 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.359 Lynch loves milkshakes. What's the famous line from there will be? 0:19:55.600 --> 0:20:00.920 Oh my god, I drink your milk tree, Wow, drink 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.600 it run and I have a straw that reaches all. 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.159 God. I love that movie. When he says this is 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.639 gonna be my gravestone when he goes, I don't know 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:17.480 how much longer I can keep doing it with these people. 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.479 He puts people. You hear the verbal air quotes around people. 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.919 I love it so much. It's bad. I see myself 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.720 and all these terrible characters, isn't it, Jordan, I'm the dad. 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.000 I'm the dad in a racer head. We don't talk 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.440 too much about the dinner scene, but I this is 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:38.359 the thing about this movie. Man. People were like, oh, 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.040 it's a surrealis well, it's a comedy, so much of 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.840 it until it gets really horrifying, and the baby. The 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:45.919 baby is the only thing that undercuts the comedy. But 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.879 that dinner scene is so funny. It's like Alish comedy 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.639 of manners or something. She has that weird seizure and 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.159 runs out of the room and he goes, she'll be 0:20:55.200 --> 0:21:00.840 fine in a minute. It's very English. It's very like 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:06.040 a Joe Orton player or something. Yeah, all right, anyway, 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:08.960 so David Lynch is living in though there will be bloodhouse, 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.240 he's squatting, essentially, their blankets taped over the windows, and 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.160 it's this extended sort of subterranean part of the property 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:23.199 that stables, garages, staffed quarters, a hayloft, a greenhouse, and 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.480 he kind of commandeered it. He said, we had about 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.160 five or six rooms in this giant loft where all 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.680 of the sets were built, a minture soundstage, and a studio. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:33.680 But there are some exteriors on. 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.119 This Yeah, probably the most famous one at the beginning, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.840 when he's kind of walking through this urban, white industrial wasteland. 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.160