Kubrick actually said that Eraserhead had shown him the limits of his creativity: he could never do a movie like that. However, he showed the movie to the crew of "The Shining" and you can actually find some of the inspirations from this movie in Kubrick's horror masterpiece (use of sound, surreal images out of place etc.)
Well, he understood Blue Velvet. But he couldn't see ANYTHING in Lost Highway or Eraserhead. What's shocking for a "professional" film critic (and Ebert is guilty of this as well) is to call Lost Highway "meaningless" and arguing that young people only want to be creeped out by Eraserhead - suggesting there is nothing there besides that. If they can't see meaning, they dismiss. A real objective critic would admit that they can't see the meaning at this point and therefor can not recommend this film at this point. But they can still talk about what it made them feel - even if it was a bad experience. Just be real with your audience.
@@abonny I was one of those kids who saw it on home video probably around the time this aired..and I was a fan after first viewing...it was the most surreal film I had experienced up to that point, and I knew then I was not of the "normal" ones (aka atypical) lol
Its not just surrealist nonsense...There was definitely a story and while a lot of it was shown and not told explicitly handed to you what was going on, the emotional beats and conclusion is abatract, but not meaningless fun to get freaked out to. I like to think of it as an allegory for fatherhood and the unwanted child.
David Lynche's Erasurehead remains the most original American film made from the 1970s and beyond..Jack Nance is terrific as Henry Spencer and Judith Hall as Beautiful Lady Across the Hall is absolutely alluring.
I first saw this in my teens and was spellbound. It also gave me a headache and I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. The same with my first viewing of In the Mouth of Madness. That is some powerful art.
I didn't get through it the first time because I tried to watch it with my mother when I was younger. I cared what she may think of me. Now that I'm older, I've come to accept and embrace my quirks and love for the abstract and obscure.
True story: I saw this in college with a few friends. We'd been drinking malt liquor, smoking marijuana, and munching on something that may or may not have been shrooms. After the movie, we were surprised to learn we'd all fallen asleep during the movie and had had this vivid dream . . . and then we started comparing notes and learned we'd all had the SAME dream. Eventually we figured out that it hadn't been a dream. We got back to my best friend's co-op and his roommate said, "So, what'd you think? You dig Eddy?" He'd named the Eraserhead baby "Eddy."
Saw this on videotape back around the time Siskel & Ebert reviewed it on their show. Trust me, you do NOT want to watch this movie when you have the flu.
In my opinion: Eraserhead is a movie that puts you inside the mind of someone with Schizophrenia. It's definitely interesting movie, but I was so disturbed by it that I can never watch it again.
@@MsThebeMoonok then what significance does the disfigured man in the beginning have? Or the part where his head is decapitated? Or the woman with the weird cheeks in the radiator? It’s all literal nonsense. Saying “oh it’s like a nightmare” doesn’t actually make it a good film.
I don’t know about rewatching unless you haven’t put all the pieces together yet. Once I knew it was about the fears of becoming a father i understood everything & no longer found a reason to watch it again.
You have to realize that these two panned Blade Runner when it first came out. Apparently Siskel watched Roy Batty's speech, and it went over his head.
The meaning of Eraserhead rests on nightmares and subconscious, in some place between real and dream world If you reject that idea...you won't be prepared for the movie
Spoilers were not a meme 35 yrs ago, when the movie was already 10yrs old. But you're right, journalists were just a stupid back in the day and way more disrespectful to their audience and whatever art they 'covered'.
He's really not giving much away - and even if he did, with this movie the plot is nothing compared to the experience of seeing it. Does the film title count as a spoiler?
This is not a popcorn movie. This is not for the average or mundane movie goer. This is surrealist art and very complicated. His greatest masterpiece is Mulholland Drive,
The oldest thing is that after saying he didn't like it, Siskel went on to pretty much nail the point of the film. If he'd maybe realized that, maybe he would've viewed it a different way.
Man these guys suck way too often. Eraserhead is profoundly symbolic film about a man who wants physical intimacy with females so badly, but at the same time is terrified of commitment, marriage and being a father. He wants it to be like heaven, but it's really like hell to him. That's all it really is about.
It is profoundly symbolic, but I disagree that that's "what really is about". The fact that is profoundly symbolic means people are gonna interpret it in many different ways. This is one of my favorite films, and yet I don't agree your interpretation at all. That doesn't make it any less valid, if that's your point of view then great, but that's still not "what is really about". No one knows for sure, and that's the beauty of it.
Lynch himself has admitted that his relationship with his then wife and terror at becoming a father was the film's inspiration...add to that living in a Philadelphia tenement, where he realized that all that separated him from the outside was a brick wall.
I think you have the date wrong. They speak about Blue Velvet, which came out in 86. This had to have been after that, though Eraserhead DID come out in 77.
So Roger liked it. He’s not exactly sure why he liked it but I think I reacted that way also the first time I saw almost any David Lynch film. I liked it but I needed to watch it a few more times to find out why?
@@Lalo-dh8xq It was shot on a small budget, but in no way was Eraserhead "crude". The baby effect is still a mystery to most people and it was incredibly effective.
I like the creepy industrial feel and the sounds of machinery ,trains and such, but David Lynch needs to explain some stuff which he refuses to do.Like why is there plants in piles of dirt on the night stand that isn't in a pot?Why does the lady in the radiator have giant cheeks?I like arty films,but I like a coherent story.Lynch is great at setting a mood but some one needs to help him with the script.
The films appeal IMHO is that it is the very best non traditional story telling u will ever see bc it's out there way way way out there but its also either intentionally or unintentionally very funny u decide but Def see this movie bc there's absolutely nothing like it anywhere in film😮🎉❤
What an opinion. “The only people who like it are college kids” now and then plenty of grown adults love it, but he can’t even try to THINK about It he just passes it off as “of edgy teens feel lost and need something to identify with so they like weird pointless violent shit”
It’s not even set in a different world the whole film is about a fear of parenthood at a young age how u feel alien to you’re partners new family due to the unspoken fact they are not happy you are doing this at such a young age the lady in the radiator represents suicidal thoughts witch sometimes come due to the stress and judgment and the baby simply put it’s a normal baby he sees it as strange and creepy coz he’s never had a baby to him it’s just a monster that cry’s pisses and shits
Ebert already KNEW that Siskel was going to act like he didn't get it So he prepared a comparison to 50s surrealism and even 70s psychedelia So either Siskel was living under a ROCK or the truth.. he just hates art cinema
Um, Siskel praised Elephant Man & Blue Velvet, & he has expressed admiration for directors like Fellini, so just because he didn't like Eraserhead doesn't mean he hated art house cinema.
siskel is blatantly wrong here about eraserhead but ebert was blatantly stupid about blue velvet. happy i never have to watch david lynch with these two
Even though Ebert liked Mulholland Drive he actually writes in his review that the movie doesn't make any sense. The movie makes perfect sense, and him stating it doesn't just because he didn't understand it really is a shame and pretty unprofessional imo.
As somebody who really likes eraserhead, people like you are the reason David Lynch is stereotyped as having an incredibly pretentious fanbase. Seriously. Are you that shocked that some people don’t like it? That shit is fucking insane. David Lynch’s movies are incredibly out there, and while I’m personally proud to be a fan of his, I wouldn’t blame anyone for disliking what he does.
just to support what's already been said: worst review ever! these two are so middle of the road when it comes to movies outside their comfort zone; I was surprised to learn they both actually liked The Wickerman
For the record, I think that this movie is very good (not great, but very good), and I get the message. However, I do not like it when the art-heads defend the value of a film by trying to contrive a fake-art smokescreen. So-called "art" is a business, and people in this business know that they would be out of work and would have to get real jobs if they permitted members of the paying public to think for one moment that they actually "understood" art. No, only "artists" and the faux-intelligentsia can "understand" art, and that is why they should be paid: to construct and administer opinions to the public. Are they not just so useful to society? Art-heads remind me of the fictional philosophers Majikthise and Vroomfondel, desperately trying to stop the construction of Deep Thought, because it would end the "philosopher" racket.
The internet would have put these two clowns out of a job. First was the "Better love story than Twilight" meme and then came the volcanic eruption blowing Ghostbusters '16 away like the victims of Pompeii. The only difference is *these* two nerds were paid for *their* opinions.
Roger Ebert lived well into the Internet era and remained quite successful up to the end of his life, mainly because he was a superb writer, in addition to being an insightful film reviewer. On a side note, he wrote the screenplay to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), so he understood off-beat films from the creative side, as well. Gene Siskel was always the slightly more conservative of the two, in terms of taste, which is on display here, but it was this tension (they had been rivals previously) that made this show so successful in its day.
Gracie: Basically, it's like this------both Siskel & Ebert, for all their differing opinions and personalities, really liked films. And they gave their honest opinions about what they thought about certain films---they weren't reviewing them for their corporate masters or anything. I liked the fact that they also reviewed weird, out-of-the-way experimental indie films like Eraserhead, instead of just the typical mainstream stuff they were expected to review. They also championed filmmakers who were little known at the time but were coming up back in the day, such as Spike Lee, whose School Daze I think they both liked, before he became a huge box office name, and the work of foreign filmmakers, too. Also, they were doing all this back in the days decades before the internet---if you wanted to find an indie film, you had to read the daily papers to find any review on them, and that was only if said paper reviewed anything beyond mainstream films. Otherwise, you'd have to read magazines like the now-long gone Premiere, one of the best movie industry mags, or Variety (now online) or Entertainment Magazine, or Deadline (now online) to find out anything about movies or actors/actresses that were out of the mainstream. And that's only if you were fortunate enough to live down the street from a store that actually carried all these publications. Or if you knew someone who was into those kinds of films, or if you took a film class. That's why I appreciated the hell out of their shows----they did a whole show where they reviewed their favorite horror movies, even though they hated slashers. In other words, they were a little more open-minded when it came to films then they're given credit for.
Bald guy and people like him will never understand it. It's the love of art, the weirdest we can be around one another and even beyond that. That is what David Lynch doesn't care to casually show.
You realize “bald guy” was greatly defending Blue Velvet when Roger Ebert panned it, right? Siskel actually seems to really like David Lynch, he just didn’t like eraserhead. Stop getting upset with people for not liking movies like eraserhead. As a fan of it you can’t deny that it’s WAY fucking outside normal barriers, in fact I can almost guarantee that is one of the main reasons you enjoy it so much.
"In the 60s, I think it was called a bad trip. Sometimes people wanna go on one. It makes them feel kind of creepy, and that's maybe what they're looking for." Lmao what a great response to Siskel being a stiff. I do like him a lot, but he can be so annoying about more abstract/art films.
@@VashTheDamnFiend lol House has a plot that’s as boiler plate as it gets buttressed by upskirt shots of 17 year old girls. Its special effects are charming, but it’s not a meaningful movie at all. Eraserhead’s horror comes from anxieties about starting a family. It’s got real stuff going on, and the baby is an all-timer in practical effects.
@@wanderlustrer i mean i was eating chinese food and choked on my bite, not sure its that bad Ill keep you in mind the next time im draining pus or fixing a broken bone tho
@@shioq. They reviewed thousands of movies in their lifetimes. They lived and breathed cinema. Sure, they had opinions but they were largely informed opinions. I could call that a passion for cinema.
