Somewhere between the limits of reality and the deepest depths of the human subconsciousness, one of the most original filmmakers in the world has found his niche. On the occasion of the Master’s 75th birthday, we remind you of his full-length debut – Wiping Head .
A measure of Kafka, a quart of Gogol
The plot of the film could be summarized even in the most inconspicuous way. Here we meet Henry Spencer, a pretty ordinary pencil factory worker who finds out one day that he will become a father. When the baby turns out to be deformed (sick?), The girl leaves, and the good printer is left alone with the whimpering bundle. In the hands of another artist, a similar outline could well become a feel good movie or a melodramatic tearjerker – but Lynch serves this story in a form similar to an abstract stream of consciousness, which, over time, will become one of his trademarks. Quite ordinary – it might seem – situations, such as a family dinner, from the perspective of a neurotic hero, grow to the rank of hellish torture.
Both the visuals, reminiscent of the works of filmmakers of surrealism and German expressionism, as well as the unusual, for contemporary trends, the soundtrack create a strange, unfriendly and disturbing world. The elements of the surroundings – cramped, poorly lit rooms located in a post-industrial district devoid of any vegetation, a tangle of pipes and a sea of concrete, piercing noises and knocks coming from everywhere – make up a habitat that many (including Lynch himself, who spent his childhood in a small, provincial town of Missoula, Montana) may seem inhuman. Everything in it is artificial, from nature completely dominated by the human hand to the food consumed by the inhabitants of the district; after all, even the roast chickens served by Henry’s girlfriend’s mother are a product of genetic engineering. The protagonist himself seems to be clearly (and rightly) overwhelmed by the disturbing surroundings and grotesque behavior of his companions (Jack Nance, who plays the main role, keeps his expression similar to a scared puppy). On the day of the premiere, one could of course speculate whether we were dealing with the spiritual heir of Luis Buñuel, Tod Browning or Fritz Lang. Even today, nearly half a century after its first screening, the film retains its freshness, shocking and leading viewers far beyond their comfort zone. The more surprising is that it is The protagonist himself seems to be clearly (and rightly) overwhelmed by the disturbing surroundings and grotesque behavior of his companions (Jack Nance, who plays the main role, keeps his expression similar to a scared puppy). On the day of the premiere, one could of course speculate whether we are dealing with the spiritual heir of Luis Buñuel, Tod Browning or Fritz Lang. Even today, nearly half a century after its first screening, the film retains its freshness, shocking and leading viewers far beyond their comfort zone. The more surprising is that it is The protagonist himself seems to be clearly (and rightly) overwhelmed by the disturbing surroundings and grotesque behavior of the people accompanying him (Jack Nance, who plays the main role, keeps his expression similar to a scared puppy). On the day of the premiere, one could of course speculate whether we are dealing with the spiritual heir of Luis Buñuel, Tod Browning or Fritz Lang. Even today, nearly half a century after its first screening, the film retains its freshness, shocking and leading viewers far beyond their comfort zone. The more surprising is that it is Tod Browning or maybe Fritz Lang. Even today, nearly half a century after its first screening, the film retains its freshness, shocking and leading viewers far beyond their comfort zone. The more surprising is that it is Tod Browning or maybe Fritz Lang. Even today, nearly half a century after its first screening, the film retains its freshness, shocking and leading viewers far beyond their comfort zone. The more surprising is that it isde facto a debut work * – and although undoubtedly artistically fulfilled, it almost ended the young director’s career in the run.
Source: ifccenter.com
As it is not known what is going on …
The production process of the Wiping Head has grown up with dozens of legends and anecdotes. Of course, the leitmotif of most of them is the chronic shortage of funds. Ultimately, the film’s budget was $ 20,000, which for a full-length film may seem like a microscopic amount. Only half was covered by the American Film Institute (AFI) scholarship. The script presented to the commission was about 20 pages long, so the latter, reading it in a standardized way, estimated the production cost as short films are valued **. Lynch was forced to spend the rest out of his own pocket, also borrowing from family and friends, which led to consternation, frustration, and frequent misunderstandings. As the interested person himself recalls:
One evening my younger brother and father sat me down in a dark living room. (…) They had a serious conversation with me. It almost broke my heart because I heard that I should find a job and forget about the film ***.
So he found her – he made extra money, delivering newspapers for a modest amount of 50 dollars a week, tightening subsequent scenes almost cottage-industry. And although the Institute supported production by providing premises and real estate located on their campus (where the director also lived at that time), the funds were still lacking. Years later, the actors appearing in the film recalled the period in which they appeared on the set with a roll of film tape bought with their own money, in order to have anything to work on at all, and at the time of the greatest crisis, Lynch even considered finishing the pictures with the technique of stop-motion animation, using hand-made figurines and a small plan made of cardboard. You may also wonder
The production of Head … was completed in 1976, after more than five years of work ****. The streak, however, continued. The film was not selected for the Cannes Film Festival, while the first screenings at the New York Film Festival were received coolly. The midnight screening at the Los Angeles festival resulted in an extremely negative review in the respected magazine Variety. However, thanks to one of the festival’s organizers, the film was distributed as part of the so-called “Night Circulation” and there it quickly gained the status of a cult work. The rest, as they say, is history for another day …
Source; villains.fandom.com
* Until the start of the Wiping Head work, David Lynch had only completed a few short films funded by an AFI grant.
** It is assumed that one page of the script normally corresponds to one minute of the finished movie.
*** D. Lynch, Chasing the Big Fish , p. 36.
**** Due to the prolonged work, in the final version of the film, we see actors who are several months older in different shots of the same scenes. For the same reason, the operators working on the set also changed several times – the first, Herb Cardwell … died after 9 months of shooting.
Bibliography:
Lynch, In pursuit of the big fish , REBIS Publishing House, Poznań 2007.
Encyclopedia of cinema , edited by T. Lubelski, publ. Biały Kruk, Krakow 2010.
P, Sobczynski, Defying Explanation: The Brilliance of David Lynch’s „Eraserhead”, dostęp online: https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/defying-explanation-the-brilliance-of-david-lynchs-eraserhead
Todd, Authorship and the films of David Lynch, I.B. Tauris Publishers, New York, 2012.