Eraserhead has been streaming on Hulu as a
member of the Criterion Collection for two years, which means excited
speculation that Criterion might give it a proper home-media release has also
been circulating for years. The ultimate cult movie meets the finest
video-distribution company to achieve cult status of its own. That is a
relationship much happier than Henry Spencer and Mary X’s.
Criterion’s
presentation of Eraserhead is almost
all good news for those of us who’ve been sitting tight for the last couple of
years. The lossless audio and 4K visual upgrades of this new release are
stunning. Lynch and Alan Splet’s unusually alive (and constant) sound design
rumbles the floor tiles yet still retains its unique timbre in which voices
almost sound as if they’re transmitting from some old timey radio broadcast.
Contrast is totally effective despite the film’s deliberately dark palate and
there is not a blemish to be seen. The deep blacks never looked so velvety, the
industrial greys never so brooding, the sudden shocks of white never so
headlight blinding.
On the
extras front Lynch’s feature-length “Eraserhead Stories” interview that
appeared on the old DVD is still present. Criterion supplements it with a
half-hour of new interviews featuring Charlotte Stewart (Mary X), Judith Ann
Roberts (The Beautiful Girl Across the Hall), Cinematographer Frederick Elmes,
and Assistant Director/Log Lady Catherine Coulson. This is a really nice
companion piece to “Eraserhead Stories”, offering other perspectives of the
film’s making and impact. We learn how Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon was integral to the unique look of Eraserhead and get teasing peeks at Lynch’s script and storyboard.
But for me the biggest revelation was seeing Judith Ann Roberts today—I had no
idea that was her in the most recent season of “Orange Is the New Black”!
Criterion
also digs up about forty minutes of vintage interview footage with members of
the cast and crew, one of which finds Lynch tooling around LA with Jack Nance
and basically behaving exactly like Agent Cooper a year before the duo made
“Twin Peaks”. We also get the Eraserhead-reunion
segment of Toby Keeler’s wonderful 1997 documentary Pretty As a Picture: The Art of David Lynch, and the Eraserhead chapter from Chris Rodley’s
absolutely essential Lynch on Lynch
book in the booklet.
Finally Criterion
delivers what may be the most tremendous bonus feature in its entire
collection: five of the short films included on the 2002 DVD The Short Films of David Lynch. A couple
of these pieces are negligible. “Six Men Getting Sick”, a film intended to be
projected on sculpture, loses something when deprived of its unique
presentation, and “The Amputee” remains little more than an amusing experiment
with different video stocks. However, the terrifying/mesmerizing ultra-minis
“The Alphabet” and “Premonitions Following an Evil Deed” and the beautiful,
poignant, and uncommonly resourceful “The Grandmother” prove Lynch is just as
much a master of short forms as he is of long ones. These shorts appear in 2K
restorations and the ages and presentations of each film is sometimes a factor.
“Six Men” and “The Alphabet” both have their shares of scratches and spots,
though the images and colors have never looked so good on home video. “The
Amputee” never looked good, and it still doesn’t. Fortunately, the best film in
the bunch—and one of Lynch’s best films, period— “The Grandmother”, is the most
well maintained on all accounts. Its spare use of color is finally as vivid as
Lynch intended it to be (and finally, the pee stain on the little boy’s bed
looks more pee-yellow than orange juice-orange). Unfortunately, there is one
absentee from the Short Films DVD,
the slight but enjoyably goofy “Cowboy and the Frenchman”, which apparently could
not be included because of rights issues.
Eraserhead
is my favorite movie, and I’m thrilled with this new disc. It
looks and sounds fabulous and the bonus features are a dream. This blu-ray is the
film’s ultimate presentation.
