A Surrealist Nightmare About The Anxieties Of Fatherhood

Earlier than delving into the narrative, I wish to discuss in regards to the movie’s stellar sound design, which closely lends to the sense of relentless discomfort that defines it. The story’s industrial setting, though reflective of some corners of postmodern society, emerges as alien because of the manner sound accentuates the threats of dwelling in such a panorama, the place protected areas are a fable and feelings are as deformed because the toddler that seemingly falls from the sky. Whereas some industrial sounds overpower sure scenes, a majority of the occasions are layered with an unnerving, low-level background noise that follows Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) wherever he goes.

Music has all the time been a full-fledged practical side in Lynch’s world, be it within the type of Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting soundtrack that immediately defines the interior landscapes of “Twin Peaks” or the essential significance of Roy Orbison’s “In Desires” that acts as a turning level in Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.” For “Eraserhead,” Lynch labored alongside Alan Splet to carve out the visceral sound design, whereas working carefully with Fat Waller and Peter Ivers, who composed unique items that underlined a way of Kafkaesque claustrophobia, paying homage to the menacing, bureaucratic world of Joseph Ok. in “The Trial.” 

Lynch additionally makes use of sounds to induce anxiousness or anticipation in audiences, utilizing clanks, hisses, and refined foreboding notes to set the stage for allegorical strands, resembling when Spencer stares on the radiator and hears steam escaping, however that is meant to allude to his interior world and never his tangible actuality. That is what makes the movie’s horrifying points simpler, as acquainted sounds provide a mirage of normalcy, solely to be undercut by an countless, hopeless nightmare with no starting or finish.