A SYNOPSIS OF ERASERHEAD


CHAPTER ONE - THE MAN IN THE PLANET (6:08)

We open on a horizontal view of Henry floating under, and then over a
planet. We close in on the planet, and see the Man within. He works a
series of  levers which take deformed sperm from Henry and cast them
into a dirty pool.


This scene introduces us to Henry, the pityful little man with funny
hair, who's subjected to industrial surgery, where his poisoned seed
is taken from him and cast into an abyss. Is this Henry's idea of
vacation?

CHAPTER TWO - LENOX AVENUE BLUES (2:40)

A flash of light and we enter Henry's world. A wasteland of industrial
emptyness and filth.
Henry's walk home is wrought with huge piles of dirt, large forbiding
buildings and solitude.

CHAPTER THREE - BEAUTIFUL LADY ACROSS THE HALL (3:14)

Henry's apartment building offers no heaven for Henry. The elevator
tests his patience, and then shoots sparks at him from a damaged bulb.
Henry trudges his way to his apartment (#26), but before he can go in,
a Beautiful Girl Across The Hall, comes out to give him a message. She
tells him that his girlfriend, Mary, called on the payphone to invite
him to her parent's house for dinner. Henry thanks her and enters his
apartment.

CHAPTER FOUR - MESSIN' AROUND WITH THE BLUES (3:58)

Henry's room is just as plain as he is. A bed, a dresser, a desk. Near
his bed, hangs a picture of an atomic explosion. A radiator spews out
steam as Henry changes a dirty sock. In a drawer he flips a penny into
a bowl of water and picks up the torn picture of his girlfriend, Mary.
He stares at the picture with sad eyes before straightening his tie
and leaving for dinner.

CHAPTER FIVE - MARY (2:55)

Night falls as Henry walks over to Mary's. A chained dog barks at
Henry and he picks up his pace.

Mary watches from the door and scolds Henry, when he arrives, for
being late. Henry stares at his feet. "Dinner's almost ready," Mary
tells him, with a reassuring, but still disturbing smile on her face.

CHAPTER SIX - MR. & MRS. X (3:00)

Henry is introduced to Mary's mother, who speaks angrily, but never
tells anyone what's on her mind. Henry tells her that he's on vacation
from Lepell's factory.

While they talk, Mary has some sort of seizure, which is dispelled
when Mrs. X brushes her hair. Mr. X comes home from work, a lot more
cheerier than his wife, and tells them about the great
man-made-chicken dinner they're having tonight. "They're smaller than
my fist, but they're new!" He says excitedly.

CHAPTER SEVEN - DINNER PREPARATIONS (2:00)

Mrs. X makes salad with the "help" of a comatose grandmother. Mr. X.
sautes his chickens while the cook. Mary and Henry sit in the living
room, not saying a word to each other. You could cut the tension with
a chainsaw.

CHAPTER EIGHT - CARVING CHICKENS (3:45)

It's dinner with the Xs and Henry is given the honour of carving up
the pint-sized chickens. No sooner did he poke the first one with his
fork, that it started to ooze out a thick goo, much to the enjoyment
of Mrs. X, who goes into a strange trance while the chick's drumsticks
start to gyrate.

After a few moments of drooling, she rises from the table and leaves
the room. "She'll be alright in a minute," Mr. X says.

CHAPTER NINE - THE COURTSHIP OF HENRY SPENCER (4:00)

Mrs. X asks to speak to Henry alone. "Did you and Mary have sexual
intercourse?" She asks blatantly. Henry gets all nervous, has a
nosebleed, and is told that he's fathered a premature child.
Not only that, but Henry is told that he will be marrying Mary because
the child needs a father.

CHAPTER TEN - THE BABY (1:35)

In Henry's apartment, Mary tries to feed the 'baby', with no success.
The baby is best described as a cross between a fetus and a lizard.
It has no limbs, only a bundled little body wrapped in bandages with a
head sticking out.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE SEED (1:07)

Henry leaves the apartment checking his mail slot on the way out.
Reaching in he finds a small coiled "seed". He tucks it away and
returns to his apartment.

CHAPTER TWELVE - THE RADIATOR (2:35)

Henry enters the apartment and winces at the site of his half-child.
Henry and Mary exchange few words. She asks if there was mail and he
replies in the negative. As Henry lies on the bed he stares into the
radiator and sees an empty stage and a spotlight.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - AT THE DREAM DOOR (2:23)

Darkness falls and Henry lies on his side of the bed, listening to the
crying of his child. He takes the seed he received in the mail and
places it in a small cupboard.

Mary lies huddled on her side of the bed and violently shrugs off
Henry's advances of intimacy. Mary, distressed, jumps out of bed and
yells at the baby, telling it to shut up.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - MARY GOES HOME (2:17)

Mary tries to go back to sleep but it's no use. "I'm losing my mind!"
She screams as she starts to pack her things and go back to her
parent's house. 'Why don't you just stay home," Henry snarls, showing
the first signs of dignity in the film. "I'll do what I want to
do," Mary shoots back. Then, in an act that can only be called
Lynchian humour, she gets down on all fours infront of the bed and
starts to jerk herself against it. After several moments of this, she
pulls out a suitcase that was stuck under the bed. The scene ends with
Henry falling back to sleep and dreaming of the Beautiful Girl across
the hall.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - "Oh, you 'are' sick!" (1:47)

Henry wakes up in the middle of the night to find the baby silent.
Henry takes its tempreture, but it reads normal. Henry turns to go
back to bed, when the baby gasps out.

Henry turns back and the baby is covered in spots. "Oh, you 'are'
sick", Henry exclaims.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - TAKING CARE OF BABY (3:50)

Henry stays close as his baby gasps and coughs over a vaporizer.
Henry tries to get up and leave, but every time he tries, the baby
cries out. Henry sits back down and stares into the radiator.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - THE LADY IN THE RADIATOR (3:20)

One of the most important scenes of the movie has Henry fantasizing
about an ovary-cheeked Lady in the Radiator.
She dances to a blues beat, while stepping on Henry's deformed sperm
that fall onto her stage.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - INSIDE MARY X (3:55)

Henry sleeps next to Mary (who, we assume, has come home sometime
inbetween) in their bed, when she starts to convulse. This isn't one
of her usual seizures, as Henry soon finds out.

Henry looks under the sheets and starts to pull malformed fetuses out
of Mary, while she twitches and chokes. We pan up from the pile of
fetuses, to the small cabinet where Henry placed the seed he found in
his mailbox. It comes to life and starts to grow.

CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL RETURNS (4:50)

Henry gets out of bed and goes to the door. The Beautiful Girl emerges
from the shadows. "I locked myself out of my apartment," she tells
Henry, while walking into his. Henry tries to quiet his child as the
Beautiful Girl checks out his place.
"Where's your wife?" She asks. Henry looks around the room, like he's
misplaced his car keys, "She must've gone back to her parents house".
She smiles, "Can I stay here tonight?"

CHAPTER TWENTY - GARDENBACK (2:05)

Henry and the Beautiful Girl make love on the bed as it turns into a
pool of white, milky water.

The Beautiful Girl hears the baby wailing, and is disgusted by its
sight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - THE RADIATOR LADY'S SONG (1:33)

The Beautiful Girl rejects Henry as she dissolves into the shadows.
From the darkness, the Lady in the Radiator emerges and sings a song.
"In heaven, everything is fine. You've got your good things, and I've
got mine!" She promises.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - HENRY AND THE LADY IN THE RADIATOR (3:30)

Henry walks onto the Lady in the Radiator's stage. He wants to be with
her, but she rejects him as well. He must do something first, before
he can escape to his own heaven.

The Lady disappears, and a dead tree rolls onto the stage in a wagon.
Suddenly, Henry's head is popped off and his baby's head emerges from
his neck. A dark, syrupy liquid flows out of the tree and all around
the severed head. Then, in a flash, it is pulled under its dark
depths, and out of sight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - THE BOY (2:02)

Henry's hand falls out of the sky and lands on the ground with a
splat.

A boy grabs it and takes it to a suited-man in a small office. "Hiya,
sonny, whatta ya got there?" He asks, pointing to Henry's head. The
boy shows him and the man smiles.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - ERASERHEAD (2:30)


The boy and the suited-man walk into another room where a Pencil
Machine Operator, takes a piece of Henry's head and makes erasers for
the ends of pencils.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - MARY GONE AGAIN (0:30)

Henry wakes up to find Mary gone again. He gets dressed and waits by
the window.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - ROW OF DIMES (4:20)

Night falls and Henry is still sitting by the window. He looks out and
sees two people fighting outside his building. (For a complete
explanation of this scene, look at the Director's Cut section in the
F/X page of the Eraserhead site).

Henry goes across the hall and knocks on the Beautiful Girl's door,
but there's no answer. He walks back to his room, where his baby
starts to laugh maliciously at him, mocking him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - MR. ROUNDHEELS (2:00)

Henry hears the Beautiful Girl going into her apartment and springs
out of bed. He opens the door, and sees her with another man.
She smiles wickedly at Henry. From her perspective, she sees the
baby's head, instead of Henry's.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - LAYING BABY DOWN (5:25)

This is the last straw for Henry. He takes a pair of scissors and cuts
through the baby's bandages, exposing its internal organs.
The baby convulses and shivers as a thick goo spreads all over its
body.
Henry starts to hallucinate and sees a giant baby head moving around
the room as the lights flutter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - IN HEAVEN... (1:35)

The planet begins to crumble, and the Man in the Planet dies in a
sparking envelopment of light.


In the final sequence, we are in a place of light. Henry turns around
and sees the Lady in the Radiator. She runs into his arms and they
embrace. Henry smiles. He is in heaven.


 

Scénes coupées :

 

SCENE ONE - STRANGE MAN & BLACK BOX

In this scene, Henry hears some strange noises coming from a room down
the hall from his apartment. He investigates and sees this:


Two women lie bound on a bed, while a man approaches them with two
prongs connected to a black box. Hmmmm.... I'm told that this is
Lynch's idea of sexy. Does not surprise me.

The scene ends with Henry being spotted by the women and he takes off
back to his apartment.

CATHERINE COULSON: "My friend [V. Phipps-Wilson] and I were lying on a
bed, bound by these kind of
battery cables. And the guy with the black box walks
toward us with these prongs.
It wasn't sexy; it was David's [version
of] sexy, which is always kind
of pristine in a way."

SCENE TWO - HENRY'S DRAWER

In this scene, Henry is looking for the vaporizer to soothe his baby's
sickness. He opens a drawer and finds...
A drawer full of vanilla pudding and peas.

CATHERINE COULSON: "The problem was how to make a drawerful of vanilla
pudding. Doreen and I went out
to the grocery store, and we tried to figure out what
kind of vanilla pudding would
mix up the fastest. So we hand-beat
instant vanilla pudding,
filled this drawer with it, and then put these
green peas on top of it.

SCENE THREE - ROW OF DIMES

A lengthy scene, cut by Lynch, had Henry sitting in his apartment with
his baby. He starts to hear a sort of calling and looks out the
window.

DAVID LYNCH: "It's daytime, the wind is blowing dust, and there's this
little kid out in the alley. He suddenly
sees this shiny thing in the dirt, and he gets down and starts
digging, and he finds these rows of dimes.
So, he really starts digging, and Henry sees
this. Henry runs out of the room, but the baby starts crying; but he's
got a good run going and he makes it to the
elevator. He's pushing the button, but the
elevator won't come. So he runs down the stairs. He runs into the
lobby, and we see the elevator door is
propped open with a mop. There's a mop bucket
in there, and the landlady has been cleaning. That's why he couldn't
get the elevator."

"But because the door's open, the baby's crying is real
loud and echoing all through the elevator shaft. So
Henry gets frustrated and kicks the couch in the lobby,
and the landlady [V. Phipps-Wilson] comes and says,
'Don't kick my wood.' She starts into this
landlady-tenant thing. So Henry leaves her and goes
back upstairs. He looks out the window, and more people
have come, and they're digging, and the dust is
blowing. By night there's fighting going on out there."

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DID YOU KNOW....?

- ERASERHEAD first appeared on video in 1981 for a pay-TV showing on
New Year's Eve.

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- Jack Fisk, a friend of Lynch and fellow director, endured painful
make-up to become the Man in the Planet, while his wife, Sissy Spacek,
took on the duties of the Script Assistant.

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Human umbilical cords were used in a scene that called
for Henry to pull fetuses from a convulsing Mary.

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- Early in the film, Henry's right foot steps in a mud puddle. Later,
in his apartment, his left sock is the one that's dirty. A lot of
people have tried to read some astral significance into this, but it
was really just a mistake in production.

DAVID LYNCH: "We couldn't remember which shoe went in the puddle. It's
hard to believe that someone looks at your
films so closely."

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- Jack Nance (Henry) was drawn to the script for many reasons, but one
the more personal ones involved the scene in the end where Henry is
haunted by a giant baby head.

JACK NANCE: "I was struck by that because it was describing, in some
detail, a sort of hallucination that I had at
one time when I was very sick and running a fever."

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- Shooting began on the AFI stables on May 29, 1972. It was the scene
where Henry comes over for dinner and meets Mrs. X. It was filmed in
one take.

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Henry Spencer's Eraserhead haircut was styled and
maintain over the years by his then-wife, Catherine Coulson.

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- Lynch keeps close ties with the people he worked with on Eraserhead.
Jack Nance appeared in Dune, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Wild At
Heart. Charlotte Stewart (Mary) played Betty Briggs in Twin Peaks, and
Catherine Coulson would carry a log as Margaret, the Log Lady.

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- In the original script, Henry's world was much darker, and there was
no Lady in the Radiator. The film concluded with Henry killing the
baby, and then his world disintegrated. This was due to Lynch's own
foulness during first year production. It was only after a friend
recommended meditation that Lynch mellowed out and took better control
of his work.

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- Due to their small budget, Lynch and his crew often went to swap
meets to buy costumes and props.

DAVID LYNCH: "Henry's whole wardrobe was gotten at Goodwill."

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IN CLOSING:

Catherine Coulson sums ERASERHEAD up the best:

"We became like a family. Basically Jack's and my home life became
ERASERHEAD, and oftentimes, after we were through shooting, David
would come over, and we would eat pancakes at our house."

"Peggy [Lynch's first wife] and Jenny [their daughter] used to come
down to the stables, and Jenny would ask David if she could go play
with the "baby". I remember spending New Year's Eve at the stables. We
were all drinking champagne and Jack gave Jenny, who was about 4, a
couple sips of champagne, so she would go to sleep. We all listened to
music and had a real nice time in our little home away from home."