DVD Review: Lynch fans hit the Mother Lode with ‘Eraserhead’ release
Who comes to mind during the holidays more than David Lynch? Well, more or less anyone, really. But the holidays are over, and the days still short and cold, so now might be appropriate for the prince of (literal and figurative) cinematic darkness.
It’s been a great year for Lynch fans. At midyear, Paramount Home Entertainment put out the definitive “Twin Peaks” Blu-ray set, ten discs with both versions of the pilot, all the subsequent episodes, the prequel “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” and a ton of extras. Most amazingly, it includes the Holy Grail of “Twin Peaks” fans — an hour and a half of cut scenes from the prequel, properly edited and mixed by the director.
A few months later the set became happily undefinitive with the announcement that the show would return after a 25-year hiatus.
And now, Criterion has put out Lynch’s first feature, “Eraserhead,” on both Blu-ray and DVD, with a new transfer. The film looks just as dark as was originally intended; the disc even includes TV calibration screens so you can adjust the brightness and contrast properly. The sound mix — particularly important in this film — is excellent.
The extras are arranged by year: the original trailer (1977); a 17-minute interview with Lynch and cinematographer Frederick Elmes (except Elmes only speaks two or three times) (1979); the minute-and-a-half “thank you” short produced for the Nuart, which had maintained midnight screenings of the movie for years (1982); an unexciting seven-minute excerpt from a French documentary (1988); Lynch, assistant Catherine Coulson (a.k.a. the Log Lady), and actors Jack Nance and Charlotte Stewart taking a tour of the locations (1997); and 25 minutes of mostly excellent new interviews with Coulson, Stewart, Elmes, and actress Judith Anna Roberts (2014).
Also on the disc are all of Lynch’s shorts, except for “The Cowboy and the Frenchman,” long regarded as the weakest by far. Best of all is the 85-minutes “Eraserhead Stories” Lynch prepared for the 2001 DVD release, in which he sits at a mike and tells us the entire history of the project in fascinating detail.
One big (but fixable) problem: The first batch of discs released were missing about five seconds of footage in the middle of a scene, slightly before the 66-minute mark. Criterion has re-pressed the disc and will send replacements for the faulty ones, so be sure to check.
Eraserhead (Criterion, Blu-ray, $39.95; DVD, $29.95)
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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).