Eraserhead DVD

Started by cowboykurtis, March 09, 2003, 04:03:40 PM

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Cecil

Quote from: ***beady***It's on dvd now? Is it out in the uk on dvd?

unfortunately, i believe it is unavailable in the UK

***beady***

Typical! bloody stupid late uk releases. Drives me mad. meh, I'll just have to wait.

MacGuffin

For the UK, "Eraserhead" is only available as:



Because of this, David Lynch's site will not sell the box set to the UK until 2008 due to the contractual obligations.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Ghostboy

However, the 'official' version IS region free, as far as encoding goes, so if you know someone in the US, they could buy it and ship it to you...

***beady***

2008? Thats years away!
Hmm... Might have to get it from the US then, and that version is definetly compatable with UK?

godardian

From my blog:

I received David Lynch's first feature, 1977's Eraserhead, as perhaps my most-treasured Christmas gift (though a very intuitive friend did give me the book The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, by Diana Lovell, which runs a close second, and you may expect a review of it very soon). Eraserhead has been very spiffed-up, lovingly restored, and released on disc exclusively through Lynch's overpriced but still impressive website.

This is one of the most original and bizarre films I've ever seen (these words seem to fade even as I type them; almost any viewer would be forced to describe the film as I just did, and I'm sure many before me have). As with Todd Haynes's similarly underground-legendary Superstar, if this film is not the most accomplished or coherent articulation of its creator's vision, it is still probably the most pure, the rich topsoil out of which the rest of the work has blossomed.

The ideas here- the images, the sound, the editing, all of which can clearly be seen, in hindsight, as eternally recurrent in the rest of Lynch- are almost too concentrated. Surely, every disturbing image in the film has some remote correlant in "reality," but I find that allegorical symbolism doesn't do Lynch's work justice. His films are too hermetic in too many ways for this; somewhat similar to Godard, it may actually take viewing more than one David Lynch film to "get" his system of symbols, an emotional and observational lexicon as unironic as it is strange.

There aren't really words to do justice to the "story" of Eraserhead, but: A very stifled and anxious-appearing young man named Henry (John Nance) lives in a city that's all back alleys and industrial anonymity; he loves his girlfriend, Mary (Charlotte Stewart), but the sexual nature of their relationship has led not only to the displeasure of her creepy-catatonic, cloistered-in family, but the birth of a grotesque, inhuman, effluviant "baby"/creature that mocks the now-married young couple from its place on the dresser with its incessant cries and cackles. A dark, mysterious woman from across the hall beckons Henry from his unhappy home. Also, there's a not-so-nice man in the moon (shades of the homeless man in Mulholland Dr.) and a deformed but angelic lady that lives in the radiator (as with any Lynch movie, the genius is that all this makes perfect sense, in a way- he creates an atmosphere that allows it to make sense).

Lynch's obsession with orifices and the desperate human discomfort toward the organic rivals that of David Cronenberg's, but where Cronenberg's version is precise, cerebral, and relatively literal, Lynch's seems to come from the heart; whether it's the nebulous planetary and parasitic holes the camera penetrates in Eraserhead or the more recognizable ear canal of Blue Velvet or the "box" in Mulholland Dr., it's clearly been present from the beginning.

There's an extremely displaced yet almost comfortingly symbiotic connection in Eraserhead, as in all of Lynch's work, between the shapes (images, many of which are literally geometric) and patterns (editing), which is a beautiful thing all by itself- it's self-contained. You could knock yourself out trying to decipher what all the inimitable and unforgettable things you're seeing "symbolize," but it works just as well to follow Lynch's dream-plots through their inspired, sometimes gorgeous convolutions (when everything stops for a moment so the "radiator lady" can appear out of the darkness to sing a simple, soaring little ditty that goes, "In heaven/Everything is fine" on the film's own smaller-scale version of the controlling-metaphor Mulholland Dr. stage, I was completely transfixed; it has a place in my personal Most Perfect Cinematic Moments). The black-and-white cinematography of Frederick Elmes (who later went on to light Blue Velvet, The Ice Storm, and Storytelling) is wonderful and more key to setting the atmosphere (along with that famous Lynch sound, which sonically saturates Eraserhead); the film looks, period-wise, like something that's been discovered on reels in someone's closet and projected for the first time in decades, something simultaneously very familiar and wholly foreign.

In the Eraserhead interview section of the book Lynch on Lynch, ed. Chris Rodley, Lynch elaborated upon the multifarious quarters from which the unequivocal acclaim for the film emanated: "Well, Kubrick paid me the highest compliment. Just before we started shooting The Elephant Man in England, some guys from Lucas Films came over. They stopped in... we were all talking in the hall and they said, "We're glad we saw you, David, because last night... we met Kubrick, and we were talking, and he said, "Do you guys want to come to my house tonight and see my favourite film?" And so they went, and it was Eraserhead. That was a hair of euphoria. Because I think Kubrick's one of the all-time greats. Almost every one of his films is in my top ten."

Later in the same chapter: "John Waters is another guy that helped me out a lot. He did a Q and A or something after a screening of his new film, and he didn't talk about his new film. He just told people they had to go and see Eraserhead!"

The next widely seen film to even attempt what was evidently Lynch's ambition for Eraserhead- to let the audience in on your dream, the most insane idealizations and the most demented horrors of it, risking all the revulsion and accusations of pretension or willful obscurantism that inevitably result- was Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 (and, to a lesser extent, the others in the Cremaster series), with its similar obsession with cause-and-effect as experienced in dreams; all out of proportion, but with its own immutable, assured logic.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

modage

i just saw Eraserhead for the first time.  now, where do i get my button?
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

godardian

Quote from: themodernage02i just saw Eraserhead for the first time.  now, where do i get my button?

:?:   I can't tell if you really loved it or really hated it. You're mysterious and enigmatic... kinda like the movie itself!  :)
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

modage

signed copies of the Eraserhead DVD are now on Lynchs site for 88.09.  (so are the buttons).
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

NEON MERCURY

eraserhead.... SPOILERS



.....fellow xixians.....my eraserhead dvd (unsigned) came in the mail earlier today....2nd day air ups.....and i just finished watching this....everything that been said ...and praised about this film is true...and i agree....i  have never seen it...until now......whiole i agree w/ its not a film for everyone..but anyone who is interested in film on a mildly serious level should see this somehow.....which means about 92% of people here.....as for as the dvd gtoes it  comes in a black "shoebox" looking thing with david lynch.com on it in various places..and a sticker  remminiscant of the struture in 8 1/2....inside  it  has those styrofoam p-nut shell things and red tissue paper....(cool touch)...the dvd case itself is about the size of a 45.....and comes in a slip case cover with the familiar shot of  henry (nance)  w/ the eraser shavings behind him....you  slide the cover off and the case itself unfolds and reveals the dvd itself (the cover art is the shot of henry minus head ....but w/ the baby head instead holding onto the bar)....oh yeah ....i  do not like the sleeve that the disk comes in ...needs to be more protective......but anyway....you open up the two flaps to unveil the book...really cool sh*t....nice pictures....and a explaination of the transfer....ok....i  don't know why i went on about the packaging that much..buit needless to say....its solid.....(just wish it fit easier into a standard dvd rack).....my personal favorite part of the film is the whole sequence when henry and the girl next door are in bed together and the y sink into the pool and  then henry is on stage w/ the  roaming "plant" and then it blees from the roick  and his head falls off...and [sorry,  the film satill hasn't washed off me yet].....but anyway fans people who have seen this know what i mean ......THAT WHOLE SEQUENCE AMONG OTHER REASONS FROM THE GET-GO SOLIDIFIED LYNCH'S GENIUS......HE IS THE PHUCK'N MAN.....after you watch somethin glike this you feel priveledged....and you owe yourself to watch this.....and the added bonus is the fact that lynch taked his time and does things right(on the dvd tip).....that transfer is flawless.......i cannot for the lost highway and wild at heart dvd..................

anyways later......

Sal

I saw a 16mm print of this in my film history class last semester and I fell in love with it quick.  That night I d/led the soundtrack.  Today I just bought the dvd from dl.com and I can't wait!  The packaging and the extras sound great, so I think this may be worth the hefty 50 dollar price tag.

Brazoliange

It's been said before, but buy Eraserhead and Short Films

or the Box-Set http://ecomm.davidlynch.com/catalog/boxset.php
Long live the New Flesh

modage

Netflix starts carrying this on dvd June 7th.  I'm not sure what version, I would imagine the one from his website but I dont know why they would say it comes out June 7th?

From auteur David Lynch comes this nightmarish classic in which a young man living in an industrial wasteland comes to grips with parenthood. Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) inhabits a surreal world rife with grotesque characters and bizarre creatures, not the least of which is his own child, a hideously deformed, squalling aberration. A study in the macabre, this early film features the arresting imagery and dark humor characteristic of Lynch's work.
Releases on DVD Jun 07, 2005
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

MacGuffin

'Eraserhead' inks online sale deal

The cult hit "Eraserhead," long available on DVD only through director David Lynch's Web site, is now being made available to retailers nationwide through online wholesaler IndieBuyer Inc.

Retailers can order the DVD beginning Monday at prices as low as $32.94, depending on the quantity ordered. DVDs will ship July 1.

Previously, the only option for retailers wishing to carry the groundbreaking 1977 film was to buy the DVD at the full retail price of $39.94, plus an average of $11 shipping and handling, or else carry Asian and European imports that might not be playable on DVD machines sold in the U.S.

Lynch representative Eric Bassett said he chose IndieBuyer to be the film's exclusive distributor because of "its unique ability to reach the best sales force for independent film and our ability to retain ownership of the film."

Also available from the site is "The Short Films of David Lynch."

IndieBuyer (http://www.indiebuyer.net) is an online business exchange designed specifically for retailers and consumers of independent entertainment.

The retail site, which launched in February, combines orders from independent retailers to provide them with volume-buying discounts. A consumer site will launch this year, allowing consumers to make Internet purchases through participating retailers by entering their ZIP code to find the nearest store.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Ravi

I'd love to get this DVD, but right now I can't justify spending so much on one movie  :(