Imagining Interiors: Eraserhead

All the films that I’ve seen at Adelaide Cinematheque have benefited from being shown on the big screen, but none more than Eraserhead. David Lynch’s debut feature is one of the strangest movies I’ve seen, and as seen in a theatre as it was intended it simply envelopes the audience, drawing us into a bizarre, terrifying and hilarious shared dream.

Eraserhead is a wholly unique film -- the special effects are unlike anything else seen on film and likewise the sound design truly sensational. The movie full of strange and disturbing images and sounds that are deployed with precision, never used only just to shock or disgust the audience, but to draw us deeper into the film.

Lynch has wisely refrained from explaining what the movie is supposed to be about, except to say that it does have a specific meaning to him and that no reviewer has ever gotten it right.

To me Eraserhead seemed like an expedition into a young man’s fears and anxieties about childbirth, reproduction and parenting. The first truly unsettling thing we see in the movie is a horde of puppies nursing on their mother, creating a sickening sound that disturbs long before its source is revealed, and the images of fertility, birth and parasitism don’t stop for the rest of the movie.

The strange baby that our protagonist suddenly finds himself having to take care of is an ugly, alien-looking thing that he never asked for, but which still manages to take over his entire life.

I wasn’t surprised to learn after watching Eraserhead that David Lynch had indeed been a young father and was forced to marry his girlfriend when she got pregnant. All of this transpired while he was living in Philadelphia and he has called Eraserhead his “Philadelphia Story.”

I’ve read a lot of theories about what this movie is supposed to be about, which is actually quite a lot of fun, but I think the meaning is not that far from the surface. To me it seems clear that this movie is a nightmare about trying to raise a child that you never wanted in the first place.

Marylin Monroe: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

There aren’t many cinematic confections more fluffy or sugary than Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which stars Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe as American showgirls on a cruise ship bound for Paris. Monroe plays Lorelei who is beautiful, ditzy and unrepentant about using her looks to persuade wealthy gentlemen to part with their riches. Russell is the more street smart and down-to-earth Dorothy who couldn’t care less about money and would prefer to find love, although she doesn’t have a lot of time for love with all the effort it takes to keep Lorelei out of trouble.

Monroe arguably plays the more interesting character, and certainly the one that the film revolves around, but I thought Russell was the real star of the film, adding a mischievous sparkle to all her scenes and making the whole production just look like a darn lot of fun.

The film’s signature song, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” is more remembered for Monroe’s performance, but Russell has the last word when she reprises the number in a platinum blond wing while imitating Lorelei in a raucous courtroom scene. It succeeds as a brilliant send-up as well as a great performance in its own right.

From beginning to end, this isn’t a movie that takes itself seriously, but Lorelei’s cynical scheming lends it a sardonic edge. Her point, that wealth outlasts beauty, is hard to argue with, and in the end she emerges victorious, through little effort of her own. But Russell gives a performance that tempers what could have been a crassly materialistic message by suggesting that a sense of fun can trump both beauty and wealth.

Marylin Monroe: Clash by Night

The legendary Fritz Lang directed screen goddesses Barbara Stanwyck and Marilyn Monroe in the 1952 film Clash by Night, and the result unfortunately does not add up to the sum of its pedigreed parts.

The film starts off strongly, with documentary shots gulls, seals and fishermen off the coast of Monterey, California. The sequence is edited so that we are introduced to mechanical workings of the local industry and how the film’s characters fit in with it. Amongst shots of dripping loads of fish being unloaded at the docks, we see Marilyn Monroe rolling out of bed in a tiny apartment to simply pull on a pair of jeans and head to her job in the cannery. It’s the best and most memorable scene in the film, despite lasting only a few seconds. The whole sequence emphasizes the way the community is built around industry and recalls scenes from Lang’s earlier masterpiece Metropolis.

But once Lang gets around to tackling the film’s story, it feels like none of the material really engages him as a filmmaker. It’s obvious that the script was based off of a Broadway play from the way the scenes are staged to the actors’ mostly melodramatic performances. There are some entertaining moments, especially from the supporting cast, but for the most part the film tends to plod ponderously along without much really happening.

This film gets classified on wikipedia as a “drama with some film noir aspects,” but there’s simply not enough noir here to make it interesting. Stanwyck’s character is fond of glumly declaring how she’s damaged and will bring no good to anyone, although we never really find out what happened to make her so morose. I suppose she’s something of a femme fatal, seeing how the men she attracts inevitably end up worse off than they started, but Stanwyck hardly exudes sex appeal in this role and it’s hard to see just what attracts these men to her in the first place. Perhaps their little fishing village is bereft of eligible women? Whatever the case, she makes for one of the dullest femme fatales in cinema.

I suspect it’s Lang’s association with film noir that is responsible for the movie being painted with that brush, and it’s interesting to note that there are multiple mentions of children being lost or kidnapped throughout the film, almost like an echo of Lang’s classic film M. The fact that these disappearances have no bearing on the story or plot of the film only makes them more unsettling. They contribute to a feeling of dread that sort of percolates under the whole movie without ever coming to a boil.

I spent most of the film waiting for something, anything exciting to happen, but the eventual betrayal feels small, petty and, worst of all, anticlimactic considering the long-simmering build up. Even then the plot never really kicks into high gear, and as a result I felt like this film was something of a missed opportunity.

Marylin Monroe: Some Like it Hot

I love the shared experience of watching a movie in the cinema, especially comedies. I think laughing along with other people is so much more enjoyable than laughing by yourself in your living room. Great movies are better if you can share them, and funny movies become funnier.

Some Like it Hot is one of my favorite movies and getting to watch it on the big screen with a decent crowd is simply a treat. The script is razor-sharp, the actors all in fine form, and Marilyn Monroe is simply indelible. There’s so much to like about this movie that it nearly feels perfect.

One aspect of the film that was pointed out to me at this screening was the way that, for all the cross-dressing and pervasive sexuality, Some Like it Hot feels like it comes from a world where homosexuality seems unthinkable. Not morally unthinkable, just not worth consciously thinking about. The famous final line is side-splitting in its absurdity because up until that point no one in the film, none of the characters had dreamed to consider gender as something that could be overlooked. Disguised, yes, but never outwardly dismissed, especially not when it comes to love!

Of course, homosexuality is neither out of sight nor out of mind in a movie like this, but the script eschews those easy gags and innuendos with remarkable restraint. Imagine a modern sex comedy like The Hangover avoiding gay jokes for even twenty minutes! Just like Marilyn Monroe was famously able to do, Some Like it Hot projects both unabashed sexuality while retaining a veneer of innocence. Part of this is because the script is smart enough to disguise its sex jokes (which makes them all the funnier), and part of it is because that because of it’s a period piece shot in black and white, which makes the movie seem older than it actually is. And an undeniable part of it is Marilyn herself, pouting and shimmying without a hint of deceit or pretense, unaware of her effect on men.

It’s all an illusion, of course. Marilyn knew exactly what she was hired for, and it wasn’t because she was a gem to work with – stories of her forgetting even the simplest of lines on the set of Some Like it Hot have become legendary. But as illusions go, it’s a wonderful one, and even more so when shared at the cinema.

Woody Allen: Husbands and Wives

After watching three Woody Allen movies in eight days, I approached this one expecting to see some of the same quirks and tics of the others. I knew to expect the typical Woody Allen character and a story about the romantic entanglements of rich New Yorkers, but I decided to pick three much smaller things to look for that had shown up in Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters:

- A scene where Woody Allen finds deep significance in the work of Groucho Marx

- A scene where Woody Allen rants about the stupidity of rock music

- A male costar playing a character who is more corrupt and compromised than Allen’s character

I was both disappointed and relieved that there were no references to the greatness of Groucho or the depravity of rock music but on the third point the issue seemed a bit muddier. In Annie Hall, Tony Roberts’ character represents the slick soullessness of California and contrasts Allen’s more culturally righteous, true blue New Yorker. At the beginning of Manhattan Allen’s character may be dating a high schooler, but at least he has a firm moral code, unlike his friend played by Michael Murphy who first cheats on his wife and then steals Allen’s girlfriend after he has encouraged him to go out with her. In Hannah, Michael Caine plays sleeps with his wife Hannah’s sister behind her back, while Allen’s eventually marries Hannah’s other sister.

In Husbands and Wives it is Sydney Pollack who plays the role of Allen’s foil, and the contrast between the two male leads is much more central than it was in any of the earlier films. Pollack’s character starts the movie by announcing he and his wife are separating, much to the surprise of Allen and his wife. As the film goes on, both men become involved with younger, attractive women, but Pollack and his wife ultimately reconcile and get back together, while Allen and his wife split up in the end. Their journeys look almost like mirror images, except that both men start the film relatively content with their lives and end it feeling quite worse.

After I left the movie I felt that both characters had been equally compromised, but thinking about it now, it seems like Allen has indeed written his character as somewhat more heroic, if still deeply flawed. The young college student he develops a crush on is smart and interesting, while Pollack’s girlfriend is not much more than a bimbo, a symptom of a midlife crisis. Pollack returns to an unhappy situation for a sense of security while Allen reluctantly embraces his situation as newly single, deciding that he won’t try to date anyone for a while. Although both men are left in depressing circumstances, Allen’s has more of a chance of improving. The distinction is a slight one, and I don’t think the film condemns Pollack’s character.

Instead, his situation is presented as one side of the coin in the dilemma that the characters in Allen’s movies struggle with incessantly: when it comes to relationships, you’re damned if you’re in one, and you’re damned if you’re alone. Husbands and Wives makes this point more bitterly than any previous Allen film. Which means Groucho Marx was missed more than ever.

Woody Allen: Hannah and Her Sisters

I was surprised by this 1986 Woody Allen comedy because it feels so much warmer than most of his other films that I’ve seen. The sardonic humor is still there, as are the romantic double-crosses, the persistent neurosis and the overriding fear of death, but in spite of all that this manages to be a relatively upbeat movie, with relatively being the operative word. I think a large part of that is due to the beginning and end of the film both being set at big family Thanksgiving gatherings that feel like happy, joyous occasions. It’s almost like the reverse of the ploddingly dour Interiors. In Hannah’s Thanksgiving scenes Allen shows us, to my great surprise, his vision of “family” as a really wonderful, positive thing.

Of course, family can’t be that great all the time, or in an Allen film even most of the time. The rest of the film shows relationships falling apart, occasionally coming together only to splitter off again. Hannah’s husband finds himself attracted to one of her sisters, while the other tries desperately to find a man, a career or any measure of success. The film’s best scene is probably when all three sisters meet for a lunch date only to end up tearfully fighting with one another. Because how Allen has shown us glimpses into the life of each sister, it’s easy to understand where they’re each coming from and how deeply they are hurting each other without realizing or intending to. It’s a masterfully written and acted scene and probably one of the dramatic highlights of Allen’s career.

Surprisingly, it’s Allen’s character as Hannah’s hypochondriac ex-husband who is the weak part of the film. Sure, his performance is as well done and as funny as usual, but his scenes in the first half seem disconnected from the rest of the movie, almost like skits spliced in from another movie to provide some comic relief. But Allen’s character ultimately does reconnect with the wider plot of the film, and in the process reconnects with that great big Thanksgiving family. I suppose it’s something of a redemption arc for his character, and maybe the idea is that he had the right family but the wrong sister? It feels a bit contrived, really, like he was trying to make a film that didn’t end on a downbeat for once. But the film’s ending revelation does line up with what was going on in Allen’s life at the time, the impending birth of his first child. So maybe this movie just caught him in an unnaturally optimistic mood.

This is a fine film in its own right, but in the context of the other Woody Allen films being shown this fortnight it has the distinction of being the only one with a “happy” ending, and the only one where Woody gets (and keeps!) the girl. It also has the ending that left me feeling the most dissatisfied, but it might feel more right if seen on its own.

Woody Allen: Manhattan

Famously, this is the Woody Allen film that everyone loves which he desperately hated and tried to stop being released. It’s hard to see what he hated so much about it. It’s a very funny movie that also manages to be moving and swooningly romantic. It feels like the movie that best encapsulates Allen’s work as a filmmaker. There’s Woody himself cast in his usual anxious, wisecracking persona; there’s Diane Keaton, his best and funniest costar; there’s the spotlight on New York City which served as the backdrop for most of his films for over 30 years; there’s the romantic entanglements, the razor wit of the script co-written by Marshall Brickman, and the tension between comedy and arthouse. Finally, there’s the love affair between a middle aged man and an underage girl, something that played out not just in Allen’s films, but in tabloid and media discussions of his life to such an extent that my generation knows him less as a comedian or filmmaker and more as “That Creep Who Married His Step-Daughter.”

Was it this aspect of the film that made him frantically backpedal on the film? Did Woody Allen think he had been perhaps too emotionally candid? By most accounts, he did have a relationship with a teenager prior to making Manhattan, and his character’s fictional relationship with a minor in Manhattan is presented in an unflinchingly earnest way. We may never know one way or another, but the fact is that many of Allen’s films feel highly personal, and the fact that he returned to the same subject in later films suggests that he either changed his mind about depicting May-October romances, or he never really cared in the first place and this wasn’t the reason for his dislike of the film.

Frankly, I think the cheesy opening monologue about how indelible New York City is comes off as more embarrassing than Allen trading sexual come-ons with 18-year-old Mariel Hemmingway. Hemmingway’s performance is nicely done, both tough and naive, fresh-faced and world-weary. Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton also turn in sharp, funny performances as the other romantic entanglements for Allen’s character, with Keaton playing a more worldly and cynical variation of Annie Hall.

The whole movie, in fact, seems more “mature” than Annie Hall. It feels like there is more at stake for the characters, and that there are more repercussions for a failed relationship than just loneliness. From the black and white photography to the George Gershwin soundtrack, the whole movie feels nostalgic, and it’s hard not to see Allen’s longing for Hemmingway as an impossible attempt to reclaim his own youth and innocence.