In the recent Susan Rodgers interview from Prince Podcast, Susan said that Prince's favorite film was a 1977 film called Eraserhead. Has anybody seen it and if so what did you think? Could you see the influence it might have had on him?

NorthC said:

You mean the David Lynch film? It's weird even by his standards.

Yeah, it could be argued that Lynch's films after that, from Elephant Man to Inland Empire, were like a journey departing from Hollywood normality going back towards the non-linear structure of his first film and its nearly non existent narrative structure (though it could be argued that it is more linear and structured that IE or even Mulholland Drive). In a way Lynch was kind of making a statement about what his movies would be, before compromising with Hollywood (less and less from film to film) in order to launch a career for himself.

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I can't think of any obvious connection to Prince's work, though. Susuan just used this as an example to illustrate the fact that Prince had more of a taste for arty/experimental works than his own work would lead to suspect.

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Khill95, David Lynch's work is essential. He may have been somewhat forgotten by newer generations but when I was 20 in the mid-90's, he was among the hippest filmmakers.

[Edited 10/24/17 6:07am]

I could see why Prince adored ERASUREHEAD. The main character is a freak, an alien, in a hard, brutal world...but someone who has the soul of a poet and artist and who sees the love and beauty of the world despite it's cruelty.

Check out TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN if you want truly ground-breaking, challenging, even maddening, visual story-telling. Lynch is a genius (as is Prince).

I would have KILLED to see Prince at The Roadhouse!!!

It's surely in stark contrast with Wizard of Oz what that other phenomenon liked mostly

2045RadicalMattZ said:

Alan Light says the same in his book, 'Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain'.

As a huge Eraserhead fan, I welcome the thought that it might have been one of Prince's favourites. I would have loved if its influence would have become apparent in his music or film.

laurarichardson said:

2045RadicalMattZ said:

1977 eh? Where's the source? I find that pretty disturbing; considering the newborn child at the center of the film. I hope this isn't some kind of sick joke at P's expense [Edited 10/24/17 6:55am]

Susan Rogers is saying this in the Prince podcast. Everything is not made up.

Got it.

Well... as an outsider myself I get that that appeals to others who feel the same way...
But the overtones with a deformed child and all that... I'm assuming that just Reece, Databank and I have actually seen the dang thing. You don't forget that one particularly if seen as a teenager/child.

I can imagine my adult mindset now overanalzying and not getting "lost" in the suspension of disbelief.

databank said:

NorthC said:

You mean the David Lynch film? It's weird even by his standards.

Yeah, it could be argued that Lynch's films after that, from Elephant Man to Inland Empire, were like a journey departing from Hollywood normality going back towards the non-linear structure of his first film and its nearly non existent narrative structure (though it could be argued that it is more linear and structured that IE or even Mulholland Drive). In a way Lynch was kind of making a statement about what his movies would be, before compromising with Hollywood (less and less from film to film) in order to launch a career for himself.

.

I can't think of any obvious connection to Prince's work, though. Susuan just used this as an example to illustrate the fact that Prince had more of a taste for arty/experimental works than his own work would lead to suspect.

.

Khill95, David Lynch's work is essential. He may have been somewhat forgotten by newer generations but when I was 20 in the mid-90's, he was among the hippest filmmakers.

[Edited 10/24/17 6:07am]

You think? I don't really have any evidence pointing one way or the other, and I'm a fairly young David Lynch fan so it might be just my projecting my attitudes somewhat, but I feel that he's very well respected and present in the currently cultural zeitgeist, even moreso since the release of the new Twin Peaks series. It's possible that his cachet has faded somewhat given that he no longer seems to be interested in making theatrically released films anymore, but idk, to me he doesn't seem forgotten at all.

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

OK. This is the first I have heard of this but if it is true it's freaking awesome! Eraserhead has always been my favorite film of all time! Don't ask me why but I just love it! I used to have a secret test whenever i started dating someone new. I would take her to Eraserhead and if she didn't like it I knew there was no hope of the relationship working! Haha. No one ever failed the test actuallyso I must have chosen cool people to date. I also have a full upper torso tattoo collage and there is a small bit of it that features Henry and the baby from Eraserhead. Anyway very cool to hear that Prince like the film!

khill95 said:

In the recent Susan Rodgers interview from Prince Podcast, Susan said that Prince's favorite film was a 1977 film called Eraserhead. Has anybody seen it and if so what did you think? Could you see the influence it might have had on him?

It is a strange film with hardly any dialogue. Most of the dialogie will be inside of your head.

What I took from it is that there is a man who feels forced to live up to a life he does not actually want. He then feels resentment for the things he has caused due to not following his own path.

A really good film. I give it a 5/5.

"In heaven....everything is fine..."

[Edited 10/24/17 13:41pm]

This would have been a nice interview question or a nice chapter in Prince's never to be completed autobiography, Tell us about your favorite films, tell us about how you responded to Eraserhead.

The deformed child in the movie has a sad parallel to his son. Of course, he liked Eraserhead long before his sons birth. and this is just a sad coincidence. In a way I think Prince may have identified with the baby - small, out of place, born sick and struggling to survive as a stranger in a strange land (much like the "Sacrifice of Victor" Prince intones I was born on a bloodstained table, chord wrapped around my neck, epileptic till the age of seven, I was sure heaven marked the deck. Equally his story about seeing an Angel and him telling his mother he would not have epilepsy again)

Interestingly Lynch used Wizard of Oz imagery a lot in Wild at Heart (Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern) and the use of Oz in Princes work is apparent (100 mph - becuz becuz beuz, Gonna be a beautiful night ooh wee ahh, the way Prince identified with the Wizard of OZ). I think the Wizard of Oz fascination of Prince was how Prince saw himself as a musician in a non-musical world, a world of conformity and binary black and white, where as an artist he saw in technicolor and a world beyond.

soladeo1 said:

David Lynch is my film God! I love and admire him for going against the grain that is Hollywood. He is one of the few film directors that does not spoon feed his audience and makes them actually THINK about what they've seen in his imagery. I have seen Mulholland Drive countless times and still find some new meaning in it. If you think he's not that popular anymore then just watch how long his standing ovation lasts in Cannes when he debuted the first episode of the Twin Peaks revival:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IuW3boAPfg

khill95 said:

In the recent Susan Rodgers interview from Prince Podcast, Susan said that Prince's favorite film was a 1977 film called Eraserhead. Has anybody seen it and if so what did you think? Could you see the influence it might have had on him?

That's one of the creepiest films I've ever seen.

purplethunder3121 said:

khill95 said:

In the recent Susan Rodgers interview from Prince Podcast, Susan said that Prince's favorite film was a 1977 film called Eraserhead. Has anybody seen it and if so what did you think? Could you see the influence it might have had on him?

That's one of the creepiest films I've ever seen.

ditto that.

it's pretty pessimistic, possibly even nihilistic.

(unless you take it literally)

Always seemed like a grim viewpoint of humanity


I really disliked his turd WILD AT HEART though. oddly never saw Mulholland... was too young to "get it" so I decided not to see it.

NorthC said:

"This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top." Any movie with a line like that in it can't be a turd. If was based on the novel with the same title by Barry Gifford, who also cowrote Lost Highway and the novel that could have been a Lynch film but wasn't, Perdita Durango (anyone ever read/seen that one? There's characters in there that also appear in Wild at Heart, so I think a David Lynch fan should read this book of see the film.) As for Mulholland Drive, I agree with kingricefan, you can watch it over and over again and always discover something new. [Edited 10/25/17 11:52am]

Actually... that's not a very good line. But I'll just go back to.....what I was doin.



sounds like an inarticulately penned high school jock waxing 'poetic'.

I know the film (WILD AT HEART) wasn't supposed to be serious. But its attempts at being cool were just production value above made for vhs 1990's "hip" stuff.


Either way, I'm a bit bothered that Prince apparently found ERASERHEAD to be his favorite film. Maybe it was in jest at how cruelly his attempts at being a parent and having an ordinary life were stifled. I used to watch AFTER HOURS (1985) multiple times for a similar reason....despite all best efforts, people were assholes, crazy, unpredictable and some even have it out for you for no apparent reason.

[Edited 10/25/17 12:34pm]

I've come to a few conclusions about what this movie is:

1- it's a revenge story

2- It's a story about a schizophrenic woman (the only real people are the two leads, the assassin and the movie director)

3- it's a ghost story

Just some food for thought.....

NorthC said:

"This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top." Any movie with a line like that in it can't be a turd. If was based on the novel with the same title by Barry Gifford, who also cowrote Lost Highway and the novel that could have been a Lynch film but wasn't, Perdita Durango (anyone ever read/seen that one? There's characters in there that also appear in Wild at Heart, so I think a David Lynch fan should read this book of see the film.) As for Mulholland Drive, I agree with kingricefan, you can watch it over and over again and always discover something new. [Edited 10/25/17 11:52am]

[Edited 10/26/17 11:51am]

yeah, sure

2045RadicalMattZ said:

NorthC said:

"This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top." Any movie with a line like that in it can't be a turd. If was based on the novel with the same title by Barry Gifford, who also cowrote Lost Highway and the novel that could have been a Lynch film but wasn't, Perdita Durango (anyone ever read/seen that one? There's characters in there that also appear in Wild at Heart, so I think a David Lynch fan should read this book of see the film.) As for Mulholland Drive, I agree with kingricefan, you can watch it over and over again and always discover something new. [Edited 10/25/17 11:52am]

Actually... that's not a very good line. But I'll just go back to.....what I was doin.



sounds like an inarticulately penned high school jock waxing 'poetic'.

I know the film (WILD AT HEART) wasn't supposed to be serious. But its attempts at being cool were just production value above made for vhs 1990's "hip" stuff.
I don't think so, Lynch was already pretty much diving into his own universe at that point: he still needed to establish himself and it was a risky movie, too risky to be dishonest: it could have crashed Lynch's career. Certainly, Lynch was aware of the necessity to please tastemakers and gatekeepers with the kind of movies he wanted to make, but I believe Wild At Heart was the kind of movie he wanted to make.

Either way, I'm a bit bothered that Prince apparently found ERASERHEAD to be his favorite film. Maybe it was in jest at how cruelly his attempts at being a parent and having an ordinary life were stifled.

As far as I know, Prince hadn't made any attempt at being a parent in the mid 80's, let alone at living anything like an "ordinary life". On the contrary, he had pretty much done everything he could to live an unordinary life.

I used to watch AFTER HOURS (1985) multiple times for a similar reason....despite all best efforts, people were assholes, crazy, unpredictable and some even have it out for you for no apparent reason.

There are a million reasons why one can enjoy a work of art. One doesn't necessarily need to relate to the themes or the characters. Typically, you seem to love that movie because you identify with its lead character and themes, themes that make you find the film depressing. On the other hand, I love After Hours without relating at all to either its characters or themes (though to a certain extent, I relate to the arty-farty environment it depicts), and I find the movie exhilarating and quite hilarious.

On a sidenote, it could be argued that the lead character in After Hours (Paul, is it?) is pretty much an asshole himself, a moron at the very least, so in some ways he had it all coming. I don't think Scorcese attempted to make the viewer feel sorry for the character at all, quite the opposite actually.