What was the "Baby" in David Lynch's 'Eraserhead'

Factual Questions
1

I don’t think this needs to be moved to Cafe Society, because I’m not interested in debating the merits of the movie, or discussing any of Lynch’s other movies, or insisting that David Lynch is pretentious. I just want to know this one specific thing: what the hell was that baby in Eraserhead?

It looked like some kind of real creature, but what could it be?

2

David Lynch is pretty much the only one who knows for sure, and he’s not telling.

3

It’s clearly a puppet.

Or are you asking what the puppet is supposed to represent?

In that case, then it probably has some autobiographical significance–Lynch was going through a difficult time in his life when he filmed Eraserhead, financially and emotionally. He was living in Philadelphia, didn’t have much money, and he had a new baby, and was feeling the pressures and responsibilities of family life closing in on him.

So maybe the baby is his daughter, Jennifer Lynch, who in at least one account acknowledges that there might be a connection–although she doesn’t think she was the direct inspiration for the baby.

And, yeah, Lynch himself won’t say.

4

A major theme in the movie is fear and loathing of fecundity. Among the sights:

  1. The rock cornish hens at dinner that spew blood (?) from the cavity, in a mockery of menstruation.
  2. The litter of puppies suckling loudly at their mother’s teats.
  3. The cord (umbilical?) that the wife pulls painfully from her vagina one night.
  4. The wife’s dislodging of her suitcase from under the bed, after a struggle, is a mockery of childbirth.
5

Was that baby a real animal that they used for the movie and cut open in real life? I’ve heard suggestions that it was a horse or calf fetus.

It also seems feasible that it was a puppet. Notice how every time the “baby” was on screen, it was on top of a table? Maybe the puppetteer was underneath the table.

6

Prior to reading this thread, I had thought that having somehow missed seeing Eraserhead had deprived me of something really great, but now I’m not so sure… :eek:

7

Just see it. Don’t alter your perception with substances either; this particular movie will be worsened, not enhanced, by doing so.

8

The only movie I ever walked out of was “Viva La Muerte.” It was REALLY gross. Eraserhead is kind of sounding like that kind of movie. Please convince me it isn’t!!! I loved Blue Velvet, but squabs squirting blood, umbilical cords coming out of the vagina, etc…???

9

Eraserhead is a bizarre and grotesque movie. There’s not getting around that.

10

I’ve heard that why the baby looks the way it does is because Eraserhead couldn’t deal with the idea of being a father. He was terrified of it, and therefore he saw the baby as a monster.

11

Here’s a few pix, for them that ain’t seen the movie firsthand:

http://www.wayney.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/eraserhead.htm

12

Eraserhead made perfect sense to me once, but I was high, and have forgotten since then.

Really, though, I like to think I’m as reflective as the next guy, but I never understood the girl with the poodle cut. And didn’t the movie have a constant almost subsonic droning in the background that made the whole movie even more disquieting? Apparently that movie stayed with me, even after twenty years.

Thanks, Skopo and Walloon, that helped clear some things up (in a Lynchian sort of way). :slight_smile:

13

I thought someone once suggested that it as a skinned lamb’s head. Damned if I know, but it looks organic.
I went to go see Eraserhead on the night of a tremendous snowstorm. People couldn’t believe that I’d drive through snow to see that.
There’s a lengthy review and interpretation of the film in the issue of Cinefantastique devoted to Lynch’s Dune, circa 1984.

I think the perfect movie triple bill would be Forbidden Zone, Freaks, and Eraserhead. That combination is guaranteed to have most people heading for the streets.

14

A failed abortion (an aborted foetus that lived).