David Lynch’s Eraserhead is a mindtrip through an industrial world of madness and despair, in which the main character Henry Spencer lives. Henry seems to walk through life in a stupor, not really connecting with anything, and experiencing anxiety from all around him. And it’s no wonder, considering he got his girlfriend Mary pregnant and she had a premature birth to a weird creature that has no limbs except for a sheep-like head that bleets throughout the night. The film is saturated with layers of meaning throughout the scenes, though Lynch refuses to comment on the real meaning behind the film. The film itself is extremely puzzling, and Lynch himself has said that no one has come close to explaining the meaning behind the film. And yet it stands out as one of the greatest and weirdest independent films to become a cult hit.

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Watching male rapes and Nazis over a late fifties bubble-gum music soundtrack made me wish Kenneth Anger had never gotten a hold of a video camera, but by looking back as his work as a whole it becomes apparent that he was a visionary. He experimented with elements of film and controversial issues that were far before his time, diving into the counter-culture. At first glance my impression was that Anger’s full intent and purpose when making his films was to shock, disgust, and mystify his audience to make them think about the art of cinema. But with some further investigation, I think maybe these troubling shorts may just be true expressions of a bizarre man.

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