Eraserhead Stories (2001) - full transcript

It's strange how Eraserhead is

it is a personal film.

It's my first feature

and it took the longest
of any film.

And I lived and loved that world.

I can't remember

when I got the idea

when the word Eraserhead

or any part of the idea
came to me first.

I can't remember whether
it was in Philadelphia

or when I first came to California.



Completely don't remember.

Don't remember writing the script

and I don't remember
the ideas coming in.

Especially the initial idea.

A lot of times I remember

when the first thing kind of came.

Maybe I don't.

But, for sure
I don' t remember this.

It all came from Philadelphia.

But I don't know when

it bobbled up to the surface.

I got a independent filmmakers
Grant in 1968.

That's an independent
filmmakers Grant.

That was a brand
new program and I was



in the second group to
get one of those grants.

That was to make
The Grandmother.

That's when I met Alan Splett

and Herb Cardwell who was
a cinematographer.

And I asked him
give me some tips on lighting.

Then when we came time to mix

and I look over
and I see this guy

he's like a bean pole
in a shiny black suit.

15-20 year old suit.

And I shake his hand
and I can feel

the bones rattle in his arm.

That was Al.

And this guy was as straight
as an arrow.

And I figured this
is never going to happen

not in a million years.

What followed was 63
non-stop days:

Saturday, Sunday...
of making sounds.

Never had so much fun in my life
working with Al.

But I need extra money
to finish the film

so I called Tony Valani
in Washington DC

where the AFI's
headquarters were then.

Tony, bless his heart, came
all the way up on the train

and I met him at the station
and he came over

I showed him the
film at Calvin Dufresne.

He, you know,
really liked what he saw.

They gave me
2 200 dollars more

to finish the film.

And on the way back
to the train station, I'm driving him

and he said, David
you should come to

the Center for Advanced Film
Studies out in California.

And luckily I didn't
have an accident

you know when he said that
because I was like

I started floating.

I was still trying
to reach the, you know

the break and the gas pedal.

But they made a booklet

showing the Center
and some of the fellows

instead of students they call
them fellows

and they took
15 fellows a year.

so now they sent
this booklet out

and I'm getting this booklet

and on the front cover
is this 55 room mansion

On 18 acres of land
in the middle of Beverly Hills.

So you kind of, you know,

say this is...
what kind of a fantastic

world do we live in
you know when they

got a school like this?

Then they open it
up and it goes through

all these great
directors that came and

talked, give talks
there and how much, you know

the industry
was helping the school.

Different programs,
different seminars

and one of
the seminars they showed

the students
sitting in this room

with beautiful wood paneling

and a fire in the fireplace.

Giant like hearst like
fireplace.

Some of the students
are wearing sweaters

and I'm thinking:

What kind of
a place is California?

Because it's not just
hot all the time

it's sometimes
cool enough

in the evenings
for a fire in the fireplace

and you wear a sweater.

This seemed like
the perfect thing.

The Center for Advanced
Film Studies started in 1969.

I went out in
the summer of 1970.

Al was placed as head
of the sound department

So Al went out
actually a month before

I did and he took a little
apartment on San Vicente.

Right down the street
from the Whisky a Go Go.

Then Jack Fisk and
my brother John and I

drove out in a truck

and rolled into town after
three days on the road

at night.

And I'm still not
getting the feel of LA

but I get a little feel
of a nighttime LA.

When I woke up the
next morning it was like

I was almost blinded.

The light was
so unbelievable.

I couldn't get
over it how bright it was.

I had to stand out
in the front of the house

getting blinded by this light.

And it felt so good,
it was unbelievable.

Then we walked up to
the AFI which was

it was actually
Doheny the senior's son

that was built for him.

And was built in 1929,
finished in '29.

It was 55 rooms
reinforced concrete.

High on a hill.

The real deal.

When you go into this place
it's spectacular.

And so we all went
up there, and

kind of walked around
with their, you know

jaws falling open and

that started, you know, the
next sort of phase.

I worked on a script
called Gardenback

and Frank Danielle and Gil Dennis

both sort of took
me under their wings.

Frank Danielle is
the greatest film teacher

in the history of the
world and he's since died.

Bless his heart
but he was unbelievable

as a great teacher.

I took a film
analysis class with him

and then he and and Gil
who was this a fellow there but

He was sort of working
with Frank and they would

have script meetings with me.

But it didn't work out.

I was completely fed up.
It was going nowhere.

It was getting longer

but all my good
bits that I liked were

just being
filled up in between

with stuff I didn't have
a clue why it was there.

So the first day of
the second year

So, now it's 1971.

For some reason I got
put into first year classes.

I thought
that it was

That I might have flunked
my first year.

Plus I was fed up
with Gardenback.

I went up to Frank
Danielle's office and I quit.

I quit the the school.
And stormed out

and went down...

I told Al quit and he said,
you know I quit as well.

So we both went out.

And went down to the
Hamburger Hamlet

and had some coffee.

And when I got back
home Peggy, my wife at the time

said they've been...
what, what happened?

They've been
calling you and...

So I explained to her
and she said

Frank said you gotta come back,
you gotta come up and talk.

Eventually I went
back up

and had a really
good talk with Frank.

And Frank said, if you're upset
we're doing something wrong.

What do you want to do?

And I said I want
to make Eraserhead.

He said:
Okay, you'll make Eraserhead.

and he said, it's a 21
page script

so it's a 21 minute film.

I said: No, I think it's
a hair longer than that.

He said, okay
it's a 42 minute film.

I said, okay but...

And off I went and that was the
beginning of it.

Somehow I had a script
of Eraserhead by 1971.

There wasn't really a script

it was
a 22-page thing.

I don't know what people
really got from that script.

I know that

Frank Danielle who was
the Dean of the school

he died
maybe five years ago

and at his funeral
his son told me that

Frank himself didn't
really like Eraserhead.

But he didn't...
the script.

Maybe the film too,
I don't know.

He said, that it was important
that I'd be able to do it.

A man was on the
board of directors at AFI.

This is what his son,
Frank's son, told me

and told Frank this
is not the kind of film

that we make here at
the American Film Institute.

Frank said this is
exactly the kind of film

we should
be making here at the

American Film Institute.

It got strange.

As it turns out I never
knew about this

until five years ago.

Frank turned in
his resignation

thinking it wouldn't
be accepted

and they accepted
his resignation.

From his son's story,
because of Eraserhead.

Frank left the AFI.

Certain things
had to be done

before shooting
commenced.

I started working
on those things.

Somewhere in there,

even...

I sort of been going
down to the stables

toward the end
of the first year.

I call them the stables.

There were stalls,

there were garages

there were car garages.

All equipped
with hydraulic lifts

for the old cars.

There were
maids quarters

there was
a huge hayloft

and there was a place
where they stored firewood

which was, you know,
kind of enormous too.

There was also
a greenhouse

and gardener's quarters.

I took a a room
down there and

no one went ever
went down there.

I just sort of started

doing some things
down there.

Then I got the whole
stables to work in

and a garage and
some stalls and a hay loft.

And some other
surrounding areas.

It was like
a mini soundstage.

Then I got all this
equipment from AFI.

It was
like heaven.

We had two cameras,
two CM3s, Éclair CM3s.

We had a whole
lighting package.

We had video cameras
black and white

video cameras.

We had a a room
that was called

the camera room
where all

the different camera
things were stored.

Lenses and everything.

We had a room that
was for we called

the food room
where we ate.

We had green rooms
where Jack

would put on
his makeup.

Strangely on Eraserhead
the first person I met

was in the film.

I never saw...

I can't... I'm pretty
sure I never saw

more than one actor

before the
thing was cast.

I would... mostly
friends would tell me

about someone or
someone else would tell me

about someone
and this person would come in:

Bango!
This was like perfect.

I said you're perfect.

It was it was weird.
I felt bad about it

because, I said, I'm not
seeing enough people.

But they just come
in and they

they just had a...
it was like

fate was just dropping
them on the doorstep.

The most important actor
was Henry Spencer.

There was a guy at AFI
named David Lindemann

who was a theater
director in San Francisco

before he came down
to AFI as a student.

He knew lots of actors.
So one day

I described the
character I was looking for

as best that I could.

He said there
are two people

that I would recommend.

One of them, his name
was Jack Nance.

So I said, okay.

I made this
arrangement to meet Jack.

Jeanne Bates
was the only one I had

doubts about, because
she was so beautiful.

When she walked in
she looked

way too beautiful.

I told her. I said you
gotta understand

you're too beautiful.

But she had a fixation.
It was weird.

She said she would
work very hard

to get into that and
look that way.

I built her

a drooping eye
and a wart

and some facial hair.

And she did the rest.

She just did
a beautiful job.

Charlotte Stewart
was a friend of Doreen's

who was signed
on as production manager.

Charlotte was in

A Little House on
The Prairie in those days.

And many times
she'd come in with all

this TV makeup on and

we'd have to get
all that stuff off

and then frump her up.

Then she'd be
ready to go.

Alan Joseph
played Bill X

He was also the
first person cast

for that role and
first person I saw.

It made
a great family.

In those early polaroids

you can see a family picture
of the three of them.

It's a
good-looking family.

It was a great group,
all the people.

Everybody was
great to work with.

Everybody got
there and

the rest of the
world disappeared.

We were in
a space that

everyone seemed
to understand.

The crew was Doreen Small,
Catherine Colson

Herb Cardwell,
me and Jack.

And that was the crew
for most of the picture.

Herb Cardwell was the first DP.

Herb worked for nine months.

Herb is a great DP.

Herb died when
he was 35 years old.

He died in his sleep.

That was long after
he finished

working on Eraserhead.

One day Herb took
me and Peggy flying

and he said there's
a beautiful airport

north of here in the desert.

And we flew up there.

Beautiful day.

Landed just like the
most perfect smooth landing.

Herb is the only guy I know

he's the best
driver in the world.

Herb drove
with both feet.

And he would
feather his stops

and feather his starts

and he would
accelerate at exactly the

right moment in a turn.

I you just you never
feel any tension.

You are very relaxed.
Everything is smooth

and you're
not rocking to and fro

or side to side.

But anyway,
it's beautiful.

Herb is driving in the
same way he flies.

So smooth,
perfect.

We came, we went
out and

after we'd landed in the
desert and you know

kind of walked
around in the desert.

And then flew back.
When we landed in LA

it was night.

And we were taxiing
to the place

where he was gonna
stop his plane.

He radioed to the tower

The sound of his voice

and that the
character of his voice

all the hair went up in
the back of my neck.

and I got
goosebumps all over.

And it occurred to me

that Herb
in another life

was a long distance
space pilot.

The way he said
good night to the pilot...

to the tower

it was like he would
have been flying

for millions of years.

It was it was
the weirdest thing.

The guy was a pilot.

It was very beautiful

the way he said
goodnight to the tower.

It was incredible.

When Herb had
to leave because he

couldn't afford
to stay anymore

Tony Valani told me
about Fred and

he came to AFI as a
cinematography student.

Fred and I met

Fred had a very good attitude

you know,
talked with Herb...

And it felt
like the right thing.

And then this
transition

brought Fred into the mix.

Then Fred Elms took over.

Herb brought Fred up to
speed over a two or three

or four-week transition.

And Fred then shot
for three more years.

One day Jack Fisk
and I, we found out

that a studio
was being shut down.

It was kind of
a cloudy day

and we went and rented

a 35-foot flatbed

and drove over to this place.

And the clouds made
it seem like there was

kind of a roof
on the world.

So when we went into
the place it was like

even though a lot of
the place was open

it seemed like
it was under a roof.

And this was an ancient

real deal studio.

And they were
selling stuff for nothing.

When we drove out
of there we had

35 feet long
12 feet high of flats.

Bales of wire,
kegs of nails.

30 foot by 40 foot
black backdrop.

I can't remember
all the things we had

A lot of like
radiators and

things that
I needed for the film.

But the whole... all the sets
were built with those flats.

Since I had
a paper route

if there were
holes in them

I would just do
paper mache patches.

With the newspapers,
Wall Street Journal

and flour and water.

All that 35 feet
by 12 foot high

all this stuff,
100 dollars.

100 dollars.

My brother John
helped me build sets.

Like I said,
Jack Fisk helped

getting all
these things.

They were stored
down at the stables.

All the flats,
all the stuff.

Then I had to

you know, build many
things for for sets.

Jack Nance
helped me a lot

on certain
building projects.

I loved working with Jack.

We were troweling
plaster one time and I

it was had
a curved surface so

I talked to this guys
about plastering

how do you trowel
uh you know get this

stuff smooth like glass he says you

gotta trowel it

And so Jack
and I just kept saying

you gotta trowel it,
all day long

troweling this thing

and finally go
it pretty smooth.

It wasn't all day long
it was all month long.

It was more like that.
Jack at first

wore the skin
off his hands

because he wasn't
wearing gloves.

A lot of plaster
has sand in it.

So when you're
rubbing stuff down

with your bare hands

you don't realize
it at first

but the skin sort
of starts turning to jelly

and rubs off
and you can start seeing

your bones.
And their hands' on fire

and it's really bright red.

Jack did this.
Jack did a lot of crazy stuff.

There were several
props that I needed

A deal was struck
through AFI

and Warner Brothers.

I just could drive on
and I met...

I mean this was 1971.

I met an old timer
that had been

at that studio for
years and years.

Head of the
prop department.

Welcomes me.
In we go.

What do you want?

Up one aisle,
down the other.

Unbelievable stuff.

I'd say, could I get
this thing here?

He says, put it put
it out there on your truck.

I just went through...

About four years later
I returned those props.

All different people,
all different looking place.

They had no
record of it, nothing.

Al was head
of the sound department.

We had all the equipment
that Al had at our disposal.

That included inauguras
and microphones

and cabling and
you know all that.

And since there's
not a lot of

sync sound, dialogue,
in the film but still

Al recorded all that.

The room as every room
is it was a hair too live.

As everybody knows

you can add echo
but you can't take it away.

We built sound blankets.

The sound blankets were
burlap around fiberglass

and then grommeted
along the edge.

The grommets, you could
hang them on nails

at the top of the set walls.

And then the sound
blankets would drape down

you could move
them around real nice.

They were they were light

I think AFI wanted
them built.

Theoretically
they would keep them

and use them,
so we made a budget.

and put all the
materials in there and

found out how much
they cost

and all this
kind of stuff.

Al, before his incarnation
as a sound man

was an accountant in
Philadelphia breweries.

So Al was pretty much of
an ace on an adding machine.

He and the other
accountants would

go so fast they'd
jam the machines.

Al was so rapid he would
jam the best machines.

He wanted to go after
we finished this budget

next door to the AFI
accounting department

and tally these
numbers up.

So we went over there.

There was
a girl at the desk

and Al said
can we borrow

the adding machine.

And she said what
do you want

the adding machine for?
I'll add those.

He said, no no
I'll add them up

could we just use it?

She said, give me
the numbers

I'll add them up.
And Al said, no no

let me add them up
I've got 'em right here

and he kind of
went around.

And this girl's
eyes went about

like silver dollars.

He had those things
in a heartbeat.

This machine
jumped to life and

the paper was spit
out and he popped it

and borrowed her
stapler and put it together

and we walked
back across the hall.

He was super fast
on machines.

Unfortunately Alan Splatt
and Herb Cardwell

are both gone now.

Al is legally blind

But Herb can hear
and see.

Al and Herb decided

they were gonna fly
across the country.

and Al was going to
be the navigator and

he had all the maps
and everything like that

but Al would
be reading his maps

you know very close

because he was so blind.

The first
leg of the trip

they were going up
to Pocatello, Idaho.

They took off
and Al navigated Herb

up there and they

they radioed ahead,
they were going to

land at night.

And the guy said
it's so late he's going back

into town but he'll
leave a rental car there.

Just come in, lock up.

It was the good
old days.

Herb did a perfect
landing at night.

They parked the plane,
there was the rental car.

they did everything
the guy wanted

and started
driving into town.

And around Pocatello,
Idaho there's just

these narrow little
two-Lane roads and

pitch black.

Al's riding shotgun,
Herbs driving

because Al couldn't
get a driver's license

because of
his blindness.

Al tells this story

as they're driving from
this little airport

into the city
of Pocatello, Idaho.

Herb is talking.

He's telling some story
or something

and talking fairly
rapidly.

The talking suddenly
doesn't start...

it starts not making
sense to Al.

But it's rapid,
nonsense.

Al notices that
the lights

are now illuminating
the side of the road.

and the car is
starting to

go off the road.

Herb, his voice is
now going up in pitch

and he's talking
just as fast

but his voice is rising

and he's in the
shoulder of the road.

His voice is going up
higher and higher

in pitch even though Al is
screaming at Herb

right next to him.

Herb doesn't hear.
He keeps talking

and his voice, it comes
to little squeak

coming out of him.

Finally Al, he goes over
and hits him

or he yells loud enough
and Herb comes out

and comes back
onto the road just in

the Nick of time.

They continue the trip
just fine.

Course, that's like,
Al's got to keep

good eye on Herb.

Or you didn't
have a good night.

There needed to be
certain things discovered

I love organic phenomenon

That has led me to
various things.

And it led me to
one day

calling a
veterinarian.

I asked him if he had

a dead cat.

He said, no sir,
I don't.

And I explained
to him..

He said, what do you
want a dead cat for?

And I said, I want to
study this cat.

Something...

He at first pegged
me for a total nut cake.

Then something
caught him

and he took
my number.

And lo and behold

10 minutes later
this same guy

veterinarian

calls me and he says,
I have a cat.

I can't believe it.
I got off the phone

two minutes later
in it comes.

I had to put it
to sleep and

you can have this cat.

He asked me that it
would never show up

in a film.

In the film.

Or be recognizable.

So I had had
this set up

in my basement there.

And I drove down
and got the cat

in acardboard box.

Just before lunch
I put it into a jar

filled with
formaldehyde.

And it went in
like a slinky.

It just laid down
in the formaldehyde.

And then I went
upstairs and had lunch

and came back down
and I went to get

the cat out of the jar

and it had gotten
rigor mortis.

This had
a narrow top.

It was like trying
to pull a steel cat

out of a out of
a glass jar.

I finally got this thing
out of there.

I had a whole

set up on
the workbench

my idea of a like a

an operating theater.

And I went to work

getting inside this cat.

When I opened up
the inside

it was
unbelievable.

And it's... if you've
seen Fellini's Roma

it was...
there's a

The organs inside the
cat were brilliant colors.

And as soon as
the air got to

the organs they
started, the color

just started draining
out right before your eyes.

Just draining away
before your eyes.

Just like when they'd open
up these things

under the city and
these ancient things

were perfect. And the air
starts getting to them

and they start fading.

But studying this cat was
kind of important.

There was no time
put on it

but the school went
two years, so theoretically

I would be finished
with this film

by the end of
the second year.

And by the end of
the second year

I hadn't yet
started shooting.

So we started
shooting in June of '72.

- Hello?
- Hey, Cath.

- Hey, David.

- Do you have some stories

you want to talk about,
Catherine?

- God, I got
a lot of stories.

I really remember
well the very first

night of shooting.

I remember being up
in that hay loft part.

- Right
- And it was like

we set up a whole

little set and then
there was the room

with the couch and
I remember keeping

Jack's hair photo
ready, you know.

- Right.

I remember when
Jack had his first haircut.

which was the afternoon

of the first day
of shooting.

I wanted it short
on the sides

tall on top.

Jack and Catherine
had a friend who was

a professional barber
who drove out

to the stables he got his
hair cut in the hay loft.

In the hay loft held
the X's interior.

In the afternoon
Jack got his hair cut

and I stayed there with
the barber and Jack.

Said, it's
looking good.

And the barber left.

But I still had a big
surprise ahead of me.

I'm not sure

if it was Catherine
or Charlotte Stewart

Catherine Coulson
or Charlotte Stewart

who combed his hair first.

Eventually Catherine's
job was to

comb Jack's hair.

But Jack has, as luck
would have it

a certain type of hair and
when you comb it up

it stays up.

So, it was long on top.

And when Jack came in

it was a very big shock.

And some people said,
David, you can't do that

that's too too strange.

But it was so perfect
in proportion

to Jack's body.

Henry, you know,
forget Jack

he was turning
into Henry.

It was so beautiful.

So it stayed.

But even so,
that first day

it's not quite as high as it
eventually got.

There's little stages
to the hair

but it was pretty high.

When we would
drive Jack around as Henry

he would sit in the back
in the middle

of the back seat
because people would

there was no strange
hair in those days

I mean there was hippie
hair but not hair

like that and he would
draw a small crowd

and people would start
coming around.

We had to kind of
keep him hidden

as we went around.

- That was kind of
hard on him.

Because we'd go for
long periods of time

before we'd shoot
again then I'd have to

cut it all over again because

cutting his hair
was really I think it's

what destroyed the
marriage ultimately.

Because I had to keep
teasing it, remember?

- Jack had the most
incredible hair.

- He did. He used to wear all
these different hats

to try and kind of
mush it up under his hat.

And I remember
my my family

never really knew him
without that weird hair.

He would go to
like family reunions

and you always
see him with this

you know, kind of
odd flattened hair.

Because he he
didn't like to tease it

and wear it up when he
wasn't just on the film.

- I know.

- But I know I am
really sorry that

I didn't ask for that credit.

That even though it
was your design that

I wanted that
Mr. Nance's hair thing.

- And his suit
came from Goodwill.

And it was in those
days the Goodwill was like

you go into a place
you couldn't believe

what you were seeing,
it was so beautiful.

So we just walked in

and picked all the parts

for Henry's suit.

Shoes included.

I'm pretty sure those
were from Goodwill.

The first scene we shot was

a scene on the couch with

Henry, Mary and
Mary's mother Mrs. X.

We did all the
X's stuff first

and then we did the
X's how they relate

at Henry's apartment.

But most of those
things are gone.

But there was a
scene at the front door

of Henry's apartment

with Mr. and Mrs X
paying a visit.

And that was...

It kills me. That part
of the film has been lost.

Then Alan and Jeannie
were finished.

They actually got
finished almost

like in a regular film.

Fairly soon and
professionally.

Then when we got
into Henry's apartment

it just went into
another zone.

And that's when
we bit off

quite a chunk of time.

And we would
work at night.

So people would
start showing up at

about 4:35 in
the afternoon.

And eventually we
would have some dinner

and start
going to work.

But unfortunately
the pace

was quite slow.

- We'd set it up for
hours and hours and

and light it and stuff.

See, I think that time

was really

a kind of a wonderful
distortion because

it wasn't really
important how long

something took it
was what it what was

important is how it
really looked and felt.

And nobody was
really pushing

because after a while

you know they just
sort of like

forgot about us, right?

- Exactly right, Cath.
- And we just got to

keep going and keep going
and keep going...

- See, what I want to
do is have

mainly the look
on Henry's face

God, it's just
like so real.

I feel like he's here,
but anyway.

The look on Henry's
face just when

he's getting ready to
cut you know the big cut.

- Well, you do
a run through...

Jack may be
in his robe

or something like this and
he's going to be in his suit

and you rehearse
with no lighting.

- And then his point
of view of the scissors.

Those are the
point of view shots

that are really
important, okay?

Those two are really
important.

Now, the opening up we
can do third person

and the cutting.

- So it's really one
shot indoor

at the very top of the list.

- Second shot is
over here with the 28.

- Right. Henry.
- Cutting.

- Henry...
- Cuts.

He gets halfway up,
we stop, we move over here

with the 90.

- After Jack and
I had rehearsed

on our own. Then Jack
goes away and

Herb would start
lighting based on

what he saw in
the rehearsal.

It was painstaking
lighting, it was exact

it was it was beautiful
what Herb was doing.

Sometimes you know 15
or 20 little inkies

floating around up
in the ceiling.

That's why I say
Philadelphia

is my greates
influence because

a lot of things
started in Philadelphia.

And there is
a certain mood

to some of
these interiors.

And they carry way
more than what you see.

A thing is indicated
from these interiors.

Something about the light

and the moulding

and the proportions.

A thing is indicated.

And the mood outside.

It sort of seemed like to me

that there were
factories

industrial buildings

and neighborhoods

dark and forlorn
tucked in somewhere.

Sort of like, you
can't get there from here.

They're sort of lost
in another kind of place.

And that is what
comes from Philadelphia.

And this is the world
of Eraserhead.

Where you can
be in a room

and feel the exterior and
know what it is like

just from a mood.

That's the way it was
in Philadelphia as well.

I don't remember... I
remember one sunny day

and that's about it.

- What?

- Unfair.

- Jack was one of the
all-time greats

at hitting marks.

Completely together.

We'd work out the
tiniest details and

first time every
time after that he'd

get it just right.

- This is a 90 mm lens
and I have a big slate.

- Did you already put it on?
- Well the thing is

that with a small crew

working at night,
and see, Catherine

I think she's the hero

heroine of the of
the thing because

she wasn't even
supposed to be helping.

But she ended up...

She had a waitress
job in the day and

then would stay up
all night.

She'd bring
grilled cheese and fries

and different
things sometimes home

from the restaurant

up to the you know
to AFI to the stables.

and or we had
a hot plate and

she would cook
things for us.

So she was really
burning that candle.

- Catherine?
- Yeah.

- You had a job during
the day, didn't you?

- Yeah, well I had a few
of them I mean

one of the jobs I had
was when I was...

- A waitress?

- Working at
Barbecue Heaven.

- I worked at Barbecue
Heaven at lunchtime

so that I could sleep till
like around 11

and go in and and
then we would get you

odd jobs at the
restaurant, remember?

- I don't remember that.
- You fixed the roof for them.

- I did?
- One time yeah because

they give you grilled
cheese sandwiches

and French fries.
- Wow.

- So you did like
odd jobs this was

that restaurant in Beverly
Hills on the corner.

- Yeah, I remember
you working there

but I don't remember...
- No no, you...

that was a way for
you to get, like, free food.

- Getting takeout
food was really

expensive so I started
making dinner.

- Right. - And pretty soon
we were making

breakfast and lunch.

- Right.
- And we cooked it

on that little
hot plate, remember that?

- I sure do, Catherine.
- Yeah, there's a lot of

grilled cheese and
then for a long time

there you were into
egg salad, as I recall.

- Uh-huh.

- You like to eat the same thing every day
and a lot of us kind of got used to that.

- But each person had
kind of fixations on food.

Al ate these
small yogurts

pure yogurt

out of plastic
containers though.

And he would use
a plastic spoon.

Jack Nance couldn't stand
the way Al ate yogurt.

Especially when he
got near the bottom

was trying to get
the last little bit out

and that spoon
scraping on that plastic.

It was it was pretty funny.

- Didn't you start out
holding the boom, Catherine?

- Yeah, the first thing
I did was

hold the boom for Alan.

- Right.
- Then I learned

how to be a camera
assistant during that time.

And I really am glad
I learned how to do that.

I can still tell
what three feet

eight inches is, you know?
- That's fantastic, Catherine.

- When I first met you

I remember going in for my
interview for the nurse.

I'm really kind of sorry
we never shot that scene.

- There was a scene which
was never even shot

of a nurse
in a hospital basement

where they um
went to get the baby.

And Catherine was
going to play that nurse.

But she never
got to play it.

- There was this picture of me
and Frankie being tied to a bed.

- Right.

- Were trying to find somebody

to do that scene,
do you remember that?

I was calling all my women
friends and asking them

if they wouldn't mind
you know if they'd

like to be in this movie

and they'd be in
this scene where they

just would be tied

to a bed you know
and this guy had like

these kind of battery cables.

and everybody said no.

For some reason. I never
really understood that.

- They weren't good
sports, Catherine.

- I guess we were pretty good
sports, though.

- Yeah, you and Frank...
- Frank and I did it, right?

- You and Frankie
did it great.

- Does that exist
anymore?

- I actually have that
little scene, Catherine.

- Oh, you do?
- Yeah, a part of it anyway.

- God, I'd love to
see that someday.

- Yeah.

- Well, mostly what
I remember, David

I remember being
there really long hours.

And really having
fun figuring stuff out.

I remember the night that
you asked Doreen and me

to fill this whole drawer
full of pudding.

- Right.
- It had like a little

thin layer of peas
on top.

- Right.
- And we were trying

to calculate
the square

or the cubic footage
of the drawer

based on what
was in a package

of vanilla pudding.
- Right.

- It was like, you used two
cups of cold milk

and we were trying to
figure out how many

of those little packages
that we got

from the Sun Bee Market
'cos that was the one

that was open
really late on Sunset.

- I remember that Sun Bee
Market. Peggy used to go there.

- We'd go down there
to the Sun Bee

and buy as... but we
didn't have a whole

lot of money either, right?
- No we didn't, Catherine.

- So we tried
really hard

to make the vanilla
pudding stretch and

we tried to make it
with water instead

of milk so that it
would you know be

a little less expensive.

You just coated it
with this little layer of peas

And they were, um

they were frozen
peas as, I recall.

We had to kind of cook them so
they'd be plump enough

because they couldn't
be really shriveled

- Right.

- So we lay the... after
we fill finally we

line the drawer with
plastic and then

we fill the whole thing
uh with the pudding.

And then you just
laid this little layer

of peas and then
the scene was just

Henry... I haven't
seen it for a while but

Henry just reached
in and pulled it out, right?

- Exactly. All the
the utensils were

down inside that stuff.

- Right. Well, I
remember that I was

really learning
how to do follow focus

but it was like a macro
lens, wasn't it?

- Uh-huh.
- Then I had to figure out

how much distance
there was kind of like

between peas you know
as he reached his hand in.

- But, I just had another
memory when

the new fellows were
coming the following year

and they were having
this big fancy dinner

up at the
main house.

- That was the bed scene.

- Right. And we were
filling those tanks

and it was really
really cold outside.

- Yeah, Jack had a couple
of lines about that.

- But we were
going driving

back up and down
that long driveway

with these big
sparkles bottles

trying to get the
water warm enough.

- Exactly.
- You'd just run hoses

into the tanks, hadn't you?
- Yeah.

- And it was really cold
and they were in it

like all night.
- Exactly right.

- And what did you use to
make the the milk...

it looks like
a milk bath.

- I believe, uh...

I believe...

- I believe we used milk.
- I think we did.

- I think so.

- I think we used
milk and that was

another reason
why the warm water

wasn't such a good idea
although it didn't

really heat the
tanks completely.

We'd bring down
these sparkles bottles

and pour a little bit
of warm in but you

know how milk is
when it gets warm.

- Yeah, it's nice.
- Yeah. It tastes okay

but I remember
it smelling really great.

- Uh-huh.
- But I remember

Judith and Jack
being really really

good sports through out it all.
- They were fantastic.

- I think Jack kind
of enjoyed being

in there with Judith.
- I think he might have.

- Yeah, as a matter
of fact I don't even remember

that bothering me, at all.

- After one year like I
said almost to the day

Fred had been
shooting for three months

we ran out of money.

AFI would give a
certain amount of money

to each film
and that was it.

And we'd run out.

It just stopped.

Hope was in the air.

But I think it was a
quite a long time before

I got more
money to continue.

And two great
supporters of the film

were Jack Fisk and
Sissy Spacek.

And Jack
in those days

right around that
time I'm after we'd been

down for a while

Jack had two jobs as
production...

what they called
art director then and

since he had two jobs

he would have me
follow him to the bank

and he'd sign over
one of those

paychecks to me.

So we could
keep working.

Things like that. Both
Jack and Sissy

put money
into the film.

Also, Jack's sister
Mary Fisk

played a huge part
near the end

of Eraserhead by raising
all the finishing money.

Then from then
on it went piecemeal

with many months

downtime trying
to get money or

build a set
to go forward.

And then we'd
shoot for a burst

and then go
down again.

I know
pretty clearly that

there's one particular
shot when Henry

walks down the hall

he puts his hand
on the doorknob

and turns it,
and there's a cut

a year and a half later

he comes
through the door.

I started living in the
stables in 1972.

To live and work in the
same place is the best.

It was a
perfect scenario.

I lived in the
stables and had it

for all those years.

And Al, a lot of
the times lived

he had lived in the
one wing

and I lived in
Henry's room.

That was I lived there maybe

often on two
or three years.

It was illegal
what I was doing.

Henry's room was
inside of a room

that might have been

a living room at one
time, for the maids.

It had two doors.

Both of the doors
we went in and out of.

One of the doors
had a door on it.

And you open it up

and it had another
door, there was a door

in the hallway.

So it was a two-door deal.

When I slept I bolted

a piece of plywood over
the doorway

the original doorway

from the inside.

And they padlocked
me in from the main door.

So you someone
coming up would see

a piece of plywood

with just the
rounded ends of bolts

and no other
visible way to

open it.

Then they'd see a padlock
on the main door.

I was secure
in there I felt and

then I'd hunker down
and sleep in the day.

And it was
very dark in there

there was no windows.

It was a it was a kind of a
beautiful room to sleep in.

They knew I was there
certain key people

but they kept quiet and

turned their
head away.

Jim King, who lived in
the gatehouse with his wife

Jim knew very well I was
staying down there.

And he would give me
a yearly inspection.

He would announce I'm
here for your yearly inspection.

And come through and
look at all the rooms.

Because he had to do it.

And then give me a
you know passing mark

that we're keeping
things okay and

off you go, until I
saw him the next year.

One night, this was
after Herb had gone

a big bin like a big giant
trash bin, not a lowboy

but one of the

the things with the
ladders on them you

got to go up
a ladder to see inside.

This had been delivered

in a courtyard up
at the main house.

Fred and I
went up there

and no one was around.

It was just sitting there.
No one knew what was in it.

And we discovered that
inside there were like

10 000 light bulbs in
ancient wrappings.

From some studio
that was getting rid of

this stuff from
years, ages, ago.

And we crawled in there

and probably got

two or three hundred,
maybe 500 inky bulbs.

Fred got bulbs bigger than
basketballs that he still has.

They were... I don't
know if they were 5 000 watt

bulbs or more. I don't know
what they what they were.

But all differen kind
of ancient light bulbs.

It was like
beyond Christmas.

- I have all these images
in my head

like going around
and looking for alleys

and driving and driving and
driving around and then

going ahead and
bringing everything down

in our cars.

- Right.
- And that we all just sort of

did everything.

- All the locations were

well not all
of them but, um

pretty nearly every
one of them was

downtown LA.

On the other side of
the street from

Cedars-Sinai hospital.

There was a whole block
that used to exist

a huge block

under where the
Beverly Center is now.

And in that area it
was just like in

Spanky and Our Gang,
Our Gang comedies

The Little Rascals. It was
out of the 20s or 30s.

And there was
a pony ride

from way back
somewhere in like the 30s.

There was a little key shop

little key stand

and there were these

tanks and oil wells.

And you couldn't
see them from

the street because
they had this donut of

earth around in case
the tanks blew out.

So you'd climb up
over these things and

down into
a brand new world.

That was one
of the greatest finds.

And right next to
where this happened

there was a
narrow tank

coming up out of
the ground.

And it was surrounded
by a donut of water.

But just down at the
bottom of the water

there was tar.

Who knows how
thick it was.

Tar preserves things

and the cat had
served many purposes

but I lowered this cat in there

and then about a
year later came back

and pulled the wire
and the cat came out.

Impregnated with tar.

And I laid the cat
down on the ground

and came back
another year later

and it was a perfect
marriage of cat and earth.

Tar impregnated
cat in earth.

And I have
a photograph of that.

But the cat did end up

in a scene but it
was unrecognizable.

There was a scene
where Henry catches

his foot on a wire that
was connected to this cat

as if some sort of strange
thing had been going on.

That never made
it into the film but

I have a little piece of
that you know film left.

- And I remember
having to call CFI and

get in my car

and drive as fast as
my car would go

to get there by midnight.
- Right.

- And give it Mars, remember Mars?
- Mars Baumgarten.

- Oh, he was a great guy.
He really helped us a lot.

- He sure did.
- But the thing...

one of the reasons why also
it's so indelibly printed

is that so often we
would then do it again.

- Exactly.
- We had a chance

to really get into it.

- And somewhere
along in there

George Stevens Jr.
made a deal with

Sid Solo, who
was running CFI

that we could get

all our film
developed free.

And then printed at a
very good reduced rate.

And that really
saved us.

So there's the guy named,
there was George Hutchison

who just recently left CFI

and Mars Baumgarten
was the night man

and we'd see Mars
all the time.

That went on for...
they saw us you

know for many
many years

bringing in
the film.

We'd screen our
dailies up at the main house

and Ron Barth was our
projectionist.

He was night
watchman for a while.

And Ron is one
of the several people

who claimed to have
seen the ghost of Doheny.

As a night watchman
he sometimes

took a little nap on a couch
in the main entrance hall

and something
woke him up

he looked up and on
the stairs was Doheny

in his bathrobe.

And then just gently
disappeared.

Jack Nance saw Doheny.

One night we were
shooting on the stage

for the Lady in the Radiator
and it came time for me

to deliver my papers.

During the time I was gone Jack

wandered back down
into the basement of

the main house
because we shot that up

in the laundry area.

And a mansion like that...

people like the
smell of clothes that

have been dried in
the air and the sun.

So there was a pit
off the laundry room

and this pit you
couldn't see from, um

it wouldn't ruin the
look of the mansion.

It was a it
was a concrete pit

with maybe 20 foot walls.

They had all these
lines in it where

they'd hang out the laundry

and it would dry with
no one seeing laundry on a line.

And in that pit I
built this set for you

know the Lady in the Radiator.

Through the laundry
room you could enter

the basement
corridors and then

they kind of slanted
down to a deeper

basement and Jack went
down there that night

and took a nap.

And he was awakened
and saw Doheny.

The Lady in the Radiator
was never in the original script.

One night I was
sitting in the food room

and I started drawing
on a three by five card.

And I drew the
Lady in the Radiator.

I'd been thinking about
some things and

it sort of came to me

right then that she was
going to be in the film.

And that she was
connected with the radiator

I don't know how it
happened

but that whole thing
she lived in there

where it was warm.

I thought I better
check on that radiator

to see if it's possible

that somebody
could be in there.

And I went running
in, because I couldn't

picture it in
my mind, to the set

already months established

and looked at that radiator.

And it's unlike any
radiator.

It has a place
in the middle

that just was a perfect
entrance to where she was

And how many
radiators have that?

It went like that until 1976

when I was asked
to leave the stables.

When George Stevens Jr.

kind of thought they
would make a great place

for him to have
an editing room.

So I had to get out and

it was I was practically
finished but we

rallied and
finished up everything

in time and left
I think it was '75.

It might have been '75.

- Catherine.
- What?

- How many years did you
work on Eraserhead?

- I think about four.
- No, no you worked six years.

- Six?
- Yeah.

- Well, maybe five...
- It was a long time of my life

- Maybe five years.

- Yeah, I remember
being really young

when I started and I'm
just looking at these

pictures of all of us...

We kind of... when we
finished it we all

looked a little bit older.

It became kind of
like the more challenges...

I mean, it was from
filling the drawer

of pudding to,
you know

dyeing the sheets
so with tea so that

they weren't too white.

All those things just
be kind of became

what we normally did

in the course of a day.

So when I went on to
work on other movies

everything which was
so compartmentalized

always seemed not
quite the real thing.

- Exactly.
- Eraserhead really felt like

the real thing.

You were always in charge

you always knew
exactly what you wanted

but you had
each of us

feeling like we
were really part of it

which I think we were.

But it was really helping
you with this vision.

- Then in '76 sometime

maybe... I can't remember
when.

Sometime in there
we finished Eraserhead.

A sense of place
is critical to a film.

And sound particularly
can expand

what you're seeing
and expand the world.

And those things

can break a mood or
enhance a mood.

Naturally you want
to make a world

and it's a particular
world in every film

but this one is

a particular particular,
you know, feel.

I was editing all along.
It was...

It was always kind of
right up to where we were.

and I just plug in
you know the pieces.

Then it was quite long
at one point and

I had a stand-up
old Moviola.

and it was a beauty
it was very kind to film.

And I loved that machine.

Then I moved that Moviola to

the bungalow and had
a setup in a garage

and Al and I could
work together in there.

Then when we came
time to mix was all mono

eight Dubbers and Magmix.

Some people came
to AFI

and they were part of
Cannes Film Festival.

They wanted to see Eraserhead.

To see if it was
going to go to Cannes.

Al and I had a talk that
we would try to work

and make the Cannes
Film Festival with Eraserhead.

And Al said I'll do it.
I'll go 24 hours

if you will not take your
Bob's break in the afternoon.

Which almost killed me.

But I said, okay Al, I'll
do that but it's killing me.

So every afternoon at 2:30
I would get in this thing

wanting to go out,
we just kept working.

Eventually Al said,
okay look, we won't

go all the way to Bob's
but we'll go up to

the Hamburger Hamlet
and have a coffee.

So that's what we did.
We went up there

and then there
I discovered this

Dutch apple pie.

Then I got the bill
for that piece

of Dutch apple pie

I had to stop doing that.

Then I was
in the grocery store

and I saw
a Dutch apple pie.

The same, almost
exactly the same price

for a whole pie

as it was for one slice
at Hamburger Hamlet.

So I bought this pie

you just
put it in the oven

and then you put it
in the refrigerator.

I would take a slice
of pie and wrap it in a

wax paper and
put it under my jacket.

And then I'd eat that in
the Hamburger Hamlet,

Surreptitiously, and
that was a real thrill.

We didn't have any
money for sound stock.

So, somehow we heard
there were bins

of sound stock that the sound
editors from Warner Brothers

would throw away.

Big trash bins filled with it.

And so we got...
there was somebody

connected to AFI
that was working over there

we got on the lot

and then we
found these bins.

And in preparation
I'd removed the back seat

of the Volkswagen.

and we filled every square
inch of that Volkswagen

full of almost
total clean reels.

And then Al had
a degausser, so we

de-gaussed everything
when we got back.

And all the stock
for Eraserhead came

from the throwaway
bins at Warner Brothers.

We finished, Al and I...

The mix was done

but the film was not
married, sound and picture.

So there were 12
reels of sound

and 12 reels of picture.

And this had to go

right now to New
York City because they

were screening films
for Cannes.

So I took the
last money in the bank

and got an airline
ticket, a red-eye

to New York.

And I got there really
early in the morning and

found out that there were
four or five films ahead of me

that they gotta look at before
they look at Eraserhead.

So I'm eating this
donuts and having

coffee and sitting
on the curb out there

and kept going in
the guy says two more films

like that, until they started
running the eraser

So finally it was over,
packed it up

came back and
never heard anything.

Snd so I made
a phone call

and it turns out
that the people who

I thought were looking
at the film in that room

had left New York
for Paris two days earlier.

And the guy was showing
films to an empty house.

Eraserhead never
went to Cannes.

I invited friends and
we had a kind of a

a formal screening
of Eraserhead

when it was finally finished.

And my parents
came to the first screening

of Eraserhead
and afterwards

someone sitting
next to my mother

told me, she said when the
lights came up

- Oh, I wouldn't want
to have a dream like that.

The film showed
at Filmex '77.

That was the official first
screening of Eraserhead.

I was too afraid
to go in with the people.

So I paced outside and it
seemed like the film was

400 hours long.

And I was dying.

And I had that there
was a little button

behind the last row

of seats in this
giant theater

and you just
push this button

and it bumps
the sound 2 db.

And I had pushed
it a bunch of times

but I pushed
it too many times.

So not only was the
film very very long

but it was, I think it
was killing people

in the front rows.

Fred drove me home
that night and

I sat I told him,
I said I'm cutting

I'm cutting
the film tonight.

and I'm gonna cut
this scene, this scene

this thing
and Fred was

completely against it and
and told me I was crazy.

Are you sure?
I said, I am positive.

And I went and I cut
the composite print.

That's something you
really shouldn't do.

Then I had to go over
to CFI, because I

I didn't know how to stitch
this thing together

after I did it to make that
work. And I had this editor

over there and he
became very confused.

Because I had to
bring him up to speed

and all this stuff, and bring
them bunch of elements.

Finally it got straightened
out and a new

picture and soundtrack
were made.

20 minutes shorter
the way it is now.

The way it was
supposed to be.

I just needed to
suffer that screening.

I wish I had those scenes

because I loved
them as little scenes

but they didn't
belong in the film.

I could have done a lot
better job taking care of things.

Sometimes everyone has
the experience when

they need to move
to another place.

They find they can't
take as much stuff

with them as they
would like.

Later on they look
back and they wish

they had taken
a couple more things.

I've lost a lot of

things from Eraserhead
that I wish I'd kept.

Well, in those days no one
thought too much of Eraserhead.

It was
Midnight Films

that put it on the
map and that was

Ben Barenholz, known
as the grandfather

of the Midnight Film.

If it wasn't for
Ben getting Eraser...

picking it up and
and distributing it

nothing would
have happened to it. Zero.

And it opened at
The Cinema Village

in the fall of 1977.

And there were 26 people

in the theater
the first night.

That was a Friday night.
Then Saturday night

there was 20-24.

And Ben said I'm not going
to spend any money and

I'm not going to do
any kind of big promotion.

He said, in two months

there's gonna be
lines around the block.

and that's exactly
what happened.

it played in 17
cities for as long as

four years on the
midnight circuit.

That usually meant one
night a week Friday or

Saturday at midnight.

I'm going down
Sunset Boulevard

and I see five Woody
Woodpecker dolls

with hooks in their back
and I feel

the pain of them. They're
hanging in the service station.

I swing a u-turn, slam
on the brakes pull

into this place.

And I said I want those guys off

those hooks. I'm buying
all of them right now.

And the guy

helps me get them
down I sit them all

in the back seat and uh
those were my boys

and I kept them for many years.

Sometime, The New
Art Theater where was running

Eraserhead every Friday night

said they needed a
they would like me to

maybe think about
doing a new trailer.

Some kind of thing to

you know kind of goose
Eraserhead attendance.

So, I had Fred and
Catherine shoot me

giving a talk
on Fred's couch

with the woodpeckers and

That ran at The New
Art along with the

official Eraserhead trailer.

- You know I haven't
seen the movie

in a really long time but
I do remember

that night that you
showed it to the

cast and crew of
Dune. I think I might have

brought the print
down with me

when I came down to visit.
- Uh-huh.

- So then you
screened it for the crew

and we watched it.
We stood in the back

and watched it. Jack
and you and me and

Fred and

I think Jenny. And
we were all you know

we're all watching
it for the first time

in quite a while.

And nobody was
saying... you know they

weren't responding
a whole lot and

and then it was
over and we were like

really kind of feeling
good about the work

and you know,
it was like

you were really
looking forward to

hearing what
people had to say

and they walked out

they all just walked
by you and said

gracias senor.

It was very funny.

They just didn't know
quite what to say.

- It is a personal film.

And no reviewer or critic,
or viewer

has ever given
an interpretation

that is my interpretation.

Since the, you know

25 years or more
that it's been out.