How “the Grandfather of midnight films” saved David Lynch’s career
When David Lynch made his debut feature, Eraserhead, he certainly knew it wasn’t going to receive a widespread release and become one of the year’s biggest hits. It was a far cry from the most popular movies of the 1970s at this point, which boasted massive titles like The Godfather and Jaws as the box office’s top earners.
While Jaws and other major successes like The Exorcist proved that Americans had a taste for horror and thriller titles, Eraserhead was another ballpark altogether: a surreal odyssey into parental anxiety, industrialisation, and alienation. With bizarre characters and nightmarish situations (don’t you just hate it when your head falls off and gets replaced by that of an alien-like baby?), Lynch’s film marked him out as one of the most daring and artistically idiosyncratic filmmakers of the decade, but it was going to take a lot to get his movie viewed widely.
That’s where Ben Barenholtz comes in. Without him, it remains uncertain whether American independent and experimental cinema would’ve become such a cult phenomenon, and this is all thanks to his invention of the midnight movie concept. The first movie he showed in this format was Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo, and it proved to be a success. Who wouldn’t want to watch a weird and wacky movie when you’re meant to be sleeping? You could make a midnight movie part of a night out – go to some bars, get drunk or high, watch a mind-bendingly surreal film, then keep the night going after.
As the founder of the Elgin Cinema, Barenholtz screened many now-iconic films as midnight screenings, like John Waters’ stomach-turning Pink Flamingos and, much to Lynch’s delight, Eraserhead. The cinema titan, who also expanded his love for unique projects into distribution, championed Lynch’s debut, allowing it to gain popularity underground.
Talking to Bafta, Lynch revealed how he is forever indebted to Barenholtz: “I always say it came out at the time when the midnight circuit was very popular. Had it not been for the midnight circuit, Eraserhead would have been long gone. But a guy named Ben Barenholz, who they called the grandfather of midnight films, saw it in New York, loved it, and he distributed it.”
Lynch continued, “He said: ‘David, I’m going to spend no money, no advertising, and there’ll be lines around the block within two months.’ And it was sort of true. It played in some theatres for three or four years. Even though it only played one night in the theatre, it was always on the marquee. So word kind of went around.”
Thus, Eraserhead’s status as a cult favourite was born, and soon Lynch attracted the attention of Mel Brooks, who produced his next feature, The Elephant Man. From there, Lynch went on to make some of the greatest movies of all time, like the erotic thriller Blue Velvet and the electrifying Mulholland Drive, as well as creating one of television’s most influential shows, Twin Peaks, with Mark Frost.
Still, he’ll never forget the moment he realised that Eraserhead wasn’t going to be an indie failure, admiring the film’s name written on the marquee of Barenholtz’s theatre. “Oh, it was a big, big thrill.”
