The classic sci-fi movie that “disappointed” David Lynch
When David Lynch emerged in the late 1970s with the surreal horror movie Eraserhead, he divided critics through his unconventional approach to cinema. By using bizarre characters, such as the Woman in the Radiator and a terrifying alien-like baby, Lynch communicated themes of fear, fatherhood, isolation and sexuality.
For many contemporary audiences, Eraserhead was a gruesome shock, producing feelings of discomfort and disgust. Yet, the film eventually became a popular midnight movie, attracting fans of weird and wonderful independent pictures. Lynch was soon given the chance to direct The Elephant Man, which remains one of his most emotionally-charged works.
The project was much more successful than Eraserhead, earning eight Academy Award nominations. Thus, Lynch was in demand by studios and even George Lucas, who asked him to direct Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Lynch was quick to turn down the offer, however, instead turning his attention to another sci-fi project, Dune.
The movie was not a success – critically or commercially – and is typically regarded as Lynch’s worst effort. The director’s attempts to squeeze the dense novel into a movie just over two hours long didn’t work, and most people found it utterly confusing and incomprehensible.
Lynch was not the first person on board to direct Dune. Several attempts were made to get Dune on the big screen for years before, with Ridley Scott signed on to direct by producer Dino De Laurentiis. However, Scott soon realised that he wasn’t in the right frame of mind for the job.
He revealed in a 1994 interview: “I also realised Dune was going to take more work. A lot more work. And I just didn’t have the heart to attack that work. Because … well, I’ll tell you what really happened. My older brother died. Frankly, that freaked me out … I couldn’t sit around for another two and a half years on Dune, which is how long I thought it was going to take, preparing and waiting on this thing. I needed immediate activity, needed to get my mind off my brother’s death.”
Scott instead worked on Blade Runner, which was released in 1982. While it is regarded as one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, Lynch wasn’t much of a fan, revealing to Starlog that he wanted to direct it himself. “Well, when I heard about Blade Runner, I thought that I should be doing the film,” he said. “I identified with it 100%. I know that people who worked on it had seen Eraserhead.”
For Lynch, Scott’s Blade Runner was not what he hoped it to be. “I was really disappointed in the overall movie. I was expecting so much, and I don’t really know exactly what went wrong. You see, for some things, too much ruins it, and for other things, not enough ruins it. In Blade Runner, it was a matter of not being enough of a storyline. Most of the images, though, were totally beautiful.”
Revisit the trailer for Blade Runner below.
