The David Lynch movie that had no interest in “soliciting the input of raging primitives”
After the release of Eraserhead, David Lynch became the epitome of a cult icon, with independent cinemas scrambling to screen it to audience responses, largely divided into those who instantly loved and revered the director, and those who were either falling asleep or booing.
It makes sense because Lynch was never a crowd-pleaser. There isn’t a single project in his long and incredible career that could have been said to have mass appeal or broad accessibility. It simply wasn’t what he was interested in, for instead, his own Lynchian style was meant to be odd and off-putting, and it was meant to find its own crowd.
Instantly, with his debut feature, Lynch did just that. After writing a panicked note to his parents before its debut, saying “Dear Mom…and Dad, please don’t see the film Eraserhead…and Don’t tell anyone I did,” his name entered the stratosphere of oddballs and niche artists with their own personal army of admirers. However, in his first cohort of fans, there were some big names, including the unlikely support of writer, actor, comedian and all-round icon, Mel Brooks.
Up until 1980, Brooks was mostly known as your classic funny guy, especially after his directorial debut, The Producers, hit the big time. However, just because his own projects were filled with gags, that doesn’t mean he didn’t appreciate something more serious and moving. When the script for The Elephant Man crossed his desk somehow, passed to him via producer Jonathan Sanger, Brooks said he “read it through at one sitting and cried”. After reading the work of writers Christopher De Vore and Eric Bergren, Brooks basically decided that he’d do anything he could to get the movie made, throwing his Hollywood weight around to try and make it happen.
To him, that probably meant bringing in a big name or trying to get it a big budget with some stars tagged onto the project. But between Sanger and Brooks’ assistant, Stuart Cornfeld, they had other ideas. The plan? Get Mel Brooks to watch Eraserhead. At this point, the film had just come out, and so the team set up a private screening of it for Brooks at the 20th Century Fox offices. It could have gone either way, but as the credits rolled, Brooks sat up in his chair and stated without a doubt that David Lynch should be the one to make The Elephant Man.
“Eraserhead made me feel he could handle melancholy and freaks and could use black and white film,” Brooks said, making sure that Lynch was approved by the suits, no matter how much they pushed back. “I just kept saying, ‘It’s gotta be David Lynch. It’s gotta be David Lynch. It’s just gotta be fucking David Lynch!’ I was a very forceful advocate because I was, like, born again,” he said, not messing about.
He took that passion right into the NBC offices to its leading executive, Freddie Silverman. “‘Freddie said: ‘Who is this David Lynch?’ and Mel said, ‘That just shows what a fucking idiot you are!’” Cornfield recalled, and soon Brooks had bullied every major movie man into seeing Eraserhead. There couldn’t have been a more devoted guardian of the work than Brooks. Even after Paramount agreed to take on the project with Lynch as director, when they saw the film and offered feedback, Brooks shut them right up.
“When the film was finally shown to Paramount, Michael Eisner and Barry Diller were there. They said, ‘Gee, it’s a great film, but we think you should get rid of the elephant at the beginning and the mother at the end’,” Cornfield recalled, adding, “Mel said, ‘We are involved in a business venture. We screened the film for you to bring you up to date as to the status of that venture. Do not misconstrue this as our soliciting the input of raging primitives’.”
Devoted to the movie and to Lynch’s vision of it, Brooks even requested that his own famous name be hidden from the project to not take even a smidge of the spotlight, casting it all on his new favourite director instead.
