The movie Gaspar Noé had an “addiction” to in his youth
Adolescent fans of cinema across the globe are magnetised to certain types of filmmakers, those who subvert the expectations of the craft and innovate with every new release. Indeed, there’s no wonder film students plaster the movies of Quentin Tarantino, Sofia Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Harmony Korine, Jean-Luc Godard and Gaspar Noé on their university dormitory walls.
Having been creating ambitious and provocative movies since the late 1990s, Noé has long been a staple of modern arthouse cinema. From his feature film debut with 1998’s I Stand Alone to his most recent experimental drama Vortex, Noé constantly pushes the boundaries of cinema with movies that obsess themselves with the intricacies of the human mind, often toying with wild cinematic techniques.
A regular at the Cannes Film Festival, often competing for the Palme d’Or, Noé’s finest hours came in 2002 with the release of the controversial drama Irreversible and the intense dance movie Climax, released in 2018. Consistently playing with experimental techniques, Noé is inspired by a plethora of arthouse filmmakers, including Stanley Kubrick, Pier Paolo Pasolini and David Lynch.
Lynch became a particular source of inspiration for Noé, finding comfort in his 1977 debut Eraserhead during his youth. “I was a 14 or 15-year-old kid,” he recalled in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, “I loved the movie so much that I believe I went to see it four times in one month…for me, that was the confirmation that cinema could also portray your inner world, that cinema could portray dreams and nightmares.”
Continuing, he added: “It had such a strong impact on me that I would say Eraserhead — it made me get into film school two years later. Maybe it was a mix of 2001 [A Space Odyssey] and Eraserhead.“
Announcing Lynch on the international stage, Eraserhead was an independent movie made on a shoestring budget of just $100,000, telling the story of a young man trying to survive in a bizarre world where his family is constantly annoyed, and he must tend to his mutant newborn child. Introducing many motifs that would soon become commonplace in the films of David Lynch, Eraserhead toyed with the relationships we share with the spiritual dreamworld.
It’s fair to say Noé had something of an addiction to watching Lynch’s debut, adding: “I don’t know how many times I saw Eraserhead in the movie theatre, but I guess it was maybe 15 times. I had an addiction to this movie, which is the kind of addiction kids can have to their mother telling them a story”.
“You want to listen to the same story over and over and have a hypnotic feeling and relaxing feeling. It created some kind of relaxing feeling in me. That I would enjoy all these movies — that are nightmarish– as if it were a dream, especially when the girl comes out saying everything is fine in heaven.”
Take a look at the trailer for Lynch’s iconic movie below.
