Eraser­head and the Lady in the Radiator

Even before he died, it was a rit­u­al among right-mind­ed folk to share videos and memes of the late David Lynch just say­ing and doing awe­some things. Maybe as a way to fill the type giant, gap­ing, black void that became one of Lynch’s own visu­al trade­marks, the video shar­ing has ramped up con­sid­er­ably. The last one I received involved Lynch grin­ning in child-like won­der­ment as he observes a trio of war­bling toy birds, and then he gives them a round of applause when their song fin­ish­es. One of the things that’s so strange and appeal­ing about his films is that it’s baf­fling that some of the most dis­mal, vio­lent and trans­gres­sive images in the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma could spawn from the inner-con­scious­ness of a per­son for whom kind­ness, empa­thy and gorg­ing on plea­sure were the rules of the game.

But dark­ness is only tru­ly dis­cernible when it’s con­trast­ed against a bright light, and where many, many film­mak­ers – some in thrall to the mae­stro – don’t real­ly get that, it feels like a core tenet of Lynch’s work. For instance: the nas­ti­ness of Frank Booth in Blue Vel­vet only hits home because you’ve got scenes like the one in which Sandy recalls her vivid, sym­bol­ic dream about the joy­ful return of a flock of robins. This light/​dark dichoto­my was there right from the off, vis­i­ble even in the high-con­trast mono­chrome pho­tog­ra­phy of 1977’s still-extra­or­di­nary, still-sin­gu­lar, still-bat­shit-before-bat­shit-was-even-a-thing, Eraser­head. It’s a sto­ry of sui­cide, jeal­ousy, abuse, humil­i­a­tion, decap­i­ta­tion, cas­tra­tion, pover­ty, infan­ti­cide, unnec­es­sary surgery and the anni­hi­la­tion of the galaxy. Yet the over­whelm­ing sense of dark­ness is cut through with moments of sub­lime ten­der­ness. It’s also a film which, in the most abstract terms pos­si­ble, assures us that humans have the capac­i­ty to find bliss­ful escape with­in inte­ri­or worlds; dreams; fan­tasies; warped expres­sions of happiness.

Which brings us to the point of this thing: the elu­sive fig­ure who is referred to as the Lady in the Radi­a­tor, as essayed by the actor Lau­rel Near. She resem­bles a ​’50s com­ic book ren­der­ing of a human­ised cloud, with bouf­fant ice-blond locks and dis­tend­ed cheeks that look like puffy snow­balls. She wears a shim­mer­ing white satin skirt, and she appears from a small cabaret stage that’s nes­tled behind the buzzing radi­a­tor that’s prop­er­ty of Eraserhead’s cen­tral pro­tag­o­nist, Hen­ry Spencer (Jack Nance). Dur­ing the moments in which he seeks respite from his domes­tic drudgery, he drifts into rever­ie and casts his mind towards this Lady. There are two times where he attempts to con­jure her, but she does not appear – only on the third, do we see her shuf­fle across the stage smil­ing and pout­ing, with Fats Waller’s big top organ music put­ter­ing away in the backdrop.

Her rou­tine is inter­rupt­ed by falling flesh tubes which almost resem­ble the male ure­thra and testes. She dodges them as best she can with her feet, but even­tu­al­ly there are too many and she squash­es a cou­ple under her heel, a milk-like sub­stance spew­ing onto the floor. This may just be a Freudi­an day­dream that man­i­fests Henry’s regret at impreg­nat­ing his girl­friend Mary (Char­lotte Stew­art) which leads her to give pre­ma­ture birth to a lit­tle alien being who lies on a desk wrapped in gauze and griz­zles from dawn to dusk. The Lady returns lat­er and this time she sings a song called ​‘In Heav­en’ which offers up the repeat­ed refrain, ​“In Heav­en, every­thing is fine.” Short­ly after, Hen­ry phys­i­cal­ly enters the dream and is spon­ta­neous­ly decap­i­tat­ed (not, we assume, by the Lady). Some have read ​‘In Heav­en’ as a siren song, in which the Lady is sug­gest­ing to Hen­ry that the only way he’ll escape his strange domes­tic sit­u­a­tion is to take his own life.

From itemis­ing the objec­tive facts about the Lady in the Radi­a­tor, it would be easy to see her as a malev­o­lent fig­ure. Is she a wolf in cloud’s cloth­ing, com­ing to Hen­ry through his dreams and join­ing in the cho­rus of pet­ty cen­sure? Or is she the lone com­pan­ion in Henry’s life who tells him what he wants to hear? Who inter­prets his most repel­lant thoughts through appeal­ing song and dance? The pink fairy, Glin­da the Good, from the Wiz­ard of Oz, is an image that recurs through­out Lynch’s cin­e­ma (in the case of Wild at Heart, quite lit­er­al­ly). She is pre­sent­ed as a guid­ing light for those who are lost. Per­haps the Lady is an ear­ly iter­a­tion of Lynch’s Glin­da fetish, hav­ing that ethe­re­al appari­tion who is a paragon of love and nurture.

If we see the Lady as being com­plic­it in Henry’s down­fall, then that’s down to our sym­bol­ic read­ing of her actions. But to Hen­ry, she is the only one who under­stands him, the only one that seems to make sense in this sur­re­al world. If you chose to see her as Lynch’s inter­pre­ta­tion of an erot­ic dream, she is a bringer of bliss, even for just a small moment. She looks like a cloud, but maybe she’s a singing sperm? I think she rep­re­sents the idea that we are able to chan­nel our pain and suf­fer­ing into some­thing that gives us instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion and plea­sure. When we’re at our low­est, we look for some­one who under­stands what we’re going through, even if that per­son doesn’t exist. When the fog of dark­ness obscures all cor­ners of Henry’s life, he has no choice but to embrace the light. The Lady in the Radi­a­tor is, for me, the vision of ecsta­sy that helps Hen­ry through the day.

To com­mem­o­rate the life and cre­ative lega­cy of the peer­less film­mak­er David Lynch, Lit­tle White Lies has brought togeth­er writ­ers and artists who loved him to cre­ate ​‘In Heav­en Every­thing Is Fine‘: a series cel­e­brat­ing his work. We asked par­tic­i­pants to respond to a Lynch project how­ev­er they saw fit – the results were haunt­ing, pro­found, and illuminating.