I imagine this has to be one of the first American films specifically about the cruelties and absurdities of the American film industry, which makes it all the more surprising how cutting and nightmarish this is. Expressionist cues, creepy masks, double exposures, and a real mean streak - like catnip for me.

Quite possibly the cheapest film ever made (that I've heard of) which holds real value in the industry. For under $100, a slice of excellence is released...those days are gone.
In Hollywood, you're just another number and people live and die by those numbers. Well, that's what this experimental picture is all about. The progression of the story shows the world through eager eyes, only to suffer. The good news is, one day your mistakes and faceless shell will be wiped away in paradise. I was pleased to see that pioneer cinematographer, Gregg Toland, played a vital part in this little project that is now so highly praised. A cautionary tale and one for the ages.

If you watch a lot of movies, particularly old Hollywood movies, your conception of the past can begin to be shaped by them, so that eras before you were born start to seem encased by the Studios' big bubble (or as Mark Cousins would say, booble). This feels like a crack in that bubble, although from which side I couldn't tell you.

Those sharp, shadowy teutonic angles are synonymous with nightmares, the tilted and cast in flickering lights suggesting that this particular dream is going to be cold, full of dread, rather than a blast of intense terror. The story told in this atmosphere is a vicious jab at Hollywood's promises of fame, fortune, and fun, taking an empathetic, working class view of the life of an extra and juxtaposing it with stardom (in a fairly blunt metaphor that is all the funnier for it). It's an exaggerated, tumultuous climb through dreams (both aspirational and oneiric) that is both tragic and amusing.

Hollywood is a weird place.

Spooky Szn 12: Horror in the same Eraserhead or any of Lynch’s early shorts are. Heavily inspired by German Expressionism. Fun fact: One Of the director’s would make the Marx Brothers film, The Coconauts, the year after this.

Too weird for its own sake. Could've been better as a full-length motion picture to flesh out its plot.

09/17/2019

this is beautiful and if a film was stylized like this today it would smash

Very interesting if a bit crude and simplistic, but this is really early in experimental film. Nowhere near the level of Méliès or Buñuel but that’s to be expected. I really liked the cutouts and shadow puppetry. The ending is especially beautiful.

I imagine little has changed about Hollywood’s treatment of workers in the interceding 91 years. It’s probably even more precarious and predicated on who you know than ever. The writing of a person’s number on their forehead is immediately recognisable from the Jewish myth of the Golem. 

Wish it had been less obvious and reliant on simple acting choices. When it was montage of cutouts and lights akin to Metropolis (1927) it worked on a level irrespective of age. More films need to use the myriad forms of visual media that work on film.

w: FAAP

How is this from the 20s?

Yes, this is what I want from silent cinema. This is a fantastic piece of art and also a strong caution tale. This feels weirdly ahead of it's time. I am amazed this much cynicism was able to exist in the film industry so early. It was entirely accurate to themes and real world attitudes that didn't make a breakthrough until later.

This is also probably the best use of flash-cards to set setting that I've seen in a silent movie. Very creative and dark on all levels and all apparently for under $100.