Eraserhead is a 1977 American surrealist film and the first feature film of David Lynch, who wrote, produced and directed. Lynch began working on the film at the AFI Conservatory, which gave him $10,000 to make the film after he had begun working there following his 1971 move to Los Angeles. The budget was not sufficient to complete the film and, as a result, Lynch worked on Eraserhead intermittently, using money from odd jobs and from friends and family, including childhood friend Jack Fisk, a production designer and the husband of actress Sissy Spacek, until its 1977 release. Eraserhead... polarized and baffled many critics and film-goers, but has become a cult classic. In 2004, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Lynch has called it a "dream of dark and troubling things" and his "most spiritual movie." Eraserhead is set in the heart of an industrial center in a nameless city, rife with urban decay. Henry Spencer is a printer who is "on vacation" for the duration of the story.
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