Trivia / Eraserhead

• Development Hell: Due to troubles with funding and cast availability, this movie took five years to film. There's a scene where Henry walks through a door; his entering and exiting the door were shot a year apart.
• Died During Production: Original cinematographer Herb Cardwell died midway into the production under mysterious circumstances.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Jack Nance had to keep his famous haircut throughout production, essentially through the early half of the seventies.
• No Budget: The film was made on a budget of $20,000.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Because of how uncannily alive the Baby looks and David Lynch's vague explanation that the prop for the Baby was "found" or "born nearby", some have speculated that Lynch used an embalmed animal fetus to create the Baby. However, others have noted that a rotting corpse would have been impractical as a puppet, especially when Lynch previously made similarly disturbing art in his student film Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) with nothing more than plaster, paint, and siren drones.
• Production Nickname: Jack Nance nicknamed the prop for the Baby as Spike.
• Shrug of God: Lynch refuses to offer any clues for authorial intent (other than to describe it as his "most spiritual film", without further elaboration), and pointedly refuses to discuss how the Baby was made.
• Troubled Production: No studio would fund this film due to its unusual plot and Lynch's lack of experience, so he had to rely on funds from the AFI, as well as friends and family. Because of these financial troubles, filming was intermittent — it took five years, and sets had to be repeatedly assembled and disassembled. While its critical reception was initially mixed, the film was praised by several other filmmakers (including, but not limited to Mel Brooks, Stanley Kubrick, and John Waters), which kickstarted Lynch's career.
• Write What You Know: Apparently, David Lynch's wife was pregnant with their first child when he was coming up with this. Considering that this runs fully on Nothing Is Scarier, and the amount and type of symbolism in this film...

---