The Jinx to Sooth Our True Crime-Loving Souls

In the wake of Serial's season one finale, and the Season Two premiere of True Detective we are so patiently waiting for in summer 2015, a gripping docu-series, The Jinx, is a welcome weekly curiosity.

The opening title sequence even mirrors that of True Detective Season One, with it's double exposures and sexy, silky dark imagery that hints at events to come, and a bluesy song with threatening animistic themes.

True Detective

The Jinx

The credits are a neat package that set the viewer up. It says, "I know what you're looking for and I know what you like."

Robert Durst punctuates his statements with hard blinks made with nearly his entire face. He finishes his statements with a kind of facial enter key.

Robert Durst interviewed by Andrew Jarecki

Durst is allowing his life, experiences, and odd ticks to be scrutinized. At his own request, Andrew Jarecki is interviewing Robert Durst for this six part series. Jarecki directed the 2010 film All Good Things, based on the mysterious disappearance of Robert Durst's wife Kathleen in 1982. This unfortunate event was only the tip of the iceberg for Durst's "bad luck." Jarecki's film doesn't cover all of the deaths surrounding Robert Durst. Of course Durst would want the world to hear his side, even if it uncovers more dirt.

The Jinx unfolds a story starting with Durst's most recent brush with death. In 2001 a body was found in a Galveston, Texas bay. The body was of Morris Black, who was the neighbor of an unfortunate looking mute woman and her brother-in-law (who were never in the same room at the same time). The "duo" had abandoned their apartment when Black's body was discovered, and all signs pointed to that room as the murder scene. Robert Durst, the millionaire real estate heir of New York was pinned as the one who resided in the apartment under a few assumed names. 

After this part of Durst's life is established, the decades move forward and back like waves. The non linear story telling works well here. We are given the information as we need it; dolled out in pieces so we can understand and appreciate each morsel more than the next. We learn about his troubled childhood, the disappearance of his wife, the beginning of their relationship, the night of her disappearance, Durst's inability to connect with Kathleen's family and friends, his abuse towards Kathleen, and then we wind back again to reveal the truth behind what happened that fateful night.

Robert Durst tells half confessions. He has an explanation for everything, for his lies and his motives. Never does he admit to killing Kathleen, but he confesses so much, maybe without knowing it. Robert openly admits to hitting Kathleen, and forcing her to have an abortion. The titular line is uttered here, that Durst thought he would be a "jinx" to his offspring. He labels himself.

Durst shockingly admits to lying to police immediately after Kathleen's disappearance. He added details like a glass of wine he had with a neighbor, or - more importantly - a phone call he claimed he made to Kathleen after she supposedly arrived in New York by train. Durst is flippant about the lies. He explains that it was simply to get the cops to leave him alone. It seemed he didn't understand that lying to the police would make it harder to find Kathleen. Maybe that wasn't his top priority. 

If Robert Durst wants us to believe he didn't kill Kathleen, a story that has sustained 33 years, he doesn't exactly know how to do it. By the virtue of his own psychopathy he lays out his shocking, blatant apathy towards Kathleen. 

Despite the neighbor denying Robert's story about their friendly drink back in '82, among other easily refutable statements, this did not seem to put a wrench in Durst's freedom. Robert's family appeared to work very hard to push this issue under the rug, and he was never convicted of murder. While Kathleen was missing, none even searched the house she was last seen in.

It was also very possible that a phone call supposedly made by Kathleen, the Monday after she was last seen, to her college to call out sick, was actually made by a close female friend of Durst's. Susan Berman was fiercely loyal and knew a thing or two about organized crime and PR. At the time Berman's claim to fame was a novel called Easy Street about her life as the daughter of a mobster. She almost exclusively spoke for Durst to the media during this time. Her story and persona are important to The Jinx, as many people touched by the crimes surrounding Robert Durst are wonderfully fleshed out in each episode.

I don't want to spoil too much....

Robert Durst's persona is a contentious one. Many people have a difficult time getting along with Durst, though he thrives with certain people (like the stepson of Susan Berman. who he may have murdered). Durst did a stint in prison for missing the court hearing for the 2001 murder of Morris Black. Photos of Durst in prison show him palling around with inmates, and I couldn't help but think of his unnerving comfort with all things criminal, and George Bluth Sr.

Many, many people are interviewed in The Jinx, and some may at first seem far removed, but Robert Durst's life infects in far reaching ways that lead a curious trail back to the center. Each new individual brings the promise of a twist or a connection, that makes the series riveting.

Omniscient narration doesn't come into play in The Jinx; the players tell their own stories. Though Kathleen's friends are interviewed singularly, their shared experience in trying to prove Durst's guilt creates a cohesive force; a resounding chorus of voices for Kathleen.

The reenactments in The Jinx are above and beyond the typical poor lookalikes who mime more than they act. It's cinematic, photographic, lush, and somber, creatively utilizing shadow and shallow depth of field to hide the features of the actors. Often shooting from the back of the head (gruesome sounding, I know) they hide distracting faces, and add a cerebral, thoughtful meditation on the individuals they represent.

The triple threat of visual anonymity.

There are only two episodes left to air in this six part series. Much like Serial, we know that the end of the series is most certainly final. Though Serial promises a sort of second season featuring a different topic, or how True Detective will start Season Two with a new cast (and hopefully some thin connection to Season One), The Jinx is truly one of a kind and I cannot foresee a legitimate sequel. But we will be crying for one.

Who Are The Tremonds?

When watching a David Lynch film one often has to let go and accept the strangeness that will unfold. Why was there a creepy elderly woman and young boy popping up from time to time in the Twin Peaks universe? In the series they appear one time. The grandmother and grandson are identified as the Tremonds. They live next door to Harold Smith - a man who Laura Palmer shared dark secrets with. The Tremonds advised Donna Hayward to speak with him, and then mysteriously disappeared as if they were a hallucination.

In Fire Walk With Me, the so called Tremonds are seen again in the Black Lodge.  Now it is certain that these characters are agents or prisoners of BOB, The Man From Another Place, and other beings of the Black Lodge. The pair are other-worldly spirits.

Maybe I originally assumed that the Grandmother and child were a Lynchian archetype from his short film The Grandmother. Both young boys wear suits, which represent adult burdens on children. The suit could also imply death in that a young boy would wear such a formal outfit at a funeral or in a casket.

Still from The Grandmother.

A video I saw by selphiealmasy8 opened my eyes to another possibility in the role of the "Tremonds". They are Leland Palmer's childhood self and his grandmother. 



Leland Palmer explains in Episode 2.10 that he knew BOB as a neighbor at his grandfather's lake house, though he referred him as Mr. Robertson. Leland is one of the few characters who speaks of himself as a child. Benjamin and Jerry Horne discuss their childhood, but their likenesses are seen in a flashback, we never actually see photo or flashback of Leland; all the more likely we can identify Leland as the child. Sometimes it's what isn't said, or isn't shown that reveals the truth.

"He used to shoot matches at me. He'd
say, 'Do you want to play with fire, little boy?'"

The video explains the fact that Leland only mentions his grandfather, and does not mention a grandmother or says, "my grandparent's lake house," which proves that his grandmother was dead at the time.  It also points out that Lynch has a history of conveying a familial relationship through omitting and replacing certain pronouns in FWWM: "My mother's sister's girl." Lynch may be sending a message by not mentioning the grandmother, implying that she is gone, though she had to have existed.

I don't completely agree with the video's explanation that the boy represents a side of Leland that is aware of BOB's possession of him, and the Grandmother represents death to Leland. It doesn't completely explain how they exist. I just can't believe that these two beings inhabit the Black Lodge because Leland is somehow conjuring them up. 

The grandmother was likely a victim of BOB as well. It's quite probable that she lived at the lake house with the grandfather and Leland at one point, and was aware of BOB. Maybe BOB has been collecting members of this family for years. If she is Leland's grandmother, she could have become part of the Black Lodge as a wondering spirit protecting the soul of her grandson. She could have also died a more natural death, and her spirit works to protect Leland's childhood soul in the beyond.  

It is clear that the last names given to the Grandmother and Grandson characters are that of the homes they invade, and not an undisclosed family name of the Palmer's. We learn that the Tremond household Donna visits in Episode 2.2 of Twin Peaks is owned by a Mrs. Tremond. However, she is not the same woman when Donna goes back to show Agent Cooper.

Fake Tremond

Real Tremond

The name of the grandson is left ambiguous. I was pretty sure of this until I read the Twin Peaks Wiki entry that refers to him as Pierre. Then I began to question myself. How do we know that this boy is named Pierre? We don't. He isn't.

He is listed as "Mrs. Tremond's Grandson" on the IMDB page of FWWM and "Little Boy"in the Twin Peaks IMDB. Only the Twin Peaks Wiki calls him as such, and they apparently got it from a set of Twin Peaks trading cards produced by Star Pics.

If he looks like a mini David Lynch that's because he's played by Austin Jack Lynch in the series.

Pierre's card has some pretty bogus facts on it. A commenter named geoffr11 warns in The Black Lodge Encyclopedia, of an article about The Jumping Man, that the Star Pics cards were not cannon to the Twin Peaks universe. It's clear the people who made this card didn't really get what The Little Boy was, and chose to portray him as a real boy who they imagined went to Twin Peaks Elementary and likes magic tricks. It states he was born in 1983, but I think we can all agree he is immortal. And they named him Pierre - out of their butts. So now that we know for sure that the Grandson's name is unknown, his identity as Leland's childhood soul is still viable.

Maybe Little Boy was affectionately named Pierre because in Episode 2.9 he said a phrase in French, which translates to “I am a lonely soul”. Oooh Frenchy knows French, what's this kid's name - Pierre? “I am a lonely soul" is the same message that would later be found written on Harold Smith's suicide note. This shows that the Grandmother and Grandson know facts about the deaths they hover around. It can also imply that they reside in a space (the Black Lodge) that transcends time, so from their perspective everything in the future is clear. The phrase could also be self reflective of the little boy. If he is Leland's sole - the sole that Leland gave up to BOB when he was "just a little boy," - then this character would be a lost soul indeed.

As characters the Grandmother and Grandson are neutral in almost every way. The Twin Peaks Wiki states that Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont "has an unclear link to the Lodges and her intentions are unclear." They have interactions with people, but are not antagonizing. One might argue that if the Grandmother is Laura Palmer's great grandmother, wouldn't she be a bit more loving in her presence, or try harder to keep Laura away from harm? Instead she and her grandson treat Laura as a stranger they have to relay cryptic messages to. I don't have a concrete answer to this, but it could be that since the Grandmother was not alive when Laura was born, she has no emotional attachment to her as a spirit. The little boy wouldn't know Laura as his daughter either, since he embodies only that of Leland's past self. While they seem to be wherever death is, it may be that the Tremonds prepare BOB's victims for the inevitable.

Nothing they do explicitly helps anyone, or harms anyone directly. When Laura sees the couple outside the diner in FWWM, the Grandmother hands Laura a framed picture of a room. The picture later leads Laura through a dream that makes her aware of the green ring and the Black Lodge. The Grandson whispers about BOB/Leland taking Laura's diary:

 "The man behind the mask is looking for the book with the pages torn out. He is going towards the hiding place."

He doesn't use any names, and doesn't imply any urgency. The Grandson just makes the statement, and Laura takes it as she will. Laura is disturbed by this knowledge and it causes her to go home and see that the "man behind the mask" is BOB, and Leland is his mask. The Tremond's information is informative, but Laura still is set on a path towards destruction.

The mask warn by the Grandson in this scene represents Leland's ignorance to his own possession. It also acts as a disguise from Leland himself and Laura. In the Black Lodge Encyclopedia of The Twin peaks Gazette user Sourdust says of the mask, "Significantly then, his true face is never seen by any of the Palmers, who would otherwise be able to identify him."

The Grandson is unmasked in front of Donna, but she wouldn't recognize him as Leland anyway. In the other scenes where he appears outside the Black Lodge in FWWM, the boy is masked in front of Laura, who would recognize him from photos and just generally being familiar with her own father. When Leland is walking away from the motel where Laura is waiting with Teresa and Ronnette for their John (well, Leland actually), he catches a glimpse of the Grandson jumping in the parking lot. Leland may have recognized himself if the mask weren't there.

The only other instance we see the Tremonds interacting with someone in the real world is in Twin Peaks during the scene where Donna Hayward makes her Meals on Wheels delivery. Mrs. Tremond emphatically says that she does not like creamed corn. We learn in FWWM that creamed corn is the physical embodiment of "garmonbozia" which means pain and sorrow. The Man From Another Place and BOB horde garmonbozia, so if anyone says they don't like it, then they must be one of the good guys.

The Grandmother and Grandson's only suspicion comes from being close to death and destruction. In FWWM we don't actually see them at the Fat Trout Trailer Park where Teresa Banks lived. This is the only time they are referred to as the Chalfonts. The land lord of the trailer park tells Agent Cooper that the empty space used to have a trailer in it owned by the Chalfonts, who were an old woman and her grandson.

This explains their other last name. They could have simply possessed the Chalfont residence for a time, as they did with Mrs. Tremond's home. However in this case, the real Chalfonts never return once the Grandma and Grandson disappear. The trailer is gone and the landlord doesn't know where they went. It can only be assumed that this is the same grandmother/grandson pair that we know of, and they split town once Teresa was done for - or after Agent Chester Desmond picks up the green ring under their trailer and inexplicably disappears himself.

Somehow Lynch can always make empty lit rooms seem sinister.

Did they lay the bait, or did BOB?

Emotional Me: 7 Scenes That Made Me Cry

I have absolutely seen The Chipmunk Adventure. It came out the year I was born and played on the Disney Channel all the time in the early 90s. I don't remember crying at this scene, but judging by other things that have made me cry, I totally feel for the toddler in this viral video.



Good gracious, that little girl gives me the feels. In solidarity I want to share a list of all the movies that I cried during.

1. The Secret Garden (1993)

I was about 6 when I saw The Secret Garden, but I don't think I finished it because I was such a wreck after this particular scene. The little girl protagonist, Mary is having a dream that's either a memory of her mother or a representation of how terrible she was (part of the plot is that her parents were rich and self-absorbed, before they abandoned her in death anyway).

My memory of the scene was a 2 or 3 year-old girl walking toward her mother in a forest. The mother at first is waving the girl forward, then she suddenly finds something else more interesting and runs away, leaving the girl in tears. What actually happened is pretty similar (yay for terrible vivid memories!) except the mother gets pulled away into the forest in a filmed backwards and sped up kind of way (as filmed dream sequences are wont to do). Regardless, the little girl is left legitimately weeping and calling for her mother, and nearly made me cry again rewatching it.

Click here to see this scene.

2. A Little Princess (1995)

Believe it or not, The Secret Garden and A Little Princess were written by the same woman, Frances Hodgson Burnett. I say this sarcastically because the two stories are at heart pretty similar in that the main protagonist is a precocious little rich girl who once lived in Victorian India, but then had to move to England for tragic reasons. It's like Dickens for little girls. 

The American 1995 movie was directed by Alfonso Cuarón

who is famous for directing Y Tu Mama Tambien and Gravity, amongst others (wow). In this version Sara is in a boarding school in New York instead of London. I think I saw A Little Princess on TV when I was about 8.
Spoilers ahead:
 It's that part where Sara is escaping her attic prison and finds herself in front of her father - the one she thought was dead - but he has amnesia so he doesn't remember her! It's like you think she's saved once he appears, but then life takes the biggest dump on her. Sara is going through such a frenzy; at first hugging him and rejoicing, then acting like a crazy person trying to get him to remember when he wont hug her back. Her futile screaming is heartbreaking. And then the police are like, this man doesn't know you! Off to jail you go, 7 year-old! She's being carted away by the cops, crying and screaming, and then a magical Indian man stares at him so uncomfortably long with such a judgmental stare, that he remembers Sara just in the nick of time.

3. The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh "Find Her, Keep Her" (1988)

Technically this is an episode from a TV show, but it counts because it made me cry on a Saturday morning; formerly a sacred time for cartoons and children's programing. Rabbit finds a baby bird and decides to raise her in such a controlling manner, I'm surprised they didn't just drive the bird/flight metaphor home by keeping her locked in a literal cage. The bird, named Kessie, wants to fly, but Rabbit thinks it's too dangerous so he scolds and punishes her whenever she tries. Maybe he really just knows if Kessie flies she will fly away from him... Am I right, Rabbit? Aren't you just afraid of her leaving you, so you crush her independence and try to make her feel guilty for being an individual? Pretty deep and pretty dark for Winnie the Pooh.

The scene that really got me was after Kessie goes against Rabbit's wishes and practices flying, he is so spiteful, Rabbit refuses to tell Kessie one last bedtime story before she flies south for the winter. I remember a shot of the outside of Rabbit's house, and all you hear is Kessie sobbing over the snow. Watched this again and discovered it was just as depressing as I remembered it. 



Right between 18:00 and 20:00 things get pretty grim. 

4. 50 First Dates (2004)

This is hard for me to admit, but yes I have cried at an Adam Sandler romcom. Spoilers ahead:
That part at the very end when Lucy (Drew Barrymore) wakes up to learn that she has a young daughter, she's moved to tears, and you know Lucy's woken up to this revelation everyday for years. And then that ukulele version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow plays and - it's just game over!
Also, their daughter in this scene looks a lot like the little girl in The Secret Garden dream sequence...

5. Moulin Rouge (2001)

I was in high school and most likely going through a break-up when I saw this one. Pretty much the last half hour of the movie was what I believed to be the cinematic version of my relationship. In a weird way I empathised more for Christian (Ewan McGregor) than Satine (Nicloe Kidman). Maybe because I felt like someone who's love was being taken from them rather than the one who was being taken away - by greedy creeps or TB. The first time I saw this was at a friend's house and I spent so much time in the bathroom crying afterwards she had to check in on me.

They also sang the shit out of Come What May. Recently I had to concentrate real hard to not cry in a Yoga to Music class where (for some reason) Come What May played.  Thank goodness it wasn't during the Savasana or I would have fallen into a dark place.

 

6. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004)

It's hard for me to pin point when Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind makes me cry. It's for sure within the last 30 minutes. I cry for Joel (Jim Carrey), I cry for Clementine (Kate Winslet). I feel for both sides, I understand both sides. It's just so sad when you're having trouble in a relationship and you look back at the good times and just wonder what the hell went wrong. I didn't cry the first time I saw it, but the couple times since there have been waterworks for sure. The clip below is a good example.

7. Juno (2007)

I swear the first time I saw the trailer for Juno I cried. A trailer - something that should only capture a very brief sketch of the emotions in a film - made me cry. Someone definitely re-tooled the trailer later to seem funnier, because in all of the subsequent viewings the trailer looked more like a quirky comedy than a movie about a girl who has to give up her baby. Or maybe I was just in a different mood.

The funny trailer probably appealed to my friends like so many others, and that's why I went to see it. But when I actually saw Juno in theaters those tears were bound to find their way back. When Juno hands over her baby... all I have to say is, I held back what would have been audible sobs in the movie theater.

Below is a version of the trailer that is the closest I could find to what I remembered. It has Mott the Hoople's All the Young Dudes in it, which can be quite touching when paired with the right imagery.



Please share your movie crying moments in the comments section below. No matter how silly you might think it is in hindsight, movies make you feel and that's a good thing.

How The Elephant Man is Stylistically Similar to Eraserhead: with Twin Peaks Bonus

A black and white David Lynch directed film with a deformed individual and a nightmarish setting. That quick description can sum up both The Elephant Man or Eraserhead quite easily. The Elephant Man, David Lynch's first mainstream film from 1980, still holds many stylistic values from Lynch's 1977 art house debut, Eraserhead. Below are visual examples of nearly identical themes and mise en scene, and also SPOILERS abound!

Right off the bat, both films have cool double exposures.

But those cool double exposures have deeper meanings behind them concerning creating life, and the fragility of that life. Both films discuss the theme of giving birth to something deformed and irregular. In Eraserhead Henry, the main protagonist, has dinner at his girlfriend Mary X's parent's house. Mrs. X grills Henry about his sexual relationship with Mary and breaks the news that Mary gave birth to... something. 

"Mother, they don't even know if it is a baby!"

In this scenario the product of sex is more than the responsibility of a child, it's an abomination against humanity. It's a punishment and a shame.

Beautiful mothers.

In The Elephant Man, John Merrick (the Elephant Man) is known to have a beautiful mother and no known father. The opening shots imply that his mother was raped by elephants, causing his deformity, but that is obviously highly improbable, and more of a fantasy origin story. Though the thought of bestial rape is horrible, it is maybe somehow less horrible than the hard truth of raping a fellow human being, or that diseases like neurofibromatosis exist.

This is a frame from the beginning of The Elephant Man, showing Dr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins) walking through the freak show, and it sums up the film in a matter of a second.

I noticed that the sign here says "The Fruit of the Original Sin" and it shows only Eve, the tempting snake, and a fetus in a jar. It's hard to see the fetus, but one can assume that it was deformed by the mere fact it's featured in a freak show. The symbolism is huge here, showing only the mother, no father, and the animal this poor soul is associated with, very much like John Merrick's story. It's obvious that the "original sin" here is copulation, and the "fruit" is the deformed child.

The two main protagonists of The Elephant Man are Dr. Frederick Treves and John Merrick. The two main characters of Eraserhead are Henry and "the baby." It can be argued which characters are the lead or supporting. Connections between John Merrick and the baby can be bridged by the superficial idea that they are deformed.

The baby

The baby, regardless of it's deformities, is still a baby, and therefore cannot do much more than cry and exist. John Merrick is an individual who's initial worth was only to exist for a freak show, but despite his difficulties communicating, is found to be a man capable of higher thought and appreciation of the arts.

John Merrick

Both individuals have handicaps, and must be looked after. The baby is never moved from it's pillow bed. It is always swaddled, but when Henry decides to cut off the wrapping all Hell breaks loose, and it is clear (well maybe not clear) that the baby needed the swaddling.

John Merrick must sleep very awkwardly hunched forward with his head between his knees. If he were to sleep flat on his back like a regular person, he would suffocate and die.

He also has a covering; the hood and cloak he wears in public.

In viewing the visual similarities between these films, the use of men's suits struck me as well. Of course John Merrick wore a suit like any other man from his time period. Having him wear a suit was not a stylistic choice of Lynch as much as a necessity to properly tell this true story.

The nightmare scene in Eraserhead, (or is it all a nightmare? -  no one can really know, but this was the most surreal part of the film, so let's refer to it as "the nightmare") when the baby's head replaces Henry's, is a visual precursor to the deformed John Merrick wearing the gentleman's suit. This scene in is obviously symbolic of Henry's paternity to the infant, and the horror of this truth. The Elephant Man becomes a functioning member of British high society, because he is a man - not an animal - and he is someones child, despite the horror that may bring some people.

The sets in The Elephant Man are stylistically similar to Eraserhead. Lynch made Eraserhead's setting an industrial fever dream based on his experience living in Philadelphia. Therefore the sets are filthy, metallic, and treeless.

Eraserhead

They are filled with pipes and barrels and valves. The sound of trains, machines and steam fill the soundtrack. Steam is it's own character in Eraserhead. In the industrial wasteland Lynch places his characters, it hangs in the air around buildings, and hisses out of radiators in homes.

Mary X's house, Eraserhead

Grim, industrial, smoking, steamy, with virtually no natural beauty; nineteenth century life in Europe was the perfect palate for Lynch following Eraserhead.

French circus camp, The Elephant Man

Grimy windows are a given in this atmosphere. Both films feature a "looking through a dirty window" scene.

I think Henry is here.

Mr. Treves looking for John Merrick.

Sad studio apartments are also something Henry and John Merrick have in common.

At least I have that paper church I'm building.

At least I have my mound of dirt.

Unbelievably grim realities aside, it wouldn't be a David Lynch film without a creepy dream sequence.

A hole from Eraserhead.

Lynch used rings and holes in Eraserhead as portals to apparent dream sequences and/or and changes in time. Twin Peaks also uses the symbol of the ring throughout the series, ultimately as a reference to the opening of The Black Lodge. In The Elephant Man, Lynch used the hole/ring symbol again to introduce John Merrick's dream sequence.

Sucking the viewer through the one eye hole in John Merrick's modesty hood, we are drawn into his insecurities, his fears, and general view of life. This shot below from the dream sequence is of men working in a factory.  

This could be an actual  machine and factory process for all I know, but since it's David Lynch, and a dream sequence, I won't rule out that it's just a completely made up surreal action.

It reminded me of the "Man in the Planet" (as he is referred to on IMDB). Shirtless, men of industry. Just replace the steam with sparks.

Throughout Lynch's works gross close-ups can be found in almost any film project. It is still worth noting that Lynch took that instinct from his first film, Eraserhead, and included it in The Elephant Man.

The baby's eye in Eraserhead.

The elephant mouth is nearly unrecognizable, but it visually calls back to John Merrick's lumpy disfigurement; a closer match to his ailment than the external view of the creature he is named after.

Inside the elephant's mouth in The Elephant Man.

Both films have concluding scenes with angelic figures presumably taking the protagonist to Heaven.

"In Heaven everything is fine."

In Eraserhead the Lady in the Radiator makes several appearances in Henry's fantasies, and she once again meets him in a blinding white light. She embraces him in the white light and resounding humming sounds after the sequence of his apparent beheading.

After John Merrick lays down for his first and last peaceful slumber, his mother's face appears in a halo in the stars making this comforting statement: "Never. Oh, never. Nothing will die. The stream flows, the wind blows, the cloud fleets, the heart beats. Nothing will die."

When I first watched the The Elephant Man, I heard that familiar Lynchian roar. It's when he takes the sound of a woman screaming and slows it down so the voice deepens and distorts. The Elephant Man must have been one of the first instances of this. John Merrick's mother is felled by a group of elephants and her screams sound like the elephant's roar.

Cut to 1:15 to hear the GIF above.



One of the best examples of this sound effect in Lynch's work is in episode 14 of Twin Peaks. When cousin Madeline is attacked by Bob, the scene toggles back and forth between regular speed and slow-mo. Her voice is deepened as she screams, sounding like an animal, a roaring fire, or Bob's own maniacal laugh.

Cut to 2:25 to hear the slow-mo scream.



In Fire Walk With Me, Laura Palmer has a painting in her room of an angel sitting at a table with children. It looks like an illustration that would be in a child's room.

Laura, having lost her innocence long ago, sees the angel disappear, symbolizing her lost innocence, lost hope, and the idea that the angel is no longer looking after her.

This painting is referenced to several times in Fire Walk With Me, while a similar framed illustration in John Merrick's room is only seen at the very end of The Elephant Man.

This illustration of a sleeping child represents the peace and a normalcy that John wished he had. As mentioned earlier, due to his condition, John Merrick had to sleep sitting up with his head between his knees. After being honored at the theater, and having one of the best nights of his life, John studies this illustration and seems to decide he wants to sleep that way. John is well aware of the danger.

Going to sleep like a regular peaceful child was just the cap to his wonderful day in his life, and he did not believe it could get any better. The act was apparent suicide, and definitely not a naive action. He sees this illustration soon before his death much like Laura Palmer sees the angel disappear soon before hers.

Also, Laura Palmer went to Heaven too.

Sweet dreams!