A crucial entry in the filmography of the young David Lynch, who made this 34 minute mini-epic following the shorts SIX MEN GETTING SICK (1967) and THE ALPHABET (1969). Completed with a grant from the American Film Institute, THE GRANDMOTHER (1970) is obviously not up to the standards of ERASERHEAD or BLUE VELVET, but offered a strong indicator of things to come in its bizarre yet pointed depiction of childhood angst, in which category it ranks with similarly minded classics like LE RÉVÉLATEUR (1968) and SKINAMARINK (2022).
A pasty skinned couple (Viriginia Maitland and Robert Chadwick) and a their young son (Richard White) sprout up from the ground fully clothed, crawl around on four legs and, upon attaining their full two legged gait, move into a shadowy and forbidding house to assume the trappings of modern civilization (coiffed hair, fancy sheets, etc.). The boy, however, wets his bed, and gets his nose rubbed in the orange-colored mess by his enraged father.
The boy finds a large seed that emits a whistling sound, and plants it in a mound of dirt on his bed. From the mound an ugly tree-like structure grows that, with nasty farting and plunging sounds, disgorges the grandmother of the title (Dorothy McGinnis), a sweet natured old woman who stands in sharp contrast to the boy’s dour elders. She gives the boy the confidence to subdue his parents in his imagination, but the grandmother appears to have a shelf life, emitting a whistling sound and literally running down, leaving the boy bereft.
THE GRANDMOTHER foreshadowed Lynch’s later work in many particulars. The oppressive atmosphere and presentation of a hapless protagonist attempting to navigate an increasingly irrational world (with the boy foreshadowing ERASERHEAD’S Henry, BLUE VELVET’s Jeffrey and LOST HIGHWAY‘s Fred) are related in peerlessly unsettling imagery (much of it animated) that might have been plucked directly from its creator’s subconscious. Standout scenes include an unsettling dinner table confrontation between the boy and his parents and the boy’s intimate interactions with the grandmother, which border on inappropriate.
Appropriately for a man who described himself as a soundman-director, THE GRANDMOTHER is very sound conscious. It was filmed entirely without recorded sound, with the audio effects, generated largely by Lynch himself, inserted during postproduction. Guttural grunts and shouts take the place of dialogue, punctuated by whirring and buzzing courtesy of the late Alan Splet (who went on to collaborate with Lynch on many of his greatest films), while the droning and repetitive score was accomplished by a mysterious someone (or someones?) identified as “Tractor.”
The cinematography, accomplished by Lynch himself, is one area that fails to measure up to his later work. The primitive animation and stop motion effects are passable, but the expressive lighting by future Lynch collaborators like Frederick Elmes and Ron Garcia is nowhere to be found in THE GRANDMOTHER’s unevocative illumination, which fails to prettify or disguise the cardboard-and-paper maiche sets. That Lynch was wise enough to refrain from doing his own cinematography on subsequent films proves his judgement was solid, with the good things of THE GRANDMOTHER amplified in those films, and the not-so-good ones jettisoned.
Vital Statistics
THE GRANDMOTHER
Director/Producer/Screenplay/Cinematography/Editing: David Lynch
Cast: Richard White, Dorothy McGinnis, Virginia Maitland, Robert Chadwick