In 1967, when he was only 21 years old, the late David Lynch moved to Philadelphia with his pregnant wife Peggy. The city will change him forever. He moved into a cheap home in a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood. He also felt that he was not ready to become a father, even though he loved his daughter Jennifer very much. In the book of interviews "Lynch on Lynch", the director said that Philadelphia is a city of fear. People regularly broke into his house and his car was stolen. "There was violence, hatred and filth," he said. He got a job as an engraver, and his thoughts went dark.

From 1967 to 1970, Lynch began making his first short films, including Six Men Get Sick and The Alphabet. The first was to be projected onto a specially sculpted screen that Lynch made himself, with six human figures protruding from the wall. Around the same time, the American Film Institute was founded, and Lynch saw it as an excellent avenue for obtaining funding for additional film projects, as well as for involvement in the program's Center for Advanced Film Studies. AFI, in Lynch's recollection, was still organizing at the time and appeared to be loosely assembled. Lynch eventually received funding from the AFI to make his own short film, The Grandmother, which he shot in his house. However, while filming The Grandmother, he learned that the AFI Conservatory rarely inspected him and did not appear to require any results. Just give him money and he was free.

This ethos, he says, will be carried over into his first feature film, Eraserhead. Lynch was given a grant and allowed to work at his own pace. As a perfectionist, Lynch shot slowly and meticulously. Money often ran out. There were breaks. Filming on Eraserhead began in 1972. It will not be completed until 1977.

Lynch didn't like the AFI as an organization, but when he was offered the chance to do whatever he wanted with a script without any interference, he jumped at the chance. He presented a 21-page script to the higher-ups, and they were confused when he assured them it was a feature film, not a short. The school's dean, Frank Daniel, insisted that Lynch be allowed to succeed and even threatened to resign if funding was not secured. The screenplay was inspired by Lynch's love for Franz Kafka, as well as the short story "The Nose" by Nokilay Gogol. More than anything, however, Lynch was inspired by his miserable time in Philadelphia, reminding himself that the big city was full of hate and soot. Not the warmest place for a kid born in Missoula, Montana.

The film was Lynch's first masterpiece, Eraserhead. It followed a worried-faced man named Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) who lived in a nightmarish industrial hell. His window faces a brick wall and his apartment is dank and creaky. The pipes hiss and the radiator beckons with its inner heated glow. He has a girlfriend named Mary (Charlotte Stewart), but they never see each other. Henry goes to Mary's family's house for dinner, and the Cornish game hens come to life—and bleed—when he cuts them open. There is also a baby, although no one is ever sure that it is actually a baby. In time, Mary and Henry move into Henry's apartment with the baby, who looks like a small skinless animal wrapped in a bandage. Lynch has always been coy about how he constructed the baby for Eraserhead, but fans have long theorized that it was made from a fetal lamb.

Lynch has been on and off "Eraserhead" for years, taking months-long breaks during production. The money would run out, so he would have to supplement the financing from his own pocket, that of Sissy Spacek (who was married to the film's designer, Jack Fisk), and other friends. Production field of. And further. Construction has begun. It stopped. Lynch worked when he could.

Nance, according to stories, was never sure when, during the five years of filming, he would be called upon to play Henry, so he kept teasing his hair. During those five years, Nance worked his way around Los Angeles with his six-inch-tall coffin.

It was also said that Lynch would blindfold the projectionists who ran the film's dailies so he could keep the special effects of the baby a mystery. This could not speed up the process.

Then, after the four-year shoot was completed, Lynch got close to sound designer Alan Splett to create the film's unique industrial hums and groans. No movie sounds like Eraserhead. It feels like you are in the womb or trapped deep under water. It's scary and comforting at the same time. The sound design was so precise that it took her a whole year to herself. Finally, after all the shooting, delays and editing, Lynch came up with a 109-minute version of the film.

As might be expected, it was poorly received by the test audience, and Lynch produced 20 minutes. He also mixed it up to be a little quieter, feeling that many audiences were overwhelmed by all the moaning and hissing. Armed with the now-famous 89-minute cut, Lynch was finally ready to present the film to the public. It was March 1977. Lynch told stories of how AFI, when they found out that Eraserhead was finally going to be released, were surprised that their project was still a thing. Kind of forgotten that Lynch even existed.

However, no one could ever forget Eraserhead. It's an unmitigated nightmare, a glimpse into Lynch's deepest fears. It was also a dark mirror of his time in Philadelphia and, many said, a portrait of his worries about being a new father (which Lynch denied). The film took five years to make, but it was worth the wait.