David Lynch made this short during a troubled time when filming of Eraserhead had come to a stand-still due to lack of funds. He volunteered to make a short film twice as a test for a couple of stocks of black and white videotape that the American Film Institute wished to compare. As a result he made a film called The Amputee twice. Both versions are more or less the same and consist of a woman who is a double-amputee reading aloud to herself the contents of a letter that she has written while a doctor tends one of the stumps on her legs. It ends with the stump gushing blood, the doctor fleeing and the woman completely oblivious.
In truth it isn't very interesting. It's shot in one take with ugly composition. The quality of the videotape is poor in both versions; while the content is a combination of the repulsive with the mundane. It was written and filmed over the course of one day, and it is throwaway stuff that is of limited interest. It's more an example of the director's bizarre humour than anything else. It stars Catherine Coulson who would go on to play the part of The Log Lady in Twin Peaks.
In truth it isn't very interesting. It's shot in one take with ugly composition. The quality of the videotape is poor in both versions; while the content is a combination of the repulsive with the mundane. It was written and filmed over the course of one day, and it is throwaway stuff that is of limited interest. It's more an example of the director's bizarre humour than anything else. It stars Catherine Coulson who would go on to play the part of The Log Lady in Twin Peaks.