Burke describes Milton as I would describe Eraserhead, ‘dark, confused’ and ‘terrible’.  David Lynch’s Eraserhead demonstrates many of the qualities of obscurity.  He mentions that ‘when we know the full extent of any danger…a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.’ This works on a visual level in many films such as Jaws in which the shark does not appear until much later in the film. For example Burke describes how ‘night adds to our dread’ and certainly the darkness prevalent in the dark black and white photography of Eraserhead demonstrates this. However, I chose this film because not only does it portray aspects of obscurity visually but also on a psychological level.  The fears are unknown not simply because we can’t see them but because we can’t understand them. Lynch creates nightmarish scenes in which nothing is entirely explicable. The scene in which John Nance stares into a radiator whilst his wife is attempting to feed their deformed baby is dark, surreal and a scene in which ‘none can form clear ideas’. Burke also describes the power of certain images that are ‘crouded and confused’ but when separated these images lose their power to obscure and so they become clear.  In Eraserhead also, it is the juxtaposition of strange images together that make it obscure and surreal, such as the image of a theatre stage, seemingly behind the radiator. ‘It is our ignorance of things that causes our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.’ When watching Eraserhead it is often this ignorance and confusion created by Lynch that is affecting.