I will not pretend that I am a wise sage who totally understood Robert Eggers’ The lighthouse in first visualization. I remember distinctly when I saw the film in theaters for the first time. It was a projection from the end of 10 p.m., which was definitely an error. With its black and white plans, its unusual rhythm, its strange siren fixation and its endless jokes, watching the film too close to bedtime was certainly not the movement. Fortunately, I looked at him again in the right setting, and I was able to fully appreciate it as a masterpiece. The lighthouse is one of those films that viewers must fully invest in observation. Put the phones, sit in a dark room to appreciate the beautiful cinematography and be completely absorbed by the strange nightmare of Lovecraftian fever that Eggers puts on the screen. There is no half-line the film. Everything is in or nothing.
For those who are ready to invest for an hour and forty-nine minutes, really looking at The lighthouse, I think it is difficult not to see mastery and genius in each framework. The film looks like a literary classic which has been twisted, distorted and redesigned in a hallucinatory state. Indeed, the script was based on an unfinished work by Master Macabre Edgar Allan Poe, and Robert Eggers was inspired by the works of Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, and of course, HP Lovecraft. The lighthouse is a period drama, a psychological horror and a comedy all wrapped in one. To date, it is the most original film in Eggers, but it has not obtained the recognition it deserves because it is still quite poorly understood by the modern public. The objective of consumer success will probably be forever elusive of the film Arthouse. I am convinced that it is simply too intelligent for his own good.
A frightening atmosphere takes place in the lighthouse
The genius of The lighthouse is in its subtleties. There is nothing to “happen” for the majority of the film, but the threat of something hidden on the island is what creates tension. The strange atmosphere comes from the dark pockets of space inside the lighthouse, sporadic fog that could be heard in the background, the claustrophobic aspect ratio 1.19: 1 of the camera, and above all, in the enigmatic nature of the two main characters, Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and Thomas Wake (Will Dafoe).
The lighthouse takes place in the 19th century. Ephraim Winslow (his name is also Thomas Howard, but in the future, I will call him Ephraim to avoid confusion) arrives on a desolate island of New England to take the position of headcaster under the vigilant eye of Thomas Wake. Being far from civilization is difficult for their mental health, and it is difficult to keep their mental health intact, especially since they do not particularly love each other at the beginning. Thomas submits Ephraim to all kinds of stains with high intensity of labor, emptying chamber pots to transport kerosene tanks in many stairs.
It is perhaps because he is so tired of the requirements of the work that Ephraim begins to have hallucinations. It is in these visions that the public obtains the gain for all the frightening atmosphere that had been built. Ephraim believes that he sees a siren stranded on the shore. He also imagines that sea monsters are hiding in the surrounding water. A Borgne seagull, on the other hand, serves as a superstitious omen in the spirit of Ephraim.
There is no special effects service that creates monsters in The lighthouse, However, there is still something incredibly frightening in the way they are presented. As a public, we do not know if what Ephraim sees is really real, where the dread comes from. Robert Eggers has crossed many versions of the script to the final version. He didn’t want nothing to be too clear for the public, because the idea was that they were also made crazy.
Aside from the implicit monsters, the terror of the film comes from the interactions of Ephraim and Thomas. One night during a storm, Ephraim admits drunk in Thomas that one of his past mistakes had a man drown. Coupled with isolation in the lighthouse, viewers now wonder if Ephraim’s overwhelming guilt led him to madness.
He would be sure to say that madness is the central theme of The lighthouse. The film in no way follows a conventional narrative arc, so some viewers can find it too surreal, experimental and bizarre. However, those who go to the strange will appreciate master’s degree at work. Robert Eggers manages the material with a subtle hand, and the film is better because of this fact.
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson give revolutionary performance
Robert Eggers can only do a lot behind the camera and with the script. He needed good actors to deliver the equipment, and Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson went up on occasion. They have a strange dynamic between them, which makes sense when we consider that they were barely talking on the set. It was not because they had a rivalry, but rather because of the exhausting weather conditions of the shooting. There were icy temperatures, rain, snow and extreme winds. The brutal conditions made them too tired to spend quality time together when the cameras did not drive. It also did not help that, during the shooting, Dafoe lived in Solitude in a nearby chalet while Pattinson remained in a probably luxurious hotel.
In the end, the involuntary distance of Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson worked for the best in The lighthouse. Thomas Wake and Ephraim Winslow have never been supposed to be the best friends. Their skepticism with each other was not as credible on the screen if the actors were real friends before the film ended.
I don’t want to suggest that Williem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson have bad will towards each other – the opposite. The two were very well linked when they finally had their first conversation for months after filming. Perhaps this chemistry did not exist during the realization of the film, but it is almost as if viewers could say that it would end up doing it. After all, Thomas Wake and Ephraim Wilson share an unusual link difficult to define. They also threw a striking image when one is next to each other in various scenes.
Robert Eggers attributes their dynamics to the various ways including Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson have approached each scene. Dafoe liked to repeat and was ready to take after taking. Pattinson, on the other hand, preferred to jump into a scene without knowing a lot in advance. He ended up thinking about the spontaneity that Eggers was trying to cultivate. The writer / director believes that the fact that Dafoe and Pattinson came from different actor schools is what makes the film work. He declares:
[Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson] Have this incredible electric chemistry on the screen, but it was chemistry by tension. It couldn’t have been better for the film.
The lighthouse Simply would not have such magnetic quality without the casting. The push and the traction between Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson is what motivates each scene. Credit must also go to Robert Eggers for having voluntarily pushed its actors beyond their breaking points. He threw men who were able to take up the challenge of the script, whether it was the pure euphoria on Pattinson’s face when he finds the siren, or the crazy look in Dafoe’s eye when he accuses his comrade of “overthrowing the beans”.
Critics were just as impressed by the lighthouse
I was not the only one to think LighthouWas a superbly done horror film. Many criticisms were also generous with their distinctions. The film has an impressive 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.4 / 10 on IMDB and an 83 on Metacritic. Owen Gleiberman of Variety called him “darkly exciting” and “made with extraordinary competence”. The film was intelligent, daring and daring.
Not everyone has understood the mastery of The lighthouse. Many moviegoers have been perplexed by the surreal style of the film and the apparently nonexistent script. Others were downright angry, accusing the film of being pretentious and swollen. Strangeness is part of the attraction of the film, but it is also part of its fall.
Robert Eggers offered wave directions behind the camera in the film, and this shows in the final product. For example, he told Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson that he had no idea what they saw when they looked at the light of the lighthouse. He could only tell them that the light had a hypnotic quality. It seemed to make them feel frustrated, confused and full of despair. This is an appropriate comparison when you talk about how the public will feel looking The lighthouse.
Some people will be firmly in the same boat (intentional wording there) as me thinking The lighthouse is great. Others will think that it makes no sense. Anyway, it is difficult not to respect Robert Eggers as a filmmaker. He has a vision in all his films that he holds proudly, even if he is weird and difficult to present in a studio. For better or for worse, it is ready to take risks. I believe The lighthouse was a risk to take.