“Why’d ya spill yer beans?“
In 2019’s The Lighthouse, director and writer Robert Eggers shows how little is required to create an intriguing and effective film. I use the word ‘effective’ because I believe a film can still be good without being effective. For example, if you watch a film at the cinema for a good time, you can come out having enjoyed it and acknowledged its objectively good qualities. For a film to be effective, however, it has to make you feel something. To leave you thinking, or in some cases, inspired. Many films attempt to achieve this by trying to be clever, and perhaps sometimes a little too clever. Films which try to be too clever lose their effectiveness, because they often leave audiences not knowing what to think. The Lighthouse is an effective movie because it has objectively good qualities, such as the performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, and it doesn’t try to be too clever. Yet it leaves you thinking about its core themes and potentially what makes or breaks a man.
Set in the 1890s, the film follows Dafoe and Pattinson’s characters as lighthouse keepers off the coast of New England. One of the most striking and unique aspects of the film is that its entirely in black and white, and filmed on a 1:19.1 aspect ratio (which merely fills the screen to a square like many of the earliest films ever made). Not only does this encapsulate the dark and gritty feeling of the time period, but also creates an underlying claustrophobic feeling throughout the whole film. The whole world for these two men becomes the lighthouse, each other, and as Dafoe’s character frequently puts it, ‘the rock’. I wouldn’t call myself a particularly informed film enthusiast who knows what every technical term under the sun means, but I can appreciate the effect of simple things like lighting and shot composition has on an audience. The Lighthouse shows how simply getting the right facial expression with the appropriate lighting can instil feelings of terror and discomfort in a viewer. It is simple things like this that prove filmmaking is indeed a form of artistry; creating images and sounds for viewers to experience and provoke various emotions.
As mentioned before, one of the best aspects of this film are the performances of Dafoe and Pattinson. Quite possibly career highlights. This is mainly because of the simplicity of the characters and the situation they’re placed in, so a lot of the intrigue of the film relies on the performance of the actors. Dafoe plays Thomas Wake, the older, more experienced lighthouse keeper who has been on ‘the rock’ for clearly too many years. Pattinson however plays the much younger Ephraim Winslow, slightly begrudged at being placed on a rock having bounced from job to job for a while. The way these two characters bounce off one another makes most of the film; sometimes like two lifelong brothers having a good time, and sometimes like two insane people locked in a basement. The emotional range that these characters display really helps to credit Dafoe and Pattinson as two of the best at their craft. One may go from giving a powerful monologue about the sea and touching upon some Greek mythology, and the other simply responds with a snarky remark – both remain believably within their characters. This was another pleasant surprise about the film – it was strangely funny in all the right places. Again, this has a lot to do with how well Dafoe and Pattinson interact with each other. I never knew a film with such an ambiguous range of genres could somehow include fart jokes and still make them work.
There was several days between me watching The Lighthouse and writing this blog, simply because I needed to gather my thoughts on this film and write them down coherently. This is the type of film that really leaves you thinking, and very much makes you question your own sanity when watching it just as the characters do. To its core, the most haunting aspect of this movie is that it depicts what happens to two men if you strip them of society. It explores a power struggle; both between the two men and within themselves. What would you do if you were stranded on an island with a stranger? Would you go insane? Would you make the most of it? It’s one of those morally ambiguous situations which we don’t quite know what we’d do unless we were actually placed in it. The Lighthouse explores this, and pushes the emotional and moral boundaries of what it means to be human. This film really reminded me of The Shining, the way it prolongs uncomfortable scenes, its unique use of sound, and of course the way it hauntingly lingers on the effects of ‘cabin fever’ (there was one scene in particular which I thought was directly inspired by The Shining). Films like the The Lighthouse are the reason I love films and writing about them. As much as I love big blockbuster franchises, films like this provide something different to keep us thinking, and provoke emotional responses and interpretations like no other film does. I love being able to appreciate such a diverse range of cinema; from big budget franchises to lower budget, stand-alone, thought-provoking films such as this. The Lighthouse is a terrific reminder that cinema is an art form. It reminds us of the emotional impact of colour, images, and sounds, and the way they are put together can give each viewer a unique interpretation.
G does Films 