The Lighthouse (2019 film)

Co-writer and director Robert Eggers

The original idea of The Lighthouse was first articulated at a dinner between director Robert Eggers and his younger brother, Max Eggers. Robert was unhappy with his film industry prospects after the pitching of his first major feature, The Witch (2015), failed to secure funding.[11][12] Max shared a basic outline from his screenplay, a lighthouse-set ghost tale as part of an attempted reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished short story "The Light-House".[11] Adapting the short story proved troublesome, halting Max's progress on the script, then under the tentative working title Burnt Island.[11] Robert started musing ideas to bolster the project's conceptualization, and, with his brother's support, soon began investigating for source material.[11]

One story that caught the director's attention in his initial research was a nineteenth-century myth of an incident at Smalls Lighthouse in Wales, wherein one of two wickies, both named Thomas, dies while trapped at their outpost by a destructive storm. That both men were named Thomas, Robert recalled, compelled him to create a film with an underlying story of identity.[13] By the time there was a realized concept, Robert momentarily stopped his commitment to The Lighthouse when he found an investor to finance The Witch.[11]

After The Witch finished its theater rollout, the film's unexpected success elevated Robert's directing profile. To exploit his newfound credibility, he pushed The Lighthouse, one of several projects, in his negotiations with studio executives.[11] He and Max then resumed their work by exchanging drafts they revised accordingly. This coincided with more rigorous research of the period to develop the onscreen world: Robert immersed in photos of 1890s New England, 1930s maritime-themed French films, and symbolist art for visual reference.[11][13] The Eggers' study of literature with maritime and surrealist themes informed The Lighthouse characters' speech.[14] They looked into the writings of Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. P. Lovecraft, among others, before coming across literature from Sarah Orne Jewett, a novelist best known for her local color works set around the coast of Maine. Her dialect-heavy writing style provided the lead characters' cadences, rooted in the experiences of her own sailor characters and real-life farmers, fishermen and captains she had interviewed.[11][14] Robert and Max also deferred to a dissertation on Jewett's technique to guide their direction for intense conversational scenes.[11][14]

The Eggers' theater background was another force shaping The Lighthouse's creative direction. The two men sourced elements from playwrights that influenced their work as young teens, chiefly from artists such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sam Shepard whose writings examine male-centric perspectives of existential crises and psychosis.[11]

Actors Willem Dafoe (left) and Robert Pattinson (right). They portrayed lighthouse keepers marooned on a remote New England island by a violent storm.

The Lighthouse stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson. They both separately approached Eggers to express their enthusiasm for The Witch and their desire to collaborate.[15] Dafoe and Pattinson first met at a party, and Pattinson's participation was used as a selling point in pitches to Dafoe.[16] Their signings were announced separately to the media in February 2018.[17][18] Robert's initial film proposals with Dafoe were not fruitful.[11][16] When they met in person to discuss The Lighthouse, the director was plainspoken in the conversation. Dafoe recalled, "There was no discussion. 'This is the way we're going to do this. My way or the highway.' That's very unusual, especially for a two-hander, for a director to say, 'This is the way I see it. Yes or no?'"[16]

Pattinson and Robert originally met to negotiate terms for an unrelated project. Pattinson was offered, and passed on portraying a Victorian socialite because he believed the role would fail to challenge his acting ability.[11] His next meeting with Robert took place once he finished reading The Lighthouse's completed script. During the conversation, Pattinson showed Eggers a clip of an intoxicated man screaming "I am a demon" to convey this understanding of the director's vision.[11]

To prepare for their respective roles, each actor employed different techniques at the rehearsals. Dafoe was spontaneous in his performance, citing his theater background with the experimental troupe The Wooster Group, whereas Pattinson planned his rehearsing from the discussion of the script.[11][15]

Anya Taylor-Joy, who starred in Robert's directorial debut The Witch, was eager to work with him again and asked if she could play the mermaid. Robert replied that there was not a role for her and she "really should not be this particular mermaid". Taylor-Joy jokingly replied that she could play a seagull instead.[19]

The Lighthouse film set, Nova Scotia

Principal photography began on April 9, 2018, in Canada.[20][21] Filming finished slightly over schedule, at approximately 35 days, as a result of unforeseen circumstances on set.[22] Jarin Blaschke was contracted as the director of photography in his third collaboration with Robert.[23][24] Shooting officially commenced in Cape Forchu, a fishing village in southern Nova Scotia.[22] Because the filmmakers found no lighthouse suitable for the needs of the production, they constructed a 70-foot (20-meter) lighthouse set for their base of operations.[11][25] Elsewhere regionally, the production filmed scenes at Leif Erikson Park, inside a hangar at Yarmouth Airport, and soundstages near Halifax for interior shoots.[23][26][27] The Lighthouse's filming became a difficult undertaking as a combination of remote location, technical caveats of the camerawork, and harsh climate precipitated a stressful work environment.[11][25]

Robert had already envisioned shooting The Lighthouse in black-and-white, with a boxy aspect ratio, before drafting of the script.[11][28] Although he and Blaschke faced resistance from studio executives hoping to maximize the film's commercial prospects, the two men were adamant and did not want to shoot in color because they feared undermining the artistic integrity of their work.[23][29] Robert at first pushed the use of 1.33:1 format aspect ratio, believing it sufficiently captured confined sets and the lighthouse's vertical orientation, then reconsidered when Blaschke suggested 1.19:1 aspect ratio, imaging used fleetingly in the film industry's transition to sound, as an alternative (albeit in jest).[23][28] After further analysis of period films for inspiration, chiefly the German thriller M (1931), Blaschke determined that the 1.19:1 format endowed footage with a greater sense of confinement, while amplifying the physical isolation of the characters in their environment.[23]

Blaschke shot The Lighthouse on 35mm film using Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 cameras equipped with vintage Bausch and Lomb Baltar lenses. Occasionally, to capture flashback sequences or scenes of heightened conflict, specialized lenses refurbished by Panavision were used.[23] The onscreen universe was given a highly saturated visual palette evocative of orthochromatic film. Creating the spectrum of textures with a sufficient antique quality was one of Blaschke's initial responsibilities during the pre-production. He developed a process of testing the utility of digital footage in color negative film stock, first with Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 film, before selecting Eastman Double-X 5222 stock based on the composition produced.[28] Blaschke resumed the testing after securing the Baltar lenses for the shoot, this time with an arrangement of shortpass filters—a class of scientific optical filters—and photographic filters most sensitive to blue-green and ultraviolet light.[28] The specifications were so unusual that it required the manufacture of custom sets of filters by Schneider Kreuznach, a costly, month-long endeavor. Blaschke recalled, "I sketched a desired spectrograph on graph paper, indicating a complete elimination of all light beyond 570 nanometers [mid-yellow] while allowing all shorter wavelengths to pass freely. At that point, I was unsure of the true light loss and I was pretty nervous about it."[23] Post-production editing of The Lighthouse occurred simultaneously at the FotoKem film laboratories in Burbank, California.[28]

The Lighthouse's genre was described by critics such as Manohla Dargis of The New York Times as a horror film and Lee Marshall of Screen Daily as a psychological thriller.[30][2] Other critics, such as Owen Gleiberman of Variety stated that the film was one that could not be pigeonholed, declaring that "you may feel in your bones that you're watching a supernatural shocker [...] Are we seeing a slice of survival, a horror film, or a study in slow-brewing mutual insanity? How about all of the above?"[31] Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune echoed these statements, noting that the film's plot did not operate "as any sort of conventional ghost story, or thriller, or anything".[32]

Eggers said the film's sub-text was influenced by Sigmund Freud,[33] and hoped that "it's a movie where both Jung and Freud would be furiously eating their popcorn".[34] According to Pattinson, the phallic imagery of the lighthouse is explicit, as Eggers described it as an erect penis in the script.[34] The film was meant to include "a very juvenile shot of a lighthouse moving like an erect penis and a match-cut to Pattinson's actual erect penis", although this cut was removed upon request by financiers.[35] Winslow displays an Oedipal fixation on his boss, Wake, given his simultaneous fear and admiration of him. Pattinson commented on the father/son dynamic in the film, stating "I was pretty conscious of how I wanted the relationship to come across. In a lot of ways, he sort of wants a daddy."[34] As the film progresses, Winslow is increasingly "looking for Willem [Dafoe]'s validation" both as a boss and as a father figure.[36]

The Sea Monster (c. 1493–1503) by Albrecht Dürer

Eggers was inspired by sailors' myths and classical mythology. After finally obtaining the light, and the knowledge of what is in the light, Howard falls to his death down the stairs of the lighthouse and his organs are plucked out by seagulls, invoking the myth of Prometheus. Wake was modeled on Proteus, a "prophecy-telling ocean god who serves Poseidon." Not only is he later shown with tentacles and sea creatures stuck to his body, but "he also makes that uncannily accurate prediction for how Ephraim will die at the end of the movie."[33] Albrecht Dürer's engraving The Sea Monster inspired Wake's appearance: Eggers said "The Proteus figure that is more clearly nautical is somewhat based on a sea monster by Dürer, who carries a tortoise shell shield."[37]

Eggers explains his mythological inspiration for the film: it's "partially because [Herman] Melville goes there and partially because of I'm sure our unhealthy Jungian leanings you get into classical mythology in this movie."[38]

Hypnosis (1904) by Sascha Schneider

The Lighthouse contains explicit depictions of male sexuality and primarily depicts two men alone in close quarters on an island. But when asked whether the film was "a love story", Robert Eggers replied:

Am I saying these characters are gay? No. I'm not saying they're not either. Forget about complexities of human sexuality or their particular inclinations. I'm more about questions than answers in this movie.[34]

Sexual fantasy and masturbation are recurring themes in the film. For Dafoe, the androphilia in the film is blatant, but it is also used to explore what it means to be a man: "They have a sense of guilt, of wrong [...] it's got existential roots [...] about masculinity and domination and submission."[34] After beating Wake into submission, Howard assumes a dominant role, calling Wake "dog" and dragging him on a leash. Commenting on this scene, Pattinson said "there's definitely a take where we were literally trying to pull each other's pants down. It literally almost looked like foreplay."[39]

The film's mythological and artistic influences underscore its eroticism. Eggers acknowledged the visual influence of symbolist artists Sascha Schneider and Jean Delville, whose "mythic paintings in a homoerotic style," he said, "[became] perfect candidates as imagery that's going to work itself into the script."[40] The composition of a shot in the film was consciously adapted from Schneider's Hypnosis.[37][41]

The Lighthouse grossed $10.9 million in the United States and $7.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $18.3 million.[46][5]

In its limited opening weekend on October 18, the film grossed $419,764 from eight theaters, for an average of $52,471 per venue.[47][48] In its second weekend the film expanded to 586 theaters, grossing $3.75 million, eighth at the box office.[49] The following weekend, the film expanded to 978 theaters, falling 34.7% to $2 million and finishing 13th.[50][51]

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 381 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critics' consensus reads, "A gripping story brilliantly filmed and led by a pair of powerhouse performances, The Lighthouse further establishes Robert Eggers as a filmmaker of exceptional talent."[52] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."[53]

Owen Gleiberman of Variety called the film "darkly exciting" and "made with extraordinary skill," commenting that "the movie, building on The Witch, proves that Robert Eggers possesses something more than impeccable genre skill. He has the ability to lock you into the fever of what's happening onscreen."[31] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave the film a perfect score, calling Dafoe's performance "astounding" and comparing Pattinson's to that of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, commenting, "that's no comparison to make lightly, but everything about The Lighthouse lands with a crash. It's cinema to make your head and soul ring."[54]

Writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw also praised the performances of Dafoe and Pattinson, in addition to the screenplay stating "Their script is barnacled with resemblances to Coleridge, Shakespeare, Melville – and there's also some staggeringly cheeky black-comic riffs and gags and the two of them resemble no-one so much as Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H Corbett: Steptoe and Son in hell."[55] From The New York Times, Manohla Dargis gave positive remarks to the character development, production design, acting, and themes.[30] From the Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips gave a mostly positive review where he recommended the film to readers, compared it to The Odd Couple (1968) and The Dumb Waiter (1957), and lauded the cinematography while giving the feature three stars out of five.[32]

While The Sydney Morning Herald said its attempts at suspense were not successful,[56] the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned that everything in The Lighthouse was well-made to the point that it was brought down due to its screenplay.[57] The Guardian's Simran Hans gave it two stars out of five and said the performances felt more like an "experiment than conducive to eliciting meaning."[58] For Slate, Dana Stevens summarized by stating that "'The Lighthouse is at its strongest when it resembles the dark comedy of a [Samuel] Beckett play, complete with earthy scatological humor [but] the film sometimes seems funny in a different way [...] in spite of the filmmakers' intentions. Its effect on movie audiences is less spiritually corrupting [but] I found myself identifying with the stranded seafarers: I desperately wanted to get out."[59]