{"id":235784,"date":"2019-10-25T03:44:45","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T07:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=235784"},"modified":"2019-10-25T03:44:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T07:44:45","slug":"pattinson-and-dafoe-on-the-oddities-of-the-lighthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/10\/25\/pattinson-and-dafoe-on-the-oddities-of-the-lighthouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Pattinson and Dafoe on the oddities of &#8216;The Lighthouse&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" style=\"background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B4Az-xXlZ20\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"12\">\n<div style=\"padding: 16px;\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 19% 0;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-top: 8px;\">\n<div style=\"color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;\">View this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 12.5% 0;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;\">\n<div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 8px;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: auto;\">\n<div style=\"width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;\"><a style=\"color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B4Az-xXlZ20\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Congratulations to the incomparable Willem Dafoe on his #GothamAwards nomination for Best Actor! \u27e1 #TheLighthouse<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;\">A post shared by <a style=\"color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lighthousemovie\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> The Lighthouse<\/a> (@lighthousemovie) on <time style=\"font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;\" datetime=\"2019-10-24T19:28:32+00:00\">Oct 24, 2019 at 12:28pm PDT<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\nTORONTO &#8212; \u201cWeird\u201d is a vague and imprecise word but it&#8217;s probably fair to say it can be applied to a boxy black-and-white movie about the feverish psychological battles and explicit mermaid-infused visions of two isolated and increasingly mad lighthouse keepers in 1890s Maine.<\/p>\n<p>For writer-director Robert Eggers, real and mythic collide in strange and hallucinatory ways. He makes rigorously researched period films that nevertheless have an otherworldly fairy tale quality. His first film, the 2015 horror hit \u201cThe Witch,\u201d wasn&#8217;t just set in 1630 but grew out of the real folktales and period-authentic nightmares of a family in puritanical New England.<\/p>\n<p>Now, he has moved slightly north for \u201cThe Lighthouse,\u201d a gothic tale of even greater and frothier intensity with still worse fates befalling the local wildlife. A goat figured prominently in \u201cThe Witch.\u201d Seagulls have a starring role in \u201cThe Lighthouse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So do Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, who play the two seamen who alone tend a remote lighthouse. Dafoe is Thomas Wake, a crusty and tyrannical salty dog and the possessive \u201ckeeper of the light,\u201d and Pattinson is his new and progressively frustrated and unhinged assistant, Efraim Winslow. The expressionist imagery and heated atmosphere recall something from Bergman, if transplanted from Sweden to Melville&#8217;s Northeast. But there are hints of an even stranger brew.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hope is that people go in there like, &#8216;(Expletive), I&#8217;m watching a boring Hungarian art-house movie,\u201d&#8217; says Eggers. \u201cAnd then Willem starts farting and there&#8217;s a clue that there&#8217;s something else going on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s perhaps fitting that a film so relentlessly blustery, filled with stormy seas and the blare of the lighthouse&#8217;s fog horn, first signals its more comic dimension with the breaking of wind. As the movie&#8217;s deranged pitch heightens, so does its humour. Slate has perfectly summarized \u201cThe Lighthouse\u201d as \u201cartsy fartsy.\u201d It expands nationwide this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, it was a mea culpa after &#8216;The Witch,\u201d&#8217; says Eggers, speaking alongside Pattinson and Dafoe in an interview. \u201cI wanted to make another miserable movie but be able to laugh at the misery. These guys are hilarious and really comedic performers. I was even concerned the film was going to be too funny after we shot it. That&#8217;s not a surprise about Willem but Rob is a very physical comedian and there are flat-out Buster Keaton splits and things that we cut out because they were just too much. But he went for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dafoe and Pattinson are very different performers but \u201cgoing for it\u201d has been a modus operandi for each. Pattinson, in particular, has in recent years been on a self-described quest for \u201cweirdness,\u201d one he grants he may have taken to its limit in \u201cThe Lighthouse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI definitely feel like you can&#8217;t find something weirder,\u201d Pattinson says. \u201cBut it&#8217;s not weirdness for weird sake. I think what I meant was just originality. Whenever you find something where you don&#8217;t really have any kind of archetype to fit it into, you don&#8217;t have any crutch of something you&#8217;ve done before, it&#8217;s always so exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eggers initially offered Pattinson a very different role that he describes as \u201ca posh, sherry-drinking gentleman.\u201d (Eggers came close to remaking the 1922 classic \u201cNosferatu.\u201d) When Pattinson turned him down, the 36-year-old director realized the actor was after something more inscrutable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t particularly know how to describe what my character is at all,\u201d says Pattinson, grinning. \u201cThat&#8217;s kind of what I&#8217;m always looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The production, while not as trying as the ordeals depicted in \u201cThe Lighthouse,\u201d was, Eggers says cheerfully, \u201cextremely miserable.\u201d It was shot on the rocky, wind-swept southern coastline of Nova Scotia. There, Eggers and his production designer Craig Lathrop built a 70-foot lighthouse with a working beam that could shine for 16 miles. At the film&#8217;s premiere at Cannes&#8217; Directors&#8217; Fortnight section, Dafoe joked that the only animals hurt during the film&#8217;s making were him and Pattinson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cActors love to talk about that and it&#8217;s always a little boring,\u201d says Dafoe. \u201cBut it&#8217;s a huge part of this movie. The weather and the conditions were a huge part of it. That really told the story. We were interfacing with nature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Pattinson, the environment was oddly comforting, even if he counts a sprint across jagged rock in period-appropriate shoes as his most terrifying moment on a film set. \u201cI felt very at home in it when I was there,\u201d Pattinson says.<\/p>\n<p>As much as the production drew from its natural surroundings, Eggers&#8217; camerawork was precisely orchestrated. Eggers, who co-wrote the script with his brother Max Eggers, shot the movie in 35mm. It&#8217;s projected in a square-like 1:19:1 aspect ratio, adding to the film&#8217;s antique and ghostly atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is very close to how I imagined it, much more so than &#8216;The Witch.&#8217; It&#8217;s partly because I know what I&#8217;m doing more. It&#8217;s also partly because I had more money,\u201d says Eggers.<\/p>\n<p>For the New Hampshire-native, research is an intrinsically part of his filmmaking, including digging through rare old dictionaries for period vernacular. He was initially inspired by a real account of two lighthouse keepers &#8212; one older, one younger &#8212; with the same name. \u201cThe Lighthouse\u201d includes long sections of dialogue, old sea shanties and some unforgettable lines. Dafoe acknowledges that one such quotation &#8212; \u201cBad luck to kill a seabird\u201d &#8212; has stayed with him. \u201cI&#8217;ve probably said that a couple times, like in the shower,\u201d he says laughing.<\/p>\n<p>The film&#8217;s language has prompted natural theatrical comparisons. \u201cThe Lighthouse\u201d has some of the menacing comedy of Pinter. As a two-hander of raw masculinity, it recalls a Sam Shepard play. Dafoe, though, likens it to a musical with a rhythm vacillating between activity and meditation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn&#8217;t two monkeys in a cage,\u201d says Dafoe. \u201cIt was a lion and a monkey, or something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the caged animal comparison, such extremes of landscape and drama and cinematography created a tension for the actors that fed into the chamber piece&#8217;s fevered atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s something about the particularities of everything you have to go through during the scenes. It creates a kind of pressure that&#8217;s really, really difficult to get under other circumstances,\u201d says Pattinson. \u201cThere are some scenes where there are so many bits in them, it would create such a level of frustration because you&#8217;re having to wrench all these different elements into the same kind of flow. It did feel like it was elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Dafoe, \u201cThe Lighthouse\u201d may be heightened but it&#8217;s not weird. As strangely specific (and farty) as the movie is, the dynamic between Wake and Winslow isn&#8217;t just off the coast of 19th century Maine but everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe basic story is very practical. Two guys get stuck and they start working on each other to kind of dominate their sense of well-being. But they do it in such an aggressive way because both of them are threatened,\u201d says Dafoe. \u201cThey&#8217;re not opposites but they challenge each other. And that&#8217;s an exciting story. We experience that every day on a different scale. It makes me think about fathers and sons, bosses and workers, believers and non-believers &#8212; a flood of things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; View this post on Instagram &nbsp; Congratulations to the incomparable Willem Dafoe on his #GothamAwards nomination for Best Actor! &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":235785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","mauthors-jake-coyle","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235786,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235784\/revisions\/235786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}