arr it be The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) - Pattinson, Dafoe, sea shanties

What

I’ve watched this trailer more times than I’d like to admit. For the What.

hmmmm possibly watered-down Guy Maddin

Did you see The Witch? Not remotely his angle.

I did not see The Witch, bcz it was called The Witch

First they came for people who saw The Witch and I said nothing, etc.

Morbz i think you would appreciate the Witch.

Eggers is nothing like Madden

I am up for watered down guy maddin

I did not see The Witch, bcz it was called The Witch

pretty excited for this based on The Witch, but not crazy about that 'what' scene, reminds me of how so many scenes in The Master just felt like acting workshop exercises

Reading that interview with the DP posted upthread, apparently they made the weirdly specific choice to shoot this in the 1.19:1 Movietone ratio, which sounds pretty neat

other films in the last few years have done same... Grand Budapest Hotel?

Yeah didnt Grand Budapest deploy different aspect ratios for flashbacks iirc? I remember a few others in the last 10 years that have been in academy ratio. Per that interview, I guess 1.19:1 specifically dates from the transition from silent to sound, the DP cites M as the big inspiration to go with it.

pretty excited for this based on The Witch, but not crazy about that 'what' scene, reminds me of how so many scenes in The Master just felt like acting workshop exercises

well yeah theres obviously those parts, but imo a lot of the non-exercise scenes felt like actor-game stuff, like "what if we do a take where instead of the lines you sing 'slow boat to china'", etc. A friend described at the time it as "good, but like watching an acting contest" which I thought was otm.

PSH and Joaquin are good actors and I think they did the acting thing well and in a way that was perfect for the tone of the film, but this is for another thread I think.

“a ghost story” used a v similar ratio iirc

it was mentioned in the never coming to a cinema near you but those of you that aren't aware should check out british film bait from this year. filmed on a hand-cranked camera that films shots/reels a maximum of 28 seconds in length and developed by the director himself. a truly incredible achievement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmydSyiR59o

https://www.baitfilm.co.uk/

weird, given its not that long since this story was given the film treatment :

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3520714/

xp saw bait tonight and loved it, thanks for the tip jed!

opens in NY today

"immaculately curated"

https://www.artforum.com/film/nick-pinkerton-on-robert-eggers-s-the-lighthouse-2019-81048

ah "curated"

it's a dis

It’s a dat

Whoa, weird, am I the first one to see it here? Or at least revive the thread.

Anyway, saw it last night, still digesting it a bit. A striking film certainly on that technical front alone, pretty much every shot is damn near immaculate; the Movietone ratio worked really well. Pattinson and Dafoe go at it but more in a slow burn than explosive way; if anything Dafoe's most self-consciously 'actorly' moment is clearly scripted that way and is hilariously responded to in context. It's often a very funny film but in the way that Samuel Beckett can be funny, if you like. There are 'big' moments but they all feel earned and I even had an actual jump scare moment.

In terms of whether it's 'fantasy horror' or not -- giving away nothing, it's very clearly psychological horror but could be something else. Weird Tales and Lovecraft, sure I guess, but more in the 'New England can be a fucked up landscape' sense (which given The Witch makes sense). zchrys's "a straight psychodrama about two dudes going nuts on a tiny island" wish upthread is pretty much all you need to know going in.

Music often excellent, pacing works incredibly well, being an actual lighthouse keeper in the 19th century at that place would have driven me goddamn crazy.

More on the location shooting here:

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/the-lighthouse-robert-eggers-period-production-design-1202184244/

Well said, Ned.

I dug it, but I will definitely have to see it again to fully absorb it.

Bring a towel.

splash zone in the first six rows?

this owned, ned otm

Just saw this, & while I mainly enjoyed it, it felt like it could have been 15-30 minutes shorter. Not as narratively or thematically tight as The Witch. More shaggy dog story than fable.

Further thoughts: the looseness of it all owes to Eggers' efforts to disorient the viewer. Like the characters, you start to lose track of time. This was handled pretty effectively IMO.

Also this is kind of an ideal film for the rolling masc. thread to discuss.

It's often a very funny film but in the way that Samuel Beckett can be funny, if you like.

I'm still trying to make sense of the seemingly anachronistic reference to Ahab.

Going to watch it in an hour. Two of my local colleagues complained it wasn't worth the fuss. Veremos!

And yeah this film on masculinity was... a lot. I'm still coming to terms with (finding the words for) it.

I'm still trying to make sense of the seemingly anachronistic reference to Ahab.

― Subaru owners I have wordlessly loved (bernard snowy)

I said "what the fuck?!" loud enough for my neighbors to turn around.

This wasn't much, part of the tradition of horror movies set in enchanted locations that drive the occupants mad, with overtones of early O'Neill.

IDK if the Ahab ref was an anachronism; Moby-Dick came out in 1851 and this takes place iirc in the 1890s? Of course the book wasn't really rediscovered and made canon until the 20th century. /pedantry

Still dunno if I "liked" this but it was a hell of a trip, that's for sure. The "may Neptune strike ye dead!" curse was one of the best things in it and I could have listened to/watched Dafoe do that for like another 5 mins

Pattinson's been on a roll the last decade, but he was miscast: he can't be histrionic anymore.

‘Tis a thing of beauty, this tweet

The Lighthouse is now my fifth favorite Kids In The Hall skit. pic.twitter.com/8s94LCrLkf

— Starts Today! (@StartsTodayFans) October 27, 2019

https://youtu.be/1si6M-vDEzI

this was pretty funny

fave bits:
* the two monologues where they go off on each other and their respective laconic responses
* r-patt's super-intense drunken jig dancing
* the distorted screams at the climax

Fun, not weird enough. I just read moby-dick like last year and I actually want to pick it up again, ffs.

so when a man gaslights another man I guess it's called lighthousing him

Masterpiece imo. what could've been gimmicky cinematography is completely necessary. for once, form enhances content. You could take a still of this and a still from the Cohen restoration of The Old Dark House, or Dreyer's Joan of Arc, and it would look like the same movie. The only thing separating it is the modern sound equipment. Stunning sound design also, that fuzzed out scream when he finally touches the light was incredible. And the foghorn itself. But also, there are phenomenally executed tracking shots and some crucial camera moves during their dinners. I wasn't that hot on The Witch so this really surprised me. Safdies put it best:

The light in the lighthouse was that chapter in Moby Dick just about the color white.

— SAFDIE (@JOSH_BENNY) October 21, 2019

yeah certainly can't complain about the sound and light, the look of the thing. It left me (uncharacteristically?) wanting more psychology and less word salad.

Expect this to grow in estimation in my memory though.

An intermittently fun Dumb and Dumber.

it's a good question about Moby Dick and the Ahab reference. the movie takes place in the 1890s, around Melville's death. before 1891, there were 3,215 copies of Moby Dick sold. between 1892-98, it sold another 1,800 copies. idk, maybe sea captains were hip to Melville. I think it's a stretch but not impossible.

xp that's exactly why I loved it, the look & sound enhanced the story. it's a simple story, just cabin fever. and I felt like I was inside that cabin, and eventually, in their delusions. it's remarkably well paced. I like that their pasts are kept ambiguous. I didn't mind the monologues because they were never spelling something out, there's no Paris Texas style expository monologue about Pattinson's past. he mumbles, covets the mermaid, pulverizes a bird. this, I think, is enough

Really enjoyed this :)

oof that bird pulverization

pattinson's howling shaking gaping maw my favorite movie moment of the past year at least

deeply satisfying, i can't imagine not being into this at least on a purely audio/visual level

An intermittently fun Dumb and Dumber.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 31, 2019 4:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Or a gender-flipped What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

I like some Wheatley, but hasn't captured the horror of awaiting the winter with a failed crop.

The Witch is doing a lot of things that haven't been as well done in the horror genre before. Most notably in period production design, but also in period daily concerns. Your 17th and 18th century farming ancestors had a very real chance of slowly starving to death, and by the end of harvest they'd know whether they'd survive the next 6 months or be reduced to beggars.

Yet to see The Lighthouse, but if Eggers ouvre remains period films with slowly growing dread, leading to his characters finally cracking, that's something new.

... and also timely. We're all watching the same news of the collapsing world, and some days its all I can do to stop myself screaming naked down the street. We're surrounded by others pacified with political propaganda, like having credulous neighbors in Jonestown (now there's a film I'd love to see a docu-psychological horror). A horror cinema of this sense of glacially encroaching dread, that its all falling apart and we're doubtless doomed, but which focuses on the psychological tension of the struggle to stay presentable... that's something I can identify with.

I liked The Witch quite a lot. I think its stature will only grow.

I was expecting something more tepid reading takes on this here. This was convincingly possessed and demented. Loved it.

I'll take Ben Wheatley in horror-mode over this guy any day.

I’m more of an Amy Jump fan

when the two actors started autocritiquing the movie via each other's performances {You're a PARODY of an old salt!) i lost all hope

basically a Corman movie with drunken comedy and Prometheus baggage; nice-looking tho

i'll send tabes a list of the many movies i liked this year btw

Dafoe really makes Lionel Barrymore look like the king of Bressonian understatement in this

xp it better be a list of pop movies you liked this year or else his point is proven

i think Little Women, Ad Astra, Irishman and Dolemite count on that score

Also, a lot more pop than this movie tbh.

People are suckers for Grand Guignol when it's black and white.

nice-looking tho

nice-sounding too

Hell yeah we are xp

and most successful when it's a comedy (again, the Corman-Price-Lorre films)

This is not a genre of movie https://t.co/pVnlAl3mVk

— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) January 28, 2020

yeah I had that argument in 2011 when The Artist wowed too many people ("Silent movies aren't a genre").

So what tho

I saw this on Valentine's Day - I can't off the top of my head think of a film more likely to put people off sex afterwards.

A lot of weird authenticity when you read around about it - they built the lighthouse, a lot of century-old film lenses, they built the light and the foghorn (and most of the weather is natural) - but in the service of very keyed-up and unnatural performances. Which is great!

The real anachronism is that the song they're singing before they don't kiss was written in the 1980s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpWWWhc9QzI

weird, given its not that long since this story was given the film treatment

He's been working on this since before the VVitch, I understand - though both Pattinson and Dafoe approached him after that and asked to be in a film of his.

when the two actors started autocritiquing the movie via each other's performances {You're a PARODY of an old salt!) i lost all hope

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 29, 2020 3:38 PM

I was a little irked by this bit but I liked the film a lot.

I had heard it was a remake of The Lighthouse Keepers (1929) but apparently not?

Feeling smug about catching the Sascha Schneider influence.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4198/34681056660_492c0f4fd4_o.jpg

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/lighthouse-robert-eggers-literary-visual-influences-melville-lovecraft-dads-army
https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/interviews/lighthouse-robert-eggers-influences

Would like to see this with subtitles someday because I think I missed a bunch, or a script to appreciate all the sea dog talk.

Getting excited for The Northman, and wondering if Eggers will ever make a film not titled "The ___"

https://www.slashfilm.com/the-northman-viking-film-anya-taylor-joy/

Cool.

saw this, enjoyed everything. looked amazing and the two lads were game.

surprised nobody made a pattinson/day lewis link, i think he was blatantly lifting entire elements tbh

I fell asleep to this just as old mate was killing a seagull about a year ago. Figure nothing important would happen after that moment so haven’t turned it back on

I fell asleep to this just as old mate was killing a seagull about a year ago. Figure nothing important would happen after that moment so haven’t turned it back on

(It’s kind of a funny idea the movie ending there as if nothing else happen and I haven’t been willing to ruin that illusion yet)