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The Lighthouse (2019)

Started by VelourSpirit, July 31, 2019, 02:34:33 AM

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VelourSpirit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyag7lR8CPA
Two brilliant actors going mad in a lighthouse, in 35mm! Look at that 1.19:1 aspect ratio! I've been wondering what this film'll look like for ages, especially this shot Pattinson talks about here:

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/high-life-star-robert-pattinson-tells-willem-dafoe-what-hes-terrified-of
QuotePATTINSON: That's the closest I've come to punching a director. However much I love Robert [Eggers], there was a point where I did five takes walking across the beach, and after a while I was like, "What the fuck is going on? I feel like you're just spraying a fire hose in my face." And he was like, "I am spraying a fire hose in your face."

Looks like it was worth it.

Mister Six

Who? Oh! The VVitch! All right, sign me up.

Noodle Lizard

This looks like a joke arthouse film from a boring comedy skit.  I hope Williamsburg, NY somehow just crumbles into the sea one day.

PlanktonSideburns

It looks like a Kevin eldon sketch. The idea of a director hosing down pattison in Rhyl to make a great piece of art is amusing to me.

Puce Moment

I already know too much about this film and I haven't even seen the trailer. Going to avoid EVERYTHING so I can go in blind. See you back here when this fucker gets released.

PlanktonSideburns


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I don't know. I have a lot of time for Dafoe and Pattinson and I like the setting, but The Vuvitch didn't knock my socks off. If this does play near me, it will probably be limited to the overpriced Curzon cinema, so I'll most likely end up seeing it on Netflix or Film Four at some point.

Pseudopath

Quote from: Puce Moment on July 31, 2019, 08:01:50 AM
I already know too much about this film and I haven't even seen the trailer. Going to avoid EVERYTHING so I can go in blind. See you back here when this fucker gets released.

Yeah...but you gotta admit that it looks kraken cracking!

Glebe


græskar

#9

Noodle Lizard

Well this was a load of old twaddle. Sometimes admirable twaddle, but twaddle nevertheless. As with The VVitch, it felt a lot like someone very consciously trying to make "an arthouse film", and all of those flourishes are there to mask a complete lack of substance. Not that they don't do a decent job of that, mind you: I enjoy long shots of waves crashing about a bunch of rocks, sound design out the arse over otherwise mundane sequences, and the performances are ... well, "mannered" is putting it mildly, but often entertaining.

I personally think Dafoe outshines Pattinson by a considerable margin, though I'm sure others will disagree. Pattinson's received a lot of goodwill over the last few years for his starring roles in "indie" movies, and more or less rightly so, but the disparity in quality is pretty clear when paired with someone as seasoned as Dafoe is.

So overall, then: too long, ponderous, derivative, predictable, but at least it's unusual for anything approaching mainstream cinema.

Mister Six

I wouldn't call it twaddle, but I do think it lacked substance. Felt like whatsischops had no idea how to end the thing so just dialled the hysteria up to a billion and then threw in a spooky ambiguous shot and hoped the everyone would do the hard work of inventing a meaning for him.

That said - and echoing what was remarked above - while it's a journey to nowhere, the trip itself is a lot of fun. Every shot looked gorgeous, Dafoe was clearly having a whale (or an Ahab) of a time, and Pattinson acquitted himself well, although his accent was a bit all over the place. Don't regret watching it at all but I doubt I'll ever watch it again.

greenman

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on July 31, 2019, 06:24:49 AM
This looks like a joke arthouse film from a boring comedy skit.  I hope Williamsburg, NY somehow just crumbles into the sea one day.

Those French and Saunders Bergman pisstakes do come to mind a bit from the trailer.

I mean I think it can be done well, Pawlikowski's Ida for example seemed like a self conscious attempt to make "arthouse" but it worked superbly for me although I wasn't so taken with Cold War.

Obel

Where are you seeing this, then? I thought it wasn't out until Jan

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Obel on November 07, 2019, 08:00:42 AM
Where are you seeing this, then? I thought it wasn't out until Jan

It's been out in the US for a few weeks. Not in the UK until January? Well there's a way to guarantee everyone steals it.

mjwilson

Had a sneaky preview screening at my local cinema for Halloween. Enjoyed it more than  some of the posters above, although mostly it's the atmosphere.

Twit 2

Quote from: Mister Six on November 07, 2019, 04:30:58 AM
I wouldn't call it twaddle, but I do think it lacked substance...Every shot looked gorgeous

Film is images and sound. Not everything needs a deeper meaning, has to be a symbol for something. The gorgeous shots were the substance. Did the film have good images and sound? Then it was probably good. I realise I'm in the minority on this issue.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Twit 2 on November 07, 2019, 10:03:56 PM
Film is images and sound. Not everything needs a deeper meaning, has to be a symbol for something. The gorgeous shots were the substance. Did the film have good images and sound? Then it was probably good. I realise I'm in the minority on this issue.

A book is just words put in order, but you wouldn't say a book was good just because it had pretty-sounding language and a nice typeface. Film is a form of storytelling, one way or another. It doesn't have to be plot-heavy or contain any symbolism or "message" in order to feel substantial or purposeful, though those things certainly can help. I could list a dozen films which are aesthetically beautiful but otherwise absolute wank.

Did you see this film yet?

Mister Six

Quote from: Twit 2 on November 07, 2019, 10:03:56 PM
Film is images and sound. Not everything needs a deeper meaning, has to be a symbol for something. The gorgeous shots were the substance. Did the film have good images and sound? Then it was probably good. I realise I'm in the minority on this issue.

I don't disagree with that, I just put more priority on script than you do.

I usually hate scripts that do this kind of thing, so it's a testament to the outstanding quality of literally every single other part of the film - down to sound design, set design, costumes and even the bloody props - that I thought it was a very good film.

I just can't get away from the script, that's all. If you can, then great!

Noodle Lizard

It's not even that the script was "bad", I don't think. Much like The VVitch, it's full of florid and poetic exchanges, outbursts and monologues, all in (what I assume to be) period-appropriate dialects. That's all good, even if it mostly was a bit of a pretentious waffle at times and I  couldn't understand a fair deal of it — I think the bass was way too high in my cinema an' all. And it gets the (simple) story across well enough, it all makes sense, the characters are more or less well-realized, that's all fine. It just feels a little empty still, and a lot of the clearer stabs at symbolism and metaphor fell completely flat for me because it didn't feel like there was any real motivation for them, and nothing actually lying beneath the surface of it all. For me, that makes it hard to invest in a story, or feel any strong emotion one way or the other. I wasn't disturbed, frightened or moved and I didn't care what happened to either of them. That's got to be a failing of some kind.

Twit 2

#20
Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 07, 2019, 11:51:12 PM
A book is just words put in order, but you wouldn't say a book was good just because it had pretty-sounding language

Yes, I would.

QuoteDid you see Have you seen this film yet?

No, but looking forward to checking it out.

Quote from: Mister Six on November 08, 2019, 02:37:34 AM
I just can't get away from the script, that's all. If you can, then great!

Yes, it is. Certainly allows me to enjoy a lot more films.

I've been banging on about this on here for years, but the bottom line for me is that film doesn't have to be about plot and narrative. Film is not theatre, is not the novel, although the trace of those are evidently very hard for some people to shake off, to the extent that amazing cinema gets dismissed by people who should know better just because it's not linear enough. Story is one parameter in a film and, for me, often one of the least important.

To illustrate with an example, my favourite film of this century is probably Under the Skin. Based on a novel that's primarily plot-based with heavy-handed allegory and themes, Glazer jettisoned all that and created a film of pure sound and vision. The success of that film is that he was able to create a piece of sensual and arresting cinema by getting away from the stuff I was complaining about above. From what I read from its detractors, that's often the same reason they didn't like it.

It comes down to taste and preference. Like I said, I realise mine are in a minority and that's fine. I'm not trying to change any minds, but I do like to justify my stance occasionally.

greenman

I take it the trailers are holding back on the fraggle reveal?

Noodle Lizard

To me, Under The Skin is significantly more emotionally involving and evocative than The Lighthouse, with a fair amount more "to say" than maybe even you give it credit for. The concepts and intentions behind it are what I'd say gives it its substance rather than it just being a series of pretty images and nice sounds - those are tools, used either effectively or not, and can certainly make or break a film. But I've seen great films which are aesthetically uninteresting and very poor ones which look or sound fantastic, so to me it feels reductive to say aesthetics are all that matter.

Anyway, I feel like we're getting into a petty semantic argument about "what is film", but I think Mister Six's opinion on The Lighthouse is very fair, and you probably ought to see it yourself before implying he's wrong.

greenman

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 08, 2019, 07:34:02 AM
To me, Under The Skin is significantly more emotionally involving and evocative than The Lighthouse, with a fair amount more "to say" than maybe even you give it credit for. The concepts and intentions behind it are what I'd say gives it its substance rather than it just being a series of pretty images and nice sounds - those are tools, used either effectively or not, and can certainly make or break a film. But I've seen great films which are aesthetically uninteresting and very poor ones which look or sound fantastic, so to me it feels reductive to say aesthetics are all that matter.

The surprising thing with Glazer was really that he's someone you might think would be all style but has ended up making two films that do I think have a great deal of substance to them, just substance that's for the most part not delivered by dialog.

Twit 2

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 08, 2019, 07:34:02 AM
To me, Under The Skin is significantly more emotionally involving and evocative than The Lighthouse, with a fair amount more "to say" than maybe even you give it credit for. The concepts and intentions behind it are what I'd say gives it its substance rather than it just being a series of pretty images and nice sounds - those are tools, used either effectively or not, and can certainly make or break a film. But I've seen great films which are aesthetically uninteresting and very poor ones which look or sound fantastic, so to me it feels reductive to say aesthetics are all that matter.

Agree with all that. He got rid of the book's more obvious themes and created his own more subtle ones, using cinematic rather than novelistic language, which gave it enormous substance, depth
and power. I didn't mean to downplay this aspect.

I will definitely give Lighthouse a watch before I make up my mind. It does sound like my kind of thing (I liked The Witch more than most), though, and some of the criticisms I've heard trigger my biased notions about what great cinema means.

grassbath

This was ok. Wee bit disappointed. Like others have said, some lovely effective horror imagery and sound (and quite original, have never seen a mermaid horror film before but the plot, pacing and characterisation felt off, rendering it kind of empty. The VVitch got more and more intense on a gradual upward slope until a very disturbing and satisfying end. This careened around a lot, with a lot of exciting ideas but no idea of how to put them in a line.

Wow you people are way off. I would recommend anyone interested in seeing this excellent film to ignore the rest of the thread. /end contribution

Twit 2

I think you'll find I'm right at the film being excellent, and I haven't even watched it!

Dex Sawash

Probably won't see this until it is on streaming service but have been singing 'I want to marry a lighthouse keeper' a lot since this thread popped up. How bout you?

Inspector Norse

Quote from: Dex Sawash on November 25, 2019, 12:47:05 PM
Probably won't see this until it is on streaming service but have been singing 'I want to marry a lighthouse keeper' a lot since this thread popped up. How bout you?

I've been singing 'Be Thankful for What You've Got' but that's mainly because it was playing in the place I grabbed food after watching the film.

I thought it was very good, for reasons outlined by others above: atmosphere, lighting and sound make a strong impression, with lots of memorable shots, scenes and lines.
The key is in the compelling performances: Pattison, who I've not really seen before, was very good, while Dafoe is a powerhouse. One of the most gifted actors around, and though there's a lot of ripe dialogue and some intense scenes, he never goes too far. Just imagine what a hammy disaster a Sean Penn or Daniel Day-Lewis would make of the role.
And like others, I thought it was also a bit lacking in substance below the surface: it felt like a thematic retread of The VVVVVitch in focusing on isolated people going mad, but was much more explicit and less subtle.
Still, as a descent-into-insanity study, it's very well made with enough ambiguity about Dafoe's motivations to keep you squirming.