I not saying you’re wrong for preferring The VVitch overThe Lighthouse - however, I am poking fun at the way you express that preference.
C’mon. How is “It’s not a matter of my expectations so much as the director’s previous movie.” not a self-negating staement.
Let me put it this way: the main reason I didn’t like The Lighthouse was because of what it was, and not what it wasn’t. In other words, whether I expected something slithery and smooth and rooted in horror as a genre doesn’t have any impact on the fact that The Lighthouse is jagged and histrionic and like a soggy Sam Shepard play. Even if I’d expected all those things, I still wouldn’t have liked it.
But let’s talk again in 2029. Eggers is a staggeringly talented and original filmmaker, and I’m as surprised as you that I didn’t like his second movie. Maybe I just need time to come around.
-Tom
Well, that I will say is an apt description of The Lighthouse. (Arbitrary and confused I will not though. Like it or not, I think The lighthouse is very much in control of what it’s saying.)
Oh, I agree it’s very much in control of what it’s doing. But it reminded me of those plays that are showcases for a couple of actors to just let loose with crazy acting above all else, character development be damned! I just don’t understand the characters in The Lighthouse, and that’s arguably by design.
-Tom
I guess the difference is I do feel I get the characters? Robert Pattinson has to deal with being horny and lonely and an insufferable farting boss that throws a hissy fit when he’s told he’s not awesome “you like me lobster don’t ye”.
It’s a lot. (It’s a lot) It’s a lot (it’s a lot) It’s a lot like life
…sorry, I got distracted by what music videos used to look like.
Anyway, on the one hand you’ve got a) Willem Dafoe’s need to maintain control, prestige and power made literal in him controlling access the light, and Robert Pattinson’s resentment at being made to deal with all the menial shit (literally) which I already find eminently graspable, but you’ve also got b) them being isolated and having nothing but each other as the weeks go on for an uncertain amount of time.
I understand both of them, even if my sympathies are squarely with Pattinson.
I concur with your description, but then there’s the stuff that happens in the movie. To me, it’s like this:
While I can understand that working for some people – kellywand, for instance – my thought process about The Lighthouse is something along the lines of, okay, #1 and #3 are interesting, but what happened to #2? Was it just the liquor running out and then the guys sucking down vats of lantern oil? In which case, did I get tricked into watching a historical “junkies are tedious” movie?
I did really love Willem Dafoe in this, though. If you’re going to do a movie like The Lighthouse, you need a Willem Dafoe giving his usual 110%. Which is this case was more like 140%. His curse monologue was one of the coolest things I’ve seen an actor do all year.
-Tom
Totally agree here. I thought the relationship between the two characters just kept swinging wildly between extremes in ways that weren’t adequately explained by the movie’s “narrative.” And since the relationship between them was the foundation of the film, the film felt “wobbly” to me. Also, an unreliable narrator is great and all, but in this film there is no narrator, so who is being unreliable? I really liked all the period detail in the film, but it could have been a totally great film without all the wacky Neptune/Cthulhu/mermaid/fucking-the-light weirdness.
Partially it’s the booze pouring gas on fire, yes, but the bigger factor in #2 is the storm and the uncertainty it and despair it brings. Dealing with a bad situation is manageable if you have an endpoint you’re working towards, but suddenly you have even greater misery, and no way of knowing when it’s going to end.
I just watched this, as part of my Paddinton Pattinson assignment from Divided by Werewolves, and I’m a bit anxious to listen to the podcast, because I didn’t like this movie at all. I don’t think the purpose of it was to be funny but I really laughed at some of the faces and dialogues and situations. It’s a shame because there was a sort of lovecraftian vibe to it, I love both actors (even sadder to me because I thought Pattinson was not very good in this), and I love the obsession with items and furnitures early on. But then…
Onward to the podcast, to learn what I must have missed!
Assuming you mean the Qt3 podcast, I think you’ll find a sympathetic soul among the co-hosts. :)
I do wonder whether The Lighthouse might work better for me with a second viewing, now that I’ve been disabused that it’s in any way, shape, or form a follow-up to The Witch.
-Tom
I don’t believe anybody plays hide and seek with a baby* in The Lighthouse.
The baby wins. - Kellywand
I listened, and I’m so reassured to not having misunderstood the movie (for what there was to understand at least)!
Reading now the comments in this thread, I realize that being isolated from civilization got nothing horrific about it to me, since it’s what I try to achieve in life. I also found the farting old man splendidly entertaining, charming and eloquent and when they announced four weeks at the start, it seemed to me like quite a short a time, so much that I was disappointed. Same everytime Winslow asked him to shut up: I was all “let the old man talk, you twat!”. Some of us may just be the wrong spectators.
I also never expected to be on the same side of Tom, not only on this movie, but about the Monty Python ones, which I personally find horribly boring and ugly.
If anything, this podcast made me eager to watch The Witch again, which I suspect might have been its secret goal.
“Junkies are tedious” should have been one of the catchlines. Wonderful expression.
Edit: oh, also have to add “Good Time” to my Pattinson watchlist, as I remember Tom mentionning it in the Rover thread. Although there seems to be no podcast thread for it.
How dare you! :)
There hasn’t been a Good Time podcast.
I was just reading some of your other posts elsewhere (I don’t remember where, because my brains are spongy at best nowadays) where you were pointing someone to go check another podcast at some point for unlabelled comments about another movie: you’re the living memory of the podcast and a little treasure Chris ;D
I also forgot to mention, but this was such a good podcast episode. The movie is really good at stirring conversations indeed!
I liked the touch of the two wickies they cross (one of which is, apparently Pierre Richard, a wonderful actor of my youth, who got strangely boycotted in France for the past 40 years) who are helping each others carry their bagage. That scene announces immediately what to expect, and the associal behaviour of that youngster during that dinner was not quite a surprise thereafter.
Ah yes, what I meant to say is that I deeply agree with you. I don’t drink, and yet was shocked.
Damn, the more I think about it, the more I find that character insufferable!
I am quite sure that, unlike some other guy, you wouldn’t just stare at him all night trying to catch glimpses of that act (or through holes in the roof to stare at his ass) though!
For me, enjoying The Lighthouse was all about embracing the crazy humor! I think the movie is hilarious, and meant to be, in its wild and dark way. The two men are clowns, but living in a stern Lovecraftian world and soaked in alcohol. That curse of Neptune that Dafoe shouts out is the quintessential scene. Of course on one level it’s deadly serious. But it’s also a RIOT in how over the top it gets. (And beautifully shot, obviously.)
I mean, I don’t know how you could watch this and not be smiling when he describes Triton’s coral-tined trident bursting Winslow’s GULLET! Or not laugh at the perfect punchline: “Alright, have it your way. I liked your cooking.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrekMzfC7Gw
It’s a comedy, and it was the funniest movie I saw that year.
The Witch is probably the better movie overall. It’s also dourly serious, from what I remember, which might have understandably led Witch fans to expect the same from the follow-up. (Although… that goat!)
I had a similar reaction. Loved it, and found it extremely funny.
In my case I couldn’t help but feel that I was laughing at the movie, not with it. I sometimes enjoy “unstable” humour, where you are not sure whether the author wants you to laugh or not, but in my case I couldn’t shake the feeling the director didn’t intend it. A lot of people finding it funny, as expressed here or on the podcast, reassured me in a way, as laugh I did, but on the other hand I can’t help but wonder if that the take it is willingly laughable isn’t a bit delusional — the movie not being very interesting overall.
Blah, don’t mind me, I’m still under The Rover’s influence! That movie was just the best thing I had seen in a long time.
This movie has become significantly more relatable since the pandemic. I imagine a double showing with Bo Burnham’s Inside would be… bleak.
I disagree on all accounts and you made me feel the need to point it out.