Light Sleeper

The Witch (2015, Robert Eggers) seemed auspicious with hints of Dreyer, but wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. After Split (2016, M. Night Shyamalan) I realized how great Anya Taylor-Joy can be. But I’ve also grown in my appreciation of period English dialogue lately, like finally getting around to reading Shakespeare’s historical dramas for example. So I decided to give The Witch another try. Anya Taylor-Joy was every bit as captivating as I’d hoped. The seventeenth century New England dialect was a real treat. And I found the atmosphere and pace entrancing and suspenseful. But still, the whole thing felt kind of flat.

     So with this cinema addiction I have, the thing is I’m always holding out for that high that lives up to the exhilarating satisfaction I’d found that first time. Every few years I find it again. My point is that I find movies that seem to have a lot going for them, and it’s hard to come to the decision that if I either love or hate a movie, and I don’t love it… well. Like Midsommar! It has such a cool look and setting. And Florence Pugh is amazing in it. But…

  

     The Lighthouse (2019, Eggers) is like if Herman Melville made Clerks. And I mean that in the worst possible way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the books Moby-Dick and Billy Budd, up there with the best stuff I’ve ever read. And I’ve been reading a lot of mid nineteenth century English, which is one of the features that drew me to The Lighthouse. And particularly the Dafoe character’s period Maine dialect and the way he delivers it is the best thing going for this film.

     In many ways The Lighthouse is also the perfect alternative for those sick of the Marvel flood. It’s in black and white, shot and framed in the 1.19:1 aspect ratio, with a cast of two. I’ve always been a huge fan of Willem Dafoe, and everything about his performance in The Lighthouse fits this role perfectly. So if the movie didn’t really do it for me, I’m sure glad I got to see Dafoe in this.

     The Lighthouse has great atmosphere, just like The Witch. But this time its sound design is expressionistic industrial like say Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch); except a little more aggressive and less subtle.  Although in general comparing The Lighthouse to Eraserhead or Guy Maddin would be lazy. There just aren’t too many black and white surreal movies that carve their niches so far off the beaten path.

     I’m not saying this is one of my favorite movies by any means, but I am so happy a movie like this got made. It was fun, odd, cohesive, and exactly the type of work that utilizes entertainment as art.