‘The Lighthouse’ Trailer: The Director Of ‘The Witch’ Drives Robert Pattinson And Willem Dafoe Crazy
Facial hair! Accents! A 1.19:1 aspect ratio! A heavy dose of “What the hell am I seeing?” It’s all here in the first trailer forThe Lighthouse, the latest tale of terror fromRobert Eggers, director ofThe Witch. In this black-and-white nightmare,Robert PattinsonandWillem Dafoeplay old-timey lighthouse keepers on a remote island. Things go downhill pretty quickly. Watch the incredible, creepy and incredibly creepyThe Lighthousetrailer below.
The Lighthouse Trailer
“Why’d ya spill yer beans?” croaks Willem Dafoeseveraltimes throughout this mysterious trailer forThe Lighthouse. What’s he talking about? What beans have been spilled by his fellow lighthouse keeper – a “timberman” played by Robert Pattinson? I have no idea because this trailer does a great job of playing things close to the vest.
All we can gather from this trailer is thatThe Lighthousewill be sufficiently spooky, and alsolookamazing. Eggers shot this thing in boxy 1.19:1 aspect ratio that immediately recalls the very first sound films ever made. As a result, everything is squeezed into the frame, creating a deliciously devilish claustrophobic atmosphere, no doubt to meant to invoke the claustrophobic vibe of working in a lighthouse on a remote island.
“I shot in black and white 35mm negative,” Eggerssaid. “It’s very tactile; you can see every pore of the actors' faces. It’s not supposed to be like an old film but it does reference them. The square format was great for filming lighthouses and we had a special lens made to create chromatic film. For the language, my brother and I read a lot of period texts to absorb the vibe of how people spoke. Obviously, Moby Dick is great literature and Melville’s language was an influence. Willem’s dialect was that of a Maine farmer and Robert’s was a sailor’s dialect. We had a book by Sarah Orne Jewett of stories that were transcribed using dialects and that was an important source for us.”
The Lighthouseis described as a “hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.” I was a huge fan of Eggers’sThe Witch, so I’m all-in on this. While it tells a historical horror story likeThe Witch,The Lighthouselooks a lot different – weirder, wilder. I can’t wait.The Lighthousedebuted to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival and will be heading to TIFF next month. It opens in New York and LA onOctober 18, 2019, with an expansion to follow.
