Back to The Lighthouse
As it gets a new 4K release, director ROBERT EGGERS revisits his sea-salt-speckled masterpiece
The odd couple — Willem Defoe and Robert Pattinson as lighthouse keepers Thomas and Ephraim.
THE LIGHTHOUSE WAS like a gift from another realm. As exquisite as it was grimy, this 1890s-set exploration of isolation and psychotic machismo locked us in an undeniably phallic tower with two absolute raving lunatics. As lighthouse keeper Thomas Wake, Willem Dafoe was the living embodiment of a salty old seadog, while as apprentice Ephraim Winslow, Robert Pattinson physically flung himself into character, glowering, masturbating and fighting (seagulls). Yet it was also utterly gorgeous, thanks to Jarin Blaschke’s hypnotic black-and-white cinematography. It was certainly a film of extremes, says Eggers, who spoke to Empire just as he was wrapping on his next film, Nosferatu…