Early Robert Eggers Short Film Within the chambers of a desolate house, a solitary servant tends to his invalid master. Tangibly detailed period design and hauntingly lifelike puppetry unearth the dreamworld of Poe.
I have to say that this nails the atmosphere that Edgar Allen Poe's story creates better than any other adaptation of tale.. Hats off to an inexperienced Rob Eggers 13 years ago for nailing that. Atmospheric storytelling has always been his sharpest tool, something he's now masterful at.Stuff like this reminds me of looking back at Tim Burton's drawings when he was a young adult. Two brilliant directors with a very unique quality thats been developing for years unlike everyone else in the industry.
Happiness!? What ill vapor is this? Shall we not think on nothing but our own deaths? For the grave is what shall consume us all. Shall we not live our lives in mourning!? Alas how can one think of gayest feelings when our lives shall all end in woe?!
Comedians are not, in most cases, happy or cheerful people in their daily lives. Art is a way of expressing a side of us that is not necessarily visible, manifested or even conscious.
Robert Eggers has really come so far as a filmmaker after watching this. I've always been a fan of his work since "The Witch". But "The Tell-Tale Heart" freaked me out as a kid and still remains my favorite Poe story. Eggers' version is the closest you could get to the original story, especially to his attention to detail in accuracy. plus the puppet old man looked really freaky. Plus the smiling policemen at the end were creepy as hell. Eggers, you genius!
That puppet or whatever you’d call it was extremely well done. It was a great choice for an uncanny valley character, from the perspective of the narrator, who had a strange horror about the old man.
@@keithdavis8461an uncanny valley character is something that looks human but there’s something distorted and inhuman about it, like it looks real and fake at the same time and it freaks your brain out
Generally adaptations of Poe’s story are either set in the wrong era or in a “Hammer” film faux historical era. As far as I can tell in this spare adaptation, costumes furniture and accessories are accurate to Poe and the context of a Master - Servant relationship was cranked up to 11. Fascinating and faithful.
Egeers was already fuming that his Hansel and Gretel film was published since he hated it. I'd love to see him react to this seeing the light of day. He'd burst into flames. Love Eggers tho, the Lighthouse is what truly sparked my interest in filmmaking. Edit: Eggers was the one who released it, my bad.
@@alexanderg1297 thats actually an old classic acting practice thing, where you only use one word with the other person and feed off of each other's emotions and perform accordingly up untill theres a climax... That scene in the lighthouse is a perfect version of that displayed by one of the greatest theatre+film actors alive and one of the most talented young actors working...so good.Pattinson was really good too since he had a reactive role in the film, theres a scene where he goes completely nuts after being chased by Dafoe, that reminded me of Daniel Day Lewis, and thats one of the highest praises you can get; theres a lot of other incredible scenes of his in it too but ofc Dafoe takes the win. Dafoe did the role like preparing for a theatre act and Pattinson went the opposite way, he'd barely rehearse to suprprise Dafoe but Dafoe ends up surprising him, he'd gag himself and throw up before scenes, drink mudwater off the ground and the dirty water falling down the chimney shaft....He was properly commited, but didnt make a fuss outta it like Jared Leto does and remained professional to everyone.
If you enjoyed this movie I really, really, really highly recommend the movie that clearly inspired it: "Institute Benjamenta" from 1996 by the Quay Brothers. The camera, light, framing, the music, the graphic design, the sound design, the time-period and setdesign are all like the Quay Brothers do it. Honestly, if it hadn’t said “by Robert Eggers” I would have thought it must have been by the Quays. It's great to see where Eggers comes from, where he started. And it’s worthy to note that also Christopher Nolan regards the Quay Brothers as one of his influences - he even shot a short documentary about them and organized 35mm screenings of some of their short films with him moderating it. Also Tool (Adam Jones) took great inspiration from their short films for their early music videos. The Quays are struggling since 10 years to get their new film financed, as their two feature films have done very poorly in theaters. Maybe a bit of attention to their work would help that. It’s sad how few people outside of the art-bubble know the Quays. So I thought I write this here. Watch their movies and shortfilms! Institute Benjamenta (1996), the Comb (1991) and Street of Crocodiles (1986) to begin with. Institute Benjamenta is perhaps my favorite film of all time.
The amount of improvement between this and Hansel and Gretel is fantastic. Not that his Hansel and Gretel was bad considering the budget issues the first clearly had. But the first shows more so the promise he has, and this delivers on it. Frankly I don't know why someone didn't give him a shot to make something earlier. By this point he was ready. Yet kept doing costume designs for years before the VVitch
7:35 is what inspired the scene from the beginning of 'The Lighthouse'..its as clear as day, that. And the opening reminded me of Nosferatu, which ik inspired Eggers a lot. Every scene seems methodically cut, like the ticks of the clock, rounded to multiples of 5 or something, though I'm not completeply sure. This has many elements of what would later develop in the Lighthouse and even quite a bit in the Witch. I could tell Jarin Blascke did the cinematography but it was much more rough here given the equipment and tools they had. The ending room shaking part could've been done much better and ik Robert could redo that 1000X better since it evokes the same feelings as that felt in his later work. Very much inspired from 1920-50s films especially its very much German expressionist. I'd love to do a version of a E.A. Poe tale set in my region (Kerala,India)(ig a Pondicherry setting would be cool because its practically a Portugese-Indian town which would make the costumes and sets unique and I think that can convey more of the feel of this).
btw I'm just writing some of the stuff I wanna remember if I revisit this and just note down some stuff incase anyone missed a unique thing in this, so that if they come across this they can appreciate this more. Every filmmaker can be great and noticing stuff from a great one's previous work helps us identify that director's signature style. So even if this isn't incredible or something, it doesnt need to be, lets appreciate the uniqueness in every small film and take what we can from the art that's been shared with us.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.. Maybe he'll check and see if it's on RU-vid one day and see some of the inspiration he's generated here in the comments
@@jasonthompson2059 hopefully but ik he never gets the time to do such things. He'd love that he's like the new Lynch or smthing, to many young people like 17 year old me. He's opened so many doors for me in terms of discovering Tarkovsky, G.Exprresnst films, New Wave, Lynch, Bertolucci, etc as he was the firestarter that really set my timber ablaze and I'd always have that respect to him for that