I adored this. It’s excellent and an incredibly well crafted argument.

If I may be so bold as to complicate the argument. I promise it’s a compliment. https://twitter.com/lightningwow/status/1295824966617686016

Wellman makes a great (and I believe accurate) argument about labor and power in The Lighthouse. But I’m watching this several times (it’s my fave film, leave me alone) is the whole business with masculinity and labor.

The American Dream, which Wellman refers to, is intrinsically linked with a specific brand of masculinity. Even the lighthouse itself is referenced in the script as being this stalwart, strong phallic symbol that both characters toil to strive to.

But it’s also true that the island is surrounded by the sea, symbolic of the feminine and personified by the mermaid, who literally laughs in Young’s face while she shrieks. I haven’t decided if the sea and the mermaid are separate entities but w/e.

The labor to maintain the lighthouse, the pinnacle of masculinity is never finished. It’s a Sisyphean task that can never be accomplished. Old constantly takes jabs at Young’s masculinity. Young must hide his sexual urges whilst Old is free at the top of the phallus (lol)

The sea is twofold. It’s beautiful, sexual, but also dangerous and full of unpredictable wrath and ruled by the moon. It encompasses everything that is both adored and feared by the masculine when it comes to the feminine.

And I think perhaps in a way that both male characters succumb to this dichotomy; of being enraptured and simultaneously consumed by the feminine. The goal is the beacon of all masculine power, all the lies (to reference Wellman again) that...

Dogmatic adherence to this brand of masculinity promises. Power and receiving the fruit’s of one’s toil in this sexual symbology. And yet it’s nothing. It’s a lie that ultimately brings about their doom. The feminine, with all its darkness, beauty and mystery, wins.

I also say this because the seductive and terror of the feminine is a theme in The Witch as well. When we’re talking masculinity and what it is to “be a man” we have to talk about what that isn’t, which is often more “not be a woman.”

There’s the capitalism thing where if you don’t work yourself to death to provide or w/e nonsense, you’re not a man. And I think the lighthouse gives us an older, absurdist version of that. At the same time, it eats you alive.

Not connecting dots as well as I like, but that’s my adoring contribution. Prolly one of two really excellent analyses on this film outside the academy that I’ve seen.