The Lighthouse: An American Myth

Wake is something of a scientist himself

David Lynch cries at night because this isn't his movie.

They filmed this shit in Nova Scotia Defoe came to one of our superstores and bought Cheerios

How long have we been reading these comments? 5 days, 2 minutes? Help me to recollect.

Idk man this is just the flapjack show going even crazier

Eggers said that he's not interested in making a modern day-set story, but he could someday make a post-apocalyptic story in a technologically regressed future, I can totally see him doing something in the vein of "Stalker".

So it's either: Purgatory A curse coming true Two Greek mythological figures just chillin One guy going insane One guy's dying dream Or teo dudes losing their goddamn minds. Wow I love how open ended this film is.

"Order and chaos" *Shows both of them guzzling down alcohol"

this movie shoulda won a TON of awards at the Academy..... it's criminal that it didn't

Thomas Wake: You know, I'm something of a lighthouse keeper myself.

An American Myth: Based on a Welsh true story & Greek Mythology.

Does anyone else find the scariest scene to be when Tommy walks his “dog?” No? Take a look outside. After their brawl, the sea is calm and the day is clear. The tender is very much on its way.

8:19 the bird i think is supposed to be soul of the old assistant, this explains why the bird is constantly trying to get his attention and annoy him, Young Thomas is told to get oil to refill the lamp and the bird/assistant knows that this will bring thomas closer to the light, so the bird guards and blocks his path. Old Thomas telling young Thomas that "it's bad luck to kill a seabird" can be taken so literally here also, the bird was his only warning.

This movie deserves hour long analysis about themes and symbols its so good hope u do more analysis videos on this movie

Old Thomas references Poseidon at multiple times and (spoiler alert) appears as Poseidon at one point. He visits the lens privately multiple times and can apparently glimpse something heavenly in it, but isn't judged, as Young Thomas is. Perhaps that is because he represents pre-Christian pagan beliefs like the Greek pantheon. These virtuous pagans are not permitted to enter heaven, but reside in the first circle of Hell, according to Dante. In Dante, those in the first circle of Hell, Limbo, are not punished, but basically live their afterlives as they expected in the Greek pantheon. As another author wrote, "Their only punishment is that they now know that there is something higher — the true Paradise — but have no hope of ever attaining it." That would fall in line with Old Thomas's obsession with the lens, his only glimpse of true Paradise as representing these pre-Christian pagans through Poseidon. And Young Thomas's fate when approaching Paradise while unworthy.

The part where the old man talks about how all this could be a dream in his head and he could be actually back in Canada freezing to death. Instead of freezing in Canada he was actually dying on the rocks being plucked at by birds

I like the idea that the light is.... nothing. All the paranoid delusions, the midnight visits to see what Wake was up to, the vast amounts of alcohol consumed, all to find that the light was just that.

When I watched it I thought about it in a jungian way: Wake is awake, enlightened Howard is a coward, he tries taking the short cut to the light (enlightenment) and not earn his way up.

The Prometheus and Proteus parallels run just on the surface of the story, but the two most overlooked characters in the movie I believe are the Mermaid, and the Light itself, "Veritas", as she is called by old man Thomas Wake in the script. In the ancient Greek myths, Prometheus steals fire from Zeus and gives it to man, who Prometheus loved. So Zeus creates a multi-layerd plan of punishment for Prometheus, first by creating Pandora. Pandora is created out of clay by Zeus as the first woman. She is given a box which she is forbidden to open lest she doom mankind. Of course, out of her own curiosity she curses man with death and disease. I believe then that Pandora has similarities to the mermaid, as she ultimately curses Ephraim and turns him mad. Not to mention the mermaid is made out of clay and is most likely planted by the old man. When Ephraim breaks the mermaid, he opens Pandora's box, but ironically believes that he is "free from the designs" when in fact he was doomed to be punished from the start. In another story told by Aesop, Prometheus creates Veritas, Goddess of Truth, out of clay. When Prometheus leaves his shop, his apprentice Dolos, a trickster, is so enchanted by Veritas, he decides to create an exact replica of her out of clay. He is so successful that he almost makes an identical copy, but runs out of time before Prometheus returns, leaving the feet of the fake incomplete. Prometheus confused by what he sees, has both of them walk towards him. Veritas, truth, stands upright while the fake trips over and beaks apart. The moral is that Truth reveals itself in time while lies fall apart. One other interesting note about the Light itself is that what Ephraim most likely finds in the light is a mirror! These where how lighthouses were constructed back then and would also run with the theme of Truth.

My friend said something about how the clocks must be important due to the focus on them in certain scenes