“The Lighthouse” is a landmark film in more ways than one with a once again impressive Robert Pattinson. For his first day of filming, the actor gave his all for a fierce masturbation scene.
The Lighthouse : hallucinations in a lighthouse
After making an impression with The Witch (2015) and before tackling the Viking world with The Northman (2022), Robert Eggers proposed The Lighthouse (2019). For his second feature film, the filmmaker offered a radical work. In a 4/3 format, in black and white, with actors bordering on histrionics, we follow two lighthouse keepers at the end of the 19th century. Winslow, a young man played by Robert Pattinson and who discovers the profession, alongside Thomas, an old rogue played by Willem Dafoe.
On this islet off the coast of New England, Winslows indulges in a certain loneliness and is soon invaded by strange nightmares. In his visions, appears in particular a mermaid. A creature that will create in him a desire and an escape from the fights and drinking bouts that fuel his daily life with Thomas.
The Lighthouse offers several hallucinatory sequences. Moments during which Winslow gets lost and where Robert Eggers can allow himself visual experiments. We then think of this moment when the protagonist offers himself a moment of intimacy during which he lets out all his frustration thinking of this famous mermaid. The one he has (a small wooden sculpture) and the one of his dreams. A disturbing fantasy in the end since desire and violent and shocking images mingle.
Pattinson’s masturbation to start filming
In any case, Robert Pattinson has agreed to give his all to shoot this sequence where we see him frantically masturbating. A furious masturbation where violence can be read on the actor’s face. Asked by The New York Times (via Cinemablend), the actor returned to this particular moment by showing himself rather satisfied and amused of what was his first scene to shoot for The Lighthouse.
It’s always nice to start shooting with something huge, and I was really huge for the first take. It was the complete opposite of what we had done in rehearsal, and I could see that Robert was a bit in shock afterwards. But I thought to myself, “ok, that’s cool, I was not told to stop, so I will continue in this direction”.
Words confirmed by Robert Eggers himself, who found something inspiring there.
The first day we filmed Rob masturbating in the shed. It’s the first thing we shot. Rob really, really went all out. And it was inspiring.
Inspiring, we don’t know. But definitely memorable. In any case, we cannot deny with this the involvement of Robert Pattinson, who therefore did not hesitate to lay himself bare to The LighthouseLiterally as figuratively…
The Lighthouse is currently available on OCS.
