It was shot in black-and-white, with a nearly-square 1.19:1 aspect ratio. Principal photography took place in Nova Scotia, Canada, beginning in April 2018 and lasting slightly over a month. The Lighthouse draws visually from photography of 1890s New England, maritime-themed French cinema from the 1930s, and symbolist art. Robert Eggers assisted the development when Max was unable to complete the adaptation of 'The Light-House', sourcing the plot from a nineteenth-century legend of an accident at a lighthouse in Wales. The idea for the film first emerged from Max Eggers' re-envisioning of Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished short story of the same name. The film has defied categorization in media, and interpretations of it range from a horror film, a psychological thriller, a survival film, and a character study, among others. It stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as nineteenth-century lighthouse keepers in turmoil after being marooned at a remote New England outpost by a wild storm. The Lighthouse is a 2019 film directed and produced by Robert Eggers, from a screenplay he wrote with his brother Max Eggers.
