The Gaslighting Lighthouse, Promethean Nature of Man & Nature of Madness
[No spoilers]
A Gonzo philosophical inquiry about the film, The Lighthouse, starring Willem Defoe & Robert Pattinson. As well as an inquiry about the nature of gaslighting, and the nature of madness.
The Lighthouse & Gaslighting
[INT. Friday — November 29th — Night — Ottawa — Canada — Mayfair Movie Theatre]
On this cold night in late Canadian November, I sat there alone in the retro movie theatre waiting for the feature film to begin; antsy because I was hoping that my weed-induced high does not dissipate before the movie ends. I want to feel every moment of this very abstract film.
The Lighthouse is a 2019 American psychological horror film directed and produced by Robert Eggers. Shot in black-and-white the film follows two lighthouse keepers (portrayed by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) who try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s where they are stationed.
Robert Pattinson is a young lad who arrives at the lighthouse island where he will begin his short-term internship to learn how to become a lighthouse operator. Willem Defoe is his supervisor.
They do not descend into madness out of thin air. Willem Defoe — who in my view has the perfect acting face to embody madness (think Green Goblin in Spiderman) — begins the provocation into madness by distorting Robert Pattinson’s sense of time and sense of reality; a phenomenon called gaslighting; to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.
He does this, seemingly, to prevent Robert Pattinson from leaving him alone on the island once his internship ends.
The overarching theme of the film is a commentary on the fragility of the human mind and how due to the Promethean nature of the human condition, it’s easy to lose one’s sense of time, of reality, of self.
The Story of Prometheus
Promethean:
Relating to or characteristic of the demigod Prometheus, especially in being rebelliously creative and innovative.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, who defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity hence enabling the beginnings of civilization.
(The fire symbolizing wisdom which compared to biblical literature, this fire is the apple of knowledge of good & evil i.e. wisdom)
Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a champion of humankind and also seen as the author of the human arts and sciences.
The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft is a major theme of both ancient and modern culture.
Zeus, king of the Olympian Gods, sentenced Prometheus to eternal torment for his transgression.
Prometheus was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, was sent to eat Prometheus’ liver, which would then grow back overnight to be eaten again the next day. (In ancient Greece, the liver was often thought to be the seat of human emotions).
As a philosophical researcher in 2019, it amazes me how our early human predecessors had that level of awareness, poeticism, and dramatization in communicating the tragedy of the human condition; a process of perpetual growth & development, of beauty and tragedy.
Tragedy is beauty when it hurts.
Back to The LighthouseThe film is brilliant. Forget a motion picture this is a motion painting. Every shot and scene, could easily be a painting! kudos to Robert Eggers & Jarin Blaschke for this masterpiece.
All of this piqued my curiosity. Because the nature of madness is one of the philosophical areas of the human condition that had always fascinated me.
I had previously researched this phenomenon intensely by finding a homeless man, seemingly, with schizophrenia and sitting with him to pick his brain.
The following is the story of this investigation on the nature of madness, if you’re also interested.
The Nature of Madness
“What the artist and the insane have in common is common also to every human being — a restless creative fantasy which is constantly engaged in smoothing away the hard edges of reality” — Carl Jung
Madness — as in Gnarls Barkley crazy, not mad as in angry — seems to be related to creativity (a distant second cousin perhaps). The English poet, John Dryden succinctly wrote:
Great wits are to madness near allied. And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Creativity, in the classical sense, is the creation of something completely new, that which never existed before. It could be an idea, a story, a poem, a song, a painting, a design, an invention…etc. — anything truly original.
A birth of something new — birth whether physical or abstract — is bringing out into the world, that which never existed before. And all births are violent by nature.
Birthing new ideas are experienced with great pain and angst by the person giving labor to them.
Much like a mother in labor, the creative birth requires mental labor — squeezing and pushing the head of a new idea out of the bedrock of your mind; as it’s still forming, still immaterial, still nothing, still meta. It hasn’t emerged yet but on the verge of it! the head’s not out yet! Keep pushing!
This pushing (mental labor) causes many ideas and thoughts to erupt simultaneously in a violent rush of outbursts of seemingly unrelated ideas, memories, random thoughts, all bursting at the same time — random access memory.
This process is exhaustingly overwhelming and panic-inducing, as the person feels the loss of control over his ever-accelerating mind.
The breaks won’t work! Until you’re either left with either something truly new, birthed out of nothing or you’re left in a state that which we call madness…
The train of thought has gone “off the rails”.
If this is the dynamics of creativity, then total madness is simply a footstep away; as if creativity lies in the doorway of madness — where madness is the loss of the sense of self in this creative birth.
This aspect of human nature intrigued me, so much so, I was compelled to investigate this further. In the name of Arts, Humanities, and Philosophy!
Artis, Humanitas, Philosophia!
I picked up a copy of the philosopher, Michel Foucault’s, book On Madness and then proceeded with my ritualistic tradition of the burning of the Kush (a ritual of necessity before commencing any philosophical inquiries).
It was a sunny Canadian October day not too cold, not too warm, the warm sun kissing my cheeks as the refreshing cool breeze of northern Canadian air keeps me in check from getting too warm — perfect conditions for reading outside.
I decided to get some coffee and read my book on the bench just outside the coffee shop.
As I was sitting there, my focus on reading kept being interrupted by the intermittent yelling of the homeless man across the street from me. He was yelling at passersby:
Homeless man: Fuck you too! are you even there?!
He yelled this at two university girls who hadn’t said thing and were trying their best to avoid eye contact with him as they silently passed him, not wanting any trouble.
Homeless man: You bitch! Do you and your man even know how hard it is? Are you going to tell him?!
He yelled this at a young married couple pushing their baby in a stroller past him.
I was hooked! Maybe it was the weed or maybe it was something else — but it seemed like a reasonable idea to investigate madness straight from the source and go have a conversation with this homeless man!
Instead of reading what Foucault had to say about it, I should go interview this mad man — like an investigative journalist or a Gonzo journalist at the very least, like Hunter S. Thompson (RIP) — a Gonzo Philosopher.
I closed my book and approached the seemingly schizophrenic homeless man. I dropped whatever change was in my pocket into the upside-down hat that lay on the pavement in front of this “mad hatter”.
And then I sat next to him and said:
Me: what went wrong my man?
Homeless man: Could you sit in front of me? I just don’t trust people who I can’t see straight.
Me: sure.
I sat on the pavement in front him, while his dog approached and played with me
Homeless man: I just don’t trust anyone behind me or next to me.
Me: did someone hurt you?
Homeless man: a lot of fucking assholes, many fakes.
Me: fuck man I’m sorry
He began to talk about things that seemed unrelated and it seemed like an incoherent story — like there was a deluge of thoughts flooding out of his mouth all at the same.
I didn’t quite understand the narrative or the point of what he was saying, but I definitely felt some significance and faint profundity, inklings of truth — it was like a Salvador Dali painting but in words uttered by a homeless man with schizophrenia.
As he was talking, I became lost in reverie, analyzing my original question of madness & creativity.
Madness somehow seems related to the rate of thought formation in one’s mind. As in the number of thoughts formed per second. The feeling of madness is when this occurs at an accelerating rate…faster and faster to the point where the formation of thoughts seems to be happening all at the same time — one thought doesn’t seem to be required to instigate the next thought. There’s no link. Unraveling of links in fact. The inability to stop this chain reaction of chaotic thoughts is madness.
Artists — of any kind — are those who learn how and when to apply the brakes: controlled chaos is creativity, unfettered chaos is madness.
A close analogy is when a person tripping on psychedelic drugs, by this definition of madness they experience madness.
The only reasons why they don’t think it’s madness is because they can explain what they’re experiencing (they just ate a psychedelic drug) and they’re certain that it’s temporary (they’ll sober down) — Take those 2 away and tone down the visual hallucination and that’s close to what it is — inability to trust your sense of time, sense of reality, sense of self; gaslighting.
Eventually, the cops came and interrupted my conversation with the homeless man and I left satisfied with the purchase I made: the change I had in my pockets, in exchange for insight and first-hand education on the phenomenon of madness.
I gave him a hug and went about my day.
