Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

I'm Jesse Thorn, it's Bullseye.

A warning before we get into this conversation you're about to hear, there is a little bit of talk about sex and also some talk about

mermaid genitals. That's all, just a heads up. It's a weird email to have to send to standards and practices but we're grateful to them for

fielding it. So anyway, the other day I saw this movie called The Lighthouse. It's about these two men on an island, two very old

tiny sailor men living in New England in the late 1800s. One of the men is old, the other is young. The whole film is in black and white.

The wind is howling outside. The older man played by Willem Defoe doesn't really like the younger one.

The younger one is played by Robert Pattinson. The two of them drink a lot. Somewhere off the shore there is a mermaid, a storm comes, there are tentacles, and the two men slowly lose their

sanity. That basically is the gist of The Lighthouse. It is a strange, disturbing, intense, brilliant film. It lives with you. I've been living with it since I saw it.

Robert Eggers, my guest, directed the film. He wrote the script with his brother Max. Before The Lighthouse, Eggers wrote and directed The Witch, another disturbing, brilliant film set in Old New England.

Here's a clip from The Lighthouse. In this scene Defoe's character, Thomas lectures Ephraim, played by Pattinson, about how he performs his duties.

I marked and swept twice over. He lied a dog. I swept the Pittsburgh grind in the dabble. Unwiped, unwashed and disdained.

It's some kind of perk out of molestin' me. Come now. I already said... How dare you contradict me, a dog? Now look here. I ain't never intended to be no housewife nor slave in taking this job. In an ain't right.

These lawtons is more ramshackle than any shanty boy's camp I ever seen. The Queen of England's old fancy housekeeper can even done no better than what I've done.

Because I tell you, I scrubbed this here, please. Twice over. And I say you did nothing other sort. And I say, you swob it again and you swob it proper like this time. And you'll be swobbing it ten times more after that.

Robert Eggers, welcome to Bullseye. It's great to have you on the show. It's great to be here. Will him just... He's just about to get going.

We got the clips we got. The other option was sneaking into the movie theater with a directional microphone.

So I guess the idea for this film to use started with like almost like an atmospheric feeling?

Yeah, I tend to think, I mean, not always, but I tend to have the atmosphere before the movie.

And the atmosphere and some images sort of get things going. My brother who wrote this with me was working on a screenplay that was a ghost story in a lighthouse. It was different than this.

But when he said ghost story in a lighthouse, I pictured this black and white crusty dusty, rusty, musty atmosphere. A movie in a boxy aspect ratio with stumpy clay pipes and facial hair almost as extravagant as yours.

All of those key elements of the film. It is really striking. I went to see the movie at a fancy movie theater in Hollywood.

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