The description of Minas Morgul is from the book:
Upon the further side, some way within the valley's arms high on a rocky seat upon the black knees of the Ephel Dúath, stood the walls and tower of Minas Morgul. All was dark about it, earth and sky, but it was lit with light. Not the imprisoned moonlight welling through the marble walls of Minas Ithil long ago, Tower of the Moon, fair and radiant in the hollow of the hills. Paler indeed than the moon ailing in some slow eclipse was the light of it now, wavering and blowing like a noisome exhalation of decay, a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing. In the walls and tower windows showed, like countless black holes looking inward into emptiness; but the topmost course of the tower revolved slowly, first one way and then another, a huge ghostly head leering into the night.
Most describes how it is now, which lines up with the movie depiction. The bolded part describes how it used to be prior to its corruption - as the Tower of the Moon, it was created originally by the Numenorians to emit a moon-like radiance. So the light has been there since its construction, as part of making it "fair and radiant" (as one can imagine, a moonlit castle in a vale).
It follows that once Minas Ithil was captured and corrupted by Sauron's forces into Minas Morgul, the light too started to corrupt and change, resulting in the "corpse-light" being seen by the end of the Third Age.
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