Interesting article in tomorrow’s NY Times about Hollywood’s attempts to create auteur ‘star’:
“His career illustrates one of the stubborn paradoxes of Hollywood: the film industry loves the myth of the auteur, the rugged individual filmmaker who plays by his own rules, until faced with the reality. Around the time that “The Sixth Sense” was released, this was a particularly potent idea, as studios tried to build brands around star directors like Quentin Tarantino and the Wachowski brothers (who made “The Matrix”), hoping their names would sell movies the way Hitchcock’s once did.
But the studios also need to heed the brutal realities of the movie business. All of these directors have had high-profile stumbles that suggest moviegoers care more about what is on the screen than what is above the title. And unlike animated brands like Shrek, real-life characters like Mr. Shyamalan can prove difficult to work with.”
The Sixth Sense was remarkable — script, directing, acting, tone, everything about it pitch perfect, an amazing effort by a young filmmaker. That’s a two-edged sword because along with the justifiable praise comes enormous expectations. I’m not sure Shyamalan could have made any movie equal to the phenomenon of The Sixth Sense.
What he followed with — Unbreakable, Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water — all made money, if you figure in total ancillary revenue streams, with the possible exception of Lady. So something must be amiss to account for the current Schadenfreude in Hollywood re Mr. Shyamalan. And I don’t think it’s just about him choosing to live in Philadelphia instead of Brentwood or the Hollywood Hills.
This much is clear: there’s a lot riding on Shyamalan’s new movie The Happening.
There is no filmmaker that elicits a comparably negative reaction in my corner of the world of wannabe screenwriters in LA. M. Night even lost a couple of Philly guys I know. Their perception is that M. embraced the auteur label, which, coupled with their profound disapointment of his films after “Sixth Sense”, equaled a tragic waste of talent in the name of ego. M. Night even managed to get this group to cheer for a studio head – whom they usually seem bitter towards – in the now well-known meeting during a birthday party for Nina Jacobson’s child.
I’m with you that there’s a lot riding on this next film. I hope M. Night pulls it off because, frankly, I like good films. But I’ve read two reviews from people who have allegedly seen the film (unreliable as that is), and they were not kind with their comments. Here’s hoping otherwise…
Tom, one sign of trouble was how M. Night’s amount of screen time kept increasing from The Sixth Sense, where he had a bit part, to Unbreakable, where he played a bigger role — “Stadium Drug Dealer” — to Signs, where he played “Ray Reddy”, a full-on secondary role with his own subplot. Could that speak to inflated ego? I don’t know. But it’s one thing to do a Hitchcock homage, making a slight-of-hand appearance per each movie, and scripting entire subplots for yourself.
Absolutely agreed. It’s as if M. Night is lobbing big, fat softballs to his critics. And the outfield fences are moving in closer and closer.
Don’t forget that in ‘Lady In The Water’, Night wrote a part for himself as a writer whose work would one day ‘save the world’ or something along those lines. I think that pretty much sums it up there.
I still hate that I’ll never get those two hours of my life back.
Yes, Lady in the Water. Hm. Not much to say there. I wonder if Shyamalan would consider directing something he did not write. I go back to The Sixth Sense which was directed brilliantly, I think, understated and simple, allowing the actors to act, the story to work. Plus, he had that great visual touch at the end when Malcolm realizes for the first time that he’s dead, this fleeting flashback of all the ‘clues’ in the movie that could have tipped him (and us) off to The Big Twist.
Maybe if he could forego the need to come up with that “big twist”, he could concentrate on a simple story elegantly told. His plots seem to go through back-breaking summersaults to set up the twist, usually losing my interest on the way.
I remember reading an interview with M. Night when Signs came out, about how the inspiration for the movie was he wanted to do a film where a family was trapped in a house. Well, having the world invaded by aliens is a helluva way to accomplish that, surely there must be a simpler, cleaner way to trap a family than with an alien invasion!
I tried to find that interview, but only succeeded in finding this and this.
Through the magic of the Web, I found the interview I referenced in the last comment and here it is. And here is the particular quote I remembered:
Q: What led you to tackle that restrained,rural-family-watching-
from-the-outside approach?
A: That’s what really drew me to making the movie, was that kind of feeling of never leaving the house – the opposite of “Independence Day,” basically.
Q: This is the un-”Independence Day.”
A:[laughs] Well, it’s steeped, obviously, in Orson Welles and listening to “War of the Worlds” on the radio – the effect of what you hear and the family’s reaction to it, that kind of thing.
Yeah, well, “Night Of The Living Dead” had already been done. So I guess he got sloppy seconds.