The publicity build-up for M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film, The Lady in the Water (opening this coming Friday), has begun with some shatteringly bad buzz. It’s too bad, because I’ve been a fan of Shyamalan’s four major films, even the ones that haven’t had a great critical reception. (The Village, for instance, offered a nice critique of religious fundamentalism, I thought. And isn’t The Sixth Sense really a film about reincarnation and the Hindu/Buddhist concept of Moksha, albeit explored through the proxy of Catholicism?)
Some of the publicity isn’t so bad. To begin with, Shyamalan’s got two profiles in the east coast papers today, one in the New York Times and another in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Inquirer likes him, because he’s a local boy and he’s stayed local: he owns a house in Gladwyne (not far from where I live, actually), and created a monster set in nearby Levittown for Lady in the Water. The Times is a little more lukewarm, focusing on a silly trick documentary shot (with Shyamalan’s approval) to accompany the release of The Village, and on Shyamalan’s apparently rampant narcissism.
Shyamalan has probably helped to undo his mystique a bit by taking himself too seriously. There is a sketchy-looking biography of him coming out this Thursday, called The Man Who Heard Voices: How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career On a Fairy Tale. From this New York Times review, the book looks highly embarrassing. Among other things, it details Shyamalan’s split with Disney during the early phase of script-writing. And while some of the reasons Shyamalan gives for the split seem like good ones (Disney “wasn’t allowing it to be visceral”), others seem pretty trivial: he apparently wasn’t happy with how his assistant was treated by Disney’s executives; and he was annoyed they didn’t want him to cast himself in one of the major roles. As for the film itself, the early word is not encouraging. I was particularly struck by the casual negativity of this Reuters review (note: the review has lots of spoilers). Sometimes, when reviewers don’t have a lot of obvious criticisms to make, they find ways to hate the film anyway. Lady in the Water seems like it might become one of those films.
More bad buzz is this massacre by David Edelstein in New York Magazine:
WhatÂ’s odd about Lady in the Water is that for all ShyamalanÂ’s histrionics, heÂ’s overcontrolled. His emotions might be stirred, but ours arenÂ’t; heÂ’s good only at alienation or flat-out horror-movie horror—things that go “Boo!” (HeÂ’s like any B-director—he jacks up the volume when the beasties jump out at you.) (link)
But Edelstein is so vicious and show-offy here that his hatchet job isn’t as damning as the Reuters review I linked to above. Edelstein is proving to his readers that he’s smarter than the filmmaker; I don’t know if what he says is really about the film. (Will have to see it and find out.)
Shyamalan does have a kind of rebuttal to the movie reviewer culture in Lady in the Water itself: one of the characters — presumably among the first to die — is a snarky film critic. And at least in public Shyamalan seems to have a clear head about the value (or lack thereof) of critics’ opinions here:
If you get caught up in too much of this, you lose your mind, because it’s all a momentary perception thing that happens. These movies are so clouded by the other movies or being a part of the group, or the expectations, that it can be damaging to you as an artist. So I get a general sense. Signs is my best-reviewed movie, next is Unbreakable, and then next is “Sixth Sense” and then next is The Village. Signs is also my most popcorn movie, so the least aspiring to a higher thing. It’s that aspiring to something higher that always gets everyone going “Oh, yeah, motherfucker?” That gets everybody all riled up. If everything were re-reviewed now, it probably would be a different group of reviews that would come out. (link)
Here Shyamalan gets at one of the elements of his films that seems to bother a lot of reviewers (though not me), and that is his penchant for fairy-tale like plot symmetries. To me, there’s something really beautiful about a story simple enough that anyone and everyone understands it. And when the story also has broad social significance (i.e., a “big idea,” aspirations to “something higher”), it can have great power. While I wouldn’t say that Shyamalan’s films up to this point have been flawless, I do think that he’s managed to at least aspire to “higher things” in commercial cinema in a way that few other present-day filmmakers have done.
I’m a fan of most of his films. In fact, I think Unbreakable is one of my top 10 of all time. But he’s totally flipped with this. Creatures from the blue world? how many rustling leaf, dark shadow, hitchcock “show the threat of violence and not actual violence” shots can we deal with. One thing I think is different with movie audiences from hitchcock’s time is we want to see variety, we don’t want to see the same thing over and over again.
I made myself late this morning watching his interview on the TODAY show– there’s a very cool backstory to this movie. It was actually a bedtime story he told his children, that they couldn’t get enough of: “Did you know…that there is a lady who lives in our pool?” He had to make it just suspenseful enough but also not too horrific since they are relatively young, so in his opinion, a child as young as 8 would be able to hang with this.
There’s a picture book out for even smaller tykes. 🙂
He was hilarious, when asked about his proclivity to cameo, he mentioned how he didn’t do that in The Village because, “well, everyone was WHITE.” He also talked about how he thought he was nervous screening his first film, but that was nothing compared to showing LitW to his children. 🙂 He was so worried they wouldn’t like it, after they had inspired it, etc. It turns out they did enjoy it; apparently, they also recognized plenty, since they kept turning around to gape at him, at which point he’d have to gently chide them to “turn around, you’re missing it” or something similar. It was all cho tweeeeeet.
Anyway, it’s not supposed to be THAT scary, which means that I’m actually going to see it, and the bit with the film critic (which is what they showed a clip of) amused me. That and he’s HAWT (he’s grown his hair out a bit, compared to the above-featured picture). Be still my dil, y’all.
It’s white supremacy. They’re trying to keep a brown man down, that’s all!
Just kidding. I really like Shyamalan’s films. I’ve hated almost every ending that he’s come up with, aside from Sixth Sense, but somehow I find a way to forgive him that.
I do think that there exists among critics a need to thrash someone who is rising quickly. Shyamalan kind of came out of nowhere with Sixth Sense and blew the fuck up.
I find the symmetrical, fairy-tale style of storytelling refreshing. Maybe I’m just escapist, but I think many of us need that kind of escape. And I don’t think it’s wrong or anti-intellectual to seek it out.
Anna, yes — I watched the video Shyamalan did for Amazon a few weeks ago. It looks like it’s a story about storytelling (an interesting subgenre!).
But he did have a cameo in The Village (much as that might ruin his punch line), did he not?
What I find fascinating about Shyamalan is that he’s a mainstream filmmaker, but all the reviewers seem to skewer his films as if he made Reservoir Dogs and followed it up with Armageddon. Not to play the race card [oh wait, I’m on SM, why not? ;)], but I do wonder whether this has to do with his ethnicity: Indian= indie?
Tell that to Jay Chandrasekhar! Though I guess indie stoner flick could be a sub-sub-genre.
I cannot get over the fact that before Sixth Sense was a certified hit , Night’s name hardly got any billing. It was always Bruce Willis in big bold letters. I say, now, let Night be his crazy self, we need sone divadom badly in H’wood. And his ethinicity, even though it is not overly harped upon – definitely contributes to the befuddlement of the establishment. He is not boxable.
Manoj and the sea of Stories? Sounds like Haroun homage.
LiTW seems DOA after reading those reviews. My money is on Snakes On A Plane as the summer’s best ticket.
Vikram,
Might be — but this summer the reviewers and the masses have often disagreed with one another.
Applies equally to Krrish.
Amardeep: I agree that there has been disagreement. But after a snoozefest like “Superman Returns” , I don’t think I want to pay $10 to see another whispery overly pretentious Shyamalan ripoff of a Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode. I liked “Sixth Sense” but nothing he has done since then has lived up to that film.
He was hilarious, when asked about his proclivity to cameo, he mentioned how he didn’t do that in The Village because, “well, everyone was WHITE.”
That was SO cool 🙂
so was he in the village movie or not?
According to IMDB, he was the “guard at the desk”…
I’m quite certain he had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in The Village.
Yeah, Manish, I’m not claiming Indian = indie. It just seems like that’s how reviewers are treating these filmmakers.
I think he was. Wasn’t he the security officer of the park or something?
And well, if there is someone out there who really hasn’t seen the movie yet, there is no point in seeing it now, is there?
Vat? Pay 450 rupees to go see a movie about a village? I can stay home for free.
On the DVD there is an alternate ending in which MNS has a longer scene. One of the benefits of skipping the theatrical release…
“how many rustling leaf, dark shadow, hitchcock “show the threat of violence and not actual violence” shots can we deal with.”
a lot, if it’s hitchcock himself. more than half a century later and you can (well i can) still watch a hitchcock movie over and over even though i know the plot. plus he had far more charismatic actors to work with.
have only seen unbreakable, and thought it was ok. unfortunatley it didn’t really make me want to run out and watch sixth sense. he appears to have a lot of talent but doesn’t seem to have got it quite got it all right yet. whatever happened to his plans to direct life of pi? i think he should branch out and do a variety of genres insead of sticking to one.
anyone seen the latest pirates movie and is it worth going to see?
Also, Shyamalan had a fairly significant role in Signs as Ray Reddy. I think he wants to do the Hitchcock thing – some presence/ role in their movies.
I think he is a one-trick pony. I have enjoyed his movies, mildly.
Whose God,
1–He gave up the chance to direct The Life of Pi, and also apparently, the last two Harry Potter movies (apparently there’s some question about the status of those still).
2–You should really see the other movies before commenting on his skills as a whole. I’m not guaranteeing you’ll love them, but there’s a certain conceptual unity in his work that’s rare among commercial directors today. But you may be right about the possible value of branching out and doing some silly action movies (especially if he’s serious about modeling himself on Steven Spielberg).
3–Pirates 2: the film equivalent of a chicken with its head cut off. It does have a bit of a desi theme, though, with an Indian actor (San Shella) in a bit part and a number of references to the East India Company.
One thought about the Hitchcock comparison: he benefitted from the fact that he got the chance to make several of his greatest movies twice — first in black and white in England in the 1930s and 40s, and then again in Hollywood, in color (and w/a big budget), in the 1950s and 60s. Some of the films people talk about with Hitchcock (as in “The Man Who Knew Too Much”) were actually remakes of films he had already made! And: Hitchcock generally didn’t write the scripts of the films he directed. And also: he had a directorial career that spanned 50 years, and included 66 films (only 10-15 of which are considered ‘great’).
i’m back from the abyss…
the village was horrible… and m. night was the park ranger in the film as his cameo… (a brown park ranger?) anyhoot, i don’t think that any of his films have been as suspensful or as interesting as the 6th sense.. the village was one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen.. heck i guess the entire premise in the first 5 minutes and snoozed through the rest of it… and painfully so…
oh well.. not going to watch this one either… don’t care if he’s brown or not…
I’m happy for Shyamalan’s success, but when is he going to drop his policy of having no desis in his movies (except himself)?
amardeep, thanks for the succinct review of pirates! it’s nice to actually go to a theater for the experience of seeing a movie with others but there’s so little these days to tempt one. i have been meaning to rent sixth sense but never really get around to doing so. i did think unbreakable was highly watchable in parts. i’m surprised he dropped life of pi. he seemed so enthusiastic about filming in his birth place. i think he should direct more movies not always based on his own scripts based on what you wrote in your post.
i have seen both versions of “man who knew too much,” and pretty much every hitchcock movie that i know of. first the doris day/stewart one and then the 1934 version. both were good, although it was odd not to hear day sing que cera cera in the older version. a few years ago managed to get some of hitchcock’s earliest and less well-known films such as jamaica inn. it’s interesting to see how far he went after those really early black and whites.
A N N A, happily, don’t think we’ll be ogling the same men with the same bad intentions… I rolled my eyes when I saw him when the Today show did the tease before the commercials saying that he was up next. Gawd, he’s let the hair grow longer and fluffy and had highlights (bleachhhh), looking like Saif Ali Khan in the early part of Hum Tum. And what’s with the jewelry, oy!
Reijimon, good one.
I liked Signs the best, maily because of Mel and Joaquin (esp Joaquin), and the humor (I seem to remember tin foil hats), found the others same old-same old, and skipped The Village for that reason. I’ll be waiting for the Lady in the Pool to appear on HBO someday.
Am relieved he let go of Life of Pi, though it would have been interesting to see if he cold do something different.
Reijimon, Sarita Choudhury has a significant role in this one, at least. And at least one reviewer complained that the apartment complex in Lady in the Water was actually too multicultural.
As for when he might do a fully desi-themed movie. One simple answer is, he did — “Praying With Anger.” It’s an open question whether he could do such a film now and have it be mainstream on the scale of these other films. Personally, I don’t think it’s possible. (In Hollywood, Indian == Indie, as others have already pointed out.)
Amardeep, I agree that to a large extent in Hollywood Indian=indie. But I think someone with the stature of Shyamalan could make a film about virtually anything and people would go see it. Sure, it’s hard for an up and coming director to get anywhere in Hollywood with a desi-themed movie; but Shyamalan has already made it big. What’s his excuse?
If he wants to make movies about White people his whole career, that’s certainly his perogative, just as it is my perogative to call him on it.
OK I wish everyone would leave my boy Manoj alone. I LOVE HIM. OK I hated Unbreakable. Wait I take that back. I simply didn’t get it and it annoyed me. I never saw the Village after reading a spoiler by mistake. I’ll catch it on HBO at some point. I did however love Sixth Sense and Signs. Oh I so loved Sighs. It simply spoke to my belief in coincidence or really just karma. I mean I was really taken by it. I had never really seen a commercial movie that appealed to me. And green men from outer space…wow that was like a whopper for me. Aliens and a belief system all in one…loved it. Everyone just leave him alone!!
Unbreakable was great. It was straight out of Eastern Daoist philosophy. Opposites are intertwined, connected, and at some level depend on each other. Also, I note this to everyone, it was the first movie that really humanized the superhero figure, much much before it was trendy, like in spiderman 2 and batman begins.
But gimme a break, this guy is at the least self serving, and at the most downright pompous and arrogant. To put some story he made up to his kid on the screen and expect an audience to swallow it, hook line and sinker?
He’s gonna be John Stewart’s guest tomorrow on the Daily Show.
I don’t care if he makes movies about spotted blue lizards his whole career. What I do care about, however, is that the movies he (or anyone) makes are good — interesting, entertaining, intelligent.
I’m so over this idea that a minority writer has to work on certain topics, or someone will take it upon themselves to “call him on it.” What are you calling him on exactly? His success at writing and filming stories that connect with millions of people all over the world?
Unfortunately minority directors/actors always face the “selling out” label. Spike Lee was accused of it when he broke from his usual “message” themed movies to do “Inside Man” (though it did in some ways convey his messages in a more subtle way.) I would like to see MNS direct a story written by someone else (his weakpoint is writing a cohesive story) and easing up on the clunky contrived cameos. He has the style and skills to do an intelligent non fantasy “Usual Suspects” type of thriller /character film.
Amardeep, I’m calling him on avoiding including desis in his films (at least the films of his which I’ve seen). My problem is that the White people in Hollywood generally avoid putting desis in films, unless it’s to make fun of us, so when a desi director like Shyamalan comes along and makes it big, I am a bit miffed when he decides to follow suit and avoid us like the plague. I consider it a sellout. Yes, let him make good movies, it obviously is of no significance that they are all about White people, right?
I just wanna add to what I just said and emphasize that I’m not a Shyamalan hater, I understand it’s hard for desis to achieve any level of success in Hollywood and I’m very happy for him. I just take issue with what I described in my previous post.
Shyamalan is a “sellout” because he’s a desi director who doesn’t use desi actors and/or tell desi stories? What’s the alternative? If he makes a film for & with the community just to “keep it real,” he’s just as much a sellout, artistically, as he’s still catering his image to his audience, not himself.
Here’s something to think about: Would The Sixth Sense–with its whole afterlife psychology–have been interesting as a movie about desis freaked out by dead people [who, as someone pointed out, deal with the afterlife as a matter of religion and natural belief, and not as nightmare]? And what about Unbreakable? How would the [very American] black/white archetype be dealt with with just desis? Or, if The Village were filmed in a village in India, how would the historical backdrop of eighteenth-century spirituality in the States (which includes, quite prominently, witch trials), be integrated?
If the guy thinks in white, so be it, he’s an American and only ever represented a realistic American demographic in his films (which is, I think, a key element in everything except The Village: the average and/or everday getting tweaked & twisted). But, he’s hardly avoiding desis in his films–the guy jams himself in scenes in such incongruous, self-conscious ways that its hard not to notice him as both director and, an Indian American surrounded by white Americans.
I’m not saying I don’t understand your point, but I do think its unfair to call him a sellout just because he doesn’t use Indians in his films, especially when none of the films call for such casting. If anything, he’s tried hard to sculpt a thematic identity in Hollywood, oftentimes at his own expense, and that alone should define him as anything but a sellout.
Personally, I think he needs to shift his perspective (after Signs, things that go bump-splash in the night are redundant), and step out of the supernatural and into the everyday he worlds he keeps freaking out with aliens, dead people, things in the forest, Ron Howard’s daughter…
How true, of all critics, film or otherwise. But itÂ’s sad that
because of two reasons.
First, the movie has the heartbreakingly underrated Paul Giamatti, who proved in ‘Sideways’ that Greek God good looks are not a pre-requisite for great acting.
Second, the movieÂ’s plot, which is about
seems to do what Shyamalan says he wants to do: aspire to a higher thing.
I keep thinking of Night as the next Hitchcock. Hitchcock was not always warmly received, nor were his movies, and he certainly made some that were not great, but always entertaining, and I think that that’s going to be Night’s legacy, sadly he’s going to have to wait 20 more years to see it happen.
But he does look like a Greek god. Ever heard of Silenus? Dionysus’ teacher and companion. Maybe they had this in mind when they were casting Sideways.
And (TMI, I know), I once stood next to him (Giamatti, not Silenus) at a urinal at Film Forum.
Oh, please. Critics have done nothing but praise Giamatti throughout his entire career.
In fact, it was the critics who lavished him with their critics’ awards for ‘Sideways’ when the Academy ignored him.
maurice –
the fact that Shyamalan happened to catch mel gibson stumble upon the set of “Aliens vs. Children of the Corn” on film did not make (Signs) for a Hitcock-caliber movie, my friend.
please refer to section II-56 Sub-section 9A of the You So Didn’t Go There edict of movie legends for further clarification in this matter.
Regards,
AC
WGiiA,
Night’s dropped out of Life of Pi because he is known for his last-minute plot twists, and Life of Pi has its own last-minute plot twist. He felt that if he did the movie, everyone would expect a plot twist, which pretty much ruins the whole point of a plot twist. Sorry, I forget where I read that.
I think Night has had only one great movie (Sixth Sense), one good movie (Unbreakable) and the rest have been terrible. By terrible, I mean a definite waste of time and money.
Is it me or has every movie that has come out this summer just completly horrible. That pirate movie has no business being a success.
I think Shyamalan is one of few “auteur” directors in the world today. I’m a big fan of his filmmaking. I’ve enjoyed all his movies — even if some of his stories are a bit corny. He has a vision for his art and is willing to fight to get it done without compromising.
I’ve been reading the barrage of negative press on Night and wondering why. The NYT had two articles bashing him mercilessly in the space of a few days — just based on the book. There’s another bad review in the New York Magazine calling him shallow and narcissistic. Others point out the story or myth of Lady is unbelievable, etc. What amuses me is that these are the same people who don’t have a problem with the myriad of films and books that are being released everyday that are devoid of any creativity, originality or vision. I don’t even see a reason for the NYT to review the book because it’s hardly a literary masterpiece — unless the intention was just to bash Night.
I havenÂ’t seen Lady yet, but I doubt it can be worse than any of the other commercial movies that are playing in theaters. TheyÂ’re all either sequels, remakes of the same old story, or have predictable storylines and plots.
So why is it that critics and some people so critical of a director who is original and unique? Maybe because they just don’t understand why someone who’s where he is would want to make films that are a little different and quirky and not follow the same old tired blockbuster formula like Ron Howard, et. al. There’s also some jealousy because he seems to have an unwavering vision of what he wants and isn’t afraid to demand it — which not one would expect from a brown person. In fact, I do find a tinge of racism in many of the articles. It’s almost like, “Dude, for a brown guy you’ve done well for yourself so why are you dissing studio executives and movie critics? Why can’t you just join the team play the game?”
IÂ’m an anti-establishment guy myself so IÂ’m rooting for Shyamalan to win.
If you like Dylan, youÂ’ll be glad to know that Night is a big fan of Dylan and Lady has three covers of Dylan in the soundtrack. Cool.
As we can see in the comments section, the inverse is true for avid Night defenders. Seek for invisible reasons to denounce the critics.
Rejimon:
He started out with Praying with Anger, made entirely in India with entire Indian cast, which I thought was honest and courageous. Almost all his other movies are totally indian in spirit. ‘Sixth Sense’ with its restless ghosts is obviously Indian. Only Indians/Japanese believe your soul (atman) doesn’t rest if something bad happen to end your life. ‘Unbreakable’ had the parents still sticking together thru an empty marriage. How Indian is that! And he broke stereotypes by appearing as an Indian dope dealer. ‘Signs’ was all about premonition, spirituality and extended family.
The Village does not seem to have any Indian influence. But it is my favorite Night film, after Signs, for content. I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood with all the children out in the streets knowing everyone. Now I’m in a gated community and so isolated, I’ve taken to blogging. I stay in touch with my friends and family who are very strict about privacy that many of them still refuse to discuss personal things in our private blog because they are afraid of ‘infiltration’. Someone might discover the recipe for our secret chicken curry. The people I do run into here are so uniformly boring, I want to go back to University, become a starving artist or turn gay. Night’s Village really addresses these issues. People hiding from their fears by gating themselves and restricting their lives without really escaping what they fear. And that is Universal. The Lady in the Water might not be what people want to see from the maker of Sixth Sense. It will definitely seperate the thrill seekers from the movie-lovers.
Night takes himself far too seriously. What’s up with his name? Did he wake up one morning and suddenly decide that everyone should call him Night. That’s as ridiculous as deciding to call yourself Sting. His movies are predictable and just silly. The most embarrasing thing is his cameos; the dude can’t act.
It’s common enough for desis in Hollywood to change their names to either be more catchy or to be more Anglicized. Two prominent examples are Kal Penn and Ben Kingsley.
See article titled “M. Narcissus Shyamalan” in the New York Magazine. Scathing. http://nymag.com/movies/reviews/17661/index
SunsetPrkBklynMassive, you’ll find that I already linked to it in my original post. I thought Edelstein was a little over the top there, showing off a bit too much.