What’s Happening to M. Night Shyamalan?
M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, The Happening, opened this past weekend and as a big fan of most of his work, I made sure I was there on opening day to see it. When I left the theater, I was dumbfounded. I was shocked and horrified. Is it that good? Well…no, it’s that bad. It’s a train wreck, a film so inconsistent, so incoherent, so poorly shot, edited, directed, and resolved, so carelessly crapped onto the screen that it’s a mystery to me how it came out of the same creative well as movies like The Sixth Sense and Signs. Something has gone seriously awry in the land of Shyamalan. Why is this happening?
First let me tell you why I like Shyamalan’s work. It’s very distinct, and no, I don’t mean it’s marked by a ‘twist’ at the end. I think his success with The Sixth Sense unfairly set up an expectation that all of his films would have that same sort of shocking reveal in the third act. When I say distinct, I mean in style. His dialogue (full of pregnant pauses), framing (long reaction shots), and pacing (slow burn) are all very recognizable, very quirky, and for the most part (for me) very enjoyable. And then there are his undeniable spiritual themes and focus on character detail. I could dial in the Theolo-vision(tm) on his movies all day long.
His rise started with The Sixth Sense, a movie I admired for its cleverness and execution but didn’t really care for on any emotional level. It wasn’t until Unbreakable that I realized that Shyamalan was someone whose work I was going to get attached to. Unbreakable was not only truly unique, it was emotionally powerful. There are all sorts of truths in it about embracing who we are born to be, becoming the hero within, that sort of thing. Of course, it starred Samuel L. Jackson too, and seriously, how can you not love that guy?
Then there was Signs. This is one I can watch again and again and again. It’s just a great movie. Well acted, well directed, well written. And it had to be, because if it hadn’t been all of those things, then the entire film could have collapsed under that huge logical problem of aliens invading a planet made up of 70% water, a substance that is lethal to them. I mean seriously, all they had to do was wait for it to rain. But that didn’t matter to most of us because we cared about the people in the movie, the aliens were just a device providing conflict for the greater story of a man’s struggle with his own faith.
The Village is my favorite of his films and one of my all-time favorite movies period. It awed me and moved me to tears the first time I saw it and it gets richer and deeper with every viewing. It’s just a stunningly beautiful film. I’d love to have a poster of the shot of Ivy’s hand held out into the darkness as the monsters are coming, and she refuses to withdraw because she knows Lucius will come for her. And when he does, at the last possible moment, and that incredible violin piece in the score plays…wow, it’s just transcendent. Once again, it works because I care so deeply for Ivy and Lucius that I’m willing to trust the storyteller to take me anywhere so long as he remembers to come back to what’s actually at stake.
On the heels of that, I couldn’t imagine what on earth he could do to top it. Lady in the Water was his attempt, and the beginning of his fall. I wanted to love this movie and in some individual parts, I did. But it didn’t hold water (har-har). It was too many pieces trying to fit into a cohesive whole. The mythology was too foreign, too complex, the characters were too many to get to know individually. At the end of the day, it didn’t work because I didn’t care enough about anyone and, in my indifference, I was left to see the holes in the rest of the film.
Some people may not have heard any of what happened during the making of the film. From what I’ve read, a lot of people told Shyamalan that the film had serious problems but he ignored their advice. Sometimes, I think the best thing an artist can do is to ignore the critics and go his own way, but sometimes the critics are right…this was such a case. There was a good film lurking but it Shyamalan smothered it. On one hand I applaud him for going his own way, but on the other, I wish he’d listened to the people that tried to advise him otherwise because I feel like we, the audience, were robbed of a good story.
Okay, he stumbled. He put out a stinker. No problem, happens to us all. Time for the comeback. The Happening. The movie starts out wonderfully. It’s creepy. It’s a great set up. It’s got everywhere in the world to go. But all those quirky shots and that stilted dialogue that worked so many times before are broken in the extreme here. I can see how this movie was supposed to work conceptually, I can imagine it taking form in his brain, I can see what he wanted and where he wanted it to go but it didn’t translate onto the screen at all. The performances are bad across the board, the dialogue is almost pure exposition, shots are framed wrong, cut together wrong, it’s funny where it should be frightening, and eye-rolling when it tries to be funny, it tries to be scientific but is so full of logical problems that you can’t buy into it on any level.
Outside of two or three creepy shot sequences, the film is completely broken. It’s Battlefield Earth broken, Mystery Science Theater 3000 broken. By the end, I almost felt like it was bad on purpose. There is a scene with an old woman near the climax that is so bizarre that I honestly had no idea whether it was supposed to be funny or disturbing. And when we finally do get to the climax of the story, it’s supposed to be emotional, but it’s not. We don’t care anything about the characters. I don’t blame the actors for this, Zoe Deschanel and Mark Wahlberg are fine actors. I blame the director. It’s the director’s job to see the performances and know whether or not they are working.
So I want my Shyamalan back. What’s the solution here? Here’s my advice, I think it’s time to get back to basics. Forget all the weird set-ups and get back to making movies about people, about how they act and interact. Maybe it’s time to collaborate. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Some smart guy said that once. Personal style is well and good but maybe it’s time for Shymalan to step outside his own little box and relearn some things. If you can sell a relationship between two people (and he has) then you can take your audience anywhere. Forget about selling the premise, sell the people in it. If you want me to care about Mark Wahlberg walking across a field to die with the woman he loves, then I need to believe he loves her more than anything else on earth. I can’t even remember her name. That’s how much I cared.
It would be really be interesting to sit in a room with M. Night and watch The Happening with him just so I could pause it every few seconds to ask him what on EARTH he was thinking. How can a person that has clearly demonstrated an understanding of cinema put together a film that misfires at every opportunity? Hopefully the experience of making something as abominable as The Happening will be a catalyst for some sort of creative rebirth. I’ll still look forward to his next film because I think he’s capable of more goodness like The Village and Signs but I don’t know how his career can stand another event like The Happening.
So I was having a bad day. I woke up, for no apparent reason, at 5:30 in the morning, and my brain was already two hours ahead of my body. It was the kind of day that usually lands me in front of the mirror with a mental baseball bat. But on this day, I did not have the wisdom to walk away in defense. Instead, I moved in closer for a beat down. My arms would not reach up to fight, but remained stubbornly, helplessly at my sides. My face, totally unprotected from the oncoming head blow, narrowly dodged clear at the very last second, and I closed my eyes in relief. A minute or two passed and I gained strength enough to push away from the glass and head for the safety of my computer. I put my head down and got to work, hoping to shake off the shadows, but an hour later I found myself crying through the proofread because I hated every single letter on the screen.
Here is a small excerpt from John Piper’s excellent book Don’t Waste Your Life (which you can read here for free, or buy here for a pittance) wherein he expresses thankfulness for Clive Staples Lewis and details some of the ways he has cleared a path for us all. I’ll only add that I vigorously concur, and that JP is among the very few men who rank with CSL for impact in my own life. -sam
Heaven knows why it has taken me so long to write a little something about this album, the newest EP from friend and soul sister, Julie Lee. Julie and I met several years ago at a friend’s house and found immediate ease in conversation and a unique connection; sparks of light and magic hung lightly in the air around our collision. It was one of those instances where you know for sure that the God of the Universe meant for you to meet this one particular human being out of the millions that He created. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but I like drama (the good kind only, please) and am grateful when I find it happening in my little life.
Browsing the shelves of wicked-cool used bookstore here in Nashville, McKay Books, I happened upon Kathleen Norris’s (The Cloister Walk, Dakota, Amazing Grace) latest, Acedia & Me. Though I had no idea she had a new book out, the cheap sticker price for a primo first edition (Note: you will recall from a previous post that I have a more than slight affinity for used bookstores and, especially, first editions) was an easy decision. The title itself was mildly intriguing since I was vaguely familiar with the word, “acedia”, but of which I knew very little. The subtitle, “A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life”, though hardly an enticing, round-em-up, gather-em-in slogan, is true to Ms. Norris’ midwestern style, neither flamboyant nor melodramatic.
I’ve been hearing about this children’s Bible called The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones for a year or so now, first from Ben Shive, then from a smattering of others whose opinions I respect on such matters. One night last week Jamie and I were putting our sweet Skye to bed (she’s 6 now), and we were talking to her about Christmas. I’d been gearing up to leave for tour and with the first Sunday of Advent fast approaching we wanted to find out what she thought. Jamie asked her who was born on Christmas morning, and Skye answered, “Um…Noah?”
Russ Bremeier at Christianity Today:
Is there a qualitative difference between learning a song from your Grandfather and downloading a song from iTunes, from getting a recipe online and pulling out the yellowing paper of an old, family recipe? Ken Myers answers in the affirmative, channeling C.S. Lewis when he discusses the need for thoughtful Christians to consider not only content in what we appreciate in art, but also how we receive it.
The other night my wife and I had the opportunity to see Charlie Peacock in concert. The Art*Music*Justice tour, featuring Sarah Groves, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Brandon Heath and Charlie, had an off day in Kansas City. So Charlie set up a house show with just him and his piano in the upstairs art gallery of the world’s most perfect Christian bookstore, Signs of Life, in downtown Lawrence, Kansas. (No kidding. Not a Scripture mint to be found, but huge sections on art, history, classics and local writers. There’s one wall devoted to the puritans, and another to Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor and the like. Dangerous.)
Mystery. Intrigue. Drugs, dark secrets, the decay of the will, and the transforming power of God’s love sown by a single man to a harvest of redemption.
My favorite book I’ve read this year was initially only a curiosity piece I perused while killing time in a Barnes & Noble. I had recently bought Unchristian – a book that offers an insightful look at how outsiders of the faith view the church – by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons, but decided I needed a mental break and started looking for something a little lighter. I’m not inclined to reach for humor books, but the cover of a book featuring a man dressed in Old Testament garb and looking earnestly heavenward with the ten commandments in one hand and a Starbucks cup in the other proved irresistible. I picked it up, thumbed through the pages and found myself laughing out loud in the aisle at Barnes & Noble – another uncharacteristic behavior for me.
The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany, the new book from my favorite author, Frederick Buechner, was released on June 16th. I added it to my Amazon shopping cart when I first heard about it from the Proprietor and Eric Peters, after they heard Buechner read a couple excerpts during the grand opening of the Frederick Buechner Institute back in January (which also featured a concert by Michael Card, with AP opening for him).
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
The musical bumper sticker on my car during the ol’ college years would have definitely read “I’d Rather Be Listening To Acoustic Music.” Therein was my initial foray into the early careers of Square Peg artists like our own Proprietor. I found great enjoyment in the Texan college worship scene (early Crowder, Robbie Seay, Justin Barnard, anyone?). And the great unknown (acoustic) rock over which I stumbled came in the form of Jill Phillips.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Andy Gullahorn is funny, but he’s also one of the more serious lyricists I’ve come to enjoy in a while. Listening to Reinventing the Wheel, you come to understand that he is more than a good songwriter. He is a craftsman. He knows what he’s doing, where he’s going, and where he’s taking his hearers.But as I said, people say Andy Gullahorn is funny. They say that, I think, because he makes them laugh. But as for me, I’m calling it nervous laughter.
I’m with you 100% on this one. I’ve really enjoyed a lot of his previous films, but this one was just… shockingly bad. I found myself laughing at parts that were supposed to be suspenseful or dreadful. It was just bad. Really bad.
What’s happened? Desperation, and not the good kind that forces you to be more creative.
I’ve never been an admirer of his work. I enjoyed Sixth Sense, but haven’t cared for anything since.
Lady in the Water showed me he didn’t care anymore. Someone re-watch that one and tell me how many times the boom mike intrudes into the frame. It was so prevalent throughout the film that my wife and I were searching for a deeper meaning in the boom mikes! Surely they were on purpose?
No. It was just sloppy film making.
I’m with you Pete (though I haven’t seen The Happening yet. It seemed clear to me that it was only worthy of a rental). LOVE his work, and have been mourning the decline of this director.
I’m TOTALLY with you on The Village - my personal fave. It’s especially good after repeated viewings. In fact, it was in the repeated viewings that I fell in love with it. If you watch it once, you mostly only experience the gimmick of the twist. Repeated viewings reveal the brilliance of the score, the cinematography, the nuanced performances… great film. The scene you referenced is one of the top 10 memorable movie scenes to me - where he takes her hand just in time to whisk her inside away from the monster, the music perfectly setting the emotion. It’s more of a dance than anything else…
However, I didn’t mind Lady In The Water. I went into it knowing that it was a film he made more for his children than for critical acclaim. We watched it with our boys (including our 3 year old) and it works on that level I think. My kids loved it - especially the 3 year old. Though it’s a far cry from Unbreakable, I thought it entertained as a suspenseful family film. I didn’t watch it very critically.
Unbreakable - wow! What a great film - especially the abundance of long shots with no edits. Loved it.
And there is an obvious Christian consciousness to all his work, I think too. They’re more than just movies, they’re parables.
and his next movie will be the live adaptation of an anime called Avatar…
..but my favorite movie by him is none other than Stuart Little…although didn’t direct it but he wrote it,.hehehehe
Yeah, here’s what he said about his next project in this interview: ‘My next movie is called “Avatar: The Last Airbender” for Paramount. It’s a fantasy, inspired by a Japanese animated series, and has a lot of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy.’
The Village is my favorite movie of his as well, with Unbreakable coming in second. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to see this one.
Don’t see it, Stephen–that is, until it’s a part of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival.
Wow! I’ve found my people! The Village is also my favorite, but I have always felt like I was the only one who liked it.
I didn’t think this movie was as bad as this review, but it also isn’t anywhere close to the first four (well first four after wide awake and that Indian one that is impossible to find)
I was a bit horrified by the cheesiness of it all at first until I read it was supposed to be like a 50s horror film, and I guess that explains it.
nd his next movie will be the live adaptation of an anime called Avatar…
If he did that —how coool would that be…you need to watch the series, it is beautifully and wonderfully done…
i think even more memorable than the hand-grabbing scene with the appropo music, for me, is the Hitchcockian stabbing scene, sans music, as you look into Joaquin Phoenix’s face and then pan down to his torso…
but there is certainly more emotional and plot-related weight to the hand-grabbing scene.
i just wanted everyone to picture what was in my brain as we talked about the Village
I’m with Jason about Lady in the Water. But as cinema in the realm of Signs and The Village, I think it wasn’t nearly as believable as the other two, especially at the end. As a kid’s story though, I was glad he devoted a portion of his career solely to a story he told to his kids (somebody else we know is in the middle of something like that, I think).
That said, I was really excited about this movie. It was breaking in on my list of summer must-sees, which is still quite short. But you guys have put the bug in my ear. I think I’ll go rent Unbreakable instead. When I saw it, I didn’t pay near enough attention the first time. I’ll give it another swing.
I read a (hostile) review of the Happening elsewhere on the net that read it as a covert defense of intelligent design. Did any of you guys see it that way at all?
I think that’s giving it WAY too much credit.
Avatar the Last Airbender is an excellent show, but I’m leery as to how he’ll translate it on screen and live action. Forbidden Kingdom, maybe?
I had to see it sooner or later. Later turned out to be last night. I really wanted to like it. When I can do so with integrity, I kind of enjoy taking a contrary position. Had I loved this movie, it would have been fun to dialogue with the rest of you. Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of the negative comments.
I did try to approach the movie with an open mind. I really did. And for awhile, I was hooked. For maybe about ten minutes.
The thing is, it wasn’t all bad. M. Night Shamalama-ding-dong obviously has skills and I thought there were some good moments, but he’s apparently sorely misguided. Had the acting performances been better, the impending doom and suspense may have been sustained. The wind blowing across the land, the music, the off-screen tension would have been much more effective had the actors been believable.
There was no chemistry between Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel. Zero. Zilch. Nada. For that matter, there was almost no chemistry between Wahlberg and John Leguizamo.
With a 60 million budget, the best thing that one can say about this film is that it is 10 million away from breaking even. With DVD sales alone, that will happen. On the other hand, if M. Night doesn’t find his second wind, we won’t be able to say that about his next effort. While we nerdish folk will probably keep following his work, with another flopola, the masses will stay home.