Nightfall
M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, The Happening, hits theaters next weekend, and publicity is ramping up. There’s a piece in the New York Times today about the mercurial director and his troubles in the industry.
I, for one, am a fan of the director, if not the man. The Sixth Sense is one of the best thrillers of the ’90s, I love Unbreakable, and Signs was a perfectly fine film (if kind of hokey). Things started going wrong with The Village (the twist felt forced), and Lady in the Water is unwatchable and self-absorbed. So I’m kind of excited to see how Night handles the pressures of a come-back film, even one as stupidly-titled as The Happening.
Now, the reason I say I’m “a fan of the director if not the man” is because he’s so full of himself–early in his career he compared himself to Spielberg and Hitchcock, and the massive worldwide success of The Sixth Sense clearly went to his head. The culmination of this self-aggrandizement was Lady, in which Night’s storytelling was the only chance to save the Earth. Or something. It’s kind of unclear, except to say that Night is REALLY, REALLY important. To all of us. And we should appreciate/worship him.
He’s not an idiot, however, and he’s dead right about the marketing failure that was the campaign for Unbreakable. Unbreakable could have been sold as one of the great comic book films of all time (without even stemming from a comic!), but the suits wanted to focus on the twist ending. But Night has no real right to complain about being “that director who makes the movies with the crazy twists” because, well, that’s what he does. It has become something of a parlor game for cinephiles*: guess the twist in the new M. Night movie.
Which brings us to another point in the piece: the importance of director-as-auteur and the creation of “A film by M. Night Shyamalan.” My main argument against granting Night auteur status is that his films lack visual unity. You don’t see one of his films and say “oh, that looks like an M. Night Shyamalan film.” Compare him to two other young directors, Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson, and you’ll see what I mean. Yes, he may write and direct his own films, but so does Kevin Smith. And as much as I like Kevin Smith (and I really do, I think he’s a fantastic writer), I wouldn’t say he necessarily deserves to be a marquee name in the same vein as a Spielberg or a Hitchcock.
Anyway, I hope The Happening is good, and I hope Shyamalan can get his ego under control. It would be a shame to see him collapse under the weight of his own self-aggrandizement.
*And if it hasn’t, it should.
Bonus Video: What a twist!