(This, in case you were wondering, is a review of the film The Happening, by M. Night Shyamalan, and some thoughts about his work in general.)
First, Shyamalan gifted us with The Sixth Sense, a movie about dealing with pain and loss, overcoming fear and working towards compassion, and using your gifts to help and heal others. It was successful because people wanted to see the scene with the kid whose head is half missing. “Whoa, creepy!” and all that. And it was remembered because of the twist at the end, which is nice but not the point of the movie.
Then there was Unbreakable, a film that sounds and feels and looks absolutely unique, featuring the best and most layered performance Bruce Willis has ever given, also a fantastic performance by Samuel L. Jackson, an incredible score by James Newton Howard, and a very original plot about finding yourself that succeeds at being dark and inspiring at the same time. Unfortunately it also has a really good twist at the end, which also isn’t the point of the movie, but was apparently the only thing people were capable of latching on to.
Third came Signs, which gave Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix deep and simultaneously hilarious parts, and which was scary in a subtle, intelligent way, and which had a twist ending which was well-conveived but ill-executed. But at this point, barely anyone was actually watching the movie anymore, they were just waiting for the twist, and they all missed the wonderful scenes between Gibson and Phoenix and the children – some touching, some hilarious.
Then there came The Village, a profoundly touching love story that was marketed as a horror movie, and which people went to see hoping to see some gore (or at least something scary)… and the twist, which once again isn’t the point of the movie (except in that it propels the love story in a different direction, and makes the ending a lot more positive and hopeful and progressive than it would otherwise have been). And of course people complained, and the critics hated it, and missed the beautiful cinematography, yet another great score by James Newton Howard (Signs was OK; more on that later) featuring the amazing violinist Hilary Hahn, amazing performances by every single actor, and a script that is more intelligent and complex than the publicity ever let anyone think. Those who wanted a horror movie hated it. Those who wanted a period piece hated it. Those who just wanted to hate it hated it. Very few people got what it was actually about, even though it’s entirely obvious. Publicity can all too easily work against a movie.
And finally, there was Lady in the Water, a bedtime story that is half comedy and half drama, full of underplayed sadness, eccentric but likeable characters, and a hilariously mad self-referential critic character played by the wonderful and underrated Bob Balaban. The critics, who generally hate anyone who makes movies that are subtle and emotional instead of contrivedly sentimental or exhibiting apathy disguised as world-weary cynicism, hated its guts. And I don’t think they took to being made fun of very well, either. Nobody got Lady in the Water – nobody got that large parts of it are funny and silly and meant to be so. That this is what a supernatural event might be like if it happened to everyday, flawed people. In a way, it’s a very realistic movie. But the very idea that art may be meaningful, that normal people can change the world… not very popular. Especially when there’s a well-done anti-war undertone to the whole thing. Can’t have that, no. And to top it all off, Shyamalan gave himself the part of a flawed but very important character. That’s just egocentric. When an actor casts himself in the lead part of a movie he’s directing (see Braveheart), that’s just super – but when a director, who has also done some acting for most of his career, gives himself a small but important part… that’s a crime.
M. Night Shyamalan has the problem that anyone who is both good and successful, while simultaneously maintaining integrity and vision, has: it has become fashionable to hate him and his movies. It has nothing to do with the actual movies he makes. Which is one of the reasons The Happening is likely to fail – had it been directed by John “Boogie” Generic the Third, Lord of Troutville, it would’ve been a real success, hailed as a “shocker” that “strikes deep into the heart of modern fears” while simultaneously having “strong, unique performances by actors cast against type” in a movie that has “more levels than just that of horror.” Or something like that.
But that is unlikely. Chances are it will fail at the box office for two reasons: it’s a Shyamalan movie, and it’s really old-fashioned. What does this mean?
- It ain’t about blood and guts. It’s not like Saw, or Hostel, or all the other torture porn trash being pumped into cinemas by incompetent directors and greedy film studios. The horror here is psychological, even cosmic (in a Lovecraftian sense)… this is about something big, something uncontrollable, and about a few people’s reactions to it.
- As such, it is a character movie. It’s about characters’ emotions and thoughts – and these characters aren’t cardboard cutouts. They’re people. Quirky people. Imperfect people. But their imperfection, in turn, does not lead to the fashionable misanthopy so widespread in modern cinema; the movie doesn’t try to sell us that everyone is evil or that people always do bad things to one another.
- The camera doesn’t shake all the time, and we actually get to see character’s faces. In that sense, and in many others, this movie is The Anti-Cloverfield. Where Cloverfield was sloppy and generic, The Happening is methodical and specific; where Cloverfield was about characters with the depth of about seven quarks, The Happening is about characters who are emotional and whose emotions matter.
- The performances are good; they are also subtle and quite unusual. Mark Wahlberg does not play the brave superhero (or worse, the supersoldier of the catastrophically bad Shooter) – instead, he is quiet, emotional and often confused or unsure of what to do. Zooey Deschanel is even more quirky, and (once you get the hang of her character) often quite hilarious. And John Leguizamo, an actor whom I like a great deal, is thankfully neither a Latino cop nor a Latino criminal, but a very likeable and sad math teacher. Yay! He is also in what is possibly the most touching and shocking scene in the whole movie.
- As I said above, the movie is old-fashioned. An equally appropriate term would be Hitchcockian – this is a lot like The Birds, not that anyone will appreciate this. It is also often Hitchcockian in its writing (especially near the end – I don’t want to spoil it, but Betty Buckley’s Mrs. Jones is wonderfully scary and eccentric), cinematography, and especially in its music. The latter feature it shares with Signs, and in both cases I find this to be a weakness – but I do appreciate the point of the attempt. I just don’t like the music of most older movies. If you do, or if you’re nostalgic, it should work wonderfully for you.
- The movie is about what humanity is doing to the global ecosystem. This alone will create a huge backlash from all sorts of people – those who believe global warming is just a hoax by evil scientists (tell that to the weather we’ve been having for the past few years), those who believe movies should be pointless and every attempt to make a movie be topical constitutes preaching, and those who simply hate anything they consider to be left-wing, nature-loving, tree-hugging, and so on. And more – there are tons of people who will hate the movie for this. In its topicality, the movie is also strangely old-fashioned; it just doesn’t have that cynical/nihilistic vibe the critics love so much.
- The movie is sometimes very funny, without being cynical, without making jokes about shit and sperm, and often in scenes where we totally do not expect it. Old-fashioned verbal humour, often totally underplayed. Or visual humour, just Zooey Deschanel’s facial expressions. This aspect will, as usual, be ignored. Humour isn’t interesting, right? It’s easy to write and it’s just filler. Which is why we have so many great comedies these days…
So what is likely to happen? People will complain about the film being preachy. The performances will be trashed, especially Mark Wahlberg’s – because he was a rapper, or because it’s a Shyamalan movie, or because some women find him attractive, or because some people just don’t want to admit that he can act. Kind of the Ben Affleck effect. (Affleck is actually an even better actor, and a really good writer. Shame the media were looking for a toy to play with. He did make some crappy movies, but who hasn’t? He also turned in some great performances and was ignored for the longest time.) Some people will even complain about twists, when there really aren’t any. There are some plot developments, sure, but if you count those as twists, you’re an idiot. Same goes for the ending.
Others will find the film too slow, too boring, or will compare it unfavourably to Cloverfield and similar content-free shakycam trash. And maybe thirty years from now, people will see that this is a pretty good film. After all, they trashed Blade Runner. And Citizen Kane. And The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions. And Star Wars. And Southland Tales. And a lot more of my favourite movies. But the real question, to my mind, is what will happen to the career of M. Night Shyamalan, one of the most talented and visionary writer/directors I know, someone with both the technical talent and the originality that mark a true artist. If The Happening flops, as it probably will (I saw the preview in a cinema the size of a cupboard; they were playing Sex and the City on the big screen), this will make financing even harder to find for his next project. And I’d really like to see what else he’ll come up with.
Edit: A few years later, Shyamalan directed The Last Airbender, with mixed but decent results. We have not yet seen Devil, a movie he wrote but did not direct. The hate continues to flow freely while uninspired hacks like Michael Bay make millions off of lazy fanboys and 80s nostalgia.
Second Edit: This article will soon be replaced by a more up-to-date one in which I will try to explain what I think in a more organized fashion.
Jonas
/ February 18, 2011Hi, people from the LJ hate group. Since I can’t comment on your post, I’ll leave my comments here:
You can go on about “Shyama-wank” and find anyone who likes the man’s work infuriating, but I’m not allowed to dislike Michael Bay, or to assert that it’s sad that Bay’s soulless nonsense is still successful when much more individual directors like Shyamalan are not? I don’t want anyone to blindly worship Shyamalan, I just find it rather sad that he attracts all this hatred when at least he believes in his work and has a clear directorial vision (whether you enjoy his work or not is a different question) – in an age where so much generic nonsense in produced.
And what exactly is wrong with saying that the cast is culturally diverse? Yes, it was fairly silly to cast the main protagonists as they did, but racist? In a movie with this cast? Sorry, I disagree. Casting mistakes? Definitely. Racism? I honestly don’t think so. (And please don’t start with the business of labelling people who disagree with you “privileged.” You don’t know the first thing about me.)
As for the silliness of the names, I was referring to the names of the tribes and a few other elements (they simply never sounded real to me, both in the series, of which I have seen the beginning, and in the film – but perhaps I am simply sensitive to such things), not to the rather straightforward character names.
My problem isn’t that you don’t appreciate Shyamalan’s other movies, or that you think The Last Airbender is a weak adaptation (as I said, I don’t think it’s particularly special either). My problem is the sniggering hatred that is so openly on display here.
Anonymous
/ February 18, 2011Mr. Kyratzes, sir,
My problem was *not* that you didn’t like Michael Bay — I have no opinion on him whatsoever — but only that you had to be a jackass in terms of dissing people who had the audacity not to like Shyamalan. *That was my original point.* And if you don’t like Michael Bay, can you at least *not* insult people who like him? *That* was what I meant by “pulling the LOL GO WATCH TRANSFORMERS 2 STOOPID” card. Really.
I had no intention of you seeing this; it was merely venting. *Bows contritely* I appreciate you trying to argue your points; I was only saying that some of these points pissed me off.
Again, I’m really sorry.
Jonas
/ February 18, 2011I have no problem with people genuinely not liking his movies. I have a problem with the “ooh Shyamalan aha twists shit ahahaa” meme, by which the movies he’s made, which are all quite unique, get tossed into the same pot and dismissed without consideration, or in which he is absurdly painted as “arrogant” for trying to realize his artistic vision. But it’s become so fashionable to bash Shyamalan that I’d argue most people dismiss his movies without ever trying to parse them. And that kind of attitude is very problematic.
No, I can’t. If Michael Bay simply made headless popcorn movies, I would have no problem with him. But his movies are essentially fascist propaganda, weapon fetishization mixed with crude racist stereotypes, and I strongly believe in speaking out against these things.
Anonymous
/ February 19, 2011Okay, I’ll admit you made a good point regarding some people Complaining About Shows You Don’t Watch. *Sighs* That said, “weapon fetishization”? “Fascist propaganda”? Have you even *watched* a Michael Bay movie?
And really, you don’t have to be a complete *twat* to “realize your artistic vision”. He *told one of his critics to commit *suicide*, for crying out loud!* Do I have to do an interpretive dance to show how absurdly stupid this is?
Look at Peter Jackson. Look at Darren Aronofsky. They recognize their artistic vision without being completely insufferable gits. Because they’re *good filmmakers*. Shyamalan is *mediocre*; ergo, he has to put down other people to make himself look good. That’s not “realizing artistic vision”, it’s called “stupidity that makes Rush Limbaugh look like Albert Einstein”.
And then the whole racism bit. *This*, my good sir, is racism:
http://www.racebending.com/v3/general/depictions-of-gender-and-ethnicity-in-the-last-airbender/
Makes TRANSFORMERS look tame, does it not?
Jonas
/ February 19, 2011Yes. Many of them. Almost all of them had the features I just mentioned: glorification of (American) military technology and racial/ethnic stereotypes.
You mean the very definition of insipid mediocrity, the man who took one of the greatest novels of the 20th century and turned it into badly-made, childish and occasionally racist nonsense, stripping it of all grace and depth? Not a very good example for me.
You know, my impression is that for the most part “Shyamalan is so arrogant! Aaah” is nothing but a meme, repeated without any reference to reality. And even if it were true, so what? Many great artists were insufferable gits, but that doesn’t mean we dismiss their work.
There are some good points in there, but some of those quotes strike me as intensely silly and/or misguided. Surely the characters played by Indian actors are not all villains? (Many of the Fire Nation characters are quite sympathetic, for example.) And surely it counts for something that there are, in fact, so many Indian actors in this film? Again, I’ve said before that the film was badly cast, but I don’t think that makes it racist.
Actually, no, it doesn’t. Have you see Transformers 2, with its “black” transformers, with their gold teeth and “ghetto” language? Watching that feels like a modern-day minstrel show.
Jonas
/ February 19, 2011Please don’t get me wrong: yes, I do think it’s incredibly wrong to cast white people as the main protagonists, and it is a failing that weakens the movie considerably. But I don’t think it comes from racist intentions, and it didn’t strike me as racist when seeing the film; mainly it struck me as silly and unfitting.
(Let me put it this way: I feel that Shyamalan certainly meant well, and did give us quite an interesting cast – especially with the inclusion of actors like Dev Patel, Shaun Toub and Cliff Curtis. He then screwed it up by casting the other characters as he did. I don’t think this results in a racist movie; a movie somewhat blind to certain issues, yes, a much weaker movie, definitely. But the diversity is still there, and I still found that aspect quite enjoyable, even though I cringed at Nicola Peltz.)
Jonas
/ February 19, 2011Finally, let me add that I understand the fans’ disappointment with this adaptation. I think it’s a decent little fantasy movie for kids, but even as someone who didn’t enjoy the original series all that much (partially because I’m simply not attracted to the visual style, which is merely a personal preference), I can still say that it could have been adapted into something much, much better. I was quite weirded out that it wasn’t, in fact; as someone who admires much of Shyamalan’s other work, I thought he’d be the perfect director for this. I maintain that the whole movie gives me the impression of having been made with good intentions, even if the results are not particularly amazing. I think it’s a case of “tried and failed” rather than “went out of one’s way to piss you off.”
It probably would’ve been much better with a script by the original writers.
Which still doesn’t make me want to vilify Shyamalan or ignore the rest of his work, which is superior by far.
Jonas
/ February 19, 2011OK, reading your wonderful comments like
really reminded me that arguing with fanatics and haters is not worth it. Accusing others of being racist while using that kind of homophobic language? Give me a break.
Maybe you should consider, just for a second, that other people have opinions, and a right to those opinions, especially when they try to articulate their reasons for holding said opinions. All I said was that I enjoy Shyamalan’s work in general and find The Last Airbender to be not quite as bad as everyone says, if not particularly brilliant. Your reaction to this, and the kind of language you employ to express it, says more about you than you think.
Maybe you should stop getting off on hatred and start being a little more constructive – like trying to get more people to watch the original show, and explaining to them why it’s superior.
Jonas
/ February 19, 2011Oh, even better:
Well-done! Making fun of an Indian name because you think the person with that name is racist. Are you aware of just how bigoted you actually are?
Jonathon Wisnoski
/ February 19, 2011Well you are slightly fanatical with your opinions yourself, Jonas.
On the topic of general racism I think everyone has to calm down about it. Of course if you are constantly looking for it you will find it, just like anything else.
It’s pretty much gotten to the point that be sure you are not going to be accused of racism you would have to hire equal numbers of all races and distribute them evenly throughout your company.
Which actually happens to some extent in many companies/organizations I understand, which seems racist to me.
Jonas
/ February 19, 2011I am? How so? Having a strong opinion and being able to defend it does not equal fanaticism. Every single one of my opinions is the result of thought and consideration; I know this because almost all my opinions used to be different.
Stegg
/ February 19, 2011I agree with the comment at the second part of johnathons comment “Which actually happens to some extent in many companies/organizations I understand, which seems racist to me.” by wanting racial variety in a company, you arent giving equal chances to everyone. I dont think colour should matter. We should sit in a room and tyoe our answers to a mediator in an interview. The interviewer should only get to see the cv and no nationality and then they can be chosen based on their answers experience and education. Ok so slightly extreme but until people learn colour doesnt matter, we have to make it not matter with other means.
I think the cure to racism is to disregard the racist meaning behind words. Like foucault says, language carries weight and power and its only when the meaning of these words changes that the word can then be classed as not racist. For example, in my country, to call someone “black” meant dirty and was a slightly racist term, suggesting they were as dirty as black people (not that I think they are dirty) but now, I dont know anyone who recognises the racist roots of the word and now its never really used in a racist way. You may not agree wth the usage but the point is, its not racist now it just means dirty. Meanings can change. Sadly however I feel I have an idealistic view and I have no idea how to execute something like this.
Stegg
/ February 19, 2011I meant to say, in ages gone past… “black” meant dirty and was a slightly racist term
Jonathon Wisnoski
/ February 19, 2011Well you do seem very strongly opinionated about somethings like if a movie is good (which is a personal opinion with really no right or wrong answer).
And add to this the amount of times you seem to get into insult slinging arguments with people
I think a case could be made that some of your opinions are more fanatical then average.
Jonas
/ February 19, 2011I disagree. As I already said, a strong opinion and arguments to back it up are not the same as fanaticism.
dieter brummer
/ March 1, 2011Personally, my fanaticism yardstick tends to be a tone of “everyone else really should be thinking this way”, which Jonas certainly falls into. Actually, so do a lot of my friends. Probably a lot of your friends, too. But then, I apply the label ‘fanatic’ to people who are really into a certain genre of music.
I’m on Jonas’s side here (of course I am, i’m an indie-game dilettante, but even if that were not the case, his rational argument and impeccably formal debating style would tilt me in his favour). I don’t really like M Night Shaymalan that much, as I find much of his work overwrought (which I understand is very much his personal style, it’s just not to my taste), but I don’t like people who resort to ascribing non-normative sexual practices to those who disagree with them.
Although, fair is fair, Michael Bay can’t really be pointed out as a particularly virulent example of perpetrating pro-status-quo propaganda when you consider his place in what is essentially an implicitly socially and politically skewed medium.
But as to slinging matches, this is what happens when you get people who love things and people who hate the same things that the aforementioned people love together, which unfortunately (along with trying to sell you things and disseminating pictures of cats) is one of the things the internet does best.
http[colonSlashSlash]xkcd.com/386/
dieter brummer
/ March 1, 2011Oh, and you don’t even have to put this one up there, but a good argument against jonas’s fanaticism is that the comments on this blog are moderated, and many of them STILL turn up. A real fanatic would just block us all and keep spewing the love. I think Jonas just likes a nice big emotionally charged debate, or shitfight, whichever you consider more appropriate.
Max
/ March 5, 2011I think this Facebook page sums up everything there is to know about M. Night Shamalamdingdong: http://www.facebook.com/pages/M-Night-should-be-hanged-for-treason-against-the-Avatar-fan-base/131783276855379
Jonas
/ March 5, 2011I think that Facebook page shows that some people need a sense of perspective.
And I still think that making fun of someone’s last name for being Indian doesn’t exactly make you look good.
Anonymous
/ March 8, 2011So just because he’s Indian, he gets a free pass for saying, explicitly, “There’s no Inuit woman who looks like Katara” when there are so many talented Inuit actresses who could have pulled Katara off?
Leah Angutimarik:
http://www.sila.nu/zope/db/static/poster/leah_profile.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4a68asTcd1qzt17eo1_400.jpg
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2006/03/08/rasmussen_sew060308.jpg
Or Annabella Piugattuk:
http://www.northernstars.ca/actorspqr/Media/piugattuk_annabella_250.jpg
http://pics.livejournal.com/skywardprodigal/pic/00a848xt/s320x240
Susan Aglukark:
http://www.warchild.ca/_images/music/musicians/musicians_large_pic200_15.jpg
http://www.pjdancing.com/WR/WRW/Aglukark.jpg
http://www.oct.ca/publications/pour_parler_profession/mars_2005/photos/remarkable_portrait.jpg
Irene Bedard:
http://moviemikes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/irene.bedard.jpg
http://blog.nola.com/drumsong/2008/11/medium_irene.jpg
http://magiadisney.altervista.org/Immagini_Forum/Somiglianze-Pocahontas-Pocahontas_Voce.JPG
And that’s just a few.
In short, you are an ignorant idiot, and I pity you. Good day, sir.
Anonymous
/ March 8, 2011Also, I’m pretty sure you haven’t been out in the world much, especially considering you don’t know what the word “homophobic” means:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/homophobic
“Sucking someone’s dick” or “blowing someone’s e-dick” is a figure of speech. A metaphor. It has nothing to do with someone’s stance on gay people. Hell, it’s been applied to *girls* as well — are you going to call us misogynist as well as homophobic.
I would normally accept your opinions, but you have overstepped. You attacked my friends, hard-working people trying to make their voices heard, and filmmakers infinitely more talented than you could ever hope to become. You’re pathetic and sad and angry, and I would hope you would come to your senses — except I really doubt you have any. Good day, sir.
Jonas
/ March 8, 2011I attacked your friends? By… letting you start a whole post attacking me for having a different opinion? By letting you berate me and call me names while I answered with arguments?
You run or participate in a blog dedicated to pouring hate on one movie. I simply commented that I thought it wasn’t as bad as people said. Who is pathetic and sad and angry? I spend my life creating art. You spend your life complaining about other people.
Yes – and when applied to a man, generally a sign of homophobia (you suck dick -> therefore you’re gay -> which is a bad thing). This is well-trodden ground, and accusing me of not knowing what the word homophobic means is just silly.
So just because he said that, you get to make racist jokes about his name?
No, you don’t. You hate me for having a different opinion and trying to defend that opinion, and because you can’t deal with counterarguments you resort to name-calling.
Dieter Brummer
/ March 20, 2011Good day sir?
Good day to YOU, sir.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDW0ZnZxjn4&feature=related
Sorry for spamming pop-culture references, it’s how I contribute.
Also, considering Avatar is set in a mythical world featuring awesome flying bison-fish-dragons, it’s hard to produce compelling evidence that the character Katara is a person of indigenous North-American native ancestry.
****note, I just googled this to find the context of what he’s saying, but that’s the extent of my knowledge of this issue.
I don’t think he’s saying “inuit are a race of second-class subhumans not fit to act in my films”, I think he’s saying “Fuck you, there is no-one of ANY race who resembles this collection of pigments we recognise as a human figure -to wit- a cartoon character enough to shoo them in to the casting role, therefore I can cast whoever the fuck I want.”
“Fuck.”
Hey, ten points to whoever can let someone else have the last word. I’m talking to YOU, Jonas-reasoned-argument-Kyratzes.
Dieter Brummer
/ March 20, 2011Doublepost:
ten points off the first person who reads the above and thinks “really, mister so-smart-and-culturally-savvy? That means there’s no compelling evidence to produce stating that she’s NOT an inuit! HAH!”, because yes, that is my point. Good luck casting Krillin in the dragon-ball movie, homie. Y’all find someone with no nose or irises, and he is IN!
Tommy
/ May 20, 2011I’m sorry, but I didn’t dislike “The Happening” because “it’s a Shyamalan movie, it’s fashionable to hate him” (interestingly enough I discovered that it was made by him AFTER a guy angrily accused me of this. Before that I had no idea about who made it, I just knew I hated it. Talk about irony!)
I also didn’t dislike it because “it ain’t about blood and guts.” and “it’s not like Saw, or Hostel, or all the other torture porn trash being pumped into cinemas by incompetent directors and greedy film studios.”
I happen to LOVE non-gory horror not just as much as gory horror, but way more.
Pointless gore might be mindlessly fun once in a while, but intelligent horror always glues me to the seat to keep watching it.
I also didn’t dislike it becaus “their [the character's] imperfection, in turn, does not lead to the fashionable misanthopy so widespread in modern cinema”, or because “The camera doesn’t shake all the time, and we actually get to see character’s faces” (I’m actually annoyed by that overrated effect), or because it is “old-fashioned” (oh, please, I happen to love old movies, expecially horror ones.)
I also didn’t dislike it because “The movie is about what humanity is doing to the global ecosystem.” or because I “believe global warming is just a hoax by evil scientists” (LOL) or that “movies should be pointless and every attempt to make a movie be topical constitutes preaching” or because I “simply hate anything they consider to be left-wing, nature-loving, tree-hugging, and so on” (I basically AM a left-winger, LOL)
Basically, what I mean to say is that I didn’t dislike it because I’m a mindless ignorant drone who only wants to see blood and gore and shaky cameras topped with nudity and bad puns, or a fanatical right-winger, which is what you seem to think of anyone who dares to dislike the works of M. Night Shyamalan. And I think that is quite an arrogant assumption.
The Sixth Sense was a masterpiece, and not just because of the plot twist; The Umbreakable is also a beautiful film and it even launched a whole new genre.
Unfortunately, The Happening isn’t a masterpiece nor a beautiful film; I wouldn’t even call it a decent film. And THIS is reason why I disliked it.
It is just the proof that Shyamalan seriously needs to go back to studying biology.
I really do not understand how someone might take the events of this movie seriously. Plants do not work this way, evolution does not work this way, and the human brain chemistry does NOT work this way. Basically, almost nothing of that movie makes sense in real life.
Had he left the whole thing unexplained, like in a certain another film you compared it to, then I would not have loathed it so much; but if you want to give the events a scientific explanation, then you HAVE to do it right.
When even someone with a basic understanding of biology and brain chemistry can tell that your “explanation” is bullshit, you seriously need to get back to studying.
Tommy
/ May 20, 2011ps: sorry for any grammatical mistake, this is not my first language.
Tommy
/ May 20, 2011pps: I also do not like Micheal Bay’s movies. Yet another assumption you got wrong
Eline
/ July 8, 2011I 100% agree.
I loved lady in the water and just can’t understand the hate. For me,M. Night Shyalaman will always be a decent(or even good) director.
Woden
/ July 13, 2011I find myself strongly agreeing with Tommy. “The Happening” was the first Shyamalan movie I had seen, and given my general lack of interest in movies, I hadn’t even heard of Shymalan prior to seeing it.
However, contrary to your assertions, I did *not* find the performances to be good, or even mediocre for that matter; the dialogue came across to me as being rather stilted and forced, and the characters behaved very unbelievably in many of the scenes. Furthermore, these problems seemed to be strongly rooted in a poor script, not a poor interpretation by the actors.
Furthermore, the science behind the movie was simply disgraceful. Being of a scientific background myself, the glaring flaws and obvious lack of research made it *very* hard to focus on the actual movie. The movie was far from being a telling piece on humankind’s environmental damages; it was a farce that brings into question the screenwriter’s understanding of what the damages even *are*.
Is it truly so much to ask that even a summary of a common and basic topic, such as evolution, be read before a script is written which features it as a central plot point?
Jonas
/ July 13, 2011To me the science issues don’t matter so much (and if you read up on the rest of my blog, you will that this is not my general position) when the movie is very intentionally going for a slightly old-school B-movie feel.
I still don’t think The Happening is perfect, partially because I wish it could decide a bit more clearly what it wants to be (Hitchcock? B-movie? modern thriller?), but I don’t think it’s the disaster everyone claims it is.
Anon
/ July 24, 2011Did you ever pause to consider that perhaps people dislike M. Night Shyamalan’s films because there has been a marked decline in the quality of his work, not just because people hate Shyamalan for being popular (which is a silly, irritating and unverifiable argument)?
If you take Shyamalan’s filmography from The Sixth Sense onwards, there has been a constant decline in critical acclaim for every subsequent film. You say this is because people want to hate him because he is popular – but why? Since The Sixth Sense was so good and won him so many fans in both critical and popular circles, surely these same fans would want to propel him further? There was no backlash against Shyamalan himself – only his films.
The Happening best exemplifies this decline. Due to some unfathomable reason, Shyamalan has completely lost the ability to understand human beings and how they realistically behave. His dialogue has become stilted, hamfisted and laughable. The best cast would struggle with these lines, but the actors and actresses in The Happening – under Shyamalan’s direction – put in the worst performances of their career. If it was only one or two iffy performances, perhaps you could blame the actors; when the whole cast are acting like androids, then the problem lies with the director.
Quite frankly, this alleged personal element to criticisms of Shyamalan is laughable. All evidence indicates that he is criticised for his film-making, not his personality, although the latter hasn’t done him any favours. What is at question is the quality of his work, not his character; focusing on the latter in lieu of the former looks like a classic case of redirection. His direction – usually dependable – took a nosedive into incoherency in The Last Airbender; while he was able to wring great performances out of Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis, he can now only inspire dull surprise in his most recent actors; and his dialogue has deteriorated to the point of clunkiness, being the worst part of the otherwise decent Devil.
Jonas
/ July 24, 2011Which was actually written by Brian Nelson.
Anon
/ July 24, 2011With Shyamalan also credited as a writer.
And it backs up my accusation of redirection tactics when you choose to ignore my four-paragraph post in favour of picking out a minor detail.
Jonas
/ July 24, 2011No, credited as the guy who came up with the idea, which backs up what I said about people having a personal problem with Shyamalan. You want to blame him for the dialogue because you hate him, but he didn’t write the dialogue. Brian Nelson did. Shyamalan’s credit is only for the story.
Frankly, I don’t care to debate this with you in great detail. Why should I? You yourself have ignored half of what I’ve said (about the problem with how the movies were seen/presented), and your argument boils down to “the movies are crap so there.” I get that The Happening is flawed (but not to the degree that you claim) and that The Last Airbender wasn’t terribly good, but that’s got very little to do with a fashion that began long before that, or with a lot of what I’ve written in this post.
(Is your claim about the quality of his movies any more verifiable than my assertions? And don’t give me the critics as an argument, because the problem with the critics is a big part of what my whole post was about.)
Anon
/ July 24, 2011The hallmarks of Shyamalan can quite clearly be seen in the writing, from the blunt Christian symbolism to the setting. He did produce the film, after all, as well as originate its story; are you honestly claiming he didn’t have any influence at all on the writing? The weakest elements of the story – from the exposition-ladling security officer to the man unsubtly lecturing on forgiveness at the beginning – can be easily attributed to his involvement. If you are prepared to cite the cinematography and musical score as evidence of Shyamalan’s strengths, then you must equally accept this.
And you are right – my argument is based on the quality of the films, whereas your defence is based on demonising Shyamalan’s detractors for imagined ulterior motives. The Happening is objectively awful. The performances – which you single out for praise – are almost certainly the worst aspect; the direction is capable, although the writing is stodgy. Take the scene where the characters respond to a man committing suicide-via-lion with all the shock and horror of a family watching a sub-par episode of Total Wipeout. Or the infamous “run from the wind” scene, where the film’s greatest drawbacks – dialogue and acting – combine to produce the most unfathomably poor performances I have ever seen in a mainstream film.
Aside from this, your defence of this film amounts – once again – to redirection. Dislike of The Happening could not possibly be based in its quality. Oh, no. We must hate it because it is not gory – even though it features one man being graphically torn apart by animals and another man throwing himself under a lawnmover. Or maybe we hate it because it has an environmentalist message, although I fail to see how a film that shows Mother Nature attacking the human race is really going to endear the masses to environmentalism. Or perhaps we dislike it because the camera doesn’t shake (which critics *always* enjoy), or because it’s funny (any humour derived from the film, excepting the scene where Mark Wahlberg speaks to a plant, is mainly unintentional). Oh, and we must hate the performances because of the actors, not the performances themselves. I actually like Wahlberg, and think he is a capable actor, but his performance is indisputably awful here – for reasons totally irrelevant to his personal life.
More to the point, you call the film “flawed”, yet at the same time you give it comparisons to Citizen Kane and Blade Runner. It is fine arguing that a film is not as flawed as others say, but it is a wholly different matter to put this film – even indirectly – on the level of a masterpiece, which strikes me as allowing your obvious devotion to Shyamalan to overcome the basic ability to judge quality.
Films are inherently subjective. But if I state that a film is of poor quality, and a majority of critics and the people also believe this film to be of poor quality, then that statement carries more weight than an assertion made by a single source who is quite clearly swimming against the current. Your opinion does not override the opinions of dozens of critics, as collected on Metacritic and elsewhere.
What I really don’t understand – and others have picked up on this – is your reference to Michael Bay. People hate Bay because of his films, which are often critical misfires. In this regard, he is the same as Shyamalan. Funnily enough, Bay’s defenders use the exact same argument as you – that critics only attack Bay’s films because they hate him for being popular – with a similar amount of success.
Jonas
/ July 24, 2011It’s nice that you saddle me with opinions I’ve never expressed. I haven’t even seen Devil, and I wouldn’t attribute anything to Shyamalan other than what he actually did. The film has a director. His name is John Erick Dowdle.
I was merely making the point that good movies are often not understood in their own time, and expressing the hope that maybe people will look back at some point and find Shyamalan’s work to be more valuable than it was thought to be in its own time.
Actually, mainly I’m saying that I wish people would stop demonizing Shyamalan and take a closer look at his work, undistorted by the fashion of bashing it and the obsession with finding “twists.”
Ah, yes, I had forgotten that You are God. Thanks for reminding me.
Did I claim my opinion overrides anything? No. I stated my opinion. But you, who are part of the bigger group, seem to be so incredibly put out by that that you have to come here and lecture me, unwilling to argue and reducing my enjoyment of Shyamalan’s work to a personal devotion.
I mean, think about it. There’s a whole internet out there full of people ranting and raving about the awfulness of Shyamalan, agreeing with you, and yet you’re spending your time here, intent on crushing even the tiniest bit of disagreement with that position. What motivates you to do that? There’s a thousand mediocre or bad movies every year, a ton of awful directors whose movies make money. So what makes you feel the need to come here and tell me that my opinion is tantamount to treason?
As for the opinion of the critics – I guess I’ll have to go burn my copy of the Collected Work of William Blake now, since in his own time he was considered a lunatic and a fool with no understanding of art.
You keep writing and accusing me of misdirection, and yet all you’re saying is “the critics agree with me that this movie is awful, so you’re wrong” while not paying any attention to the actual post, which is not just about The Happening.
Anon
/ July 24, 2011Ah, I see. So you haven’t even -seen- Devil, but you can comfortably attribute its problems to others. And yet you reject allegations of fanaticism.
And here we have the classic conceit: X was criticised in its time but later became popular, so therefore the critics must be wrong about Y. The problem is, Shyamalan is no William Blake, and The Happening is no Visions of the Daughters of Albion. By this same logic, are we to assume that Michael Bay’s Transformers 2 will later be rehabilitated as a modern masterpiece? Or is your issue not with critical opinion, but rather opinion which runs counter to your own? If critical opinion was positive towards The Happening and The Last Airbender, would you still be so dismissive of it? Or would you switch tone and start arguing that these films must be good because they got good reviews?
The lecturing tone was set well before my arrival. I didn’t post here because you had a positive opinion of Shyamalan’s recent work; if that had been the focus of the article, then I would have given it a read out of curiosity and then been on my way. But you chose the most intellectually dishonest method of defending Shyamalan. Instead of assessing his successes and failures, you simply pretended the latter didn’t exist and implied that anyone who said otherwise was clearly just biased against Shyamalan. If you had offered a reasonable, film-based argument in Shyamalan’s defence, then I would have been content; when you gloss over his flaws and demonise his opponents, I – and others – will call you out on it.
The only one here who won’t tolerate any dissent on this line is yourself. It’s not satisfactory for you for people to simply dislike Shyamalan’s films; they must dislike them for petty, childish reasons. The mark of the fanatic is one who considers it inconceivable that anyone could possibly have valid reasons to criticise their idol.
I have no idea why you choose to draw attention to the fact that your ostensible review of The Happening actually contains very little on that subject. It only serves to reinforce my point that your defence is based on Shyamalan as a person and his previous filmography, not the quality of the film itself. A director cannot coast off his earlier successes indefinitely. He has gone through three consecutive critical flops so far, if we exclude The Village. How many flops must we endure until “But he did The Sixth Sense!” is no longer an excuse to be trotted out at his most recent failure? If Shyamalan is so good, then let him stand on his recent efforts, not lounge back on his old victories.
Oh, and when accusing someone of trying to “saddle [you] with opinions [you've] never expressed”, you may want to avoid such phrases as “So what makes you feel the need to come here and tell me that my opinion is tantamount to treason?”, ‘lest you come off as a hypocrite.
Jonas
/ July 24, 2011When? Where? I haven’t said anything about Devil. At all. I’ve only remarked on the fact that it exists and we haven’t seen it. It could be great. It could be crap. I have no idea.
Incorrect, and not what I argued. I merely pointed out that your argument of “the critics don’t like it and that means it’s bad!” is illogical.
Yes. Because people can like stuff for all the wrong (or at least moderately irrelevant) reasons, as happened with The Sixth Sense.
I didn’t? So pointing out that the ending of Signs is ill-executed or saying that the musical style of The Happening wasn’t my thing (even though I understand the choice) means I’m ignoring all negative aspects of his movies? Or maybe you’re just bothered that I’m not disliking what you dislike?
You ought to look up the word “consecutive.” If we have to exclude something, they’re not consecutive. Not that it matters whether something is a “flop.”
The Sixth Sense is far from being my favourite movie of his, and at no point did I argue in such a way. You’re projecting your hate-fuelled ideas onto me again. I actually explained why I think much of his later work (particularly Unbreakable, The Village and Lady in the Water) is excellent and misunderstood. I’m not saying what you seem to think I’m saying.
Explain to me how that’s hypocritical. Did you or did you not go out of your way to point out in detail that my daring to go against the critical mainstream is wrong? You make a big point of my opinion not counting, being biased, etc. Are you just saying that for fun?
Anon
/ July 25, 2011Good thing I never made an argument even remotely along the lines of “the critics don’t like it and that means it’s bad” – although you are making the even more logically unsound argument of “the critics don’t like it and that means it’s good”. What I said was that an opinion which is shared by dozens of critics and most of the general public carries more weight than the opinion of a single man.
So your idea of balance is to say that you disliked the music of the Razzie-nominated, widely-panned film, while praising its dire performances and not even touching on its ludicrous plot? That’s like praising a man as a god while saying that you disliked his choice of moustache – hardly a balanced, impartial appraisal.
And it seems to be the general rule of the Internet that whenever someone alleges that another person does not know the meaning of a word, they never know the meaning of that word either. Consecutive means following directly after one another without interruption. The Village preceded Shyamalan’s latest three films. Therefore, Shyamalan has had three consecutive flops – four, if you include The Village. And it matters very much if a film is a flop or not, provided a director cares about their ability to continue to produce films or uphold their reputation. Hence why Shyamalan lost his auteur status in the first place.
Ah yes; “hate-fuelled”. Because it is my burning loathing of Shyamalan that drives my dislike of his films, not their blatant lack of quality. I have never met the man, and I know nothing of his personal life. I have heard about his egotistical episodes, but I have not researched them. My bone is solely with the quality of his films, which haven’t reached above “mediocre” since The Village. But of course, it is impossible that one could have legitimate reasons for hating his films. *Clearly* the only explanation for such criticism is a personal hatred of Shyamalan.
Even worse, not only do you attack people who dislike Shyamalan films and brand them as haters, but you even attack people who *like* Shyamalan films because they like them for the “wrong reasons” – as arbitrarily decided by yourself.
It’s hypocritical because you are doing exactly what you accused me of doing – putting words in my mouth. I pointed out in brief that your opinion is very much in minority – which it is. At no point did I say that this made it inherently wrong – the rest of my lengthy post explained why it was wrong, which of course you swiftly ignored. And on the subject of hypocrisy, accusing me of saying that your opinion “doesn’t count” or is “biased” is pretty rich when your diatribe effectively established that anyone who doesn’t like Shyamalan are just haters who want to bring Shyamalan down and have no valid reasons for their dislike.
Jonas
/ July 25, 2011I am? Where? I merely pointed out that critical opinion doesn’t matter much to me.
My idea of the truth is saying that which I thought or experienced, not appealing to the authority of the Razzies or the critics. The music bothered me. The plot did not.
I see what you mean. I thought you were talking about Signs. I stand corrected.
No, it is not impossible at all. Simply disliking someone’s work for whatever reasons is perfectly legitimate and to be expected. The kind of fashionable bashing that Shyamalan is getting, however, is a different thing. That was the point of my post – not that his movies are perfect, but that in my opinion they don’t deserve the kind of scorn they are getting from people who in many cases haven’t even seen them – as happened to Ben Affleck a while before that. Disliking his movies is fine. Making them synonymous with “bad movie with a twist at the end” is not.
So everyone gets to have a critical opinion but me? Or I must either blindly hate or blindly follow? Much of what I said in my original post is about the fact that many of his movies have been misunderstood – people go to see them with the wrong expectations. Movies exist in a socio-cultural context – how we think about them often influences how we see them. And I think that every now and then this results in people pouring a lot of hate on something or someone that doesn’t deserve it.
Zac
/ August 30, 2011I think I pretty much dig all Shyamalan’s films, even The Happening. Even when a film doesn’t gel, there’s still no other film-maker like him, and there are still a cluster of brilliant scenes (running away from the wind, the final scene before the epilogue). And even when it ‘fails’, it fails in the most bizarre and entertaining way (the old people with the shotguns have gone down in legend in my house.)
It’s hard. I accept that it’s a bad film. And yet I love it. And wish there were more films like it. In fact, The Happening’s the only one I’d be most likely to call a bad film, I think Lady in the Water and The Village really work.
By the way, Jonas, I really adore your games.
mike
/ March 7, 2012Bumped into your website while looking up books from Fabulous Screech.
Posting here because while you have a dense taste in literature, defense of M. Night seems trivial. He is a film maker and just as many detracted from his idol/source material Hitchcock, so do people with him. He has the same flawed technique with actors and timing that critics railed against Hitchcock. His vision is manipulative as opposed to being genuine. Stanley Kubrick/ Robert Altman manipulates his actors to gain genuine emotinal impact whereas a Hitchcock, Fincher or Shyamalan write actors to manipulate the audience. This isn’t conjecture, its their actual style. You make good points about cinematography and score but I would never credit Wally Pfister or David Julyan for crafting the Prestige. A weak story remains a weak story regardless of perfume. For Shyamalan, the story does rest on him, he is the writer and it shows with his inability to conjure real emotion from his actors. Its a big risk and Ive never written a blockbuster film, armchair critic I remain, but one who can point to more stronger directors (Goddard, Scorcesse, Coppella, Gondry, Allen, Altman ,Cohen, Almodovar, Winterbottom). Ill rewatch Shyamalan’s movies to notice the cinematography but dont judge me if I keep it on mute.
Jonas
/ March 7, 2012I disagree, especially on the matter of the acting. In several of his films, Shyamalan gets nuanced and extremely vulnerable performances from his actors: Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village are good examples. It doesn’t always work equally well, but the performances in those movies are remarkable. The idea that Shyamalan is only interested in manipulating the audience has the same source as the myth that his movies are all about the “twist ending”, an idea which in my opinion isn’t rooted in the actual works but in the advertisting and discussion around them. The main reason I love Unbreakable is the emotional complexity of its characters; without it all the cinematography and music would be pointless, and even the so-called twist wouldn’t have any meaningful impact.
Barnabas
/ April 24, 2012There are three things I have issue with. The first is you neglecting or misinterpreting M. Nights decisions through bias and projection, secondly your insults of other directors and their works(especially calling Cloverfield just shaky cam trash), and finally your defense of The Last Airbender.
I have seen most of M. Night’s work and here is the thing, his strength is in creating an engaging premise through suspense, drama, and exposition. He is also good at marketing as the trailers for Lady in the Water and The Village show. The problem isn’t that he is a bad director, it’s the fact that he betrays expectations, isn’t consistent, and has a habit of trivializing and outright destroying the story he creates. The reason he is known for his twist endings is because the massive disconnect from the story breaks the immersion and often believability of the film, especially when stupidity is the deciding factor. Not one person would complain if they didn’t know that the aliens would die to water, the monsters were just glorified Haloween costumes, or that everything in The Happening was pointless. His written work is engaging but disappoints the audience.
Secondly, there is more going on in Cloverfield then just shaky cam. It was a stylistic choice to push immersion and believability. The intent was to make it feel realistic and like you were really there and can you honestly say if the events actually happened to you, you would behave so differently. Does the love of your life mean so little to you? Would you just pop into a bar and bitch about how bad you day has been? If you saw your brother get killed by a huge monster would you just say sucks to be him? If you say yes then obviously you think there’s nothing but shaky cam going on but also you would just be a douche bag. The letdown on Cloverfield is the monster itself, not the story or the characters.
Regarding Michael Bay, I’ve not seen transformers 2, but the main character in the transformers saga is the weakest part of it. The guys just a boring immortal hero type who makes it through the day because he has his friends. That is a weak character. However as infuriatingly stupid and bland as he was, he was consistent and never betrayed his character.
Armageddon I didn’t like because the characters were happy go lucky while the end of the world was at stake. Bad characters all around in that film. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had unbelievable characters being stupid and I didn’t like it. A Nightmare on Elm Street however was well done. Beyond that I haven’t seen his work but he strikes me as hit and miss at adapting established characters but weak at creating his own.
Finally The Last Airbender. I get the impression you are not an anime or cartoon lover. It’s probably why you don’t get the problem with this film. Anime typically relies on 3 things; story, substance, and presentation. Avatar, The Last Airbender has all 3 executed wonderfully. The characters are well defined individuals with their on motivations and goals and most importantly have a freaking personality, their own lives, and relationships. More than anything that is why I appreciate it. M. Night ruined who them by making them just plot required objects and in doing so betrayed everything about the story, the characters and destroyed an engaging story just because he felt that it had to fit into a 90 minute film. What’s worst is he didn’t even make it flashy. The whole film just shows his disrespect for the source material, the audience, and the characters. He has no right to even think about making a sequel after what he did.
If you think a plot should drive the character and throw away all content and substance without even mediocre special effects then you have no chance of making a tolerable adaption. He prepose that Azula is “our only real, pure antagonist in the series”. Realistically if the story was about her you could have an extremely strong story about a girl who is driven by a need to be loved and accepted. She believes perfect execution and ruthless pragmatism in achieving what she needs to do is the only way to get it, and by the end of the series even that fails her.
I’m biased here on Azula because she is my favorite character and I really think she deserves to be portrayed by someone who actually thinks of her as a character and not just an obstacle to get over to follow outmoded formulaic storyline that were never pushed in the source material. That is all M. Night thinks of these characters. They just have to be there and do stuff before the credits roll and he gets his paycheck. The biggest issue I have isn’t even that though.
He even demeans the objects he created to fulfill the cast. Ong doesn’t give a damn about his master, K’Tar’Ah doesn’t care about anything, Iroh would have made an even passing attempt to save the spirits rather then throwing a empty threat tantrum after it happens. An entire fleet of hardened soldiers would run away from a high tide and water benders are to stupid or lazy to not light the fires before the battle even though they were told not to before the fight. Saka doesn’t even give a damn about Yue. At the point where he started making a poor adaption of his poor adaption is when he ruined his creditability to me personally.
When you have near flawless source material loved by fans and strip away everything that makes it more than this guy needs to do this thing to get this thing done, roll credits, pay me, you deserve to be ridiculed and mocked. The both of us are fan-boys, you of M. Night and me of Avatar, The Last Airbender but don’t just think you can justify the crap he pulled and make me like what he did just because you like him.
After I realized it was going to be it’s own thing I overlooked a lot. I was willing to accept it as just an adaption and endure it, even if it meant ignoring the stupid crap. But when he made his own plot which was the only driving force in the movie start disregarding itself is the point where I draw the line. That’s why I don’t like The Last Airbender and if you want to defend what he did to it then fine, but you had better be damn persuasive and bring valid reasons to the argument.
Jonas
/ April 24, 2012I fear you’ve already shot yourself in the foot. Directors are not responsible for marketing and usually have little influence over it; as a matter of fact, Shyamalan is on record stating that he was quite opposed to how those movies were marketed.
That expectations created by marketing aren’t fulfilled doesn’t say anything about the quality of his work. You also seem to have entirely missed the point of The Village, which was to demystify the horror stories we tell ourselves. That it presents itself as a horror story initially but turns out to be a love story is one of its greatest achievements. The Village is perfectly constructed and its “twists” (why are they called twists and not simply plot developments? all movies have such elements) are perfectly consistent with the ideas of the story.
The thing with Signs and the aliens being allergic to water is an unfortunate choice. You may note that I do criticize the ending in my post. I don’t see why everything in The Happening was pointless.
The characters are mostly just cardboard cutouts and the grief they express is extremely superficial. Are we seriously to believe that in these tragic moments they would be more interesting in filming each other than in the deaths of their friends and relatives? As for the shaky cam, it is utterly ridiculous because it is overdone to such a degree. I’ve seen real footage from war zones that shakes less. Plenty of other movies have managed to use such stylistic choices well; Cloverfield does not.
…he was a caricature. So?
The latter two movies were produced by Bay’s company Platinum Dunes, not directed by him.
I don’t think the movie is terribly good, actually, and the more time has passed since I saw it the more my opinion of it has sunken. I don’t think it’s really racist (at least in intent) but I do think it’s problematic and doesn’t really represent the source material. I don’t love the source material, and I do think the series and the movies share a few flaws, but generally I think the movie is a failure. I was surprised by that, to be honest, since I thought he was a good fit for the material. I don’t feel like it was a matter of greed though; more a matter of just not getting it.
Barnabas
/ April 28, 2012M. Night was the producer for every movie he was involved with since 2000. While not specifically in charge of the ad campaign the producer does need to get a distributor and should review it.
I feel everything in The Happening is pointless for a few reasons. The “event” was created by sentient plants capable of specifically targeting human neurological functions, capable of reconstructing their physiology to emit toxic spores and exhibit tracking and coordinated assaults. It’s fiction so I won’t say how preposterous that is, but given that it seems full hardy to assume they would stop.
First issue though is that plants pollinate throughout seasons so the “event” should last longer than 1 day which seems more like a deus ex machina when it is revealed the attacks only last for a few minutes.
Secondly, despite the fact that the main character is supposed to be a science teacher he does nothing to collect data or gather information. The lack of common sense and emotion in this movie is staggering, The most emotion shown was after 2 delinquent kids got shot for trying to break into a house but he just sits there when he finds out his best friend is probably dead and his best friends daughter has to comfort him.
Third, the whole concept of self destructive behavior directly correlating to suicide is preposterous. If that were the case the human population would be endangered or extinct already.
Fourth, M. Night really needs to work on showing things rather than using people commenting on them. He did it in Signs but he really pushes it here. The characters rarely use believable dialogue and obsess over trivialities when everyone is dying. It really pushes the message that humanity is a destructive species and that is what the film focuses on.
As I stated he has a way of trivializing the story he creates. Here he’s more interested in pushing his message that he fails to convey what is happening in a believable manner or how it would effect the characters. The concept itself is very strong but this is one of the cases where the cast (except the math teacher) are not defined enough to create an impact. I’m not talking about the actors performances either, I am talking about the characters they portray in The Happening. Either the “event” will happen no matter what or it is implied that people are to stupid to learn from it, both further pushing away from realism.
Also, I don’t mind the way the characters are presented in Cloverfield or the way the cinematography is used. As I stated it was a stylistic choice and it was effective in conveying the story. They even explain why they are filming in a believable manner. Just because it was executed poorly in your view doesn’t mean that the rest of the story is irrelevant. Sure the camera can be distracting but every time something is focused on you can tell its important the the person holding it. The love story was executed splendidly, the grief over losing his friend and love interest is portrayed realistically. How Rob breaks down and cries when he tells his mother is touching. Every character is just trying their best to survive when all the shit goes down and yet they still show how it affects them. How exactly are they cardboard cutouts?
Your right about Bay just producing those two movies and not directing them. It does lessen my view of him a bit as I really enjoyed A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Jonas
/ April 28, 2012You – like many people – overestimate the authority of a producer. Especially when it comes to an ad campaign. Movies (unless they’re indie) are not owned or controlled by their producers, but by the studios that make them. Shyamalan has been explicit in saying that he was opposed to this ad campaign and that he didn’t have any choice. This is entirely believable, as it has happened to many other directors and producers in the past. It’s like authors and book covers: people believe that they have some sort of control, and they should, but the truth is much more frustratingly stupid.
I think much of what you complain about has more to do with the kind of movie this aims to be: a sort of Hitchcockian horror B-movie, rather like The Birds, but with a strong ecological message. It’s not meant to be realistic science fiction, which is why there is that wonderful (and oddly misunderstood) scene of Wahlberg talking to the plant – an intentionally comedic, self-aware scene, poking fun at the strangeness of its own concept and how it must appear to the characters.
(Which is not to say that the movie works perfectly. It doesn’t. But parts of it are very good, and the rest is at least functional and trying to be original.)
As for the story being pointles – I don’t think you credit the “natural world” of the film with enough intelligence. The events of the film are a warning, a first sign of nature fighting back, not an attemt to entirely wipe us all out. That there’s a tone of “we’re all going to die if we don’t radically change our ways, and how likely is that to happen?” is pretty typical for this kind of horror movie.
Because while the ideas are there, I feel that the characters are mostly just going through the motions, which isn’t helped by the increasingly unrealistic events they experience (not the existence of the monsters themselves, but scenes like the leaning skyscrapers or absurdities like the soldiers getting slaughtered by the monsters while ordinary people with sticks can defeat them, on top of the silliness of Hud continuing to film everything, including his friend’s crying).
The script feels like an intellectual exercise rather than something invested with genuine emotion. There is emotion in the script, but most of it feels purely conceptual.
Barnabas
/ April 29, 2012Here’s my final post on the subject.
My main point is that M. Night has potential to be great at what he does. If he would just focus on creating an engaging premise, map out the plot, thoroughly destroy any plot holes that appear, portray the events in a believable manner, ensure the characters are well defined, avoid cop outs at all cost, and refine those elements he would be unassailable.
I suppose we probably just appreciate different aspects of the genre. I appreciate the fact that you actually deconstruct and analyze the film and admit flaws when they appear. I don’t hate the guy, I just hate when he pushes the suspension of disbelief to far or uses cheap devices to resolve plots which take away the suspense.
Dark Literati
/ May 4, 2012Jonas, I am glad to finally find someone who appreciates Shyamalan’s work like I do. I am rather atypical among humans in that I actually enjoyed The Village, Unbreakable, Signs, The Happening, and also The Last Airbender (which I almost came to enjoy more than the original TV series!), while not enjoying The Sixth Sense for the simple reason that the ending was unmercifully spoiled for me by “friends” who double as Shyamalan-haters.
I cannot wait for him to finish the Night Chronicles trilogy, or for After Earth, which already looks like it might be my favorite movie of summer 2013!
Pak
/ May 12, 2012Very nice article. It’s good to hear some well-thought criticism on Shyamalan’s work instead of the generic hate/adoration that tends to be spewed from the opposing sides of the divide. And you’re review for “The Happening” has actually made me appreciate its (attempted) Hitchcockian tones a lot more. I’ll need to rewatch now that I’ve seen “The Birds” again.
For my part, I will say, I’m a fan of what Shyamalan has tried to do over the years. I feel “The Sixth Sense” is overrated in comparison to his other films (obviously) but still a beautiful movie. “Unbreakable” is by far my favorite of his. Camera-work, colors, pacing, acting, music. It is monstrously powerful.
I do feel that after “Unbreakable” the difficulty of having the “twist” hype held over his head started to catch up to Shyamalan. I mean, “Signs,” when I first watched it, engrossed me, and it’s well structured for sure, but I felt the substance of the movie was very very thin. There was too much of the sentimental clinging to almost all of the relationships in the movie. Several minor deus ex machinas didn’t help (though, I feel the “water weakness” was a nice attempted to throw back to H.G. Wells, but not a successful attempt; merely one that came off as clunky and sudden). It was built well but watching it again, there’s just less inside than I would hope. It shows signs of the standard Hollywood movie wearing through the edges.
“The Village” and “Lady in the Water” are much better. Not “Unbreakable” level, but still good. “The Village”: gorgeous, great structure, and I think the acting is actually a wonderful double take. You watch it the first time, the acting seems like an almost unnaturally quirky period piece. You watch it again, it makes sense. It’s the acting of people raised by English professors. I love it. “Lady in the Water” is a wonderful fairy tale, and I loved the playing around with “archetypes” that really brought the idea of “what is story/what does art mean” to the front. I do wish Shyamalan hadn’t included the critic getting mauled, not because I feel critics ought to be protected from criticism itself, but because the way he did it could have been interpreted in no other way than petty. There is no way it wouldn’t have been seen as a petty revenge act after the panning of his last movies. The same with his cameo as the important writer character. It’s not that it was a bad idea on its own. It’s that, given what was happening to him then, what could he have expected to come of it? Despite these quirks, still a great film.
When I first saw “The Happening,” I considered it pretty vapid. I was a little dulled by all the awful advertisement that emphasized the R rating, and assumed Shyamalan had sold out to standard gore fest. From what I remember, some of the acting did go from beautifully unique to a little hokey (though it was great seeing Marky-Mark doing something new), some of the plot developments struck me as just silly, and the thrown in explanation at the very end should have been left off to give the event a more powerful ambiguity. Still, I’ll have to rewatch it sometime and see it how it stands up.
Really, Shyamalan topped with “Unbreakable” for me. It’s like having to compare Miyazaki’s other films to “Spirited Away.” They’ll always come a little short. And Shyamalan’s middle and later stuff does start having a lot of problems, mostly, I think, from either trying to be too mainstream (“Signs” and “The Village”) or trying to rebel too hard from the mainstream (“Lady in the Water”). It’s sad that he started being hit with the pressures of the Hollywood machine and the backlash of critical reception. But then again, Orson Welles only got out “Citizen Kane” before Hollywood decided to grind him down. It was worth it, for that at least.