Are You Watching Closely? How the “Prestige" in M. Night Shyamalan's films might be affecting his legacy.

M Night Shyamalan is as much a conundrum as he is a force in Hollywood. As a director for nearly thirty years he has put together one of the most fascinating careers quite possibly because as fast as his filmography became legend it also became one of the most derided, polarizing and difficult to define careers in the history of the medium. He went from a darling seemingly poised for the kind of appreciation Paul Thomas Anderson or Quentin Tarantino (Pre- Uma Thurman/Weinstein) recieve, to a man thought of in nearly the same vein as Michael Bay, (without the misogyny) and maybe even more accurately Zack Snyder. What makes Shyamalan fascinating to me, is specifically the way the audience for his movies went left on him, ( even while Snyder has always enjoyed a raucous and fiercely loyal fanbase, or while Michael Bay has people willing to accept his works as what they are) and the various possibilities for this rather abrupt change.

Very early in his career Shyamalan endured a couple of rather disappointing duds in the purest sense of that word. These “failures” as with most people were as important to what made Shyamalan as his succeses. Shyamalan would then burst onto the scene with “The Sixth Sense” a film still highly regarded as one of the greatest films of the aughts, and a classic in the horror genre. It was an emotionally chilling tale of a child who sees ghosts that acted as an allegory for how to deal with being different, as well as being concerned with our interaction with the otherworldly by way of faith, both of which are common themes in his filmography. The movie broke records, spurred a Hollywood fetish for films about ghost with twist endings (The Others, Stir of Echoes etc) and flung itself and Shyamalan into the cinematic lexicon. The audience was floored, the movie was one of the most ready made examples of the power of word of mouth, and subsequently of the twist ending. In short it was a phenomenon and the rest of Shyamalan's career can be looked in a couple of different ways from that point on..

Chasing the Phenomenon

In an interview with the Aspen institute M Night Shyamalan tells an audience that “The more specific I was actually made me pop from the rest." Its informative as to what might have become a mantra for Shyamalan. Many of our beliefs are informed by our failures, codified by our successes.. through them, if we experience success doing one thing, we may tend to lean on it as a foundational aspect of our success. All of a sudden we are the baseball player who believes he/she has to wear the same socks for every away game in order to have success. If Shyamalan believes his specificity is vital to his success it offers an explanation as to the why his storytelling so frequently involves something as specific as a twist, and or why his stories dont vary in the way so many directors do. Why stray from what worked, or “If it ain’t broke dont fix it become common refrains in this mindset. In an article titled "The Science of Plot Twist" cognitive scientist Vera Tobin talls about a tendency known as "the curse of knowledge" in it she says.

“Information we encounter early on influences our estimation of what is possible later. It doesn’t matter whether we’re reading a story or negotiating a salary: Any initial starting point for our reasoning – however arbitrary or apparently irrelevant – “anchors” our analysis.”

Here Tobin is discussing the audience but I also find it to be an intriguing analysis of Shyamalan's approach or any artist for that matter as well, especially concerning where this self conditioning harms, by way of bias. If his initial starting point to success is ultimately a phenomenon, ( and I think it's important to state here at this junction Shyamalan's work being a phenomenon is not meant to take anything away from the skill and craft in the work, merely meant to state the fact that once the art leaves from the inside of your head, from the intangible to the tangible it is now outside the realm of your control ) how important is this crossroads in his mind if he felt it was not merely a phenomenon outside his control but an event as a direct result of the factor that was most readily attributed to the films success. I believe one of the most difficult things for the artist to accept is whatever happens after the work is released, and subsequently to deal with how people recieve your work on the terms within which it is actually occurring. Which in shorthand just means that much like a quarterback after throwing an interception or a touchdown the good ones learn to forget. In an interview with author JK Rowling Oprah Winfrey tells a wonderful anecdote regarding trying to recreate the success of a phenomena when talking about repeating the legendary success of her show as well as whether or not Rowling should try to repeat the success of her own phenomenon in The Harry Potter series.

The Prestige

I dont think Shyamalan forgot. I don't know this either, but it is at least intriguing to me to look at his first two films - see that these films did not in any way involve plot twist or major misdirection, see that these films were huge failures and huge disappointments to Shyamalan, (also part of his Aspen institute Q&A) and then see that his first taste of success is not just successful, but a behemoth, and that it features one of the great plot twist in cinematic history, then subsequently deduct that maybe chasing that phenomenon whether consciously, or subconsciously in my opinion is integral to retrospectively discussing Shyamalan's filmography. If this is indeed his final analysis of his success it is the kind of binding thought that places limits on your storytelling, - where you can go with it, and the possibilities of what you can do with it. If I were to make note of the two movies in his filmography the two movies that I think best exemplify and display the problematic or limiting nature of anchoring your style or signature to plot twist it would be “Unbreakable” and “The Happening”. One presents the way the thought limits the artist, but also the way mostly straightforward storytelling might be a better look, the other the limitations of the audience as a result of the former. Unbreakable is a great film about recognizing ones own ability, deciding what yo do with it, and the power of belief, that like many Shyamalan works builds up extremely well, takes the leap of faith, executes some beautiful narrative flips, and sticks its landing somewhat awkwardly, sticking it nonetheless. The ending was always a bit abrupt to me. Like Shyamalan had spent so much building up to the reveal, he had nothing left after it, and simply let title cards explain the epilogue, but since the movie doesn't hinge itself on this it doesn't come tumbling down in the reveal. The Happening feels alot the same, except by now it seems the awkwardness of the landing is more pronounced. The ending is hinged on the reveal and it seems to be part artist, and part audience, but the magic is gone. It's as if the audience can now see a leg out from under the slip, a card out from under the sleeve. After all filmmaking is like magic, though the two have obvious differences, the vital similarity is that people are in some sense looking to be fooled, but also want to know everything. In fact it can be argued that especially when dealing with plot twist certain types of movie goers are looking to figure it out, while simultaneously wanting in equal parts to be left in the dark.

In film as well as in magic you are exploiting the audiences desire to be misdirected, and their desire to be in the know. You are walking a tightrope where you want the audience to actively be engaged, but only in the direction you lead them in, any straying and they might catch onto something you don't or didn't want them to see, but all this intention and detail to misdirection and this build up can backfire. In Mrs Tobin’s piece she talks about the audience simultaneously wanting to know what they've signed up for , but not wanting it to be predictable or silly. In Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige", (another Nolan film not so secretly about the magic of filmmaking) Michael Caine's John Cutter discusses the three steps of an magic act: The Pledge, The Turn, and the titular Prestige he also mentions the audiences desire to be fooled. The leads in “The Prestige" go back and forth over the importance of the act itself leaving the ordinary, - make note of this I will return to this point. The "Bringing it back" part of the "three steps" is vital to discussing why plot twist are difficult, and shaky ground for any artist in this particular role of this particular career field to base a career on, as well as where Magic and filmmaking part ways. The shakiness of tying your career to something as fragile as a plot twist lies in both the audience's growing expectations, and the craft itself. In Magic the audience has a willful subconscious desire to be tricked that I believe is stronger than the desire to know. This goes hand-in-hand with the fact that magicians remain notoriously guarded about the secrets to their craft and that over the entirety of the existence of magic this has remained intact and vital to the craft. It is not the same with filmmaking. The craft itself has produced in people a desire to know as much as to be fooled that has increased over its time. DVD commentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews, podcast, all serve to satiate the audiences need for knowledge about how the craft works. We are shown the green screens, the motion capture balls, the various ways lighting creates certain effects, we even read scripts. Much of this being done before a film even comes out, which has led to certain directors who are interested in preserving the magic and the mystery for the audience going to extreme measures to protect their films and their sets from the insatiable hunger of the audience to be in the know. It's important to say here that another key difference between the two art forms is that unlike with magic, in filmmaking knowing what goes on behind the scenes to create a work of art does not necessarily cripple our ability to enjoy that art, this is an important set up in understanding my theory on what happened with M Night Shyamalan's audience. As "The Prestige" showed, the major important factor in Magic is to bring it back and in the quality that it was first seen, now the quality does not have to exact, just give the appearance of it (I.E. it does not have to be the same rabbit). In filmmaking the quality of the bringing back is less about physically making something reappear as it is. It involves making sure that how you brought about this reveal, and whether it all connects makes sense. With film its necessary the reveal makes sense within time, places, physical plausibility. In magic no one cares because..magic. To my prior point about ordinariness, both magic and filmmaking involve making the ordinary extraordinary, and I would say that when Shyamalan's work is/ was at its best its when that's what his films did and do. His most effective films didnt lean on slight-of-hand anymore than great sci fi or fantasy leans on CGI, they used a combination of sleight of hand, powerful emotion, and misdirection to make that very ordinary thing seem extraordinary, whether it be a troubled kid, ( The Sixth Sense) a baseball bat, ( Signs ) or a security guard, ( Unbreakable) AND that when he failed it was because the answer was ordinary like its just a glorified Scooby Doo episode about folks trying to keep a group of people ignorant to the the terrors of life in the “real world” ( The Village ). Add to this that if you make this your calling card, after a certain point the audience begins to have expectations and from the opening scene may begin trying to figure out what the possibilities for an ending are. You have also an added layer of problem solving, nevemind the odds that the audience member could randomly fall upon the reveal by simply guessing, there is also the strange psychological phenomenon of disappointment with the reveal not being what they expected or desired. Which means that once the audience becomes aware that any movie of yours is going to have a reveal, they are likely to be disappointed by the reveal altogether, or by the way that reveal came together I.E. a deus ex machina or the like. A great example of this tendency can be found in the audiences response to "The Happening" Nigel Floyd commenting on the film for Time Out magazine says ..

“Since the surprise success of ‘The Sixth Sense’, Shyamalan’s ambitious but increasingly frustrating films (‘Unbreakable’, ‘Signs’, ‘The Village’) have been all build-up and no pay-off. ‘The Happening’, likewise, has lots of clever cinematic sleight of hand but no actual magic trick.”

Watch Closely

I personally think it's fair to ask the audience whether or not it was that an actual magic trick did or didn't happen, or that we are disappointed with what the trick was, that it was ordinary. Was the audience aware the whole time that the cause of all this was nature? Or was the disappointment that after all this big-to-do and build up it was "the trees”, when in their fantasies they had conjured something wilder, BIGGER. It’s easy to see the source become entangled.. contorted in a web of convoluted feelings that confirm our own biases. The same goes for "The Village" which now has a very active revisitiaion audience whose assertion is it was better than previously acknowledged. Subsequently or maybe even simultaneously it is also fair to ask M Night whether or not it is prudent (knowing of this effect on your audience) to simply wholesale blame the audience, or to look at whether or not it is effective to anchor your career to, to keep being so dependent upon a technique that inherently creates a fatal flaw in repetition. The mess that was Avatar: The Last Airbender does nothing to aid my feeling that Shyamalan should stick to more straightforward storytelling, but I think "Signs", "Unbreakable", and even "The Village" are great examples that this would be better for him. I want to be clear, in my opinion Shyamalan is a great storyteller, and among the best versions of "Actors directors" in that he really leans on emotionality in his films and seems to be able to conjure a lot of the best out of his performers. His characters seem to encourage creativity in the actors, and allow them to play very strongly to their individual gifts, but without making them predictable, something vital to the magic of actors. Predictablility is key here, and the more you show the more they know. Films like "The Visit" and "Split" may have restored some of Shayamlans good favor, and definitely reinforce the idea that Shyamalan films are actor showcases, but also still serve as a reminder of the fragile nature of hinging your movie on its ending repeatedly, all while posing fascinating and intriguing question about the role and conditions of an audience in the quality of that pursuit. For me the idea here should not be to identify what counts for your success, (this is nebulous, and complex) but to identify what you're good at. Shyamalan is a storyteller, maybe one of our greatest. He understands the power of lore, of belief and in many ways he understands it with some of the childhood magic of that belief in tact. The power of "The Sixth Sense" is in its ability to allow us all to see all of this from the viewpoint of this child even while it starts off in Willis's hands. Much like Steven Spielberg's “Hook” it is about that child-like connection to belief, and the ways that as adults we are conditioned out of it for better and worse. It's a string of conpeting and cooperating narratives of interrupted and stunted lives that argue even after we die we cant let go of the need for a good story to have some version of closure, something Shyamalan may have forgot along the way..or remembered all too well. Either way, all of this makes Shyamalan a quality candidate for a revision of his career retrospective either by Shyamalan himself, the industry, or a willing audience at a latter date, in a latter era, by people with a different mindstate...maybe children...if we ever make it there.