One
thread that weaves consistently through the films of director M. Night
Shyamalan is very simple, but simultaneously spiritually and morally uplifting.
In the vast majority of his cinematic works, audiences encounter characters
who, after seeing the world in a new way, finally understand their place in
it.
The
clouds -- their previous assumptions
about life -- suddenly part, and the sunshine of understanding, of destiny,
shines through.
Shyamalan’s
protagonists, whether Dr. Malcolm Crowe (The Sixth Sense) David Dunn (Unbreakable),
Father Graham (Signs), or Cleveland Heep (Lady in the Water) all conform to
this particular pattern.
Throughout
their respective narratives, these men are depicted as carrying around sadness or
discontent because their destinies -- their very purpose in life -- is unclear
to them. Through the (often harrowing…)
events in their narratives, however, these characters come to discern their place,
and their role, and thus achieve their rightful destiny.
In
short, the films of M. Night Shyamalan are all about discovering yourself, and your purpose here on this mortal coil.
Not
knowing your purpose is a source of not merely unhappiness, but the greatest soul-sucking
pain. These men feel empty, alone and isolated because they no longer believe
in themselves. They no longer know who they are, or where they fit in.
Sometimes,
in Shyamalan’s films, we actually meet two characters who achieve this critical
understanding about destiny. And sometimes, those characters take parallel or
opposite-styled journeys. They act as mirrors for one another.
Certainly,
that’s the case with the director’s first feature film, the Academy-Award
nominated The Sixth Sense (1999), which first premiered 20 years ago today.
The
film involves a psychologist, Crowe, and his patient, Cole Sear, coming to
terms with their respective trajectories and destinies in this life. Crowe
learns that he can correct two great wrongs in his life (one personal; one
professional), but that this is his last opportunity to do so.
Meanwhile,
Cole learns that he needn’t be scared of what he sees, and that his strange
vision is a mechanism not for inspiring terror, but for him to help people;
spirits who still have something significant to tell the living.
It
is not revealing anything, at this late date, to report on the 1999’s film’s
final revelation, that Malcolm himself is one of those spirits that Cole can
see and help.
Cole
“sees dead people,” and so Crowe, we
learn, is dead himself. This is the nature of the film’s twist ending, but as
is often the case in the works of Shyamalan, there are various and numerous
bread crumbs leading viewers to this conclusion, from the very start of the
film; following Crowe’s tragic shooting.
Of
course, we can question if this ending is actually a surprise at all given the
assiduous preparation for it. After all, another common factor in many of M.
Night Shyamalan’s films is that they don’t merely tell stories; they comment on
storytelling, on writing in general. For
example, Unbreakable muses about comic books as a kind of sacred text,
one that reveals man’s true nature and history.
Similarly, Lady in the Water features an acerbic movie critic (Bob
Balaban), and the various ways that people read or analyze stories.
And
The
Sixth Sense involves, quite explicitly, how stories are structured or
organized so as to galvanize the audience’s attention.
Specifically,
stories can’t play all their cards at once.
As Cole informs Crow, “you have to
add some twists and stuff,” or they are boring.
This
is Shyamalan’s tell, another breadcrumb, so-to-speak, that prepares us for the
denouement. From the film’s dialogue about “twists
and stuff,” we understand we should expect something that will shift our
perception of what might be seen as a linear or straight-forward story. And that’s precisely what Shyamalan delivers
in the movie’s climactic scenes.
What
is the story we think we are experiencing in The Sixth Sense? It goes
something like this: Traumatized adult psychologist helps disturbed, possibly
psychic kid.
But
in fact, the story is not that. Rather,
it is this: Psychic kids helps a disturbed ghost make peace with his life, and
his mistakes in life.
Cole
and Crowe (like Elijah and David Dunn in Unbreakable) switch places; switch
roles in terms of our understanding of them, as the film ends. Actually “switch roles” may not be the right
choice of phrases here. They are who
they have always been, we simply begin to perceive their roles differently in
light of the revelation that Crowe is dead.
The
Sixth Sense thrives as a
brilliant work of art because Shyamalan knows precisely where best to place the
camera, and when to move it so that -- on first viewing -- the audience can reasonably
fail to notice or observe some important things. But on the second viewing,
finally, we understand clearly the significance of things we ignored, or
overlooked, the first time. Ambiguity
gives way to clarity; uncertainty to order.
To create this kind of “dawning” truth, Shyamalan himself made be said
to possess a sixth sense about understanding how our eyes and minds process information.
What
things to our eyes gloss over? What
things do they focus on?
Shymalan’s
approach encompasses both guileless and guileful misdirection, one might
conclude.
And
he makes the switch over in perception seem as clear as day. On second viewing of The Sixth Sense, we can’t
understand how we failed to miss the importance or relevance of the bread
crumbs at all.
In
this way, The Sixth Sense is actually two distinct experiences.
In
the first, we proceed upon mistaken assumptions, until we learn the truth. Importantly, this way of “seeing” (a view
consisting of mistaken assumptions) is a deliberate reflection of how Malcolm
proceeds through life and the narrative. His eyes are only half-open. He misses
important details. He is trapped in his belief about that world, namely that he
has gone on living as a mortal human being.
On
the second-go through, however, we see the story as Cole might, with a clear of
understanding of who Malcolm is, and who/what he signifies in Cole’s learning.
He’s not a trouble kid that’s deluded or hallucinating. He’s the one individual
who sees the whole world as it is. And “Sear,”
of course, is our bread-crumb or signifier. Sear = Seer.
The
mirroring of protagonist roles as well as the parting-of-the-clouds,
ambiguity-into-clarity visual symbolism together represent a complex and
cerebral way to tell a story -- with more than the requisite “twists and stuff” -- and yet even his
haters should acknowledge the truth.
Shyamalan
makes it look virtually effortless.
There
are only a few “cheats” in The Sixth Sense, and these moments
don’t subtract from the picture’s overall success, or the sheer emotional
resonance of the tale.
In
short, The Sixth Sense is a beautiful and complex genre film that
holds up to scrutiny, and has something ital. and true to tell us about
humanity or at least the way humanity perceives itself.
We
must have a purpose, and we must understand that purpose, or we are but lost
souls.
“I’m
ready to communicate with you now.”
On
the very evening that night he receives an award from the City of Philadelphia
for his long, dedicated service to the community, married psychologist Malcolm
Crowe (Bruce Willis) is gunned down in his home by an old client whom he failed
to help, Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg).
The
following autumn, Crowe is estranged from his wife, Abby (Olivia Williams) and
devotes himself to a case involving a troubled little boy like Vincent, this
one named Cole (Haley Joel Osment).
Cole
claims to see and communicate with “dead people.”
Crowe
must first confirm this boy’s “gift” and then help Cole learn how to live with
it, and utilize it to help others, and himself.
“I
feel like I’ve been given a second chance. I don’t want it to slip away.”
“They don’t see each other,” Cole
Sear declares of the dead in The Sixth Sense. “They just see what they want to see. They don’t know that they’re dead. They’re
everywhere.”
This dialogue excerpt, however, is also very much about the movie’s
audience; you and me.
Remember, Shyamalan’s film works on two tracks simultaneously, as a
literal narrative about its characters and their journey but also as a
reflexive narrative about the nature of storytelling, and the things that
audiences require from storytellers (“twists
and stuff,” again.)
The most significant thing one must understand about the film is that,
structurally, it plays delicately on character and audience assumptions. And assumptions are often wrong. The entirety of The Sixth Sense rests on
the writer/director’s capability to make audiences feel a certain way in
certain scenes, without getting at what is truly happening in those scenes,
until the final revelation lands like a hammer.
In other words, the film visually implies certain assumptions and
perceptions, and then, in the last scenes, reveal a different perspective. Like Cole’s ghosts, the audience, going in, largely
sees what it wants to see, not what actually exists.
Apart from some notable but relatively slight inconsistencies in this
approach, The Sixth Sense largely accomplishes the goal of playing on
audience assumptions, of encouraging perceptions and then pulling the carpet
out from under them.
For instance, we see Crowe’s wife, Abby, crying on a bed early in the
film, surrounded by crumpled Kleenex. We assume she is crying because something
bad has happened involving her relationship with Crowe.
On the contrary, however, she is crying because she is still in
mourning over his untimely and tragic death (or, more accurately, murder). But we think their marriage is in trouble in a
conventional sense. He’s spending too
much time at work. He’s ignoring her. So she’s sad.
On the contrary, he’s a corpse. She can’t move on.
Similarly, it’s noteworthy that Malcolm never meets with Cole in a
professional office setting. Instead, Cole
goes to the hospital to see him, or sits in an apartment foyer, or meets Cole
on the street while he is walking to school.
Why?
Doesn’t it strike anyone as weird that this psychologist is just
hanging around? It might, but as
movie-goers we brush off these feelings on first viewing. That said, not many psychologists I know make
house calls. But given the severity of
Cole’s case, and his young age (plus Crowe’s drive to make up for the mistake
of Vincent Gray), we assume the psychologist is making an exception. We assume
he has taken a special interest in this troubled boy.
In fact, Crowe is a ghost, seen only by Cole, but this example (no
office visits) should allow you to detect fully how the movie lets us run with
our own ideas and thoughts, and doesn’t attempt to correct us or our
perceptions.
In another scene, set at a restaurant, Malcolm meets with his estranged
wife, Abby for their wedding anniversary.
She doesn’t speak to him, and the audience assumes -- again -- that,
since the shooting at the beginning of the film, they’ve become estranged. She exits the restaurant in a flurry of
emotion, and leaves Malcolm behind, and the audience assumes she’s mad. She isn’t.
She doesn’t know he’s present at all.
She can’t see him. Even though
she says aloud, “happy anniversary”
she is talking to herself; not to the ghost she has no concrete awareness of.
Commendably, The Sixth Sense does not go out of
its way to unduly deceive us. It never states, for instance, that Crowe’s
office is being repainted, or some such thing to lead us off the track. I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t
always the case in a Shyamalan film.
Sometimes, he tips the scales against us (like the grave stone with the
erroneous dates in The Village). But more often
than not, he plays fair. He just leaves a gap in the story and lets individual
imagination fill it in.
For me, this relates to one useful definition of great art, and one I
learned from director Nicholas Meyer, in his discussion of the Star
Trek franchise. For him, art is the act of not telling the audience everything
up front; of leaving holes that allow audience imagination to supply the
rest. I find that this is the case with The
Sixth Sense, and much of Shyamalan’s work. He gives the audience enough information to
rope it in, but not enough information to squelch imagination, or importantly,
speculation and assumption.
Are there exceptions, or moments that might have been handled more
deftly in The Sixth Sense? Well,
on this re-watch (probably my fourth or fifth viewing), I noticed that a shadow
(presumably Crowe’s) passes over Cole in a meeting at a church. A ghost wouldn’t cast a shadow, would
it? But perhaps there was another person
in the church, passing by, behind Crowe, at the same time.
Similarly, we see Crowe -- a ghost, remember -- manipulate pens, tape
recorders, notebooks and other elements of our reality “here” on the mortal
coil. How does that work exactly? The Sixth Sense avoids explanation,
perhaps to its detriment. As I wrote in Horror Films of the 1990s, Ghost
(1990), at least, attempted to explain how ghosts move between and manipulate
earthly objects.
Yet over and over again, given these few exceptions, The
Sixth Sense knowingly and deftly stages scenes in a way that encourage
assumptions, but can track in the opposite direction too. When the big reveal comes, we realize our
beliefs were wrong and that the movie (and movie-maker too) is still an honest,
and reliable narrator. All of this is extremely clever, and it’s clear that M.
Night Shyamalan is a canny student and observer of human nature, not to mention
mainstream movie-going habits, since by and large, audiences do react exactly
as he expects them to. He rarely loses his balance.
Has any other director, other than Alfred Hitchcock so cleverly, and
for such a sustained duration manipulated the audience so expertly? Have many movie talents so assiduously
crafted a story that successfully operates in two realities, until the final
fork in the road, when only one reality can be dominant?
I think you would be hard-pressed to name more than a handful of other
talents, and that fact certainly, is one reason why Shyamalan is worth lauding
or studying. Consider that most movie
lovers you encounter will concur that The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs
all achieve what they set out to. That’s
three times (in a row) up at bat in which he pulled off this feat with
consistent audience appreciation and buy-in.
I think it is also fair to state that Shyamalan accomplishes a great deal by focusing on small, seemingly ordinary things.
The film possesses a strong sense of disorder, as though the world is out of whack. If you gaze intently at some of the visuals, such as a kitchen in which all the drawers and cabinet doors are open, or a girl hiding under a bed, or even a shot of a lone character standing in the dark, shadowed in a dark basement, one begins to see how the visuals themselves seem to symbolize nature's imbalance.
No expensive visual effects are needed to make the film frightening. These off-kilter touches do the job magnificently. Shyamalan is one of the few directors still working in this decade who -- like Robert Wise once did --- can make a door-knob seem terrifying.
The performances in The Sixth Sense are also stellar,
and add immeasurably to the success of the film. Bruce Willis has never been better, I would
assess, except perhaps in Unbreakable. He adopts the passive, professional
detachment of a clinician here, and that very-internal, very-buttoned approach explains
his passivity (why few others seem to take note of him), and also raise alarm
bells about his true nature…as a ghost. When Crowe learns this story has been
about him needing help, not Cole, Willis opens up, and the film reaches a fever
pitch of emotion. He realizes that he has been given an opportunity to fix two
mistakes, and makes the most of it. Our final views of Crowe show us his separation from his wife and his sadness at leaving her, while he heads...beyond.
Osment, meanwhile, is the emotional anchor of The Sixth Sense, and
expresses terror, sadness, isolation and love in an unpracticed, innocent
fashion. Cole achieves the ending or destiny he deserves: a recognition of his
gift and purpose in this life. Crowe
gets that too, understanding that he has made up for two failures, both in
putting his wife second to his career, and correcting the mistake he made with
another sensitive, Vincent.
The most difficult thing for me in terms of all the Shyamalan bashing
one finds on the Net is that people seem to think that Shyamalan is trying, in
films like The Sixth Sense, to prove he is better than the rest of
us.
You know, who does he think he is always trying to outsmart the rest of
us paeans all the time?
Well, there’s an answer encoded right into the fabric of The
Sixth Sense. Shyamalan is not
working against us, he is working for the audience. What’s my proof? When he has Cole say that stories need twists
and stuff or they will be boring, he is specifically looking out for audiences;
making certain that his story doesn’t fail to please. Shyamalan has made the audience’s desire for
a good story, well-told, paramount in his efforts.
We all know the old saying that there are no new stories, only new ways
of telling them, right? Well, that’s
sort of what Shyamalan seems to be saying in this story, too: I have a new way
of telling a story, and I don’t think you’ll see it coming.
I’m not certain why that must be perceived as vanity or ego. Aren’t we in the market for strong stories,
told in ways that are fresh and innovative?
I know that’s why I’m here. That’s why I write books. That’s why I blog. That's why I go to the movies.
But then a lot of people are like The Sixth Sense’s ghosts, aren’t
they? They don’t see the truth, they see
only what they want to see. One has to wonder if in some way, Shyamalan was answering his prospective critics in the very body of his film, in the very text of The Sixth Sense.
Because what I see in The Sixth Sense is an emotional,
horrific and meticulously constructed film that surprises by unexpectedly inverting the
roles of its main characters.
What I see is a film that recognizes a basic
truth that stories just don’t happen magically or spontaneously, they must be
constructed in such a way so that the audience remains engaged from start to
finish.
What I see is a film that recognizes the fact that our eyes don’t
always tell us the whole story on first look. Sometimes, to truly see, we need to look closer.
And what I see, finally, and
perhaps most importantly, is a film that reminds us that the greatest evil in
the world is not death, but the inability to know one’s self, and one’s purpose.
