Signs (2002)

M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs (2002) is a science-fiction movie that concerns a very human, very grounded subject: perceptual sets. 

That’s a fancy way of describing sight, you might say.

We all choose, based on our perceptual baggage or sets, how we interpret events in life, and then we see and comprehend life according to the limits or boundaries of that particular perceptual set. 

At times, we actually erect perceptual barriers that preclude us from clear vision, either out of fear, suspicion, or even grief. In some cases, that perceptual set is dictated by selective exposure, the common tendency to expose one’s self to information that merely reaffirms existing attitudes, even if the data contradicts the facts.

Accordingly, a key moment in the Shyamalan film involves a lengthy monologue by the protagonist, who describes two kind of people in this world, and their particular perceptual sets.  One brand of people doesn’t have faith, and believes he is alone in the world…that there is no help when danger arrives.

The other sort of people have faith, and view their lives through that perceptual set. These folks believe that when push comes to shove, they are not alone. They are loved and looked after. Someone stands beside them; perhaps God.

The key protagonist in Signs is Father Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), and he is a typical M. Night Shyamalan protagonist in the sense that -- much like Malcolm Crowe, David Dunn, Elijah Price or Mr. Heep -- he has fallen off the intended trajectory of his life. He is off-course from his true destiny.  Because of this, he is both sad and rudderless. He faces each day with despair and emptiness instead of hope and promise.

Specifically, Hess is a man who has lost his faith because of the tragic death of his wife in a meaningless car accident.. He can no longer bring himself to believe in a kind, loving, shepherd-like God.  All he sees is a universe that rolls the dice. The film’s narrative drags Hess from this starting point of despair and nihilism -- because he can’t see his purpose anymore -- to a point where he can, finally, “see” a form of universal order again. 

Thus Graham overcomes, at great difficulty, the perceptual barriers that he has erected.  But he does so only when he recognizes the “signs” that a greater force is looking out for him; only when aliens arrive on Earth to threaten the human race, not to mention his family. At this juncture, Graham finally sees the world beyond the barriers he has created; when he chooses to acknowledge a perceptual set, a way of seeing that changes his mind (and restores his faith) about God.

Signs features a number of images that reinforce the notion of perceptual sets or baggage, and the barriers they can create for the percipient. In short, those barriers prevent us from seeing important things.  For example, the film features a preponderance of shots involving windows on the Hess farmhouse. 

The book-end visuals of the film feature a window too (facing the backyard and corn field). The inaugural shot of the film focuses on this portal, specifically.  It is a barrier of wavy glass; distorting the imagery beyond. The picnic table, hearth (a symbol of family) and other objects appear wrinkled, unreal, untrue to what they should be when viewed through this pane.  This portal is a direct metaphor for Graham's sight at this point in the film. He is seeing the world, but in a twisted way.

Then, at the end of the film -- after Graham’s awakening -- that same window is seen once more.  

This time, however, it is broken, meaning that life can be seen accurately “through” without distortion.  The waviness is gone.  Notice also the darkness/light differences of these book-end shots. Early on, Graham is aimless in gloomy night.  By the film's end, it's a new day.

Another way to put it: Hess has metaphorically punched through that window pane, overcome his perceptual baggage, and found his true meaning or destiny once more.  The windows and other barriers in the film serve as our “tell” that this story concerns the distance Graham has created from his true self, and the impediments he, himself, has created to seeing things in the way that, perhaps, he should.

As I’ve written before, I generally find critics unduly harsh to M. Night Shyamalan and his films. Why? They tend to nitpick every little thing in each story.  And even the best storytellers are hard-pressed to explain everything that occurs in their stories.  Many critics, then, you might say, have erected their own perceptual barriers when it comes to a film like Signs.

They ask questions about the nature of the aliens and their invasion, instead of focusing on M. Night Shyamalan’s visual expression of his theme; that our “truth” is dictated, in large part, by our perceptual sets and barriers; by what we select to see and acknowledge. We all look out on the world through windows, both invisible and not, and they don’t show us the truth; they show us our interpretation of it; what we have already chosen to “see.”

I won’t mince words about Signs, or the high regard I carry for the film. I believe the highest aesthetic in film is to match a good theme (like the one noted above), with a trenchant, reinforcing visualization of it.  That’s my own perceptual baggage, you can conclude. A film’s imagery or symbolism must reflect or augment that which the story tells us. Signs absolutely achieves this apotheosis, and more than that, is a beautiful and arresting film -- visually and narratively -- about opening oneself up to a new or different way of seeing. 

Now, some viewers might see the film as something else: a story explicitly re-affirming the mystery of faith. That’s fine too, if that's how you lean.  Yet I view Signs primarily as a film about finding your purpose, and overcoming the perceptual luggage you haul around with you on a daily basis.  It’s not so much that you must have“faith,” it’s that you open your eyes to the “signs” the universe is putting out. If you're closed down, shut-off, lost in your own anguish, you are not open to such signs.

In my reviews of the films of M. Night Shyamalan, I have focused largely on two ideas. 

The first involves protagonists bereft of purpose; seeking their place in an unsettled or disordered universe.  The second quality is some commentary on the art of storytelling itself.  Although the latter factor is less pronounced here than in other Shyamalan films, Signs makes a point about it too. 

At various points in the story, the Reverend Graham stops to tell his beloved children stories about how they were born; their origin stories, as it were.  “Tell me the story of when I was born,” Morgan says at the height of the movie’s alien invasion. 

Why does he ask for this?  

Because there is predictability and comfort in a story you know well; in a story you’ve been told many times.  We may see the world through a set of perceptual baggage, but sometimes that baggage also fulfills a purpose.  It grounds us.  It humbles us. It tells us who we are, or who we can be.  And Graham, certainly, must undertake the task of remembering who he really is, in the course of the film. He remembers Morgan's story, but he has forgotten his own.

In his stories, Graham contextualizes the children -- Bo and Morgan -- in terms of their beginnings on this mortal coil. Stories are another way that we, as human beings, get to know people, or, oppositely, pigeonhole them.

Stories tell people where they come from, and who they are; or who we think they are. So our perceptual sets include the stories we have heard all our lives, and Signs plays delicately with this idea.  At one point in the film, we even see a drawing of a farmhouse much like Graham’s in a UFO book…as it comes under attack from alien ships in that illustration.  This drawing suggests another important “sign” to interpret, a story of “truth” outside the selective exposure (self-reinforcing ideas) I mentioned above in regards to Graham’s world view. He comes out of his bubble of longenough to realize, "gee, that looks a lot like our house..."

Dazzling, scary and affecting on a pure human level, Signs is the third straight Shyamalan cinematic home run in my book, and mostly because it pinpoints a symbolic way to help us experience and understand Reverend Hess’s journey.  We all peer through our individual windows and judge life in our own way.

What if that way is wrong?  What if we're missing signs all around us?

“We should keep all possibilities available.”

In Pennsylvania, an ex-reverend, Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) mourns the death of his wife in a meaningless accident.  

Six months have passed, and he feels alone, and confused, much to the sadness of his brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) and children, Bo (Abigail Breslin) and Morgan (Rory Culkin).

Soon, however, Hess must attempt to shake off his pain, because something strange occurs.  In the corn field behind his farmhouse, a strange crop-circle has been carved by unknown and possibly malevolent forces. 

As TV news reports soon indicate, such crop circles -- navigational aids, seen from space? -- are being detected all over the planet.  Before long, a fleet of strange lights are detect in the sky over Mexico City.

Is Earth being invaded by aliens?  

And if so, how can a despondent Graham summon the inspiration and strength to save his family when he can't even save himself?

“There’s no one watching out for us, Merrill. We are all alone.”

When I consider Signs, I think of two things: windows and the television sets.  

In a way, they’re the same thing; they're connected.  A TV set is actually a window of sorts, isn’t it? Much of Signs involves the idea of seeing through distorted lens, and that’s what the aforementioned “wavy” window to the backyard represents. 

But that’s what the TV is too.  

Throughout the film, we see the family’s TV set in close-up, insert shots as news breaks of strange crop circles, lights in the sky, aliens, and alien invasion.  In the post-9/11 world, how we relate to images on TV is a significant idea.

Are the aliens a hoax?  Can we trust our eyes?  That’s a key question in the film, because Graham clearly does not trust his eyes.  He knows of Bo’s obsession with water glasses, for example, but doesn’t see how it is relevant.  He also knows of Merrill’s success in baseball, but doesn’t understand his wife’s comment to “see” and for Merrill to “swing away.”  

These are, in a way, perceptual clues like those featured on the TV; ones that can initially be dismissed or judged a hoax, or even unimportant.  To put it another way, Graham has some evidence of signs throughout the film (like the familiar farmhouse in the UFO Book…) that there is a kind of synchronicity occurring in his life, but he writes it off as unimportant, or as fake. He has selected the idea that life is meaningless, so he omits from his view anything that could be meaningful. He selects not to believe.  It’s a very complex equation, and yet consistently applied throughout the film.

Even when the alien first invades Graham’s house, the being is first seen as a reflection on a television, as a view through a portal or window of sorts. I suspect this  visualization occurs because of the film’s ultimate viewpoint that we all “see” the world through windows, accurate or false (like the wavy bedroom window pane). Before we face the alien -- who has chameleon-like qualities and thus deceive sight -- we see him on the TV...the box through which we look out to see the whole, wide world.  

Why introduce the alien in the house in this way?  Perhaps because this image is a reflection of how we see everything, through a particular lens.  And perhaps to remind audiences that TV is not an honest narrator. We think what we see on TV is real, but news programs don't always have all the facts, or have all the facts right.

In some way, Graham’s journeyin Signs is about acknowledging the interconnection of his family, too.  He has retreated into isolation and despair, and isn’t really “present” for his children when they need him.  There are many shots included in the film where wein witness this separation in terms of visualization. 

At one point, Graham sits on a staircase, separated from his brother and children and neaby the bannisters.  They might as well be prison bars. They visually acknowledge the distance he feels from his loved ones, and that they feel from him.

Oppositely, Graham and his family get closer to the truth, it appears, when they are close; when they are connected and work together towards common cause. '

There’s an immensely creepy scene in the film early on during which Graham, Merrill, Bo, and Morgan form a human chain -- touching hands and arms -- and it is only then, when they are as one, that they get a clear signal on the baby monitor of the alien speaking.  

Again, the visuals enhance the film’s story in a remarkably deep way here.  Graham thinks he’s alone, and wallows in despair, and when he is separated from his family, they feel it too.  But when the family works together -- when it toils towards common goals -- pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place.

Critics who dismiss Signs outright are simply not acknowledging or reading the visuals, not understanding how this story of overcoming perceptual baggage or barriers is imagined in terms of how Shymalan sees, and asks us to see.  

Everything we need to know about Graham’s heroic journey is encompassed in the pictures, in the visuals of the film.  We see his distorted vision. We register his separation. And we see our resolution, his rejoining with his family.

I know why people complain about Signs.  I do. I hear it and read it from sources I respect and like all the time.  Apparently, these good folks are disturbed by the fact that the aliens don’t have technology, are stopped by wooden barricades and doors, and choose to attack a planet rich with water. 

Most of this criticism is hooey. 

We never truly get into an examination of the alien culture in the film. Indeed, that would be a different story all together.  We do know that the aliens want to take humans, and preserve the planet itself so its resources are available to them.  These points of exposition explain the simple reason they attack us without technology, or even wearing armor.  They land on Earth and use only “ground tactics,” according to the film’s dialogue, fearing a nuclear reprisal.  Is it so hard to believe that aliens would be blocked by the same conventions that block us, another form of biped? We also can’t break through wooden doors and locks, right?

The silliest complaint about the film involves water.  Why would the aliens come to Earth, a planet rich in water, if it is harmful to them?  

Well, again, the answer is the same: they’ve come to take humans. Humans live on Earth, both far and near water.  One might similarly ask of War of the Worlds, why would aliens invade a planet with so many germs that might kill them? Why didn't the Martians pick a different planet, either?

Well, in both cases Earth is available and valuable. It possesses life and resources.  That is why it is a point of ambush and siege in both stories.  

Similarly, we never see the aliens invade near bodies of water in the film.  A graphic on television actually reveals the opposite, actually. We see a map of India, and the crop-circle locations are pinpointed.  Notice that the marking are all inland, miles from water. It’s true that India is surrounded by water on three sides, but those pinpointed locations have no bodies of water near them.  

So the aliens know that water harms them, but that they can still attack humans in place not near bodies of water, especially population centers. Why didn’t they factor running water into their equation?   

Again, tell me why the Martians didn’t count on germs in War of the Worlds?  Aliens are from a different place, and understand us, perhaps, as well as we understand them. Why do all movie aliens have to be omnipotent?  Where is it written that this must be the case?

These criticisms represent the kind of selective elitism that infects so much science fiction fandom and film criticism.  We instnatly accept the idea of vulnerable invaders in War of the Worlds who succumb to germs, but in Signs?  Suddenly it’s death by a thousand nitpicks. 

Signs succeeds as a work of art in another significant way as well.  It builds suspense efficiently and relentlessly.  

Some folks will tell you the moment of highest suspense fails because of the whole aliens-getting-killed-by-water idea is a no-bo, but few will state that the film doesn’t flawlessly, brilliantly build suspense towards that finale.  This movie is scary, and tense to the extreme.

Signs also features two of the greatest jump scares of the early 2000s.  

In one (the first) Graham looks out Bo’s window at night, and is surprised to see a monster of some sort staring back at him.  The sudden appearance of that thing will send cold shivers down your back. But the view is so quick and startling that it fits in well with the movie's theme of sight.  Suddenly, we're not so sure of our eyes.  Did we really see that?

The second scene is truly terrifying too, though in a more overt way. We watch news footage on TV, captured at a birthday party in Mexico City, of an alien stepping out into plain view.  This shot that is beautifully set-up and executed. Shyamalan films it found-footage style, meaning it feels immediate and real. Yet the effects also hold up incredibly well.  

There is a malevolence and character in the stride of that monstrous thing as it comes into view, and lingers there.  I swear I see disdain on its features as it pauses to acknowledge it has been seen.

It just doesn't care. 

In an under-cover way, the alien appearance and personal also fits in with the fallible alien theory I stated above. Overconfidence and superiority-- hubris -- might be a quality of these beings, at least based on the way they attack the Earth, and venture into populated territories.  

Regardless, I get an electric jolt of terror every time I watch these two scenes. They work on me every time. 

Moments such as these are orchestrated with an eye towards maximum impact, and prove -- again -- that if M. Night Shymalan wanted to operate on the simple basis of jump scares or rollercoaster ride-style horror storytelling, he could easily choose to do so.

But pretty clearly, that kind of superficial terror doesn’t interest him.  

What does interest him? 

Lost souls.  

People who have wandered off the path, and can’t find their way back. These poor wretches are trapped in the metaphorical woods by their perceptual baggage, and that’s the key point to understand.  They can’t see beyond a narrow viewpoint to realize they can achieve their destiny. The assumptions they carry with them are wrong, and they don't find out this fact until the denouement and the pieces come together.

Signs doesn’t have a trick ending in my book, either. For the duration of the picture, Graham Hess sees through a barrier of wavy glass. He can’t see the whole picture. Then, when the signs are acknowledged, he punches through that window, that perception of reality, and in floods the sunlight of belonging and meaning and hope.

So Signs is really the story of a man stepping into a larger world than the one he believed he existed in, told in unimpeachable visual style.

There are two kinds of people, as Graham would tell us at this juncture.

You can be the person who sees this movie, and decides that it's simply about aliens who can't open doors, and get hurt by water.  

Or you can be the kind of person who opens himself up to the storytelling and symbolic imagery. You can register the movie as a deep and often profound look at the way humans see and don't see the important things around them

As always, it's your choice. But I'm in the second group.

Unbreakable (2000)

In my review of The Sixth Sense (1999), I considered the notion that the films of M. Night Shyamalan tend to concern one overriding theme: a person (or persons) cut off from destiny. 

In films such as Signs (2002) the director also pursues that theme; that people lose hope when they aren’t working actively towards their purpose or fate.

In Unbreakable, much as was the case in The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan crafts two main characters who are ensconced on that difficult journey. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) function as mirrors of one another, yet they are joined by their individual searches for purpose. 

Who are they? How do they define themselves?

The latter question involves the idea that we can pinpoint and comprehend our own self-image only in relation to others and society as a whole. David cannot learn who he is, until helped to do so by Price.  In fact, he feels "sadness" everyday when he wakes up because he isn't who he is supposed to be.

“Maybe you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing,” Elijah observes, before setting David on a path towards crime-fighting.

Similarly, Price cannot achieve his somewhat grimmer destiny (as a villain or arch-nemesis) until Dunn realizes and fulfills his role as a superhero or protector. Thus there’s a powerful symbiosis between characters, no doubt. They can’t truly “be” what they are meant to "be" without the presence of the other one; without the influence of one another.

At the same time that Unbreakable explores this theme of characters finding and achieving purpose in life, it follows up on Shyamalan’s other obsessive focus: the nature and importance of storytelling. 

In the case of The Sixth Sense, we were asked to consider story structure, and the manner in which stories must feature “twists and stuff” to keep them interesting for the audience.  

In Unbreakable, we are similarly asked, from the opening title card, to examine the significance -- both socially and culturally -- of comic-books. According to Unbreakable, comic books are not mere entertainment; they are modern hieroglyphs, in a sense, which inform us of crucial information about world.  

This idea is visualized by a scene in the Limited Edition shop wherein Elijah is positioned in front of literal hieroglyphs, ancient comic-books, as it were.

It's not just that superheroes need to be themselves, according to the film, it's that the rest of us need heroes to look up to, or we lose hope.  This is the role that superhero stories fulfill in our culture. Children like Joseph Dunn (Spenceter Treat Clark) need the optimism that only heroes offer; they need the stories that newspapers report on (as in the image above, accompanied by the headline "SAVED").  

What kind of story is that? One in which people are rescued, not lost.  One in which crime doesn't pay, and criminals don't win.

In everyday life, some of us are great heroes; other are great villains, Unbreakable tells us. The comics may exaggerate aspects of human nature, but they are essentially correct in their meditations about these qualities, and canny in understanding our need for them. Thus Unbreakable “deconstructs the cultural reflections the comics make of society, something many other films have tried and failed to do,” according to Douglas Pratt, at the Denver Business Journal (August 17, 2001 page 32A.)

That idea of comic-book storytelling ties in with the Elijah/Dunn relationship. The shattering ending of the film is telegraphed when Elijah’s mother notes early on, of a comic book, that “They say this one has a surprise ending."

In this case, that surprise is a reflection of something we absolutely accept as inevitable in comics (yet somehow don't see as inevitable in the film): Every great hero has a great nemesis. Batman has the Joker. Superman has Lex Luthor. Spider-Man as Green Goblin, and so on.

 I made you. You made me. We are opposite sides of the same coin. Or as Elijah puts it, "We are on the same curve; just opposite ends."

In my book, The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television, I ranked Unbreakable among the top ten titles of the genre (at number 6, actually), and I stand firmly by that assessment. 

Unbreakable is a magnificent -- and rare -- superhero film because it isn’t really overly concerned with crime, or evil plans to control the world.  Nor is concerned with gadgets or huge action scenes and special visual effects.

On the contrary, Unbreakable concerns the heart of a superhero whose destiny has been blocked. Shymalan’s film examines the idea that David Dunn has lost hope because he can’t do what he was meant to do; protect us all.  

Similarly, it suggests that somebody on the same journey can become an evil monster, not merely lost or isolated, if he can’t understand his place. And yet for Elijah we still have sympathy. Unlike so many villains in the genre (who are evil for the sake of villainy and nothing else), we see why he is in pain; why he is driven to discover his purpose.  He is so terribly wounded.

Without a purpose, Elijah has been made, simply, to suffer. So he must know his purpose. There is no option for him.

Too many superhero films (from Marvel and D.C. among others) focus entirely on vengeance as a motivator for so-called “heroism.” Batman, Daredevil, the Crow, and other super heroes are often motivated by their need to “get back” at someone for the pain in their lives.  These films and these individuals routinely mistake revenge for justice.  Unbreakable eschews this terrible idea -- that hate can create heroes -- and suggests instead that heroism, and in particular, super-heroism, is really about the drive to protect and care for others.  

David becomes great not by hurting others, or by returning hurt for hurt. He becomes great by acknowledging his ability and his deep-seated need to save the innocent.  Oppositely, Elijah, hurts others so that he can understand his pain, and as a comic-book aficionado he understands exactly what that makes him: a super-villain.

Unbreakable thus restores a real sense of morality to the often wayward superhero genre, which consistently portrays angst, anger and violence as the skill set of great heroes. 

Superheroes? I don’t like them when they’re angry. 

And neither apparently does Unbreakable and M. Night Shyamalan.  Good for them.  By examining why some of us are driven to protect others and some of us are driven to hurt others, Unbreakable, according to Christopher Kelly, “reminds us of the essential magic of the cinema: to take us to a bold and dizzying journey into the great pop unknown.”

“I studied the form of comics.”

A campus security guard living and working in Philadelphia, David Dunn (Bruce Willis), is estranged from his wife, Audrey (Robin Wright Penn). 

After David miraculously survives intact a terrible train wreck that kills 131 other people, he stops to re-examine his life, and indeed, his relationship with his family.

Spurred on by a stranger who owns an art gallery and is a comic book aficionado, Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), David begins to examine his past, and the decisions he has made about it.  Were those choices taking him closer to his destiny, or further from it?  Has he been hiding for years from the truth about his nature?

Elijah believes that David has been hiding. He also believes that comic books are a form of history, and that people like David may be protectors, guardians or even superheroes. 

Having suffered from a rare bone disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta his whole life, Elijah believes that his life too must have a purpose too.  He helps David find his place in the world, so that he may be sure, finally, of his place as well.

“These are mediocre times. People are beginning to lose hope.”

David Dunn is a lonely man. That is the visual message that is conveyed almost immediately in Unbreakable.  

He is isolated from others, including his wife, not only because he is so different from them (having never been sick), but because he is hiding from his real purpose; from his real identity.

In film’s first scene, Shyamalan finds an intriguing technique to reveal Dunn’s isolation. We view David sitting on a train in motion, from the vantage point of the seats in front of him. Or more accurately, from the “crack” or gap between two seats ahead of him.  As David attempts to hit on an attractive young woman, the camera moves left and right as each person talks; showing us David and then the target of his affections, and then David again.  

But here’s the thing: the two characters are not on screen together for any duration. David is always seen alone, even while he is attempting to connect to another person.  He can’t connect, the visuals imply, because he is denying his real self.  He can’t begin to reach out to others until he “sees” who he really is.

This composition probably sounds like a little thing -- the position of the camera in a simple dialogue scene -- but without a lot of showiness, Shyamalan has pinpointed the perfect composition to express David’s isolation.  Even when he is trying to reach out, he is alone.  And he will continue be, until he faces the truth about himself.

Elijah is more obviously differentiated from others. His terrible physical condition trapped him indoors when he is young.  His condition also gives him a limp in adulthood, and other physical differentiation from other people.  But in a very real way, David is just as isolated, even though he is at the opposite end of the spectrum.  Even though David never gets sick or hurt, and Elijah always gets hurt, they are the same, in a sense. Joined by their distance from normality.

Shyamalan explores the superhero milieu in some intriguing visual fashion in the film. He gives David Dunn a name of notable alliteration, for example, like Clark Kent, Peter Parker, or Bruce Banner. Similarly the director associates his characters with individual color schemes.  David’s world is all olive-green.  His uniform is an olive-green poncho (a cape and cowl?) and by contrast, Elijah’s world is all purple and flamboyant in coloring, a reflection of the first occasion upon which he saw a comic-book.  His mother wrapped up the issue in a purple package, and it changed his life. 

In almost all superhero stories, heroes and villains are similarly color-coded. We associate red, yellow and blue with Superman, for example.  Although Shymalan tones down the brightness a bit in Unbreakable, he accomplishes the same goal.  He gives his superhero and super-villain a consistent color scheme, even if it isn’t noticeable immediately.  This idea adds immeasurably to the concept of the film as a superhero origin story.

Also, Shymalan provides one or two variations of what I call "the Gargoyle Pose."  Superhero films are rife with this pose. A superhero stands alone on a building, or silhouetted in front of a tall building or other notable landscape.  The shot tells us that he is watching the world for us; but also that he is physically separated from the rest of us.  

The film goes further into superhero tropes, charting water as David’s equivalent of Kryptonite, and tagging his particular power, which I would call Psychometry. Specifically, David can discern knowledge of people and events simply by touching them.  

Importantly, Elijah and David don’t touch until Elijah wants him too; when he has determined his “place” in relation to David. That final touch represents the “surprise ending” of the film but also, ironically, the start of the real story.   David and Elijah's first "touch" -- shaking hands, essentially -- is also their last.  Their friendship will never be the same after that touch.

In essence, Unbreakable is an origin story, revealing how two men have come to know each other as friends before a lifetime of (presumed) animosity).  The next story in sequence s about how the two men -- on opposite sides of the law -- will clash for supremacy and dominance.  I’d love to see Shyamalan, Willis and Jackson return for an Unbreakable 2 that charts that particular story, the traditional superhero story.  

Unbreakable is veritably brimming with visual and narrative ingenuity, and there are few cheats in the film that take away from the new perspective that the denouement provides. Instead, Unbreakable packs an emotional wallop because at the same type we feel such happiness for David that he is finally pursuing his rightful destiny, we feel utter sadness for Elijah.  

We have seen that Elijah is loved dearly by his mother and that she has done everything in her power to make him strong and powerful.  But we also see that Elijah has been twisted by his sickness; twisted by his obsession to understand who he is; by his demand for "answers." The film’s ending works so powerfully because we love Elijah at this point, and even though he is “evil” in a very real sense, we love him no less.  Very few superhero movie villains are handled with such depth and indeed, sympathy, in the modern canon.

So does Unbreakable actually feature a twist ending at all?  As I’ve written before, Shyamalan is universally judged on the basis of his twist endings.  Either they work or don’t.  He can't seem to win on that front. Few critics stop to consider, however, whether these finales were intended to be viewed as a “twist.”  We certainly know from the telegraphing about a comic-book with "a surprise ending" that Shyamalan intended to shock the audience in this case. 

Yet, much like The Sixth Sense, there are clues all along in Unbreakable -- those bread crumbs I like to write about -- that prepare us for the final revelation. In this case, David and Elijah, our two main leads, are both associated with comic books, and both differentiated in terms of their fashion/color. Those are significant bread crumbs to consider.  Furthermore, Elijah’s Mom discusses with David the difference between a soldier villain (a brute, essentially) and an arch-enemy type nemesis (like Elijah), again preparing us for the dropping of the other shoe.

For me, the ending of Unbreakable isn’t about a “twist” so much as it is -- as is the case in all Shyamalan’s films -- about seeing and synthesizing, admittedly with new information, all the data we have previously made (incorrect) assumptions about.  I will say this, the end of Unbreakable doesn’t feel cheap, manipulative or gimmick to me.  It feels, instead, like destiny attained, and I believe that, in a nut-shell, is what the film is all about.  David has reached his apotheosis, and in doing so, has given Elijah his.  A real “twist” would come out of left field, and I would argue that there could be no other ending to Unbreakable, even if we can’t always see this one coming.

At the time of its release, some critics (like Maclean’s Shanda Deziel) suggested that the film was unable to “escape its shadow” (The Sixth Sense), but again, I disagree.  It's true: Unbreakable brings back Bruce Willis, and repeats Shyamalan’s signature obsessions. Specifically, the film functions with two characters acting as inverted reflections seeking their destinies. At the same time, it can be considered a deconstruction of the essential qualities of story-telling.  But this film chooses a different genre (superheroes rather than horror) to explore these fascinations.  

Assessing Unbreakable as a mere shadow of The Sixth Sense is, to me, like saying that Casino (1995) is a repeat of Good Fellas (1990).  

I mean, they’re both gangster movies, right? 

On the contrary, they are variations on a theme, and examples of a director creating a consistent canon; one in which the same ideas are investigated but from different angles, or in a different way.  

Unbreakable is a great film, and it suggests, perhaps, that in the the first decade of the twenty-first century M. Night Shyamalan was something akin to a franchise unto himself. His movies represent a series of meditations on similar themes, but with different specifics and outcomes. Each movie offers new characters and new genre ideas, but we keep going back to the concept of destiny interrupted, and a study of the ways that movies reflect storytelling tropes.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

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). 

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.

Pop Art: The Mod Squad (TV Guide Edition)

The Mod Squad GAF Viewmaster

Comic Book of the Week: The Mod Squad (Dell)

Board Game of the Week: The Mod Squad (Remco)

Model Kit of the Week: The Mod Squad Station Wagon (Aurora)

Trading Cards of the Week: The Mod Squad (Topps; 1968)

Theme Song of the Week: The Mod Squad (1968-1973)