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M. Night Shyamalan: the human elevator

Two decades of rising and falling have tainted the filmmaker’s name

By Angela Espinoza,
Arts Reviewer

celebrity these days. Various

websites, particularly YouTube,
MySpace and Twitter, seem to be
the number one sources for the next
fifteen-minutes-of-famer. But way
back in the 90s, it took some effort
to make a name for yourself. Take
one Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,
otherwise known as M. Night
Shyamalan.

Shyamalan’s first two projects
consisted of Praying With Anger
(1992) and Wide Awake (1995).
Praying With Anger is about a
young Indian American man who
goes to India as part of a student
exchange program. It was shown
at the Toronto International Film
Festival and saw a limited release.
Wide Awake, although made in
1995, was not released until 1998.
Like Signs (2002), it told the story
of a lost soul searching for God
after the death of a loved one, with
a side of baseball. It was during
this time Shyamalan co-wrote the

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screenplay for Stuart Little (1999),
based off the 1945 children’s novel
by E.B. White.

Just before Stuart Little
though, Shyamalan released what
is arguably his best work, The Sixth
Sense (1999). With a budget of forty
million and a rather impressive
cast for his first major feature,
Shyamalan was considered a
rising star. However, his next film,
Unbreakable (2000), had many
questioning if maybe Sixth Sense’s
acclaim was pure luck. Personally,
I don’t understand how anyone
could put Bruce Willis and Samuel
L. Jackson in a superhero movie
and make it so mind numbing.

This coming from someone whose
favourite 2007 movie was There
Will Be Blood!

In 2002, Shyamalan seemingly
redeemed himself with his sci-fi
thriller Signs. Starring Mel Gibson
and Joaquin Phoenix before they
both went insane, alongside Rory
Culkin and the ever-adorable
Abigail Breslin, Signs was a
blockbuster hit. From there on
however, Shyamalan’s career, like

his twist endings, had turned into

ere ie Teele LO Lee |
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something of a joke. 2004’s The
Village was quite a leap in terms
of schlock from Signs, and despite
its lack of (amongst other things)
logic, The Village was accused of
stealing its story from the 1995
book Running Out of Time.

Unlike his previous films, Lady
in the Water (2006) wasn’t only bad
but also but utterly confusing. The
only way to properly make sense of
the film would’ve been to purchase
Shyamalan’s children’s book of
the same name. His next picture,
The Happening (2008), once again
secured Shyamalan’s name as a
filmmaking joke. Its story is one of
plants waging biological warfare by
releasing particles causing humans
to kill themselves. Basically, if
you want a hilariously bad movie
and you’ve seen The Wicker Man
(2006) too many times, give The
Happening a look.

Now in 2010, Shyamalan’s
reputation as an Academy Award-
nominated filmmaker is no better
than that of Michael Bay’s. This
year’s earlier project, The Last

 
   

Airbender, based off the popular
cartoon show, has been denounced
as his worst yet; the gag here is that
it’s planned to be a trilogy. But the
film that seems to have everybody
talking is Devil (2010) (also part
of a planned trilogy). Although he
only has “story by” and producing
credits, you would’ve heard, “once
his name appeared [in the trailer],
everyone laughed/groaned” about
a dozen times before Devil hit
theatres. The premise is ‘five people
are trapped in an elevator, and one
of them is the devil’. Don’t bother
putting any faith in it though; one of
Devil’s two directors is John Erick
Dowdle (Dir. Quarantine {2008}).
So if he’s such a bad “tImmaker,
how does he keep getting work?
Well, one of the downsides of film
is that many hacks make back their
budgets, thus convincing various
studios that they’re worth investing
in. I will admit that despite his poor
screenplays, Shyamalan is a decent
director. If he could understand that
his writing skills counter only Eli
Roth’s, perhaps he would not be the
laughing stock he is today.