I was, for a time, rather fanatically devoted to M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. I still enjoy the movie. I see it more as a love story than just a mystery-thriller, and it has often deeply moved me. I like Shyamalan's previous work, too--The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs all had their merits. The Village was interesting in concept, well-acted, and well-scripted except for some stilted dialogue at the beginning. The story was provocative and intriguing, and content-wise, the film was acceptable for anyone old enough to handle some tension, jump scenes, and one act of violence.
Then Lady in the Water came along, a movie that seemed better fitted for the children's story it began as than a film marketed to adults--except that the interposition of a scary wolf-like creature made it unacceptable for young children. The movie was confusing and rather poorly-conceived, and seemed to make little effort to engage the audience in a convincing fictional world. I mean, three apes show up at the end to kill the bad creature.
Now there's The Happening. I haven't personally seem the film, but according to Plugged in Online, it is essentially a horror-film rendition of An Inconvenient Truth. Shyamalan was quoted in the same review as stating that the original cut of the film would have received an X-rating--or even been banned in the United States. Some editing took it down to a tidy R for sanitized occurrences of gruesome suicide, like a man getting his arms torn off by a lion.
Shyamalan has never done this before. Sure, his other films were intense, but they were not gruesome. Every other movie he's made has received a PG-13. I'm not against all R-rated movies--I own several--although I'm always mighty curious to know exactly why the R was given, because it's a mixed bag. It can mean simply some intense violence, like The Last Samurai. Or it can mean The Departed's 237 F-words. But coming from Shyamlan, this is weird--editing down the gore from a sure-fire NC-17 rating? Evidently he also throws in some crude sexual slang to top things off. And the reason everyone is getting sawn into mincemeat, or whatever, is because of man's inhumanity to...the environment.
The question du jour, then, is what in blue blazes is Mr. Shyamalan up to, and why?
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6 comments:
He's up to essentially the same thing all other directors are up to. Sadly it seems that the film making is less about producing worthwhile peices of art as it is about producing something that will draw crowds, never mind for what reason. My guess is that Shyamalan was just looking for something that would stir up controversy and publicity, thereby raking in more money. Quite a shame, really.
Hello Connor,
I'm not sure if you'll remember you so I'll say I'm Kathryn Harding. My family moved to Arizona a couple years ago. Sorry if you still don't know me. =]
anyway. I was reading through your blog and this post really interested me. I totally agree with you, I don't get what is up with Shyamalan.
I really loved most of his first movies but these last two (Lady in the water, The Happening) have just seemed weird and not worth seeing.
I wanted to compliment you on your writing as well. you have such a wonderful use of words in all your posts. You really are an excellent writer.
In Christ,
Kathryn
Well, now that I've seen it, yeah, it was pretty gory, but honestly didn't seem more so than Braveheart. Apparently, though, violence that comes with the message that violence is better than diplomacy is considered more than justified by the average conservative critic, while violence that results from abuse of the natural order is "liberal" and "negative." Why? I don't mean you're doing this, but I see it constantly in the community, and I don't understand it.
Even if you don't believe in global climate change at all, teaching respect for the earth (and negative consequences for lack of such respect) should be part of the curriculum for every Christian. God never intended for us to squeeze maximum profit out of the natural world and leave it destroyed, strip-mined, and burnt. I think that the state of the environment is just on people's minds, so Shyamalan made a movie out of it. Just like the Middle East is on people's minds, so they're making movies about it, too. That doesn't make "the Middle East" good or bad anymore than The Happening makes "environmentalism" good or bad.
Certainly possible, David, though I think Robert raises a good point below.
I certainly haven't forgotten the Harding family, Kathryn! Welcome to my blog. It's good to hear from you. :-) I agree that Lady in the Water seemed like kind of a let-down. As for Happening, I'd have to see it to tell for sure, and I'm not sure if I want to see it.
Well, thank you! God's given me a real love for writing, so I'm glad you enjoy reading my posts.
Good points, well-taken, Robert. You can certainly speak with more authority, having seen the movie. Could you give me an example of a book/movie where violence is condoned over diplomacy, and praised? Strictly speaking, I suppose that is the case in Braveheart, although the film is at least somewhat historical and events seemed past bargaining from the start. But you may well be thinking of something else.
I think there are some more radical conservatives who take a sort of strange pride in pretending that nothing humans do has any consequences. That's a pretty ridiculous position. I think there are some liberals who pretend or believe the problems are worse than they are out of some impulse as well. Some of the extremism is almost assuredly agenda-driven, and some of the conservative response is an agenda-driven reaction. Which is to say, I don't think that rampant strip-mining, clear-cutting, and so on without recking the consequences is a good thing. If Shyamalan was just musing on environmental concerns, that's not a big deal. What I fear is that the more radical believers in global warming are trying to push the paranoia as a kind of power move--a justification for pushing through their agenda. I think that's why I'm leery of Hollywood movies. But Shyamalan may not be doing that, of course. He seems maverick enough not to spit out the expected mantra.
The trailer was enough to put me off the movie. They made a ridiculously big deal out of the fact that it's RATED R. ::gasp:: "M. Night Shyamalan in his first RATED R movie!!!" And then having the R in red at the end was just tacky. I think he's just trying to prove something...maybe that he can make big and bad scary slasher flicks too. John thinks that if he hadn't made _Sixth Sense_ first, we never would have paid attention to his other movies. Of course, I'm still very very fond of _The Village_ and always will be. :)
Yes, I did. I don't think there's a limit to how much text you can put in, but you should have the option of limiting it yourself if you want. John put in a whole 15/20 page paper. I like how it picks out the most frequently used words and puts them by size in descending order.
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