The worst thing that ever happened to M. Night Shyamalan’s was the August 5, 2002 cover of Newsweek magazine. The filmmaker was red hot coming off the surprise box office success of “The Sixth Sense” and a solid double of a hit in “Unbreakable,” and about to pack theaters once again with his blockbuster sci-fi/horror opus “Signs.” He was the toast of Hollywood, seemingly on the cusp of becoming a smash-crafting industry unto himself. It was a lot for one guy to deal with before the then prominent publication got completely carried away and declared the then 32-year-old director “The Next Steven Spielberg.” Afterwards? It dogged him like a curse.
Shyamalan didn’t handle this particularly well. Leaving aside how you feel about M. Night’s movies, he followed up the mild disappointment of “The Village” with the strangely hostile “Lady in the Water,” in which the filmmaker plays a supporting character whose writing possesses the power to transform the world. It’s a zany movie that likely would’ve flopped even if he hadn’t burdened its theatrical release by giving journalist Michael Bamberger unfettered access to his soul via the making-of book “The Man Who Heard Voices.” It felt like Shyamalan had completely bought into that Newsweek headline, and in turn believed himself infallible.
The best that can be said about “The Village,” “Lady in the Water,” and even the much-ridiculed “The Happening” is that they are personal visions. Disney, Warner Bros., and 20th Century Fox allowed Shyamalan to make these movies on his terms, and he delivered summer entertainments that felt wholly unlike anything else at the multiplexes.
You may very well be a fan of these movies, and that’s terrific! I am, to varying degrees, not, but I’m always open to hearing why they’re misunderstood masterpieces. I’m not sure I want to hear this from Shyamalan (because he’s already made his case with each finished film), but the writer-director is unafraid to speak his mind so let’s hear him out.
