“Unbreakable” and The Three Shyamalans
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It has been well-established by now, that there are at least two individuals who go by the name of Manoj Night Shyamalan. The first is the maverick auteur, the Hitchcock of modern times, the writer-director of stunning films like “The Sixth Sense” , “Unbreakable” and “Signs” . Following the release of the latter, it is widely believed that aliens abducted said auteur and carried out horrific genetic experiments on him, turning him into the second Shyamalan, the peddler of cheap thrills, the maker of pseudo-profound commentaries on society( The Village) and fourth rate fantasy penny-dreadfuls like The Lady In The Water. This second Shyamalan liked to feud with Hollywood studio bosses who wouldn’t let him cast himself in key roles.
There are those, of course, who believe that the two Shyamalans are merely figments of the gullible public’s imagination, and that the real Shyamalan is the third one, the figure who has carefully cultivated an air of mystique about himself, with wild rumours ranging from the Hitchcockian (apparently a big black bird can be seen following him around), to the conspiratorial (they say that Shyamalan drowned in a childhood accident, and this one is really a ghost. So there.)
But I digress. No matter which Shyamalan you take to be genuine, I for one would choose to dwell upon some of his earlier masterpieces rather than curse him for his current sorry state.For me, Shyamalan reached his pinnacle as a writer and a director with “Unbreakable”. I know this might seem strange, given the long shadow cast by “The Sixth Sense”. The story basically involves a crippled comic-book collector(Samuel L. Jackson) trying to convince a security guard with a bad marriage(Bruce Willis) that he is, in fact a superhero. But as I shall elaborate, “Unbreakable” had quite a few remarkable things about it, which made it into a cross-genre, quirky-yet-believable SF film.
The first was the mythological aspect of the script. Shyamalan put forth a very compelling argument for comic-books as a sort of unbroken historical chain of information. At the time I saw the film, I was not the comic-book maniac that I am now. But when I saw the film again recently, some of the more daring statements about the art of comic-books resonated strongly with me. If you’ve ever read the so-called “Silver Age” superhero comics of the 60’s , you’ll know exactly what I mean. Take a character like Captain America for example. The story arcs of this hugely popular character have functioned as a virtual barometer of public sentiment over state policy down the years. While the Captain punched Hitler in the 40’s , in the wake of the outrage over Watergate, the Captain lay down his shield and helmet in shame. This was a masterstroke at the screenplay level, one which elevated it beyond the realm of the conspiracy theory or the urban legend. Coupled with the spooky dialogue delivery of Samuel L. Jackson, an inspired casting choice for the role of Elijah the cripple; the overall effect is chilling indeed. Elijah has been born with osteogenesis imperfect, a rare condition which causes his bones to be extremely brittle. He believes that there must be someone at the other extreme as well, someone who is invulnerable, unbreakable.
The second aspect was that of Shyamalan’s endlessly fascinating usage of light and space. The first scene of the film involves the birth of the Elijah character on a train. The claustrophobic nature of the train, accentuated with a huge mirror, serves well the template for the moment where the doctor announces that the baby was born with broken arms and legs. Also, late in the film, there is a scene where Bruce Willis, who is afraid of water, is almost drowns while struggling with a huge tarpaulin. The technical work and visual artistry on display here is simply staggering. Shyamalan is one of the great indoor directors of our time. He has a highly acute sense of the power exercised by the four walls, of the paranoia and the primal fear which can be depicted indoors(Signs is an excellent example of this, too, as is The Sixth Sense…remember the famous sequence featuring the young Mischa Barton playing a dead girl?)
I didn’t really like “The Usual Suspects” despite the most famous plot twist in cinematic history. The reason being, a)You feel kinda cheated about the previous two hours and b)The “twist” doesn’t really chime well with the remainder of the plot, and is as such not integral to the ethos of the story. Five smartass minutes do not a movie make.
This is where “Unbreakable” works wonders. As I don’t want to spoil the story for first-timers, I won’t discuss it at length, but I will say is that the “twist” is, in this case central to the cascading mythos of the whole film, as well as being thoroughly satisfying on its own. The third aspect, then, is the ubiquitous Shyamalan twist which was better than ever before.
While Shyamalan’s film haven’t been typically known for exceptional performances(I think Mel Gibson’s performance in Signs was perhaps the best of the lot), Jackson and Willis bring in their experience into play, turning in solid outings. And who better to play an ‘unbreakable” man than Bruce Willis? The scene where Willis tries to lift increasing amounts of weight to try and test his limits is comical, with a dangerous undertone, something which Willis pulls off quite well, in the end.
Alas, this brilliance was to be short-lived, and the other two Shyamalans would soon take charge, leaving in their wake whispered dialogues, insipid plots, multiple Razzie nominations(and two wins, for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor for Shyamalan in “The Lady In The Water”) and bemused critics.
So, the jury is out on when the first Shyamalan decides to grace us with his presence once more. Watch this space for updates.
Tags: Comic Books, M. Night Shyamalan, twist endings, Unbreakable
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
You’re complaining about ‘The Usual Suspects’s twist just like Agatha Cristie’s ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’s famous twist was frowned upon but is now considered her masterpiece.
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Nice post. I found your Shyamalan identities hilarious!! Why the man insists on going in front of the camera is beyond me!
Shyamalan is certifiably our Hollywood equivalent of Ram Gopal Verma… Their fall from grace is so much alike… Except in Ramu’s case, some inkling of sense always prevailed and he never cast himself in front of the camera
On “Usual Suspects”… I am always defensive towards it despite partially agreeing with you on its credibility – or lack thereof- due to that twist at the end. But see “Usual Suspects” was the mother of all twists in modern cinema and amazingly stylized at that. That’s just my opinion and I was blown away when I saw it in 1996 and surprisingly still recall every bit of the movie… To me its reference quality material and I find myself comparing every film with a twist at the end to Usual Suspects… even a better film like the “The Prestige”
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@Debarun Sarkar: The only thing common to Christie’s novel and The Usual Suspects is the “unreliable narrator” device(and that too very sketchily, in the film) ….. Christie used the red herrings in a tantalizing manner.
@Savio: Thanks, man
Ramu…. another one of my fallen heroes.. and you yourself say “The Prestige” is a much better film…. I agree with that whole-heartedly..
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Nicely written,hope Shyamlan will be back in from to entertain us.
@Savio,
Ramu will also bounce back, hes till has the potential.
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totally agreed.. i can never pin pont what makes it special , but unbreakable was very special and different. Master story telling that move is.
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I rather liked The Happening. And The Village wasnt so dreadful either. Unbreakable, Sixth Sense and Signs were masterpieces of course, for me in that order.
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The Last Airbender will seem to change the brand name of Shyamalan as a unique experience filmmaker forever though.
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there’s a fourth shyamalan in hiding right now.. he’ll reveal himself on july 2nd of next year.. just wait til you see the last airbender.. your faith will be restored.
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@striker, Nitin: I fervently hope Shyamalan gets hs act together this time… ‘cos I love the Avtar anime series… Dev Patel is an inspired choice, though, I must say….
“The Village” wasn’t a bad film by any stretch of imagination… Adrien Brody, in particular was excellent…
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dev has done a decent job, but it’s the lead, noah ringer, who is nothing short of mindblowing. never seen such a hardworking kid, and he can easily kick anyone’s ass with his martial arts. aasif mandvi (of the daily show fame) plays commander zhao, leader of the firenation soldiers. if i was only allowed to talk about the production design and the sets… so friggin’ cool.
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It’s perhaps a strange thing, but I hated “The unbreakable” simply because of the twist in the tail. With the usual suspects, when the ending came, my reaction was more like :”Wow, of all the possibilities, I never thought of this !!!” In “The unbreakable”, it was more like :”So, how’s the ending a shock ? Hadn’t I sensed something like this coming from this maniac all along ?” So, you see—I liked “The unbreakable” for the brilliant screenplay and the totally tremendous idea but the ending and the attempt to present it as a twist, that spoiled all the fun for me.
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@striker bhai!!
that would have to be an EXCLUSIVE..
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I share the same sentiment, Unbreakable is by far the best film from M Night Shayamalan, in every sense. This is one of the few films where the first theatrical viewing experience is still fresh in my mind, which is, I was completely blown away by it. I must confess, I did not get the super hero allegory in the first time around, even though there were numerous comic book reference in the film. Now I’m sort of into comic books and I could appreciate the movie even more. The most interesting aspect in the film is that M Night dose not delve into the details of David Dunn’s (Bruce Willis) character in the true superhero origin tale sense. David and we (as audience) simply buy Elijah Wood’s (Samuel L Jackson) hypothesis because of the way Samuel L Jackson character’s conviction is fleshed out in the film and that I think is the master stroke in the film. The way Bruce Willis’s character realize and confronts his predicament is one the brilliant dramatic shift I have seen in a film in quite sometime. Simply put Unbreakable is one of M Night’s best.
If my memory serves right and its been a while since I saw it last time, the movie starts in a store or something where we see the whole Elijah Woods birth scene through a mirror and then cuts to the train scene with Bruce Willis. I could be wrong!
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@Shanmuga: You are right, Elijah’s birth is indeed seen in a huge mirror… but it’s not Elijah Wood, to the best of my belief :P
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It’s funny though, how some first names act as triggers for the subconscious… the moment you say “Jude”people will say “Law” (although some may choose to prefix it with “Hey” )
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Man!!!! I was thinking Elijah Price all the time and ended up typing Wood.
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The tragedy that has happened to Shyamalan is that due to those ’stupendous twists’ in the climax in his initial movies, all his movies are being judged by the extend and credibility of his twists.
For me, the greatest achievement of Shyamalan as a film maker is the development of a visual language of his own. The smouldering situations, deep subtext, lingering shots, the slowness with which things unwind such that intrigue lingers inside you- thats what makes a Shyamalan movie interesting. And thats why all his movies (except Lady in the water) have worked for me.
And people really dont give enough credit to ‘Unbreakable’ for what it really did. It was after that movie that the ‘reluctant confused superhero’ became a fashion in Hollywood.
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You can never tell what goes on inside storytellers’ minds. Talk to RGV about it and he says, that all filmmakers make their films, obviously thinking that it will do well. And no one can ever realize that the film they are making can go wrong. Otherwise no one would have made those flop films.
But atleast these film makers take on new bold plots and elevate the experience of watching films. RGV tries new subjects all the time and treats them in his own way. Similarly Shyamalan also might have tried to evolve. Try to imagine that Shyamalan shares with you what kind of film he’s making and you would never be able to guess whether it will entertain or no.
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@Scriptlarva: You have hit the nail on its head, my friend. Shyamalan is one of those directors who have a visual style which is unmistakeable, to say the least. Some others who come to mind are David Lynch and Sam Mendes. But if he continues to botch up his screenplays like he did in The Lady In The Water, and to some extent The Village…. as a scriptwriter, I’m sure you understand.
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