Why I think M. Night Shyamalan is a true Auteur director

  His birth certificate says Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan but in Film College he earned the name M. Night Shyamalan. He’s been both praised and ridiculed for his efforts. But to criticize the man first you must know him, M. Night is very spiritual person and incorporates a lot of his personal experiences in his films. Its important to know that during the making of ‘The Village’ there was a documentary that supposedly exposed a supposed secret about M. Night and his film making called ’The buried secret of M. Night Shyamalan’ this documentary caused him to change the ending of the film, the documenters found evidence that as a boy he drew strange pictures, almost drowned in a lake and was caught on video talking to someone that could not be seen in the woods near the location of the film, these allegations were dismissed by M. Night possibly because there not true or they are and he doesn’t want people to know.

  He’s directed and written famous films like Unbreakable, Signs, Sixth Sense and The Happening. Most of those films are either mysteries or spooky horrors that involve a shocking twist. Auteur theory is basically a view of filmmaking in which the director is considered the primary creative force. To be considered an auteur, a filmmaker must have a body of work, which can be analyzed for ongoing themes and considerations, whether they occur intentionally or unintentionally. One example would be the theme of the distant father in Steven Spielberg's work. In addition to this, an auteur must have a differentiating style, almost instantly recognizable.

  The three movies that I’m going to analyze are Unbreakable, Signs and Lady in the water. Some of these movies were criticized but still made huge waves in the box offices and film industry utilising a creepy atmosphere, shocking story twists and the constant element of coincidence which I will go into more.

Unbreakable: 

  Unbreakable is a story about two people who are polar opposites, the first is Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) a comic book specialist who has had brittle bones disease from birth and called nicknames by school children like ‘Mr Glass‘. The second is David Dunn (Bruce Willis) a simple man who lives his life a father and a husband but he posses a very rare almost inhuman ability, he’s completely resistant to any form of injury, is not affected by any virus or disease and has an unexplainable instinct for telling who’s good and evil by touch. Elijah has made it his life mission to find a person who is completely opposite to him and believes their paths of life will be intertwined, in doing so he and David meet on many occasions due to seeing Dunn was the only survivor in a train wreck without any injury in a newspaper, but each time Elijah fails in convincing Dunn that he‘s a comic book hero. As the story progresses David begins to listen to Mr Price due to being pressured by his waning relationship with family, David starts using his new found powers to hunt for deranged murderer who has kidnapped two children. By doing this he discovers his only weakness is water by almost drowning in pool, but he is saved by the two children rescued and then kills the murderer. At the of the movie Elijah and David meet one last time, with David’s relationship with his family stronger and Elijah’s mission finally accomplished the two men shake hands but David soon discovers that Elijah was the one who caused the one who cut the breaks on the train and caused many other accidents prior to them meeting. Price theorised that if David is the hero then Elijah must be the villain in their story and ends their final conversation by saying “it was the school kids, they called me Mr Glass”.

  
  There are three scenes that stand out the most to me in Unbreakable, the first being when David doing his work as stadium security guard starts trying to use his instinct for good and evil on drug smuggler but it fails, this scene is key because it has the cameo appearance of  M. Night Shyamalan which is a constant recurrence in his films. M. Night does this because one of his all time hero’s is the movie legend Alfred Hitchcock, and by doing this he tries to emulate Hitchcock and also gives homage as well. The key second scene is when David is drowning in water, this scene as significance because most of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies involve water as being a key element in all of his stories he creates, water always has importance possibly due to his own past experiences and beliefs. The last scene of the movie entails David discovering Elijah’s true dark intentions, this scene follows M. Night’s classic pattern of having a huge monumental twist that completely change the dynamic of the film and has you shaking your head in disbelief and also inputs Night‘s coincidence element. In all three of these scenes and the entire film in general the lighting is quite dull, dreary and there are constantly either grey skies or rain, the clothing of every character is quiet normal and plain nothing stands out and the setting is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA  which is where most of M. Nights films are located. The camera work of the film focuses mainly on the characters and less on the settings. The editing of the movie is fairly paced due to the steadily laid put storyline. The soundtrack of the film is really quite solemn and dark but leads into an almost uplifting melody especially at the final scene where the music really creates a sense unveiling and realisation, its almost like its trying to tell the story of the film, like how everything starts out badly but becomes good in the end just like a comic book, is a term called pathetic fallacy When the sound or weather reflects the current mood of the film. For example: When an actor is sad or angry the weather usually turns to cloudy or stormy. You will notice this in a fair amount of films or literature if you look hard enough. There aren’t many differences in each of the scenes accept for the setting which changes in all three scenes, M. Night does manage to keep the same mystery theme for every scene in the movie, there’s really only a few pieces of comedy and romance but not enough to any major effect on in the film.

Signs:
  The next movie by M. Night Shyamalan is Signs. This movie revolves around a family lives out in the country waking up finding gigantic crop circle in their field and surviving a full alien invasion. The main character is a former reverend named Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) who lives with his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) a former baseball player, his son Morgan and daughter Bow. Strange things begin happening soon after the crop circle incident, crop circle begin appearing all over the world and strange lights begin appearing in the sky at night but the most bizarre moment is when Graham sees something or someone spying on his sons bedroom, he tries to catch him but the figure escapes. This then leads to a series of close encounters (mind the pun) with mysterious figures in the corn field, the more the evidence of aliens appears the more the Hess family begin to believe expect for graham due to his beliefs and past experience of losing his wife Colleen in a car crash, which they keep flashing back to throughout the movie. It isn’t until he comes in actual contact with an alien trapped in a pantry and in a panic cuts some of its fingers off. Now Graham knows its aliens he plans to keep his family alive by boarding up the house in an effort to keep them out, but during the invasion they find their way in through the attic forcing the family to retreat to the basement. There they find that Morgan’s asthma gets out of control and they need his medicine, whilst waiting for daylight Graham confesses his hatred towards God and why he stopped being a reverend. When daylight comes they find the house empty and find out on the news that humanity found “primitive way to repel the invaders” said so on the TV at the time. When Graham brings the TV into the room he sees an Alien holding an unconscious Morgan and threatening to poison him the very same alien that he met in the pantry, Merrill walks in but freezes at the sight of an Alien. As all they stand in confrontation, Graham thinks back to his wife’s death and her last words “tell Merrill to swing away” and thus he tells Merrill to swing away. Merrill looks behind him and sees his prized baseball bat and takes it and prepares to use. The alien sees it as a threat and poisons Morgan but it doesn’t work due to the asthma causing his breathing to be affected thus the poison doesn’t take proper affect. Merrill begins swinging at the Alien and it slams into a glass of water and it is harmed by the liquid, Merrill begins aiming at other glasses of water litter around the house due to Bow’s strange phobia of un fresh water. The Alien falls to the ground dead from its wounds and Graham gives Morgan his medicine. The end of the film  shows that its now winter and Graham has returned to being a reverend with renewed faith and his family are safe.

  The first key scene of the movie has to be when Graham (Gibson) is checking on his two children and sees a shadowy figure on the roof of the house staring at him but it quickly disappears. This scene is very definitive in the storyline because it’s the first actual contact with the invading species, this scene is also famous for making viewers scared to look outside of the windows at night it was that effective, and once again M. Night utilizes a quiet creepy atmosphere to build suspense. The second scene is when M. Night Shyamalan makes his cameo appearance as Ray Reddy the man who ran down Graham’s wife because he fell asleep at the wheel. In this scene Graham finds Ray sitting in his car with all of his valuables in the back and hiding a wound, Ray tries to explain his actions to Graham and also tell him that there are no alien crop circles near areas with large amounts of water, even earlier in the film water is mentioned as a way of fighting the invaders. The final key scene of the movie is the scene when they confront the alien with a vendetta towards Graham, this scene is when all of the story builds up for one final moment, all of the flash backs, every coincidence that is high lighted in the film effects the outcome of the film and yet again the Night inputs his coincidence element which seems to be the basis and message of all of his films.

  The setting of the film is quite secluded which is usually used in horrors or thrillers but it makes the movie feel stranded and the family in the story can only rely on themselves, the film is set on a farm in the outskirts of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, all of the scenes in the daytime are bright and full of colour but because of the soundtrack and editing it seem like the calm before the storm and all of the night time scenes are just straight up unnerving and spooky, not knowing when an alien might appear. In this movie there are a lot of high angle shots, long range shots and establishing shots, these camera angles are very reminiscent of alien looking down on the planet, this possibly the effect that Night wanted to create. The soundtrack of the movie is very unsettling with its fast beat and almost psycho themed sound but it ends with an uplifting symphony which is common theme for M. Night and his movies. The editing is varied and paced, there are scenes that have a lot of space between cuts, this only happens when something is key to the story and the final scene. All of the characters have their own strong and important personalities that have large implications in the movie, Graham disbelief in both god and aliens, Merrill lack of self belief in his abilities, Morgan’s curios mind and Bow own unique way of life that only she understands, all of these personalities change or come to light at the end of the movie. Once again the only real differences in the film are occasional bouts of comedy that lightens the mood of the film so it doesn’t get to dark for the audience to bare.

Lady in the Water:

  The final movie I am going to analyse is Lady in the Water, a film about that resides around a apartment block filled with many strange, unique and interesting characters that come together to help a strange young woman that lives in their public pool. The two main characters are a maintenance man Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) a man who lost his family and now he hides away as a handy man and Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) a young woman from a fairy tale world that has to find a certain person that will change the world. All of the odd characters come to help Story and in doing so she finds her “vessel” a young man called Vick (M. Night Shyamalan) who’s book will inspire an influential person in the future. But sadly a creature from her world called a ’Scrunt’ a grass coloured wolf, that will do anything to stop her from reaching her goal. Cleveland and the other tenants work together using their specific gifts to get her home now that she’s found her vessel, Cleveland is presumed to play the role of the Guardian according to the fairy tale but that change through out the movie. The rules of the fairy tale say that the creature will be stopped by peacekeepers called ‘The Tartutic’ an ape like species that resemble tree branches. In the end Story is taken away by a majestic giant eagle now that her task is completed and both Rick and Cleveland’s life will be changed for the better.

  The first key scene in this film is when Cleveland tries to confront the Scrunt and scare it away but it fails and he runs away and slip on the floor almost knocking himself out, this scene is important because it has the classic M. Night atmosphere, the eerie atmosphere and the scenery almost act like a surrounding jungle which increases the unpredictability, this scene also entails some of Night’s usual humour when Cleveland wakes up and has to explain himself to one of the tenants. The second key scene has an exceptional piece acting from Paul Giamatti, Story has just been viciously attacked by the grass beast and the healer of the fairy tale is needed but the one they though was the healer it not to be and turn out to be Cleveland, he has to release all of his emotions to heal, in doing so he speaks about losing his family and wishing he could of saved them, his power heals story, this scene has so much emotional pull and purity, M. Night really puts in a lot of his spirituality into this scene and his own beliefs and emotions all into this one scene. The final key scene is near the end film when Story is awaiting the giant eagle but the grass beast appears with no protection from a guardian which Cleveland was believed to be, the infamous M. Night twist is that the guardian is actually a weightlifting addict named Reggie that you only see twice through out the movie but there the coincidence element again asking the question of is it chance or fate. Reggie being the guardian can keep the ‘Scrunt’ at bay by looking into its eyes, the stand off between the two builds up a large amount of tension but Reggie is distracted by the giant eagle soaring through the rain, the beast attempts to attack but is brought to a grounding halt by the ‘Tartutic’ and then precede to battle the ‘Scrunt’ and then drag it away in the dark woods. This final scene really is satisfying to watch as movie fan and a M. Night Shyamalan fan it has suspense, tension, confrontation and a efficient amount of action to cap it off.

  This entire movie really is a compilation of genres, it has comedy, horror, action and sadness. The setting of the movie is very isolated to say its set in the busy city of Philadelphia (once again) but the movie has been directed in way that you only care about what happening in the apartment block. The movie a variety of camera angles very high shots for the tenants and Cleveland but for Story and the ‘Scrunt’ they have low angles, this represents their origins, Cleveland lives in the busy world of humans yet Story comes from a forgotten world that we assume only smaller creatures live in. the soundtrack is very uplifting and almost gives a sense of wonder and discovery to the film. The editing is subtly fast paced but you feel like that you’ve only just started to watch the movie, using short sequences of scene then breaking it up with long scene and then repeats.

  After analysing three of M. Night’s movies I learned that all of his films have common qualities that he utilises through out his movies. The big twist, beliefs and spiritual input and the element of coincidence it usually these three tools that M. Night Shyamalan uses to form the foundations of his films as well as putting in unique finishing touches that makes his movies stand out from each other. The definition of Auteur director is that they input their own personality into the film, seeing that M. Night can only makes films that have his own emotions and characteristics in them, he really has been a Auteur director from the beginning, the movies that he has written the story to have been completely original this is discounting ‘The Last Air Bender’ and ‘After Earth’ which he only directed, but he still managed to add his own modifications so it suited his directing style and still creating the M. Night feel. M. Night Shyamalan is the very definition of an Auteur director by simply asking the same question in each of his films. Is everything a coincidence or is it a form of impartial fate?