M.Night Shyamalan

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Silver
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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by Silver »

Yes, instead of actually responding to an argument, it's much easier to copy and paste the same nonsense. I understand.
What I could respond to an "argument" like this? You're repeating the same mantra all over again for The Sixth Sense (that the overall picture is less than the sum of its components, whatever that means) and for LITW you already admitted directly that you actually have not seen the Freudian connection here (so, it's a bit late for "I understood the meager intellectualism").

Thanks for proving my point. The teacher does nothing wrong or out of the ordinary in that scene.
Are you blind? Stanley is looking at Cole in a weird patronizing way like he is a bit crazy now, but this eventually will pass when he grows up. We all know Stanley is the brainwashed dumb-ass here. And when Cole is telling him that he doesn't like people to look at him this way, the asshole is falling in a typical child-state by responding - "Like what?". Then Cole is shouting "Stop it!" and what he gets? - "I don't know how else to look". Ha. Ha. Stanley deserves every bit of provocation from a kid which is much smarter than him. And that's the beauty of it - you said it perfectly: he "skillfully and articulately (notice his smooth language) brings up his past, latches on to a sore spot, and exploits it like a pro".

The funny part in all this is you have not a clue how the main character develops towards the end, and yet you continue to search for contradictions in his development. Usually the Shyamalan haters I deal with are a bit more... educated. :)

And of course, seeing it again highlighted another silly element which I had completely forgotten about; once Cole begins taunting him, the teacher immediately starts stuttering like a drunkard stricken with cerebral palsy.
You're exaggerating, of course. In reality this happens. Of course, here you watch a movie, not a documentary, so a bit of idealization is allowed.

I fail to see the comedic element, though; the overwhelming tension of that moment completely drowns out any possible humor.
It is subtle and there are only comic elements (I have named two of them) not intentions this to be a funny scene. That's why it works so well. Like many other similar scenes in Shyamalan's movies.

Oh, shut up. Ironically, your savior has made many films every bit as crappy as Transformes, and not just TLA.
Many? How so? You've watched TLA? Or any other movie by Shyamalan, except for half The Sixth Sense and LITW? Btw, if you've watched Transformers, you forgot to rate it. :)

I was responding to THIS, and noting that it's an overly extreme viewpoint, with plenty of exceptions.

And I have responded to THIS:
Ah, so that's the reason "Lady in the Water" was so much worse than "The Sixth Sense". Got you.

In that case, Shyamalan reacted to the wrong comments!

So would you now define what is a right and wrong comment.

ShogunRua
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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by ShogunRua »

Silver wrote:
Yes, instead of actually responding to an argument, it's much easier to copy and paste the same nonsense. I understand.
What I could respond to an "argument" like this? You're repeating the same mantra all over again for The Sixth Sense (that the overall picture is less than the sum of its components, whatever that means) and for LITW you already admitted directly that you actually have not seen the Freudian connection here (so, it's a bit late for "I understood the meager intellectualism").


Sigh. You are decent at making points yourself, but whenever anyone responds, you either switch the topic to something marginally different, or ignore it altogether.

In The Sixth Sense, there are some decent/good scenes by themselves, but they often contradict one another, and don't build up to anything greater and more significant over the course of the film. The "Stuttering Stanley" part is just one of the more memorable examples. Fine by itself, but it contradicts what we already knew of Cole's character, and doesn't set us up for anything significant later on.

As for "Lady in the Water", for the last time; glancing through the torturous long manuscript you linked to (instead of making an argument by yourself), there were metaphors that were glaringly obvious, and others that I considered a tenuous, huge stretch. (Like the Freud)

If you want to defend that review, why not specifically address metaphors you felt added to the picture?

Silver wrote:
Thanks for proving my point. The teacher does nothing wrong or out of the ordinary in that scene.
Are you blind? Stanley is looking at Cole in a weird patronizing way like he is a bit crazy now, but this eventually will pass when he grows up.


A "weird patronizing way"? So what? Cole, being an outcast, should be used to these kinds of stares from virtually every adult he encounters, his mother included. Why, out of all the instances where he is subjected to this gaze, does he lash out then and there? It still makes no sense.

Silver wrote: We all know Stanley is the brainwashed dumb-ass here.


Really? How do you get such a childish interpretation out of that scene? What makes him a "brainwashed dumb-ass"? That he isn't aware of a piece of history Cole only knows from being able to communicate with the dead?

In that case, anyone who has ever studied history is a "brainwashed dumb-ass", since there are always events recorded very differently from what actually occurred.

Silver wrote:And when Cole is telling him that he doesn't like people to look at him this way, the asshole is falling in a typical child-state by responding - "Like what?". Then Cole is shouting "Stop it!" and what he gets? - "I don't know how else to look". Ha. Ha.


You're going completely overboard here. It could well be that Stanley is unaware of how he is staring at Cole, and more importantly, means nothing bad by it. Compare that to all the times in Cole's life that he is tormented by people being willfully and purposefully malicious. This makes his outburst at a naive but well-meaning teacher all the more difficult to swallow.

Stanley deserves every bit of provocation from a kid which is much smarter than him. And that's the beauty of it - you said it perfectly: he "skillfully and articulately (notice his smooth language) brings up his past, latches on to a sore spot, and exploits it like a pro".


Except that a taciturn child loner simply doesn't fucking talk like that, and that it completely contradicts what we know of his character.

I think the problem might be that you simply don't care about plot holes and contradictions when you watch films. Cheap thrills and solid camera work is all you need. That's a fine perspective to have, but it also doesn't make Shyamalan a misunderstood genius, which is what you're arguing.

The funny part in all this is you have not a clue how the main character develops towards the end, and yet you continue to search for contradictions in his development. Usually the Shyamalan haters I deal with are a bit more... educated. :)


Writes the idiot whose interpretation of characters is "brain-washed dumbass. Deserves what he gets, ha ha ha."

And of course, seeing it again highlighted another silly element which I had completely forgotten about; once Cole begins taunting him, the teacher immediately starts stuttering like a drunkard stricken with cerebral palsy.
You're exaggerating, of course. In reality this happens. Of course, here you watch a movie, not a documentary, so a bit of idealization is allowed.


A bit of idealization? To quote you, "ha ha ha".

Oh, shut up. Ironically, your savior has made many films every bit as crappy as Transformes, and not just TLA.
Many? How so? You've watched TLA? Or any other movie by Shyamalan, except for half The Sixth Sense and LITW? Btw, if you've watched Transformers, you forgot to rate it. :)


Lady in the Water at least, and by your own admission, The Last Avatar. I will let others decide if "The Happening" deserves to be included in that list. (Or "The Village" and "Signs")

I've watched parts of Transformers, but it was too boring/stupid to hold my attention for long. I can't rate it, since the score could be anywhere from 5-30 out of 100. So yes, one of the two Shyamalan films I have seen, The Sixth Sense, is better than one of Michael Bay's travesties. That sure proves a lot.

So would you now define what is a right and wrong comment.


I guess they don't teach English as well in Bulgaria as they do in my native Russia, do they?

You said yourself;

Silver wrote:The director should be always true to himself, and NEVER to give a damn about what the audience may think.


I responded by saying, "that's not so, there are exceptions."

Your response was "but that's exactly what M Night Shyamalan did in Lady in the Water!!!"

Then I made a joke, asking if that's the reason it was so much worse. (Even fans of the guy will admit The Sixth Sense is better than Lady in the Water)

Now, you're once again changing the topic to some convoluted nonsense about "right or wrong comment". Hurray.

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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by Pickpocket »

Silver wrote:Watch the scene again:

lol, i need to watch this movie again. that was one of the worst and most out of place things I've seen in awhile. Loved the shitty manipulative music in the background that built up to nothing.

ShogunRua wrote:If you gathered a different impression from his work, what was it?

I've only seen 2 of his other films and both were unremarkable. But I do love Casablanca for a lot of the reasons you hate it. The plot holes don't bug me and I love the horrible flashback scene where Bogart and Bergman are in love. It looks like they gave Bogart hair extensions, it's awesomely cheesy. But that film does get better with repeated viewings, at least for me.

Silver
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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by Silver »

As much as I would like to keep going word-by-word like you it will be too much.
So, please, try to understand the following:

1. No one in The Sixth Sense with the exception of Stanley is treating Cole as an idiot. This is the reason you see his "aggressive" behaviour only towards Stanley. Of course, you'll continue to defend him like there is nothing wrong with his expression, but the sad reality is that he is looking at Cole almost like he jumped-out of some Dreamworks animation. He is brainwashed dumbass, because being history teacher, he is completely blind to the reality of those times. Yeah, when you're 7 y.o. you probably need to see ghosts to understand that men of the law hanged innocent people then. When you're grown up, you need just a head on your shoulders.

2. Concerning the metaphors in LITW - in short, each character in the film, including the fantastic creatures, is part of Cleveland's broken psyche. This movie is essentially an adaptation of classical psychotherapy, when all the pieces gradually *connect* to each-other. In this movie you have covered practically every important aspect of human mentality - you have the creative side, the wounded father figure, the childish part who needs to discover and to have fun, the wiser source of all knowledge (in the fantasy world of Shyamalan, the knowledge of course is superficial, but that's not important), you have the illusion of strength, the need to conform, the pure intellectual side... all these you see in the different inhabitants of The Cove (the brain of Cleveland). You even can see the scrunts as id, the tartutics as super-ego... At the end Cleveland makes his tragedy accessible to all parts of his psyche, it is accepted and fully understood - a process which is the ultimate goal of every psychological treatment. I have never seen a movie like this before (Ritchie's Revolver being the closest in terms of complexity and treatment of the main character). And the best part is it is sold as fairytale for kids. It is a pity you're so stubborn and refuse to read the text and at least try to appreciate it - it is beautifully written piece, and there are not so many movies, especially mainstream Hollywood movies, which presuppose interpretations like this. Feel free to hate the movie as much as you want, I'm not trying to convince you that LITW instead of boring should feel extremely interesting to you, and reading this you suddenly should have to start liking Shyamalan. I am only trying to demonstrate that LITW is not the one-dimensional and shallow crap everybody claims to be and there is a lot of thought put behind it.

3. I have to ignore your point about the probable score for Transformers and about what majority of the viewers think about The Happening, The Village or Signs. Sorry, but what are you doing? Speaking for yourself, or collecting and shouting the mass opinion? What matter are *your personal* feelings towards the movies, not what others think.

4. Well, if you have watched The Happening you would see my part of the joke, when I have said
This is *exactly* what Shyamalan did with LITW and The Happening.:lol:
(note the emoticon - it was there since I wrote the post)
Let me clarify: The way Shyamalan "took certain elements of audience reaction" has nothing to do with compromise of his own style. What he did was brutal revenge against the critics of The Village (the reason he killed a movie critic and cast himself as messiah in LITW was exactly the cold reaction to his most personal previous movie). Then for a second time he performed a vendetta in The Happening, but this time it was against the blind haters, who asked him never to direct a movie again. In a way, this is exactly what he did there, but unless you watch the movie, there is no point in going into details here.

And finally: if you have problems with my English, it will be more useful to ask me to try to clarify what is not clear instead of pick on me just because this obviously is not my native language. I've never studied systematically English, so this is the best you'll get. If it's not enough - just ignore me.

ShogunRua
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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by ShogunRua »

Silver wrote:1. No one in The Sixth Sense with the exception of Stanley is treating Cole as an idiot. This is the reason you see his "aggressive" behaviour only towards Stanley. Of course, you'll continue to defend him like there is nothing wrong with his expression, but the sad reality is that he is looking at Cole almost like he jumped-out of some Dreamworks animation. He is brainwashed dumbass, because being history teacher, he is completely blind to the reality of those times. Yeah, when you're 7 y.o. you probably need to see ghosts to understand that men of the law hanged innocent people then. When you're grown up, you need just a head on your shoulders.


A precocious kid is almost always treated like an idiot by those around him, since they cannot grasp his intelligence, and instead assume his statements are juvenile stupidity. This is true not only of Stanley, but of the kids Cole plays with, the psychologist played by Willis, his mother, and damn near everyone in his life.

The key difference is that Stanley expresses this in a very naive and non-hostile manner, as opposed to Cole's classmates or the other adults in his life, who do so maliciously and insultingly.

However, this is all minor to my main point about the scene; a little kid, bullied and outcast, does not suddenly become a smooth-talking master linguist who seeks out a weakness in an adult, and then ruthlessly exploits it. That part was nonsense.

2. Concerning the metaphors in LITW - in short, each character in the film, including the fantastic creatures, is part of Cleveland's broken psyche. This movie is essentially an adaptation of classical psychotherapy, when all the pieces gradually *connect* to each-other. In this movie you have covered practically every important aspect of human mentality - you have the creative side, the wounded father figure, the childish part who needs to discover and to have fun, the wiser source of all knowledge (in the fantasy world of Shyamalan, the knowledge of course is superficial, but that's not important), you have the illusion of strength, the need to conform, the pure intellectual side... all these you see in the different inhabitants of The Cove (the brain of Cleveland). You even can see the scrunts as id, the tartutics as super-ego... At the end Cleveland makes his tragedy accessible to all parts of his psyche, it is accepted and fully understood - a process which is the ultimate goal of every psychological treatment. I have never seen a movie like this before (Ritchie's Revolver being the closest in terms of complexity and treatment of the main character). And the best part is it is sold as fairytale for kids. It is a pity you're so stubborn and refuse to read the text and at least try to appreciate it - it is beautifully written piece, and there are not so many movies, especially mainstream Hollywood movies, which presuppose interpretations like this. Feel free to hate the movie as much as you want, I'm not trying to convince you that LITW instead of boring should feel extremely interesting to you, and reading this you suddenly should have to start liking Shyamalan. I am only trying to demonstrate that LITW is not the one-dimensional and shallow crap everybody claims to be and there is a lot of thought put behind it.


I will admit, that's quite an inspired defense.

3. I have to ignore your point about the probable score for Transformers and about what majority of the viewers think about The Happening, The Village or Signs. Sorry, but what are you doing? Speaking for yourself, or collecting and shouting the mass opinion? What matter are *your personal* feelings towards the movies, not what others think.


That is very true, but I was in fact telling you what I think; Transformers was garbage that I couldn't sit through, and Lady in the Water wasn't much better. And If you look at my ratings, I love many films that most people despise, and vice versa, so there is no influence from the meaningless masses.

Besides, "The Sixth Sense" is the one Shyamalan movie most others like, and I thought it was highly mediocre at best.

4. Well, if you have watched The Happening you would see my part of the joke, when I have said
This is *exactly* what Shyamalan did with LITW and The Happening.:lol:
(note the emoticon - it was there since I wrote the post)
Let me clarify: The way Shyamalan "took certain elements of audience reaction" has nothing to do with compromise of his own style. What he did was brutal revenge against the critics of The Village (the reason he killed a movie critic and cast himself as messiah in LITW was exactly the cold reaction to his most personal previous movie). Then for a second time he performed a vendetta in The Happening, but this time it was against the blind haters, who asked him never to direct a movie again. In a way, this is exactly what he did there, but unless you watch the movie, there is no point in going into details here.


Okay, so do you admit that this quote of yours

Silver wrote:The director should be always true to himself, and NEVER to give a damn about what the audience may think.


was overly extreme, and has plenty of exceptions?

Silver
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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by Silver »

A precocious kid is almost always treated like an idiot by those around him, since they cannot grasp his intelligence, and instead assume his statements are juvenile stupidity. This is true not only of Stanley, but of the kids Cole plays with, the psychologist played by Willis, his mother, and damn near everyone in his life.
I'll repeat - Stanley is the ONLY character in The Sixth Sense who treats Cole as complete idiot and after the remark from his side to stop Stanley continues. Twice. Cole is treated with respect all the time by Bruce Willis (he is child psychologist, ffs) and by his mother (btw, you missed the best part of Tony Collette's performance). He is bullied and outcast by *some* of his friends, but this is *not* equal to treating him as an idiot. If you continue to disagree with these obvious observations, please give me concrete scenes, which support your thesis.

However, this is all minor to my main point about the scene; a little kid, bullied and outcast, does not suddenly become a smooth-talking master linguist who seeks out a weakness in an adult, and then ruthlessly exploits it. That part was nonsense.
How this is nonsense, when I personally have seen a behaviour like this? Ask anybody who studied professionally child psychology and will tell you that you can expect such clever out-bursts exactly from asocial, but smart kids. Btw, just because Cole is locked in the attic by his "friends" doesn't mean he is systematically bullied and outcast by all of his fellows. You can classify his behaviour as asocial, but this is not an extreme. Yes, he prefers to go to the church with his toys, instead of hanging out with his friends, but later in the movie there is a critical moment, when Cole is playing King Arthur in a school play (this is basically the emotional culmination for this character). I doubt the most unpopular kid in school would have been chosen to play a central character. I do not understand why you're trying so systematically to destroy his emotional complexity.

That is very true, but I was in fact telling you what I think
You can not tell me what you think about Unbreakable without actually watching it. Therefore, you can't say *now* that many of Shyamalan's movies are worse than Transformers. That's all.

Okay, so do you admit that this quote of yours
Silver wrote:The director should be always true to himself, and NEVER to give a damn about what the audience may think.

was overly extreme, and has plenty of exceptions?
No. The fact that there are exceptions (btw, LITW and The Happening are NOT exceptions, they are exactly the opposite) and almost always the directors have to compromise their vision in one way or another, means only that the world is not perfect. In a perfect world this should be true. Otherwise there is no point of making art. Fortunately, Shyamalan 6 times in a row (7 if we count Wide Awake) made movies, where it's extremely hard to notice external non-artistic influence on his decisions.

ShogunRua
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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by ShogunRua »

Silver wrote:
A precocious kid is almost always treated like an idiot by those around him, since they cannot grasp his intelligence, and instead assume his statements are juvenile stupidity. This is true not only of Stanley, but of the kids Cole plays with, the psychologist played by Willis, his mother, and damn near everyone in his life.
I'll repeat - Stanley is the ONLY character in The Sixth Sense who treats Cole as complete idiot


Firstly, he does not treat him like a "complete idiot". Rather, he honestly assumes that Cole is making things up, as children often do. Now you can argue whether that's "malicious" or not, but his OWN MOTHER reacts the same way later on in the film when he tells her what he sees.

As for the audience not seeing other kids treating Cole that way, since you keep injecting outside experience, so will I; I was a precocious and nerdy kid in elementary school (albeit talkative) and my classmates often assumed I was dumb or "off" for that reason. (And on the flip side, my teachers were generally kind and supportive for the same reason)

Thus, when people would talk down to me, it never bothered me all that much, since I was so used to it.

Yet, we're supposed to believe an even more insular character, who rarely talks to boot, goes over the edge because of some extremely minor condescension.

and after the remark from his side to stop Stanley continues. Twice. Cole is treated with respect all the time by Bruce Willis (he is child psychologist, ffs) and by his mother (btw, you missed the best part of Tony Collette's performance). He is bullied and outcast by *some* of his friends, but this is *not* equal to treating him as an idiot. If you continue to disagree with these obvious observations, please give me concrete scenes, which support your thesis.


Willis and Collette treat him with more respect either because they love him or try to give the illusion of that. Inwardly, they still think he's nuts/lying/disturbed for a good part of the film, and are often as obvious about it as you claim Stanley was. (No he wasn't)

However, this is all minor to my main point about the scene; a little kid, bullied and outcast, does not suddenly become a smooth-talking master linguist who seeks out a weakness in an adult, and then ruthlessly exploits it. That part was nonsense.
How this is nonsense, when I personally have seen a behaviour like this? Ask anybody who studied professionally child psychology and will tell you that you can expect such clever out-bursts exactly from asocial, but smart kids.


Yeah? I have never seen anything remotely like that in real life; a masterful verbal browbeating that Cole (an 8 year-old!) delivered to a fully-grown, sane adult. It was sheer absurdity, and I can't believe you're still trying to justify it.

Btw, just because Cole is locked in the attic by his "friends" doesn't mean he is systematically bullied and outcast by all of his fellows. You can classify his behaviour as asocial, but this is not an extreme. Yes, he prefers to go to the church with his toys, instead of hanging out with his friends, but later in the movie there is a critical moment, when Cole is playing King Arthur in a school play (this is basically the emotional culmination for this character). I doubt the most unpopular kid in school would have been chosen to play a central character. I do not understand why you're trying so systematically to destroy his emotional complexity.


HAHAHA. Wow, he got picked to play King Arthur in the school play when he was an outcast, a freak, and routinely bullied by all his classmates? What bullshit! Maybe it was a good thing I left the theater 30 minutes before the end of the movie, huh?

You can not tell me what you think about Unbreakable without actually watching it.


Where did I EVER say a word about "Unbreakable"? Are you getting confused?

Silver wrote:
Okay, so do you admit that this quote of yours
Silver wrote:The director should be always true to himself, and NEVER to give a damn about what the audience may think.

was overly extreme, and has plenty of exceptions?
No. The fact that there are exceptions (btw, LITW and The Happening are NOT exceptions, they are exactly the opposite) and almost always the directors have to compromise their vision in one way or another, means only that the world is not perfect. In a perfect world this should be true. Otherwise there is no point of making art. Fortunately, Shyamalan 6 times in a row (7 if we count Wide Awake) made movies, where it's extremely hard to notice external non-artistic influence on his decisions.


No one argued in favor of "compromising one's vision". (although I would argue this isn't ALWAYS a bad thing either, even if in most cases it is) Rather, the discussion was about whether to take certain critical comments in mind, instead of blindly ignoring all of them, as you suggested.

I have never made a movie, obviously, but I have written a lot, and can tell you that the feedback I received helped me immensely. Whether it was about style, subject, pacing, etc. readers often had very incisive, beneficial comments to share.

I have a hard time believing this doesn't apply to a director and his movies.

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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by Anomaly »

Yes because this argument really requires that amount of effort put into it.

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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by Silver »

Firstly, he does not treat him like a "complete idiot". Rather, he honestly assumes that Cole is making things up, as children often do. Now you can argue whether that's "malicious" or not, but his OWN MOTHER reacts the same way later on in the film when he tells her what he sees.

Willis and Collette treat him with more respect either because they love him or try to give the illusion of that. Inwardly, they still think he's nuts/lying/disturbed for a good part of the film, and are often as obvious about it as you claim Stanley was. (No he wasn't)

Unbelievable. You really can't see the reactions of the teacher and Cole's mother are COMPLETELY different. For Stanley Cole is just another kid, Tony Collette cries when she finally understands what troubles his son. There are specific lines of dialogue between them, which concern this: Cole - "You think I am a freak", Collette - "Cole, look at me! I would never, NEVER think that about you". Now what? You'll tell me that the central theme of the movie - the relationships between the kid and his mother are also fake? Without actually getting to that pivotal scene? And if you say a good psychologist would think even for a moment that his patient is nuts/lying, especially a patient like Cole, then you know nothing about psychology.

Where did I EVER say a word about "Unbreakable"? Are you getting confused?
Are you really having problem understanding what I am saying to you with the Unbreakable example? Sure, you missed Unbreakable, but you have said this:
Lady in the Water at least, and by your own admission, The Last Avatar. I will let others decide if "The Happening" deserves to be included in that list. (Or "The Village" and "Signs")
and this
Besides, "The Sixth Sense" is the one Shyamalan movie most others like, and I thought it was highly mediocre at best.
and then this:
That is very true, but I was in fact telling you what I think
Seriously, it is getting ridiculous.

You have said that MANY Shyamalan movies are worse than Transformers. When you have actually watched one and a half of them (which is not MANY) and you have no idea whether you'll like or dislike Signs, The Village, The Happening, TLA, Wide Awake or Unbreakable.

No one argued in favor of "compromising one's vision". (although I would argue this isn't ALWAYS a bad thing either, even if in most cases it is) Rather, the discussion was about whether to take certain critical comments in mind, instead of blindly ignoring all of them, as you suggested.
You can not argue the bold part. It is just logically impossible. Even if you can show me a great movie done under the influence of the studio, that doesn't prove that without this influence the movie would be worse. Of course, cinema is a complex art and requires input from professionals in different areas (cinematography, music, sound design...), but the director ultimately is the one who decides what cinematography, music and sound design wants for his movie. And when Bruckheimer goes to Verbinski and says - "Look, let's fire Alan Silvestri, because I want the Pirates franchise to sound like Armageddon" this is a compromise which ruins everything.

As for the second part - the critical comments... In this particular case - with Shyamalan's hexalogy - the best part is exactly that he never listen to the critical comments and made his six movies as he would like them, without giving a shit who will be pissed that "omfgroflmao the aliens which are scared of water go to a planed full of water!!!!!". It is absolutely stunning to see such an independent thinking inside the Hollywood system and I admire it even when it somehow fails (the above mentioned vendetta, which was close to inexcusable). Actually TLA is a clear example what would happen if Shyamalan starts to compromise his vision taking into account the critical comments. One of the most prominent (yeah, let me put it in a civilized way) "suggestions" after The Village, LITW and The Happening was that he should stop writing his own material and direct something written by others. He partially did that - he adapted animated series, written by others. In TLA it is clear how he tried going to more... "mainstream" way of constructing and directing the movie. The main reason was the money involved, the other - his attempt to departure from his style (to what extent he did that under the external pressure, I can only guess). And at the end he failed, because he was not able to exclude completely the other Shyamalan, the weird, wacky and goofy one, out of the equation. TLA certainly shows his limitations, when he steps out of his "comfort zone", but proves once again how great he is when no one is telling him what and how to do. So as much as I would like to see how he would continue TLA story in the light of all that criticism (that would give a definitive answer to our discussion), if he goes back to the "small" projects, where he has the full creative control... that would be great. For me. :)

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Re: M.Night Shyamalan

Post by Melvin Smif »

Unbreakable- Liked it
Signs- Liked it until 10 mins from the end. (My suspision is that most people either make too much of the terrible ending or the religious overtones when deciding they are going to hate this movie)
The Village- Hate it- Though I loved what the trailer promised.
Lady in the Water- Meh
The Happening- The best way to describe my feelings is my Mini Review-
Imagine if you saw Signs and were treated to the horrible reveal 30 mins. in. You then watch as flying saucers cruise around ominously in the air never visibly doing anything just flying around. They are killing people somehow, you know that, but you never see how it just happens. Then they just leave because they feel like it.

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