The Decline and Fall of M. Night Shyamalan

Hi, Tim here. This weekend sees the release of After Earth, the latest of 2013’s surprisingly well-stocked slate of post-apocalyptic sci-fi thrillers, starring Will and Jaden Smith. These are all things that are proudly trumpeted by the ad campaign. What is conspicuously not trumpeted, proudly or otherwise, is the identity of the film’s director M. Night Shyamalan, who for the first time since his gigantic 1999 breakthrough The Sixth Sense is not mentioned by name in the ad campaign for his latest feature.

This is, undoubtedly, because Shyamalan been steadily pissing away audience goodwill almost since the moment he started earning it, with each new film he’s made being widely regarded as worse than the one preceding it (a steady downward trend on Metacritic, down with just a single blip up on Rotten Tomatoes). With After Earth appearing to flatten or slightly reverse this trend, it’s as good a time as any to explore the exact shape of Shyamalan’s fall in such a relatively short time, trying to figure out exactly how the man anointed as “The Next Spielberg” at a tender age ended up becoming one of modern cinephilia’s greatest punchlines.

THE SIXTH SENSE (1999): Wunderkind

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Blue is the Hottest Controversy

Julien K. here, your special correspondent in Paris, reporting on the recent controversy surrounding the latest Palme d’or winner, Blue is the Warmest Color. 

As those of you who are familiar with the French film industry may know, director Abdellatif Kechiche’s work has been consistently lavished with praise for the last decade. In 2005, his sophomore effort L’esquive –a raw, direct exploration of teenage sexual politics in the banlieues (the French suburban hoods) by way of eighteenth century playwright Marivaux- unexpectedly trumped critical favorite Kings and Queen and populist heavyweights A Very Long Engagement and Oscar nominee The Chorus at the César Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. The same thing happened in 2008, when his powerful immigrant family drama The Secret of the Grain defeated a pack of prestige Oscar contenders (La Vie en Rose, Persepolis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) in the same top categories. 

But now that he’s won the most prestigious award of them all, Kechiche is facing a harsh backlash. [more]

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Reader Spotlight: Grace Miao

In Reader Spotlight we get to know The Film Experience community one by one. It's taking forever for which you know I'm grateful. Today we're talking to Grace in Toronto.

NATHANIEL: Hi Grace. Why do you read The Film Experience?

GRACE: I originally read it for your Oscar predictions, but I got hooked on the thoughts and insights in your movie reviews - and actressexuality! It's a little Ebert-esque, but love or hate a movie, you have an undercurrent of overall admiration and appreciation for the medium that keeps me coming back.

What's your first movie memory or obsession?

GRACE: E.T.  I'm so blood/gore-averse that I distinctly remember hiding my face behind my hands when Elliot cut his finger on the circular saw. And wanting a flying bicycle.

I know we have a mutual love of Tilda Swinton and Tony Leung since you've told me so. Name three other actors you always love to watch.

Nicole Kidman! I know she's on everyone's list, but her Monster Year in 2000/2001 kind of sealed the deal for me - I loved her in "Moulin Rouge", "The Others", then later in "Dogville" and "Birth". She's always good, but with an auteur director, it's absolute magic to watch her.

Maggie Cheung. I really miss seeing her onscreen, especially since Tony's still working (such amazing chemistry!). I was SO excited to hear that she was going to be in Inglorious Basterds and disappointed that they cut her scenes. She's one actor who, like Tilda, I can buy in anything and any role. Plus very few people can make Cantonese Chinese sound as elegant as she does.

I saw Ralph Fiennes in Quiz Show in a high school English class and it sent me digging through his filmography and my Dad's video library. For years, I just couldn't get enough of him (though I skipped "Maid in Manhattan") - I could be repulsed by him ("Schindler's List"), swoon over him ("The English Patient") and every time he speaks, I just want to curl up and fall asleep in his voice. I could see someone like Tom Hiddleston following in his footsteps.

If I could pick runners-up, I'd choose Peter O'Toole, Kirsten Dunst and Russell Crowe. 

If you were in charge of Hollywood for a year, what kind of movies would you greenlight?

At this point, I think I'd greenlight virtually anything that isn't a prequel or sequel. I'd give the go-ahead to works that put story and character development at the forefront; if Lars Von Trier/Kar Wai Wong/Alfonso Cuaron/Hayao Miyazaki/David Lean's ghost are in any way involved with the project, I'd give it an automatic pass to production. And I'd have Christopher Doyle be the DP for everything.

What's the last movie you watched before answering these questions [note: we had this conversation a couple of weeks ago]

I'm embarrassed to say G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but that wasn't a voluntary choice. Can I redeem myself with No starring Gael Garcia Bernal, which I saw the week before with my BFF?

Yes you may. Good choice. Which movie would you love to live inside of?

The Fall. Specifically in Roy and Alexandria's imaginary world, in Eiko Ishioka's costumes.

Name your three favorite movies from each decade: 80s, 90s, and 00s 

80s: My Neighbour Totoro (I grew up on Hayao Miyazaki - I could have easily filled up this section with everything he produced that decade), The Last Emperor, and Ran

90s: LA Confidential, Porco Rosso, Apollo 13

00s: The Barbarian Invasions (my Dad had cancer years ago and passed away in 2010, so I can't tell you how much this movie resonated with me. I was weeping in my seat), Children of Men and Dogville (Trying to narrow down what I loved from this decade drove me nuts. I want to cram Spirited Away, In the Mood for Love and Amelie in here as well)

Thanks Grace! P.S. This picture you sent is amazing! So I GIF'ed it. I cannot  believe you were an extra in Mean Girls. That is so fetch.

GRACE: I was.  Right after the Mathletes victory is announced. Two Lindsay Lohan movies, one with Hillary Duff, a TV movie with Anna Sophia Robb and a handful of TV series, including "Monk"!

NATHANIEL: Well done!

Previous Reader Spotlights
And our imaginary Honorary Reader Oscars go to...
lovely ladies: Mysjkin, Lynn Lee, Ester, Leehee, Jamie and Dominique 
(and yes we need to hear from more of the girls) 
dashing gents: Peter C, Daniel M, Troy H, Morgan, Patrick, Christian, Lucio, Joey Moser, Zé V, Tony T, Andy H, Ferdi, K.M. Soehnlein, Sergio, Borja, John, Chris, Peter, Ziyad, Andrew, Yonatan, Keir, Kyle, Vinci, Victor, Bill, Hayden, Murtada, Cory, Walter, Paolo, and BBats

Cold Eyes and Weary Bodies in "Hud"

For this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot we're celebrating Hud on it's 50th anniversary

Though I readily concede that its my own prejudices as a Yank and a cityboy that get in the way, I rarely associate nuanced feeling with the western genre or artful dialogue with a Texas twang. So Hud (1963) plays like a miracle to me, a major one. This adaptation of Larry McMurty's novel (he would later write screenplays including Brokeback Mountain, which plays like a distant cousin to this 1960s masterpiece) never feels anything less than authentic in its Southwestern reality and yet its pure poetry. Consider this callous but perfectly sculpted line of dialogue from Hud (Paul Newman in arguably his finest hour) to his nephew Lon (Brandon deWilde) who is worrying about Homer's (Melvyn Douglas), the paterfamilia's, waning health. 

Happens to everybody - horses, dogs, men; nobody gets out of life alive

But I'm not really here to talk about the rough beauty of the dialogue in Hud -- though it's never far from my mind -- but the language of the eyes and the body delivering it. And, I rush to add, the award-winning cinematography and composition which package the unimproveable ensemble up so potently. Look at the shadows and the way Newman, bathed in light, become a handsome devil (essentially the truth of his character) his famous blue eyes less like inviting pools of water than icy death. 

But we'll return to close ups shortly. Much of Hud is shot in medium and long shot and everywhere you look, limbs are dangling and swaying and whole bodies are sneaking brief moments of rest, perched on porches, settling into chairs, or suggestively refusing to leave their beds. Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal, as the family's housekeeper Alma, both won deserved Oscars for their inspired work, and they beautifully capture not just the details of their characters but the physicality of people who've worked their bodies every day of their lives whether cattle rustling or scrubbing dishes. The younger characters Lon and Hud, are less exhausted, though there's still a kind of future arthritic effort to their jerky performative posing. 

runner up for best shot. Hud is a big deal

Lonnie: I'll go with you Hud.
Hud: What big deal you got lined up, sport -  a snowcone or something?"

Take one of the best scenes in Hud on the porch of the family house while the characters eat peach ice cream and enter and exit the frame without the camera following them (though Hud is quite cinematic, this particular scene is blocked like a play). Lon and his granddad have a fascinatingly evasive exchange about Hud's dead brother (Lon's dad) and why Homer dislikes his only living son "He knows. You don't need to." Douglas delivers each line with evasive though never rude gruffness, his cards held tight to his chest. When Hud enters the scene and announces a run into town, Lon shifts his attention to the uncle he idolizes but doesn't understand. There's this exquisitely telling funny shot of him mirroring Hud's pose -- while Hud mocks him but invites him to tag along anyway. How brilliant that it takes a second to even figure whose shadow is thrown onto the wall.

The withholding father and his ungrateful child finally  have it out in the film's centerpiece, a truly seismic emotional clash (the first hour being foreshadowing tremor and the second cruel aftershock) which Hud believes is entirely about his dead brother - the son Homer adored - which Homer denies. The righteous father tears into Hud as a man without principle, without empathy for his fellow man, without care for the world around him. Hud listens with silent hostility (he knows it's true) in one of the most gloriously lit and perfectly acted close-ups in all of cinema - my choice for best shot - as water from the well drips down his angry face. That's the closest he'll ever get to human tears in the film though Hud may have once shed them for the mutual loss that ripped them apart 15 years earlier. His cool eyes shift with a cruel smile as the room falls silent until he finds an unexpected nonsequitor to hurt both of them, and shoves the dagger in.

his mamma loved him but she died

My mamma loved me but she died."

This scene never fails to tear me up inside and deeply impress me for myriad reasons but precisely for the writing, the lighting, blocking and precise direction by Martin Ritt (Norma Rae, Cross Creek, Sounder) and the peak moment of Newman's indelible cold, cruel star turn.

Frank Langella the actor recently dissed Paul Newman's acting reputation in his memoir "Dropped Names: Famous Men & Women as I Knew Them" saying that while he was a great movie star he was not a great actor. His reasoning was that Newman lacked the one thing that Langella figures all great actors have - danger.  I can only surmise that Langella never saw Hud. For Paul Newman was both a great movie star and a great actor and Hud is the proof of it. Even if his career had ended there he'd still be legendary. There's enough danger in his hostile beauty in Hud to scar everyone in his orbit. 

Hud: I don't usually get rough on my women. Generally don't have to. 
Alma: You're rough on everyone. 

Other "Best Shot" Must-Reads on Hud For its 50th Anniversary

• We Recycle Movies compares the rape scenes of The Fountainhead and Hud, one glamourized the other decidedly not
• The Film's the Thing finds that Hud is not at all the motion picture he assumed it to be
• Film Actually see it as primarily a writers film
• Antagony & Ecstasy on the pulverizing and "amazing as hell" movie 
• Entertainment Junkie on Neal's brilliant balancing act and Newman's indelibly solitary antihero
• A Fistful of Film James Wong Howe was in love with Paul Newman!

Iron Podcast

Bet you thought we were done talking about Iron Man Three. Nope. The guys at Panel Culture, a comic book podcast so good it makes me want to read comics again, invited me to talk about Marvel's latest billion dollar grosser and I gladly obliged. Some of you will have even talked to Owen, the host, in the comments right here at TFE so you know he's good people. 

me, my iron man three(d) glasses and the iron man sketch i doodled on my iphone waiting for the movie to start

While the subject is mostly the Iron Man franchise we also stray into other Marvel flicks as well as X-Men and personal comic-book lore. (The first I ever remember holding in my hands --  and I held it as it were holy scrit - was that mutant mag) Even if you are done with Tony & Pepper and don't wanna hear me yammer about them, you should definitely give other episodes of Panel Culture a listen if you're at all into comic books.