I get suspicious when a movie becomes famous for its twist.
Sure there’s the kind of twist that makes you want to watch the whole thing over again right away (like in The Sixth Sense, Memento, and A History of Violence). But when the best running gag in a movie is the character doesn’t like to be called an “asshole,” you can’t rely on a twist to give the film more juice.
Hancock hits a point where you can practically feel the filmmaker say, “Oh shit, this is going nowhere, so we better surprise them.” And then the twist comes with the subtlety of saying “Oh by the way, I forgot to mention…”
M. Night Shyamalan has become the master of the BTW twist. “Oh by the way, Samuel L. Jackson’s a bad guy,” (“They called me Mr. Glass!” Scary.) “Oh by the way, this Village is in modern times.” And now Peter Berg pulls a Shyamalan: “Oh by the way, Will Smith and Charlize Theron have been married for 3,000 years.” (Any reason for 3,000? It’s longer than shit, but just shy of eternity?)
So, the twist goes like this:
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M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening is as bad as we feared (or hoped?). Shyamalan, and the studios who have dared to work with him, would like to paint him as a first-bill auteur, a director of genius and vision who’s name atop the poster puts butts in seats. Alas, things do not looks good for ol’ Manoj. In this episode of FilmCouch we compare The Happening with two classics by directors whose names do sell movies, and who have influenced Shyamalan’s career: Spielberg and Hitchcock. Duel, Spielberg’s first film, is a lost gem, and a must-see for anyone hoping to populate their film with a faceless evil. And of course, we look at Hitchcock’s The Birds, the genesis of the spooky nature-turns-on-man sub-genre.
FilmCouch 75 [31:00m]:
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filmcouch-75
The Happening, The Birds, Duel, Shyamalan, Spielberg, Hitchcock
