The audience had just settled into their seats at the late screening of The Kids Are All Right in New York City’s Chelsea district when the preview for the upcoming movie Devil came on. The shots of an upside down world mixed in with seemingly normal individuals peaked the curiosity of a few people. The rhythmic crunch of stale popcorn slowed down as trailer delved more into the plotline of the movie. “This looks good,” a woman mumbled to her friend.
At the crescendo of the trailer about two minutes in came a scene so shocking that it immediately elicited a loud verbal response from the audience. The words “From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan” – presented in red uppercase – appeared on the screen causing a raucous uproar.
“OH HELL NAW!” one man yelled alongside the jeers and groans of the rest of his audience. He clearly said what most people were feeling that night.
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M. Night Shyamalan has turned a laughable failure in the eyes of the critical community and a sizeable cross-section of the film going public. It’s strange that someone who people believed could have been one of the great directors could be so reviled just a little over a decade later. Yet, for all those who have cursed Devil, his movies still gross highly at the box office. His latest critical flop The Last Airbender holds the record for his second-best eight day gross at $83.1 million dollars. It has a six percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and yet drew a mixed review from audiences, receiving a C rating from Cinescore. Though it might be barely passing, consider that The American, starring no less than George Clooney received an abysmal D-. (More on Techland: Shyamalan: Unbreakable Sequel Will Be Different Movie)
Despite the fact that critics destroy his work, a whole lot of people still are willing to pay to see his movies. So who’s right? Are his films as technically subpar as so many critics have claimed? Or is the proof in the box office? Paul Castro, a lecturer at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, says the real answer to the great Is Shyamalan A Shoddy Director debate may lie not in his editing or camerawork, so much as his attitude. “I really think he hurt himself,” he stated. “He has total disregard for his stories and his audiences intelligence… For an artist to have total irreverence for everyone and everything around them because they think know better is just not a good way.”
It’s this cocky nature in the media that managing editor of IFC.com Alison Willmore agrees is turning everyone off the director/screenwriter. “I would say it certainly is because of his arrogance in the press, more than actually to do with his filmmaking,” she said.
“The whole book written about his process around the time of The Lady in the Water, all these things don’t help raise your reputation in the eyes of film fans especially if they don’t enjoy your work,” she pointed out.
With all the bad films and directors out there, it seems that the negative response to Shyamalan is overly harsh. While fanboys, who arguably are the harshest critics, may hate Michael Bay for destroying previously published material like Transformers, Shyamalan gets more flack for his own original creations that have no basis of comparison at a time when viewers complain there’s no original material at the movies. Willmore points out that people like Uwe Boll and Tommy Wiseau have held their bad filmmaker badge with pride, Shyamalan is defensive about it and keeps insisting he’s making groundbreaking work. Bolls and Wiseau’s films are so bad you can laugh out loud at them, and the directors laugh along with their audience. Some of Shyamalan’s films are just boring – and he can’t see that. (More on Techland: M. Night Shyamalan Is Sad That You Think His Career Has Stalled)
“When he’s made films the last few that have been bad, they’re not like fun bad,” she explained. “The Happening is genuinely very boring at parts. Not only does he kind of stand by these films because they are great successes (which can get annoying), but they’re not fun disasters.”
But, Castro believes that it’s not a case of brilliance overlooked because of a bad attitude. There are genuine flaws in Shyamalan’s movies, he argued. Even though he is far from the worst filmmaker in the world, the fact that studios are giving him a big budget and allowing him to get away with these flaws is what makes the majority of public feel that his shoddy work is constantly being pushed down their throats. It might not be the worst thing out in the cinemas, but the constant bombardment of press proclaiming his works to be a masterpiece can get on people’s nerves. “In any other profession if one spent millions of dollars producing products lacking in substance, quality, beauty or value, that person would be given their walking papers. That may be the reason the public has turned on M. Night and are baffled by certain Hollywood executives perpetually showering him with ten million dollar paydays and bloated budgets to over execute unsatisfying films,” Castro explained.
“If a car company year after year produces substandard cars then the public has a right to turn on that car company,” he added. “They’re not producing high quality products. People expect something original and above the ordinary from him, and he’s delivered neither. When there’s wonderful filmmakers out there, it’s unconscionable to give him the budget of ten films when any number of those ten films could have been more satisfying than M. Night’s been making recently.”
Still, it’s hard to deny that Shyamalan’s film still pull in sizable sums despite the negative press. The Village, which also received a rotten rating, pulled in $256 million worldwide. Willmore suggests that this may be the reason that production companies still put his name in top billing, crucifying him and highlighting his poor works for the sake of profit. Devil was written by Brian Nelson, who wrote Hard Candy, and directed by John Erick Dowdle, who also did Quarantine, and Shyamalan just came up with the story and is co-producing the movie. “Uwe Boll is a favorite fanboy joke, but your average filmgoer would never know him,” she said. (More on Techland: How Much Does It Cost To Make The Worst Film Of The Year? $280 Million)
That doesn’t mean that people aren’t rooting for him to return to form. Both Castro and Willmore agree that The Sixth Sense showed Shyamalan’s potential as a filmmaker. “I think part of the reason that people turned on him was that he started out with a film that was real good,” Willmore argued. “Someone who said they used to like him now feels betrayed.”
“The collective hope is that M. Night someday returns to good storytelling,” Castro said. “He’s certainly proven early in his career that he is capable of compelling cinema both visual and visceral.
In many ways, Shyamalan has become a modern-day Ed Wood, scoffed at by the public while making millions at the box office. Like the famed director, for all the complaints about his poor plotlines and bad special effects audiences will still watch his movies.
Castro, however, would hear none such talk: “I think that would be an insult to Ed Wood,” he said laughing.