in defence of m night shyamalan


ok ok ok

so let's begin with the obvious point about m night shyamalan

it's popular to do him down

so much so that it's easy to forget how much 'the sixth sense' appeared as a remarkable eruption of new talent - a film that managed to get pretty much everything right. and while my mum did predict the twist about 40 minutes in, i think she's in a tiny minority. that film was an elegant piece, that defined 'thriller' as something more than just a mystery story, but one which actually engaged my emotions, and made me think about life and love. and how bruce willis can bring it to the table when he has the right material and director.

'unbreakable', the follow up, which philip french in the observer newspaper rightly described as representing the reason why shyamalan's style - more than any other contemporary director - deserves to be called 'hitchcockian', was about the inner turmoil of a superhero. it's the anti-hancock, and has more drama and reflective pathos than any of the other recent superspiderhulkxman movies you could pick.

'signs' showed signs indeed of shyamalan's possibly simplistic worldview (which seems to be a variation of 'everything happens for a reason' or something like that) , but still managed to be a terrifically entertaining 'bad things lurking outside your window' story. and - this is the key to appreciating his work - showed an increasing mastery of film grammar, camera movement, editing, and knowing how to make an audience feel something.

'the village', which has caused its fair share of arguments among friends, was almost universally denounced, although i happen to think it's a masterpiece, and i use that word very rarely. two things come to mind: this film dares to take seriously the implications of the language used around 9/11 and the 'war on terror' to propose that the consequences of political fear-mongering will ultimately include the death of your own children - and perhaps this idea is simply too horrifying to absorb; secondly, i think critics confused this film with another genre. they thought that because it was shyamalan, and because it was scary, that that made it a horror film, when actually it's one of the most moving love stories i've ever seen.

i'll get to 'lady in the water' and 'the happening' later - for now, let the record show, i think the best way to understand m night shyamalan is to think about him the way philip french used to: he is trying to make hitchcock films. whether or not he is succeeding is not the point - actually, the more interesting question, for me, is whether or not hitchcock is as profound as he is usually assumed to be.

life in a media circus

I've been traveling lately, and in various hotels and friends guest rooms, have seen more TV than usual. This sojourn away from my usual ignorance of broadcast television has provided the following dubious delights:

• Fox's "Moment of Truth" game show, which really does turn real life into a game, and has apparently bribed at least one marriage into oblivion through paying for public confessions of adultery. (I expect the show's producers might try to tell us that the show teaches something else about personal responsibility, or that's all in good fun, or that the contestants are there by their own informed volition; or we may even discover that the show has been lying to us and faking it. But here's the real moment of truth: when the host says, "some of these questions are way over my line," and yet still asks them, has he himself not become the definition of insanity?)

• CNN rampantly advertising Larry King's exclusive interview with Jesse Ventura as if his non-campaign for the presidency was almost as important as Jessica Simpson's non-engagement and non-pregnancy.

• Various entertainment clip shows dedicated to matters such as Robin Williams' divorce, and the Tom Cruise birthday party video.

• And in the past week, major news networks hysterically talking as if the sad events surrounding a Texas polygamous sect are just waiting to happen to your children; and the ridiculous and over-the-top response to Senator Obama's attempt at explaining an utterly uncontroversial reality: that being economically disenfranchised can make you feel entrenched. This is amusingly accompanied by the absurd suggestion that there has ever been a U.S. President who did not somehow arrive in the White House linked to the economic 'elite'.

Most of us would like to believe that we have come a long way since the Roman circus – where human beings killed people for our entertainment - or even the Victorian circus - where we only abused the disabled and disadvantaged. Today's circus may look like it only mocks the powerful – with the fabulously wealthy being humiliated as they emerge drunk and bloodied from a nightclub, or photographed while getting an embarrassing haircut. But I think we're kidding ourselves if we think people are not harmed by the pornography of social humiliation offered up 24/7. Amy Winehouse's visible bruises and alleged substance abuse problem, and Britney Spears' obvious mental illness are not legitimate fodder for our entertainment, no matter how economically powerful these two women may be.

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saved by the bell



ok friends

you can rest easy.

after last week's threat-filled dilemma, i'm back to my usual self.

having feared for the very life of cinema itself, i spent almost six hours in two separate darkened rooms today, watching a brand new movie, and one that's over a quarter of a century old.

both were magnificent.

i had never seen bergman's 'fanny and alexander', so when the opportunity arose at the rather lovely duke university free screen society to see it on a nice public screen, i made plans to be there. i need to think about it for a while before i say anything else, so let this suffice: i think i saw something wonderful tonight, and imagine i feel somewhat differently about the world than bergman. the notion that you can never be free of your ghosts seems to me not to chime with reality. people make peace with the past all the time. i hope that bergman's life was less debt-ridden than his art.

and the other film, much less serious than bergman's, but nonetheless beautiful - scorsese's rolling stones' concert film 'shine a light' - an exhilirating, exuberant, often hilarious and incredibly exciting film. i was the only guy in the audience and was delighted. the sound's great, and the images are utterly cinematic - i couldn't quite figure out why this movie was restoring (some of) my faith in cinema, but then i realised that these boys are ultimately some of the world's consummate performers. they belong on a movie screen.

charlie watts is the eric morecambe of rock'n'roll, doing comedy huffs and winks at the camera, and needing to be helped down off his rostrum. mick is old enough to be your grandad but more alive than most teenagers. ronnie wood is the sniggering kid, hiding his smokes from his mum, and looking down girl's blouses. and keith - well, it's easy to lionise the guy (and demonise too), but i'll stay out of that. let's just say this: he knows he's lucky to be alive, and seems to spend most of his time in a state of stunned enjoyment. there's a moment at the end of the movie
when the music is done, and he's kneeling on the ground, holding the neck of his guitar, his eyes closed and lips pursed in an obvious prayer. in four years' time, the stones will have been together for fifty years. there's not a lot about their music that could be called socially mature, but they've been expressing truth and angst about the human heart for as long as i've been alive, and half as long again. and scorsese has made a gorgeous, thrilling film about them.

and in a weird confluence, both of the films i saw today are in some part about the same thing: the role women play in men's lives. it's been a very good day at the movies for me.

the complexity of charlton heston

Charlton Heston died this weekend at age 84, following Roy Scheider and Richard Widmark as the latest in a series of powerful cinematic actors to pass away -- although Heston was probably best known to a younger generation as the old guy who walked out of a Michael Moore interview in Bowling for Columbine. His was an ambivalent life – living through 14 presidencies (and personally befriending several of the most recent occupants of the office), supporting civil rights when it was unfashionable, switching his political allegiances, and latterly becoming identified with right-wing causes. Not often a subtle actor (although you could do worse than watch his performance in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil as a tribute), he represented a particular kind of vanishing screen presence who, like John Wayne, represented a vision of American greatness that depended far too much on the suggestion of invulnerability.

So, now that he is gone, what do you say about Charlton Heston? Something simple: He shouldn't be judged on the basis of one interview, given after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease to a door-stopping filmmaker known for his pranks.

He should be judged on his contribution to the movies -- doing gravitas better than anyone else, standing as our image of Moses, Ben-Hur, various military captains, the head of the CIA, and ultimately a particular kind of god figure. I never saw a Heston performance that didn't entertain me on some level.

And, in the interests of full disclosure, he should also be judged on his political activity. The simplistic analysis of the relationship between personal freedom and gun ownership offered by the National Rifle Association, which Heston did so much to bolster, seems outrageous to my Northern Irish ears. In his speeches to and on behalf of the NRA, Heston also sometimes seemed to lack empathy for the victims of gun crime, in his attempts to promote his contentious understanding of the U.S. Constitution.

At the same time, he was an early supporter of the civil rights movement, and even picketed a screening of one of his own films because it was being screened in a racially segregated cinema. He also made several films, such as Soylent Green, The Omega Man, and Planet of the Apes, that endorsed environmental and anti-nuclear causes at a time when it wasn't as easy to engage the public mind in these matters.

To continue reading this post on the God's Politics blog, click here.