Welcome

Welcome to our blog.

In this blog, we will discuss about one of the Author,

M.Night Shyamalan

Before we start,

let us introduce ourselves.

We are students from UTAR, Malaysia.

Loh Yoon Wei

Lee Ern Hong

Ng Kok Sum

Soo Joon Hern

Before we start, please note that this is our assignment.

Enjoy.

Reference

Hayward, S. (2006). Auteur/Auteur Theory. In Cinema studies the key concepts (3rd ed., p. 33). London: Routledge.




Weinstock, J. (2010). Critical approaches to the films of M. Night Shyamalan: Spoiler warnings (p. 22). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.






Image Source Retrieved From: 

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http://cdn.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Happening_The/the_happening_movie_poster_m_night_l.jpg

Analysis

Throughout these three films, masterpieces crafted by M.Nigh Shyamalan do show maturity and development.

In term of themes, supernatural elements from Signs have changed from literal creature to unidentified phenomenon in The Happening. The threat of human lives in the Sign was being influence by the direct object, which are aliens. This threat has transformed into partial object which is the fake monster played by Noah. In the third film, The Happening, this threat of supernatural has sophisticatedly grown to invisible form, which is the gas.

Other than that, the broken family used in Signs was only Graham’s family but in The Village, there are several broken families. This shows that M.Night Shyamalan keeps the signature of broken family by expanding it.

In term of styles, maturity can be seen on the flashback editing. In Signs, he relies heavily on flashbacks to bring out the whole story. This technique obviously reduced much in The Village which only shown once at almost the end of the film. He most likely applies lesser hints to help the audience to figure out the whole story.

Moreover, cameo appearance also shows some development on it. In these three films, his own appearance from Signs is more complex then The Village and The Happening. The maturity happens when he appears lesser and the character getting simpler in each film but at the same they hold some special significant for those particular films.

Style

1.Controlled mise-en-shot

M.Night Shyamalan always plays with the camera movement to control the visual that watch by audiences. This technique may create the anxiety feeling from the audiences or it also grabs the attention from them.

Signs - The scene where Graham and his family escape into the basement and the electricity cut off and they have to rely on torchlight, the camera will follows the direction of the torchlight points.

The Village - This method can be seen at the scene where Ivy get chase by the monster in the woods and the camera follows Ivy’s perspective.

The Happening - There’s a scene where the phenomenon happens on traffic and some people start to suicide using a gun, the camera follows the feet of the victims by sequence without showing they pull the trigger.

2.The use of sound

M.Night Shyamalan uses sound to direct the camera movement in order to lead the audience into the situation.

Signs - It happens when Graham and his family hiding inside his house to avoid encountering the aliens. They still can hear the sounds created outside the house and the camera tracks the sound source.

The Village - One part of this technique shown is where Lucious heard something weird near the forest and the camera pan towards where Lucious is looking.

The Happening - Mrs. Jones get affected by the gas and she start banging walls outside the house, camera viewing inside the house n follows the bang sound to the right side.

3.Cameo appearances

M.Night Shyamalan frequently makes cameo appearances in his films.

Signs - He acts as Ray Reddy, a veterinarian the one who cause Graham’s wife dead in a car accident. He appears in several scenes such as he is going back to his car when the Grahams eating pizza inside the restaurant (Fig 3.1).

3.1

The Village - He acts as a guard at desk named Jay. He appears in a grief-counseling clinic reading newspaper (Fig 3.2).

3.2

The Happening - He only did voice over as Joey in this film.

4.Reflected Images & Mirroring Effects

M.Night Shyamalan uses objects such as television, glasses and side car mirror for a swing of dramatic reasons. This is a steady visual motif across M.Night Shyamalan’s trilogy.

Signs - The television reflects the alien when Graham is pulling the television out from the storeroom. Plus, Graham uses the knife to peek inside the pantry and the image reflected on the knife.

The Village - It happen when the ranger who found Ivy is trying to steal medication in the clinic and the reflection occurs on the container’s glass door.

The Happening - The reflection happens on a side mirror of the car where Julian car-pooling to find his wife across Princeton.

5.Flashback Editing

Most of M.Night Shyamalan’s films use flashback as a cue to complete the whole story.

Signs - There’s a lot of flashback of Graham’s wife accident screen pieces by pieces along the film. From start the flashback shows the conversation of Graham with the police until the end the flashback showing his wife is pinned to the tree and leave last word to Graham.

The Village - The flashback happens when Ivy climbing the borders and the scene jump to Edward opens the black wood box to reveal those secrets.

Theme

1. Faith and Belief

It is about a viewpoint and perspective from a character that may influence the audience perception. This method forces the protagonist to face an initial skepticism where he or she has to choose to believe or not in the specific conflict between reality and silly concepts.

Signs - Graham Hess has lost his wife in a brutal car accident and this made him to abandon his faith. By remembering his late wife’s last word “swing away” and faith in his son’s health and recovery, he recommits to his belief (Fig 2.1). Plus, there’ is a scene whereby Graham comforting his brother-in-law by telling him there are two types of people in this world, the ones who choose to believe when they see, and those who believe that if they don’t see a miracle, it’s just luck.

2.1

The Village - The strong belief of the creature exists in the woods started penetrated into the villager’s mindset since they are young by the elders (Fig 2.2). They believe that their love ones will get harmed if they try to leave the village. The dilemma happens when Ivy also has the belief in love where she is willing to risk her life being harmed by the monster to get medicine for her fiancé from out of the village. There’s also a scene where blind faith appear when Ivy lays out her hand to wait Lucious despite having the fear for monster outside the house. Moreover, color red can be believed as the bad color that attracts “those we do not speak of” which is the monster.

2.2

The Happening - This whole movie did not directly tell you what to believe in and left unclarify (Fig 2.3). The male lead of the movie often get signs where it gives him idea to indicate where the poison gas comes from, for example when the wind blows from the plants. On the other hand, this movie also shows second possibility of this event actually happens because of terrorist attack, for example, the news broadcast telling the citizen about it. It left the decision for audiences to decide what they want to believe in.

2.3

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2.Family

M.Night Shyamalan movies mostly are family oriented where the films commonly starts with a character from a typical broken family. Even though it is a thriller movie like Signs and The Village but the audiences still can observe the underlying family theme.

Signs - The lost of Graham’s wife was shown in early of the movie. Graham became a widower with 2 children named Bo and Morgan together with a brother-in-law called Merrill (Fig 2.4).

2.4

The Village - The existence of this village is actually come out from the elders who had lost part of their family members who died in tragedy (Fig 2.5). Plus, the main female lead, Ivy and her younger sister Kitty lost her mother since they are young; they only have a father, which is Edward.

2.5

The Happening - Elliot, the main actor of this movie is taking care of his friend’s (Julian) daughter named Jess because Julian needs to find his wife who still unable to gather with them due to the event happening (Fig 2.6). Jess became an orphan after the death of Julian due to the “poison gas” too. There’s also a part of broken family was shown where Elliot, Jess and Alma escape to a house owned by a widow named Mrs. Jones who live alone after the death of her husband.

2.6

3.Supernatural

Supernatural films centered along supernatural elements such as ghost, gods and miracles. IT deals with the uncertainties in life. In M.Night Shyamalan’s films, contemporary supernatural plots are always utilized.

Signs - In the early of this film already show the supernatural phenomenon, which is the circle crops sign that occurred in Graham’s cornfield in daylight. The elements of supernatural continue with the appearance of aliens that seen by them in several scenes such as a green leg spotted sticking out of the corn rows, alien get broadcasted in news appearing in a birthday party in Brazil and an alien trapped in Ray’s kitchen (Fig 2.7).

2.7

The Village - The supernatural things that occur in this film is the appearance of monster in the village. For example, the monster appear outside of Ivy’s house while Ivy is laying her hand waiting for Lucious and it appears again in the scene where Ivy encounter it during the quest to find the medicine out of the village (Fig 2.8).

2.8

The Happening  - The supernatural things occur when sudden deaths keep happening (Fig 2.9). The cause of these deaths is unknown and threat to normalcy. For instance, the first scene of deaths is where a lot people are jumping from high building that makes them die. Additionally, the indefinable deaths occur in much of the scenes until the end of the movie due to the phenomenon. There’s also a miracle happen when Elliot, Alma and Jess gather outside Mrs. Jones place while strong wind is blowing but it seems like the phenomenon stopped.

2.9

4.Seeing versus Knowing

This theme can be known as an act of hook where the director holds back the information until later part of the film. It gives the audiences mind playing or illusions where the truth yet not be revealed. What you see might not what you know.

Signs - The mystery identity of Ray when he first appear outside the pizza shop gets revealed only after more than half of the film where Ray apologize to Graham inside his truck about the accident happened years ago (Fig 2.1.1).  At first Graham do not believe it is aliens but he tend to say the phenomenon was manmade but after he encounter alien in Ray’s pantry, the existence of alien is confirmed in the movie. Besides that, Ray was telling the information that aliens are afraid of water to Graham and this only was confirmed when the alien get hurt when he touched the water.

2.1.1

The Village - There’s scene where Lucious’s mother, Alice Hunt denied the request of Lucious to unveil the secret of the black wood box but the truth had been shown at the end of the film (Fig 2.1.2). Plus, the appearance of the monster at early film veiling the truth that only expose during the search of medicine by Ivy and that is actually fake monster played by Noah.

2.1.2

The Happening - Elliot a science teacher does not really believe that the phenomenon actually came from the plants that told by the nursery owner but throughout the film, Elliot starting to believe that it’s actually related to plants (Fig 2.1.3).

2.1.3

Synopsis of Film

Our group had selected 3 of M.Night Shyamalan’s films to prove that the authorship by signature was found in his creations.

1.Signs (2002)

Mel Gibson starred as Preacher Graham Hess, has lost his trust in God after the car accident that caused his wife’s life. He moved to a farmstead with his brother, Merril and his two children. Crop circles begin to happen in their cornfields that Graham dismisses as mischief by miscreants. After hearing odd noises and watching news coverage on crop circles appearing all over the world, the family begins to unsure of interstellar happenings. Now they have to be together and believe that as a family to endure the torment and find a way to get away from the controls of the alien invaders.

1.1 Signs (M. Night Shyamalan 2002)

2.The Village (2004)

It’s about a 19th Century community encircled by woods that, according to legend, contain frightening monsters. One young man dares to attempt through the woods to the nearby towns to get medication, but his strategy get interrupted because of murder attempted on him, his blind fiancé Ivy must venture past the monsters to save their love from being devastated.

1.2 The Village (M. Night Shyamalan 2004)

3.The Happening (2008)
The Happening is a fast-paced, heart-racing paranoid thriller about a family runaway from an inexplicable and unstoppable happening that threatens not only humankind, but also the most basic human instinct of them all.

1.3 The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan 2008)

Auteur Theory and Authorship

“Auteur”, translated from the French, it simply refers to “author”. Thismain perspective puts the director in a unique and matchless position of individual artistic perspective, and that the film is, most essentially, an outcome of that perspective. It allows the director has most control over how a movie looks and sounds. Eventhoughsome studio workers leave recognizable and unique traces they made in the films but the idea of authorship does not goes to them and it leads to the director itself.

The act of auteur theory is a way to understand and appraising the films through the stamp of an auteur. The context of the French New Wave is one of the intended results of the auteur Theory. Lead by larger implication, this theory changing the perception of how films are made, and how they function as an art. New paradigm to appreciate cinema get generated by viewing films from the auteur perspective. Plus, it ultimately produces a new means by which to place films in a historical and artistic context. 

This theory also functions asan importance on a director’s body of work as whole, rather than specific films. Regardless of a particular film's consistency or relation to other films in the individual's gathered body of work, this is a creation of the idea that the "imprint" of the director will be obvious. In short, placing a film within a chronological context turn out to be vital in the auteurist sense. An auteur commonly imprints his or her personality on studio products, transcending and constraints of Hollywood's standardized system without literally compose his or her script into it.

Style, as in mise-en-scene, could also demarcate an auteur. “Thanks to the Cahiers group, the term auteur could now refer either to a director’s discernible style through mise-en-scene or to film-making practices where the director’s signature was as much in evidence on the script as it was on the film product itself.”(Hayward, S. 2006)

There are seven authorship approaches, which are by origins, personality, sociology of production, signature, reading strategy, site of discourses and technique of the self. “M.Night Shyamalan is often figured in critical discourse as a type of modern auteur, a filmmaker like Hitchcock, Welles, Hawks, and Ford who stamps each of his productions with his own distinctive signature…”(Weinstock, J. 2010). This approach by signature relooks at the director as author, singling out production traits and styles across the various films as his/her signature. Plus, repetition and maturity in production styles and themes is key.