Director’s treatment UCA (SIXTH SENSE)
Director’s treatment
SYNOPSIS
The Sixth Sense The Sixth Sense is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist whose patient claims he can see and talk to the dead.
VISION STATEMENT
The film is a beautiful spider web,
set up to catch the viewer and make us intrigued and curious about how the
story will unfold. As I said at first, everything in the film refers us to
other facts that, later, make us understand and connect the dots of this great
web that Mr. M. Night Shyamalan involves us.
The Sixth Sense has been a passion
since I was 10 years old. A film that gives the viewer a journey on screen,
where the smallest details make all the difference. I feel a slight shiver when
I talk about it, since, for many, the film is considered a horror, but for the
more observant, I would say that the film has an absurd sensitivity, and that
is what we should stick to when watching it.
I would start by saying that we are
so manipulated by the film's narrative that we let many things pass by with our
naked eyes, they were there all the time, and we simply are not able to notice
them. Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg) is the first piece of this puzzle, and I
would say that, thanks to him, Cole (Haley Joel Osment) receives the necessary
attention from Dr. Crowe, after all, nothing is a coincidence.
Crowe (Bruce Willis) wants to make
amends for, in his eyes, not being a good doctor to Vincent, so he goes looking
for a replacement and finds Cole, a sweet boy who suffers in silence and
apparently has a lot more to deal with than any other 9 year old child.
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In fact, the film reminds me of
Shutter Island, where everything is between the lines – if only we could look
more closely. Yes, Dr. Crowe is dead and I believe it was the biggest plot
twist of my time, but if we notice, whenever someone goes to talk to Cole and
that person is alive, there are never discrepant colors in the scene. The
film's photography is morbid and cold, giving a feeling of strangeness and
unease, as if something was always going to appear behind the door or when the
camera changes direction, however, when we notice that he was confronted by a
spirit, there is always something in red on the scene, always!
Of course we now know he was talking
to the dead, but the first scene of Willis is following Cole to a church where
the door is red. We can also notice that whenever they are together talking,
there is never anyone around, or, if there is, they don't pay attention to the
adult, only the child, another sign that he wasn't there.
In several religions, life after
death is a clear certainty that life continues. In the film, we have a brief
vision of what the “other side” would be; In this case, these spirits return to
resolve something or finish something that they left unfinished before dying.
Just like Crowe, who felt guilty about Vincent, many other beings came to Cole,
but their fear was much greater than their desire to communicate, after all,
the unknown is something that scares, even more so when you are 9 years old. .
Thanks to the treatment, Cole was
able to overcome his fears and finally help these souls around him and, at the
same time, we realized that he and Vincent went through the same things, so
being chosen for treatment was not in vain. Perhaps Dr. Crowe's unconscious
knew from the beginning, or his death was necessary to make him truly believe
in his former patient.
“They don’t know they’re dead, they
only see what they want to see.”
Cole's conversation with Crowe at the
hospital was the final trick for the penny to drop. After all, he said
everything Crowe was and wasn't capable of seeing, just like us. We are not
talking about a horror film, we are working on a very well produced thriller,
where we are immersed in the depth of the characters' relationships, the fears
that move us and how we are able to deal with the end, if it really exists. The
soundtrack is very well thought out in order to make us feel what the
characters are thinking at the moment, be it fear, uncertainty or relief.
I believe that, after accepting his
gift, Cole realizes that whoever helped him was also a ghost, since in their
last scene together, he says goodbye to Crowe knowing that he would not see him
again.
Finally, I would say that the film is
a perceptive journey. We are full of sensations at all times, whether visual,
auditory and, why not, emotional. I would also like to add that there are few
lines for a film that is almost 2 hours long, which makes me more convinced of
what I am saying when I say that this is one of the best films I have ever had
the pleasure of watching.
Bibliography:
The
Sixth Sense (lexwilliford.com)
Camera
Angles Explained: The Different Types of Camera Shots in Film
(studiobinder.com)
Preproduction
I believe the choice of Groundhog Day
was a bold choice. And I admit that I would never choose a scene from this
film, as it is a time travel film it becomes much more complicated. I was very
happy that we all did a good job.
I chose to do a sixth sense scene,
because I really like this film, and it deeply impacted me, mainly due to the
plot twister at the end of the film. My preproduction was very simple, I needed
two people, an adult and a child, and a car. Afterward it was very easy to set
up the scene.
I'm terrible at drawing, so I screen
printed how I wanted the scene. Of course I did change some part but I think I did
my best.
Bibliography:
The
Sixth Sense (lexwilliford.com)
CASE STUDY - M. Night Shyamalan
Indian-American filmmaker and actor M. Night Shyamalan began his career in 1992 with the student
film Praying with
Anger, which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred
in. He then wrote the screenplays for the comedy movies Wide Awake (1998; also directed) and Stuart Little (1999). In 1999, he rose to prominence for writing and
directing the supernatural movie The Sixth Sense, for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.[1]
Nowadays, whenever I see a film
directed by M. Night Shyamalan, I already expect a big surprise, but at the
beginning of my cinephile life, I wouldn't have even known what awaited me in
this film. You may not connect the name with the person, but you certainly know
their films, such as Unbreakable, Split and Glass. Of course, not all films
were so successful with the public, but, even though it may seem redundant, The
Sixth Sense is my favourite by far.
The sixth sense, Shyamalan got his
first and, for now, only Oscar
nomination, gaining support from the public and
specialized criticism as one of the
best revelations of the cinematographic.
Popular appreciation for Shyamalan's
works in the early 2000s, when
was named as an innovative and
successful director, he does not have the same
force. In fact, many experts reject
many of his projects and the
consider him a great success,
director among other productions.
Average, even in the worst possible
sense. But despite going through so many fluctuations
successful in his career, Shyamalan
managed to establish himself as an active director.
Constant.
His stories as well as the way he
uses technical and
narratives.
In particular, attention is guided to
one of the narrative resources that he made
Shyamalan, highly revered by the
general and specialized audience: the use of plot-
twist in the development of your
scripts. This resource constitutes an element
twist within the narrative course and
responsible for causing a surprise factor
to the reader/viewer about the
process of understanding the story
. The appearance of
plot-twist in Shyamalan's films
appears for the first time in The Sixth Sense and
continues to be repeated in other
projects, being seen even in the last film he
released, titled Fragmented (2017).
The strategic use of the plot-twist
in the stories written by this director in
leads to a question about whether or
not this narrative resource should be considered as
a stylistic element of authorial
application, within his cinematography. The goal
here is to check how he uses the
plot-twist in the construction of the script for three of his
films, considering these projects
both because they are inserted, predominantly.
In Shyamalan's case, the
predictability of the genres his films are in
inserted does not restrict their work
to solely serving limited perspectives
emotional enjoyment. That is, the
designation of his works into specific genres does not
excludes the mixing of elements
belonging to other genres within its projects. The Indian director admits
his preference for bringing aspects
of drama and humor to his films aimed at
terror, especially as a way of
relieving tension and at the same time lifting the loads
of fright for relaxed spectators
during the comic sequences.
The most interesting thing is that he
confesses to using this intention at the beginning as a
coincidence - the first work
deliberately to use mixtures of humor and suspense.
The sixth
sense, although the presence of
two
revelations, the culmination is in fact the discovery about the state of
Bruce's character
Willis, as
it is from this contrast that the narrative moves under the effect of a new
direction,
encouraging
the public to rethink all their preconceptions about the content.
The fact
that the closing of the film returns to the initial moments of the projection
brings
intended as
a vision effect, by sharpening the search for answers that determine
how the
characters’ actions culminated in those results. During the sequence
in which
the main plot-twist is revealed, Shyamalan adopts the strategy of
details on
specific objects and the character's face to emphasize the shock of the
revelation.
Previous
dialogues that seemed superficial come back to confirm, in the
True, they
were relevant to solving some nebulous points in the story. The
impact of
the revelation is accompanied by an incidental track that expands the
volume
throughout the sequence; the editing at this point alternates between scenes
that took place
at the
beginning and middle of the narrative, in order to elucidate the unfolding of
inconclusive actions,
thus
refuting some mistaken impressions about the character’s trajectory.
The village
is also divided into two turning points, but one of them projects the
great
impact that is during the final act when the time period located
in the
plot. By this great revelation, the effect obtained is the intention of causing
surprise
associated
with the effect of growing curiosity, since before the revealing peak there is
another
turn in the story, which already triggered conflicts that had not yet been
resolved and
They will
only find an outcome in the last moment of the script.
Just like
in the previous feature film, the moment of impact in The Village
is done
with the interposition of a striking incidental soundtrack and the resumption
of
dialogues
given throughout the work, which were considered irrelevant to determine
the
direction of the film. The plan chosen during the revealing act consists of
approaching
details on
the characters' faces, interspersed with documents and images
referring
to past events, motivating the result of the entire context.
The
plot-twist in The Visit is positioned in the final development of the narrative
and already
brings a
condition more commonly assigned to this resource, which is to configure itself
as
the twist
determinant responsible for allowing the plot's proper conclusion.
The growing
curiosity effect finds an interesting application in this project,
because
from the function performed by the plot, the voltage level gains a
escalation
of ascendancy in the script and leaves the viewer attracted until he reaches
his goal
to be
satisfied with the answers found during the closure.
The visit
brings as an element of innovation the false impression that it is a
documentary,
which denotes the exposure of less elaborate scenes from the point of view of
technical
framework. The treatment of photography is not as refined as in films
previous
ones, then the presence of dry cuts and a
montage
with discontinued actions and interconnected only by temporal flow. There is
the
abuse of
camera movements from the perspective of the subjective plane, in which
Characters
direct the viewer's attention from their field of vision. A
bringing
together all these technical elements during the reveal sequences
enhances a
feeling of restlessness and apprehension in the public, as in many
Moments of
the climax are understood as the development of actions through screams and
exasperations
of the
characters.
After this
brief investigative journey, the summary captured of this entire process
can
determine the plot-twist as an authorial stylistic element within the films of
Shyamalan,
mainly due to the centralizing treatment of this resource by directing the
movement of
the narrative. After all, in all the projects mentioned, the plot-twist
concentrates
the
sensorial power on the way in which the public will emotionally relate to the
film. In
this sense, it is from the affection adopted through the satisfaction in
agreeing or
not with
the revealing act that the public will define the type of appreciation he takes
on the
film.
The
objective established by these analyzes evidently does not exhaust discussions
about
authorial cinema and does not even establish a profile on the Indian director's
style. A
discussion
of this project is more of an argumentative proposal to designate
that,
within the set of so many technical elements responsible for the form and
content of
the film, none of them should be mischaracterized as a basis for analysis
interpretative approach to understanding the filmography of a given author.
Bibliography:
M. Night
Shyamalan filmography - Wikipedia
Stuart
Little (film) - Wikipedia
Wide Awake (1998
film) - Wikipedia
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