Lady in the Water (M. Night Shyamalan, 2006)

[cdnchris]

I actually really liked the twist at the end of Unbreakable. It was really just the finishing touch to the whole comic book thing. BUT I agree, that damned text at the end just made the whole bit hokey. What am I watching, fucking Dragnet?

[The Invunche]

Good looking poster

I apologize for the source.

[Jeff]

The L.A. Times has a piece on the new book about Shyamalan's battles with Disney. The site requires registration, so I've posted the article below.

Shyamalan is nuttier than a fuckin' fruitcake. I'm all for not compromising one's artistic integrity, but when a studio offers you 60 million, final cut, and promises to leave you alone, you don't turn them down just because they hurt your feelings. This guy's ego is bigger than The Village's plot holes. Not only does he fancy himself the lovechild of Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg, he now commissions books and documentaries to make sure that everyone knows about his Integrity, Vision, and Artistry.

Insanity follows:

A new chapter has just been written in Hollywood about the never-ending tension between "the talent" and "the suits."

It can be found in a soon-to-be-published tell-all book that offers something very rare, indeed: a candid recounting, complete with tears and recriminations, of a messy divorce between a movie studio and one of the world's most famous writer-directors.

In "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale," the 35-year-old filmmaker whose name has become synonymous with spooky suspense thrillers crucifies the top executives at the company he long had considered his artistic home since his 1999 surprise hit "The Sixth Sense": Walt Disney Studios.

Penned by Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger with Shyamalan's blessing and extensive participation, the 278-page book hits stores July 20. That's one day before the theatrical premiere of Shyamalan's new movie, "Lady in the Water," which is at the center of the dispute that led him to part ways with Disney.

The $70-million movie, a scary fantasy that stars Paul Giamatti as an apartment building superintendent who rescues a sea nymph he finds in his swimming pool, was ultimately financed by Warner Bros.

But arguably as shocking as the movie itself is the way Shyamalan, in the book, disses his former studio. As galleys circulate around town, that more than anything else has people musing about just how fragile relationships between artists and executives can be.

Disney production President Nina Jacobson gets the worst drubbing.

Jacobson and Shyamalan enjoyed a close, albeit sometimes combative, relationship. Over six years, she shepherded his four Disney films including "Unbreakable," "Signs" and "The Village." On what would have been their fifth collaboration, their bond so eroded that the two didn't speak for more than a year.

At a disastrous dinner in Philadelphia last year, Jacobson delivered a frank critique of the "Lady in the Water" script. When she told him that she and her boss, studio Chairman Dick Cook, didn't "get" the idea, Shyamalan was heartbroken. Things got only worse when she lambasted his inclusion of a mauling of a film critic in the story line and told Shyamalan his decision to cast himself as a visionary writer out to change the world bordered on self-serving.

But Shyamalan gets his revenge on Jacobson in the book, in which he says he had felt for some time that he "had witnessed the decay of her creative vision right before his own wide-open eyes. She didn't want iconoclastic directors. She wanted directors who made money."

Bamberger readily acknowledges that the book is told from Shyamalan's point of view.

"It's not intended to be balanced," Bamberger said of the book, based on a year he spent shadowing Shyamalan. "It's a Night-centric view of how Night works."

If that's all it was, of course, there wouldn't be so many bruised feelings at Disney, whose executives the book maligns as drones who lack creative vision.

Of Disney's three top executives, Jacobson, Cook and marketing head Oren Aviv, the book says, "They had morphed into one, the embodiment of the company they worked for. And that company … no longer valued individualism … no longer valued fighters."

Nevertheless, the book says Shyamalan was haunted by them.

"Sometimes Night would close his eyes and see little oval black and white head shots of Nina Jacobson and Oren Aviv and Dick Cook floating around in his head, unwanted houseguests that would not leave," Bamberger writes. "The Disney people had gotten deep inside his head, interfering with the good work the voices were supposed to do — and it would be hell to get them out."

In an interview, Bamberger said that in that section — like in several others — he was channeling Shyamalan's deepest convictions, even though the book usually does not quote the writer-director directly.

"Night really let me get inside his head," Bamberger said. "He told me what he was thinking, and I wrote it."

Shyamalan was vacationing in France and did not respond to questions sent via e-mail. His publicist, Leslee Dart, said her client "totally supports the book," and the book's publisher, William Shinker of Gotham Books, said Shyamalan had agreed to help promote the nonfiction account.

Were it not for Bamberger's book, the Disney-Shyamalan split might have been viewed as just another beat amid the constant churn of Hollywood relationships. Everyone knows that highly accomplished artists are often as deeply insecure as they are brilliant. It can be a challenge for executives to pacify the creative folks, while pleasing the bean counters.

"There is an elusive balance that all parties strive for between art and commerce," said Warner Bros. President Alan Horn, who was Shyamalan's first call after the breakup with Disney. With "Lady in the Water," which is being launched with a $70-million marketing campaign, Horn said, "We're trying to support a film that has unique artistic expression and at the same time make money."

Paramount Pictures President Gail Berman, whose studio recently decided to postpone production of "Ripley's Believe It or Not," starring Jim Carrey, over budgetary concerns, agreed.

"We all walk the line of devotion to the artist and fiscal responsibility," she said. "Sometimes this is the trickiest part of the job."

But, whereas Carrey and director Tim Burton are continuing to work out their script issues with Paramount, Shyamalan didn't give Disney that option. As the book says, Shyamalan felt that when executives criticized his "Lady in the Water" script "they were rejecting him." So he walked.

Disney's executives are not the only ones who are ripped in the book. Miramax Films co-founder Harvey Weinstein is described as "famously tyrannical" and is portrayed as ruthlessly recutting Shyamalan's 1998 indie film "Wide Awake."

"Why is he doing this?" Shyamalan is quoted asking one of Weinstein's lieutenants.

"Because you're not an A-list director," the unnamed aide answers.

"But could I be?" Shyamalan asks. Then, Bamberger takes us into Shyamalan's head as he imagines Weinstein's answer: "Night heard Harvey screaming in the silence: 'You're not, and you never will be.' The movie bombed, as it had to. It had been made in bad faith."

That, in essence, is the reason Shyamalan — who today is not only A-list, but is such a known quantity that his name alone sells a movie — gives for his refusal to continue his relationship with Disney.

The book's most revealing scene is the tense dinner of Feb. 15, 2005, and its aftermath — referred to by Shyamalan's colleagues as "The Valentine's Day Massacre."

The setting was a fancy Philadelphia restaurant, Lacroix, not far from the farmhouse where Shyamalan, his wife and two daughters live. But from the start, the book says, the dinner seemed doomed. The tables were too close together, and "Night felt that other diners could hear their conversation."

Seated next to Shyamalan, Jacobson aired her problems with the script. Criticisms "came spewing out of her without a filter," Bamberger writes.

"You said it was funny; I didn't laugh," the book quotes her as saying. "You're going to let a critic get attacked? They'll kill you for that … Your part's too big; you'll get killed again … What's with the names? Scrunt? Narf? Tartutic? Not working … Don't get it … Not buying it. Not getting it. Not working."

Her words went over like spoiled fish. "She went on and on and on," the book says. "Night was waiting for her to say she didn't like the font" his assistant had printed the script in.

After way too many courses, Disney executives walked Shyamalan and his agent to the elevator, and Cook asked to speak to the director alone.

"Just make the movie for us," Cook said, hoping to keep Disney's most important director in the fold. "We'll give you $60 million and say, 'Do what you want with it.' We won't touch it. We'll see you at the premiere."

Shyamalan said he couldn't do that. He couldn't work with those who doubted him. As Cook and his team left the hotel, Shyamalan broke down and cried.

"He was crying because he liked them as people and he knew he would not see them again, not as his partners," the author writes. "He was crying because he was scared … He was crying because he knew they could be right."

Shyamalan wasn't the only one crying. Jacobson has confided to colleagues that when she returned to her hotel room at the Four Seasons that night, she broke down.

She and Shyamalan would not talk again until March of this year. At the director's request, the two met for breakfast at the posh Hotel Bel-Air.

By then, Bamberger writes, Shyamalan had realized that "it wasn't Nina's fault that she didn't 'get' the original 'Lady' script, it was Night's fault."

Despite that late-in-the-book mea culpa, associates of Jacobson say that reading the tell-all was painful for her. She declined to comment on the book and on Shyamalan himself. But she acknowledged the inherent difficulties of the "patron-artist" relationship.

"Not seeing eye to eye on a particular piece of material doesn't have to be the end of a relationship," Jacobson said. "It may not always be easy to have an honest exchange. But in order to have a Hollywood relationship more closely approximate a real relationship, you have to have a genuine back and forth of the good and the bad."

She added: "Different people have different ideas about respect. For us, being honest is the greatest show of respect for a filmmaker."

[HerrSchreck]

Stay tuned for the sun to set on Night in a way that will be really really funny. That book is the most amusing form of professional suicide I've heard of since von Stroeheims refusal to continue filming a particular scene on what was absolutely positively the last Last LAST chance that Laemmle was willing to ever ever give him as director (on a sound remake I believe of WEDDING MARCH that Paul Kohner had miraculously gotten him) because he blew a gasket when he heard the band wouldn't really be playing (not understanding sound, & not liking the concept of it being post-synched) in a scene.

An asshole like this hyped on his own reputation (which in his case I don't understand in the first place, post 6th-SENSE), always forgets: whatever it is he's enjoying viz popularity versus other artists, exists only versus the pool of folks who are being allowed to connect with the public. One can never fool ones-self into thinking one is The Best In The Whole World, because The Whole World is not being granted the opportunity to work and compete with you. Thus the arrogance of demanding an honor beyond a certain degree of professional & artistic respect. When a guy wants to start walking around like he's heaven sent, folks are going to be obligated to show you via the hard road that you are enjoying the ride you're enjoying because you are being permitted into the super-tiny teency circle of folks who get to mount that particular A-list carousel. The cross section of talent onboard that particular carousel, particular in this day & age, is never any particularly threatening pool of talent... and getting a bug up your ass about your own supposed greatness therefore becomes a big laugh. This kid had already gotten far too much far too soon.. the implosion was almost obligatory.

[The Invunche]

M Night Shitsandwich self-destructs.

I love it.

[Antoine Doinel]

All that matters in Hollywood is if the picture will make money, and it's pretty much guaranteed it will. M. Night may be the biggest egotist in the world but as long as his movies keep making money studios will tolerate his impressive ,uh, personality.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

All that matters in Hollywood is if the picture will make money, and it's pretty much guaranteed it will. M. Night may be the biggest egotist in the world but as long as his movies keep making money studios will tolerate his impressive ,uh, personality.

I dunno 'bout that. I think that we could see this being M. Night's first box office flop. He's got a lot of competition out there this summer. No real big stars in the movie (I mean, Paul Giamatti is great and all but he doesn't have the marquee pull of someone like Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis). Even though mainstream audiences don't usually listen to critics I can just see the knives out for this one, critically speaking. We shall see, I suppose.

[Antoine Doinel]

Maybe, but it's not like The Village had any "big names" either. Joaquin Phoenix and Adrien Brody are known more for the choices of roles they make than any kind of marquee power, while William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver are far from your regular dog day of summer attractions. If the $114 million domestic take on The Village proved anything it's that M. Night Shyamalan earned a considerable currency with his audience who came out to see Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson in his first three films.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

True. Altho, I think expectations for The Village's box office were higher than what it finally took and I think it may be the sign of a decline in box office of his films. But who knows? We shall see how this new one does when it comes out.

[HerrSchreck]

All that matters in Hollywood is if the picture will make money, and it's pretty much guaranteed it will. M. Night may be the biggest egotist in the world but as long as his movies keep making money studios will tolerate his impressive ,uh, personality.

Hah! You think Making Money In Hollywood has to do with Filmmaking these days? You need execs marketing your film, sticking ads on the sides of buses, getting it on building sides... drenching the tv with it. There are plenty of films that every exec knows are waiting on line right behind Night, that they can give the same treatment to, many of which are even astonishing. If the grinding organs of the media start pumping out the message "Night is an arrogant dipswitch whos lost his mind," he'd be finished. His career was Enabled, and can be Disabled at any time. This is always going to be the case in Hollywood. You think when Prince lost his mind & decided to start spitting in the face of labels because he thought his audience would carry him, that he was bigger than the business, that another super A list company decided "screw my pissed off comrades in the bizness, I'm going with This Still Hot Artist" and stepped in to pick him up?

When the idiocy gets this bad, the smack inna face becomes obligatory. Examples must be made... not least because there are far better filmmakers who swallow far larger and far rustier loads than this no-talent swine, and they still play the game and mind their p's & q's & brook the agony of A List life.

[Antoine Doinel]

There are plenty of films that every exec knows are waiting on line right behind Night, that they can give the same treatment to, many of which are even astonishing. If the grinding organs of the media start pumping out the message "Night is an arrogant dipswitch whos lost his mind," he'd be finished. His career was Enabled, and can be Disabled at any time.

...except that when Disney gave him the boot, another studio was right there to pick up the slack. Maybe if M. Night was flaunting his personality shortly after The Sixth Sense you might have a point (and to be fair to him, we have no idea what Disney's objections to Lady In The Water were aside from some vague dissatisfaction with the script) but M. Night is now established enough that there are enough producers and would-be producers who are more than ready to throw their money behind him because he has yet to make a film that has lost money (regardless of quality) and that clean up quite considerably on DVD.

And as long as studios keep hiring soap executives to sit on the executive board, the artistic integrity of the studio's output will be a distant second to the number on the bottom of the ledger:

Soap Exec To Head Disney
Financial analysts and shareholders-rights activists alike have generally welcomed the decision to name former Procter & Gamble exec John Pepper Jr. chairman of the Walt Disney Co., to succeed George Mitchell. The decision was viewed as a final rebuke to Michael Eisner, who had long been accused of packing the Disney board with cronies. "Eisner's era was over anyway, but this puts an exclamation point on it," Patrick McGurn, executive vice president of proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., told today's (Thursday) Los Angeles Times. But some Wall Street analysts called attention to Pepper's lack of media experience. "I don't see what he brings to the party," Michael Nathanson of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. told the New York Times.In a statement, Disney CEO Robert Iger said that Pepper had "quickly immersed himself in our business" since he joined the board in January. He will take over the chairmanship of the company on Jan. 1. The decision to name Pepper to the top post ended widespread speculation that it would go to Apple Computer Chairman Steve Jobs, who, after selling Pixar Animation to Disney, became the company's largest shareholder.

[HerrSchreck]

...except that when Disney gave him the boot, another studio was right there to pick up the slack.

Except that when the other studio picked him up, he didn't have the book out nor was knowledge of it industry wide. Give it time, young man, give it time. The broth must simmer & become robust, the herbs & spices must come together in that special industrial light & magic.

[tavernier]

Except that when the other studio picked him up, he didn't have the book out nor was knowledge of it industry wide. Give it time, young man, give it time. The broth must simmer & become robust, the herbs & spices must come together in that special industrial light & magic.

I hope you're right, but I fear you're far too optimistic.

[HerrSchreck]

In truth, I obviously doubt he'll "never direct again". But a loss of prestige is going to be inevitable. I mean it's almost obligatory. Not only from the standpoint of example-setting (lest the rest of the veals decide they too wanta now start whining in their fucking stables from watching him & saying 'Well if this cat can complain, think of what I'm dealing with here & I actually make Really Good Films!") but from the standpoint that he doesn't even command any substantive aesthetic (remember, aesthetic... among heads & veterans whove seen em come & seen em go) prestige behind closed industrial doors-- the guy is a fucking flyweight as far as "art" is concerned! A reeducation is in order at the very least. Its literally like Britney Spears throwing plates and coming on about "the conditions by which she creates her Art" being tampered with or something.

[skuhn8]

yup. I'd have to agree. As far as "aesthetic", I think he was in position thereof with Sixth Sense. I enjoyed Unbreakable but he was already falling off the wagon there. And the rest was filler in a career that is now stuffing a stinky perambulator. Pulling this kind of shit after The Village, which let's face it, rode heavily on the prestige of his previous films, is pretty damn stupid. Honestly, reading crap like I did in the above just reminds me of one of the perks of being A-list: being able to buy new friends that won't kick the shit out of you for being a whiny biaatch like your real (that is, old) friends would.

And marketing: let's face it--the old adage of "you're only as good as your last film" no longer applies. Your last film most likely rode off the spent condoms and cig butts of the film before it due to blown out marketing. This little shit can probably still sell one or two lame ass flops if they're marketed right before cooler heads realise --AND get it across--that the guy is lame-o.

[The Invunche]

Review of Lady:

A Diarrhea Splat Of Storytelling

[Napoleon]

Knight has little goodwill at the moment and many critics will be extra bitter that their panning of The Village didn't bury it.

No matter what this is like the reviews are going to be mercilessly negative.

[Brian Oblivious]

I strongly suspect I'm going to love it.

[Antoine Doinel]

From Empire Online (the headline is a little alarmist):

[quote]M. Night Shyamalan On Lady In The Water
Exclusive: He didn't want his name on it

After a revelatory ghost tale, a supernatural comic thriller, a crop-circling tale of invasion and a mystical, creature-infested village, M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie – Lady In The Water – has been noted as something of a departure from the Director/writer's more calculated “scaryâ€

[Matt]

Well, if he had not previously made the same movie over and over, people wouldn't have had preconceived notions about his latest.

[Antoine Doinel]

But if people didn't view Shyamalan's films in such a reductionist manner in the first place, he wouldn't have this problem.

[Matt]

You've really got it in for me today, haven't you?

[Antoine Doinel]

Sorry matt, it's honestly nothing personal, and I'm not trying to single you out. I just disagreed with your comment(s), and the post above was meant for people in general, not just you.

[Highway 61]

Does he really expect anyone reading that interview to think he's sincere after he cast himself in the movie? Using a pseudonym would only make since if he had stayed behind the camera.

[pianocrash]

Since I don't have cable tv, and since I don't read entertainment weekly or the millions of internet equivalents, I actually was able to see this movie fresh, away from the hype, the aggrandizing articles, the trailers, the chat show appearances, and everything in between me & the film itself. Imagine that.

Yes, I'd seen his previous movies. But even that couldn't have prepared me for the visual fluidity of the film. It's as much christopher doyle's film as it is shyamalan's, as it is his circle of cherry-picked actors reading his
almost-beyond-unbelievable-dialogue & making it stick. Yes, there are some narrative gaps toward the end of the film, and the small amount of hokey which pokes around here & there (giamatti's stutter, the nearly wooden caricatures of "types" within the films, fantastical names for fantastical creatures, director given the tastiest character, critic being eaten alive by animal, etc.), but the center of the whole film rests, to me, in the death of cynicism (sorry, I'll find another word to be hung up on later, but for now just bear with me). Is that so bad?

The point of the whole storybook aspect is to reflect the suspension of disbelief within the film itself. Without it, it would probably just turn into birth, another film which relied heavily on its visual tactics, but was overburdened with cheap reasoning & empty performances. You could probably say the same for lady in the water, but then you probably rate films on some sort of sick mike d'angelo point scale (and that would just be silly). This isn't a baseball game; it's art!

I was discouraged at first to find the bank of heavy hitters acting on the screen in such menial terms in this film, but I realized that they were there to serve a purpose. Sure, jeffrey wright probably deserves better, along with bill irwin, and everybody else, but they did work in the slightly messy stew.

But maybe the real reason behind all my love for this film had to do with the monarchs fluttering into season the weekend it was released. I guess I'm just that easy?