M. Night Shyamalan

Started by Xeditor, January 19, 2003, 10:35:37 PM

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modage

Quote from: MyxoFilms will never leave the theater as we know it. Americans won't stand for movies going straight to DVD. It ruins the entire cinematic experience and fucks with the escape that you simply can't re-create at home.
yes, but as  home theatre systems get better and become more common, the annoyances of going to the theatre may start to outweigh the good things about it.  so yeah, i think a lot of people would rather stay at home.  i dont think its going to happen totally, but the shortened dvd window has definitely decreased my theatre going when i know that 4 months isnt that long to wait for something i'm on the line about seeing.  so in a way they're cannibalizing themselves there.  the other factor is mostly the goddamn price being mostly over 10$ with no matinees.  if movies were 7 bucks, i'd see everything in the theatre but when it costs like $22 i just can't justify it if the movie might suck.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: modageif movies were 7 bucks, i'd see everything in the theatre but when it costs like $22 i just can't justify it if the movie might suck.

I've always thought we should change cities. I've seen your favorite movies this season and I'll gladly pay the extra money for better selection. I'm seeing the mainstream works for $5.50 a ticket and thats a night showing.

MacGuffin

Quote from: modagei dont think its going to happen totally, but the shortened dvd window has definitely decreased my theatre going when i know that 4 months isnt that long to wait for something i'm on the line about seeing.  so in a way they're cannibalizing themselves there. the other factor is mostly the goddamn price being mostly over 10$ with no matinees. if movies were 7 bucks, i'd see everything in the theatre but when it costs like $22 i just can't justify it if the movie might suck.

Also, repeat business is lost. I saw Revenge of the Sith, had my big screen experience, but because of, as mod mentioned, price, etc. I only saw it once. I knew the DVD would be out by Christmas so I could rewatch it again again. When Matrix came out, I must have seen it about 8 times in theaters, not knowing when a DVD would be released.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

cowboykurtis

its admirable to see someone of his stature fighting for integreity over commerce.

Someone had mentioned soderbergh's support of this platform release bullshit, as if his opinion alone validates the change - I don't think Soderbergh has ever been shy about being a businessman who makes movies (instead of vice-versa). I think his decisions start from a business angle(which is expected when operating within a studio deal, but it doesnt mean his choices/outlook is virtuous.

regardless of one's opinon of shamalamadingdong's films, they have to at least give him respect for his efforts to hold the torch on this subject(there are too many filmmakers that are allowing the business minds to steamroll the system, with little to no resistance.).
...your excuses are your own...

Myxo

Who here saw Jurassic Park on opening weekend?

Can you imagine that film going straight to DVD?

...

MacGuffin

Shyamalan gets ShoWest directing nod

M. Night Shyamalan will be honored as ShoWest Director of the Year at the closing-night ceremonies of the exhibitors convention, which will be held March 16 at the Bally's and Paris hotels in Las Vegas. Shyamalan drew applause from exhibitors in Orlando in October when he spoke at the ShowEast convention, passionately arguing in favor of the theatrical motion picture experience and rejecting shrinking theatrical windows as well as simultaneous day-and-date releases across competing platforms. ShoWest co-managing director Mitch Neuhauser called Shyamalan "a filmmaker whose vision and originality in storytelling changes the way audiences engage in movies; he constantly surprises, impresses and satisfies moviegoers."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

The Perineum Falcon

Quote from: MacGuffin on February 17, 2006, 12:28:54 AM
"a filmmaker whose vision and originality in storytelling changes the way audiences engage in movies; he constantly surprises, impresses and satisfies moviegoers."
:saywhat:

:ponder:

really?
We often went to the cinema, the screen would light up and we would tremble, but also, increasingly often, Madeleine and I were disappointed. The images had dated, they jittered, and Marilyn Monroe had gotten terribly old. We were sad, this wasn't the film we had dreamed of, this wasn't the total film that we all carried around inside us, this film that we would have wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we would have wanted to live.

modage

a good surprise would be that Lady In The Water goes straight to video.  actually M. is the strongest proponent for NO theatrical release!  betcha didn't see THAT coming did you?

cause he always has a twist ending.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

jigzaw

Quote from: soixante on March 24, 2005, 03:15:34 PM
Night makes B-movies that have the production value of A-movies and a patina of seriousness that is fake.  He is basically a 12 year old in a 30 year old's body, a guy who never outgrew comic books and Twilight Zone reruns.  At least Steven Spielberg sometimes makes movies for grown-ups like Saving Private Ryan.

That is true about Spielberg, after 20 years of making films, but M. Night has made, what, about 4 movies?  That would be still be around Close Encounters territory. 

I wasn't real fond of The Village, but didn't hate it with a passion either.  I really liked The Sixth Sense and parts of Signs.

Anyway, I am really glad that he's sticking up for the theatrical experience.  I have no problem with people who prefer fullscreen and DVD, but I can't stand the thought of 80 percent of major motion pictures not even being shown theatrically, which is what would happen if this multi-platform release becomes the norm.  It would start as DVD and theatre at the same time for most movies, then devolve into DVD and theatre for major 200-million-dollar speciall effects films and DVD-only for everything else. 

modage

give people a reason to see a film in the theatre and they'll go.  rather than defending the theatrical experience, he might want to put his efforts with james cameron and start looking for ways to make the theatre an EXPERIENCE again. 
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Ravi

Quote from: modage on February 25, 2006, 05:12:56 PM
he might want to put his efforts with james cameron and start looking for ways to make the theatre an EXPERIENCE again. 

Free small soda with every ticket?

If Night can eliminate ads from theaters and increase the quality of the projection and sound, I'll see his movies twice.

modage

Shyamalan Book Tells of Breakup With Disney
By Claudia Eller, Times Staff Writer
June 23, 2006

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."
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

pete

sounds like a reasonable charge with potentially juicy accusations only to be held back by a director who talks too much about himself and his feelings instead.  I hope I'm wrong though.  I'm hope it's just a fun, brutal, relentless attack on the buffoons at Disney.  probably won't be, because Shamalayan doesn't even see the evils of the current studio system.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

soixante

I have limited sympathy for the plight of Night.  After falling out with Disney, he was able to go to Warners and get them to pony up 60 million or whatever.  He was able to make the film he wanted to make, for the budget he wanted.  Many struggling filmmakers will never see that sort of financial support.  There are many established directors who have seen pet projects put into turnaround, and never get off the ground at all.

I'm also wondering -- could it be possible that the Disney executives were right?  That's the other side of the story.
Music is your best entertainment value.

pete

no way.  they are always wrong.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton