Of signs and spirits: A conversation with M. Night Shyamalan

As part of our writing exercises, we were asked to submit a questionnaire about any celebrity we wanted to interview. I wanted to interview Night Shyamalan, and our venerable director K Thomas Oommen ordered us to submit a profile of the person based on the answers imagined by us, with the help of that "tiny speck under the hair that we call our brains". Here is the resulting crap:


Interview/ M Night Shyamalan

PUDUCHERRY: “If you are not betting on me, then nobody should get money, I have made profit a mathematical certainty. I am the safest bet you got,” said Manoj Night Shyamalan in 2002, when his “Signs”, which was released the same year, was breaking box office records.

Three disappointing films later, he is less sure about that claim. His last film, “The Happening”, was touted as a comeback of sorts, but it met with intense criticism for it's “ridiculous storyline”.

“A lot of people want me to turn indie (independent filmmaker). But I don't want to do it now, not at this point (of my career),” he says.

Shyamalan is shooting the final scenes of his latest film, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” in Puducherry, the place he was born. This is the first time one of his mainstream films feature a principal location other than Pennsylvania, his adopted state.

“I always find Pennsylvania mystical. There is something about that place where I live in; some magic in the air that inspires me to write,” says Shyamalan. “And I don't think it makes any harm to shoot films there.”

Shyamalan says he is as much influenced by religion and mysticism, as by Alfred Hitchcock and comics. Religion was the cause he returned to India after graduation, and his debut film “Praying with Anger” the effect, he says.

His other major influence is Hitchcock. Shyamalan has made it a point, like Hitchcock, to make cameos as obscure characters. Is there a reason? “It's very difficult to define the reason. Few things are done for a reason; we humans normally act by instinct,” Shyamalan smiles.

Shyamalan can go on endlessly talking about his artistic influences, for the simple reason that he is influenced by a lot of artistes and genres. One of the prominent news of year before the last was that Shyamalan was going to write the script for the fourth “Indiana Jones” film, that was to be directed by his childhood idol Steven Spielberg.

But Shyamalan withdrew later. “I was at first excited. But then, it was very difficult to plan events in the screenplay so that it may end up in a desired situation.”

He is on the last leg of his shoot, he says. There is no lack of excitement still, Shyamalan says, even after 17 years since he began directing. “This film is a tribute to the comics I grew up reading. And also to the children who enjoys them,” says he.

He says he is not bothered about what the critics would say about his latest effort. “Twenty-six people love a movie, and the 27th person hates it, and the only thing you can think about is the 27th person? I wouldn't.”

Although Shyamalan films usually splits critics to the extremes, none of them would argue that he is irrelevant. His films are like events—you either look forward to it or you don't. But you cannot ignore it.

“I think I am not irrelevant. I still make films. I will only stop if they end the cinema experience. If there is a last film that's released theatrically, it'll have my name on it,” he says.

Shyamalan smiles when asked what makes him go on in the midst of criticism. “My hope is to break so many rules so that I can create a new rule.”



NB: Most of the quotes used here are not imaginary. They have actually been spoken by Mr Shyamalan. What I did was to take these quotes completely out of context (which many of my classmates say I'm a master of), or even better, quote these without having any idea of their context at all. For more quotes and details visit Imdb.com (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0796117/). Feed me back, friends.