Director M. Night Shyamalan Talks The Happening
Take heed the next time you prune the bushes or pull start that weed-wacker. That weed might remember; then send a neurotoxin in the air to get you to prune your arms and legs. This is the apocalyptic scenario of writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, The Happening. Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel stars as a young couple fleeing the foliage. Check out below as Shyamalan talks ratings and religion.
This is your first film with an R rating. What did you here that you didn't in the PG-13 films?
M. Night Shyamalan: I've gotten an R on two other movies, on The Sixth Sense and The Village. I got an R rating on those initially for the intensity of certain scenes. Then you just pull back a sound effect. We were right on the line and I could always just pull back a sound effect and resubmit it. All I would do is take out some sound effects. It's always a big impact because what you emotionally feel is different from what I actually showed. But this one, there was just no other way to do it. One of the movies that I was thinking of was "Pan's Labyrinth", which has some visceral moments of violence juxtaposed against the kind of softer things. A PG-13 version of "Pan's Labyrinth" for me wouldn't have that kind of impact. So it felt like the right balance of things. It was exciting then and it was disturbingly easy to shoot all of those scenes. I had such a fun time doing it.
How closely does this storyline reflect your own world view?
M. Night Shyamalan: They're all a little bit like therapy, these movies, about something that's bothering me. I think everyone in our generation is starting to worry about these kinds of things, especially during an election year. It's thinking about the future. It mimics the 50's where there was the same kind of anxieties about our future, where are we headed, are we going in the right direction, is it too late to change course. I never thought that I was actually all that serious as a person, but when I sit down to write I guess more adult things come out.
The idea of plants having consciousness is a non-western view. Can you talk about how your non-western experience influences you?
M. Night Shyamalan: Definitely. My middle name, Night, is actually an American Indian name. I felt attached to that as a kid, to the American Indian culture and their relationship to nature. Worshipping the sky, the earth, the rock, the bear, that relationship felt correct then as a kid and it feels correct now as an adult. It's interesting that in all of our religions so little is said about how we should feel towards nature. It's an interesting thing to get the hierarchy back in line with the way that it is. We're just one of many living creatures on the planet.
You cast your protagonist as a science teacher and then had a scientist at the end described the limits of rational thought. Does that tie into the spiritual message?
M. Night Shyamalan: I was reading the Einstein biography while I was writing this screenplay. It's a beautiful, beautiful book. One of the things that I was struck by, he rejected religion and was kind of atheistic. In his point of view the hand was God, a divine kind of thing. His life struggle was trying to find an overall formula, an overall thing that could define the kind of design of things. Then he became very religious again. The ultimate man of science became a man of faith. When I was writing Elliot, it affected him because he's just a high school science teacher and he has plenty of gaps in his knowledge of science. That's why Mark [Wahlberg] felt like the right casting because obviously he's a man of faith and to see the things that we don't know, I see that in anyone, whether that's in Einstein or in Elliot's character or in Mark. It is kind of a question of science almost giving evidence to something else.
Do you see this as a popcorn movie? Is it possible to have a popcorn movie with a greater moral theme?
M. Night Shyamalan: Yeah, I do. One of the things that I said to everyone, to the cast and the crew, I said that we were making a movie about an important subject, but this is a B movie. Let's get it straight here. This is a great B movie. We're making the best B movie we can and that's our job. We're going to have a lot of fun. It's a paranoia movie and we just need to pound away at it. That's our job. So I was really clear about that. So in that way it was meant to be entertainment, but all of my movies are a little bit of that.
What is the scientific basis of The Happening?
M. Night Shyamalan: When I came up with the idea I said to the research people, "Give me every piece of information. I want to know from one to ten whether this idea is totally, totally possible, probably or completely impossible." They came back with a stack of information about how the environment works and the plants work. The examples of anomalous things that have happened in the world and how a cotton plant can send out a signal to the other side of the field to tell them that this insect is coming so that they'll send out poisons and send out toxins. I talked to the University of Massachusetts and some other institutes about how the brain works, about toxins and how they affect each other. It was really fun to ground this in science.
The Happening was released June 13th, 2008 and stars Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin, Robert Bailey Jr., Frank Collison. The film is directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Comments (20)
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The Dark Knight
wow
4 years agoby @thedarkknight23Flag
slysnide
Yeah, you go Visionary!
4 years agoby @slysnideFlag
T.Clark
Oh, and XJWS79, u pretty much just proved my other point: u people expect too much out of him. U complain and complain that his movies have gone down hill since the sixth sense, and yet u expect him to be great? What's so different from his other films and the sixth sense? Again, suck it haters
4 years agoby @insertusernamehereFlag
T.Clark
I liked the happening. What was so bad about it? You people bitch about M when he doesn't give a plot twist, u bitch when he does, u bitch that it isn't his best, u bitch that M didn't "make a comeback"(which he doesn't need cuz he never actually "went back"), and when he changes the things u people bitch about u still bitch even when he's actually trying to get a point across that u people don't see cuz ur too busy bitching. So yes, renodc, people r evil, just for the sheer fact that they bitch about a filmmaker expressing himself by having a meaning within his movies. It wasn't a "blockbuster" like the hulk or iron man, so u people instantly think it's sh*t toast. "People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling" Suck it haters
4 years agoby @insertusernamehereFlag
Splatter2010
I wish the person giving the interview had the balls to ask M. Night what he thinks about the fact that the critics and movie goers for the most part were gravely disappointed in the film.
4 years agoby @mindscapeFlag
Err
when you take into consideration that most people are idiots, and that as such they're opinions will inherantly be ass-backwards, then like me you come to the conclusion that if "everyone" loves the hulk and hates the happening, then the happening must be awesome and the hulk must be steroid-induced special fx laden mind-numbing hollywood horse sh*t.
4 years agoby @err2005Flag
renodc
I despised the Happening. Personally, I grow weary of Hollywood's incessant need to tell us how evil we are and how stupid we are. Especially, when it comes to global warming and their ever increasing embrace of socialism.
The Man-Made Global Warming debate is a catch-22 in that it may bring some needed changes, such as spurning the U.S. to seek alternative fuel sources thus decreasing our dependence on oil, but on the downside it's giving credence to pseudo-science. I have to admit I was initially drawn in by the Dr. Heidi Kullens and Al Gores, but my knowledge on the subject was simply based on what they were saying. Lately, I've spent some time educating myself on the Global Warming topic, and I was suprised to find that the "Man Made Global Warming Theory" is based primarily on a minutiae of facts, some extremely flimsy research, and a whole heaping pile of opinion. One of the biggest recent blows to the Global Warming agenda has been the admission by NASA scientists (the same scientists that supplied most of the statistics used in Al Gore's propaganda piece, "An Inconvenient Truth")that they "fudged" the global temperature numbers for the last ten years because they felt "it was for the greater good". The reason that they altered the data was because the original stats didn't support a global warming trend. The unaltered data showed the Earth was warming in the mid to late '90's, but since 1998 those temperatures have been dropping and the Earth is actually beginning to cool down to temperatures that are equal to the average temperatures recorded from the 1880's to the 1930's.
4 years agoby @renodcFlag
dcrock
I know what the point of the movie's about. Doesn't change the fact that it sucked. lol. This should've been a long infomercial about saving the environment.
4 years agoby @dcrockFlag
slysnide
It seems that people are missing the point in this movie. While it doesn't have the signature twist, it acknowledges the possibilities of the future in the evolutionary clock of nature. Just think about it: What would you do if the world environment went through random radical changes in its evolutionary pattern that was offsetting your life, and there was nothing you could do to stop it? Oh wait, that's happening now, it's called "Global Warming." And yes, it does have MAJOR effects in certain regions of the world. Whether we want to admit it or not. This film is simply about something occurring that nobody would expect, or have been prepared for whatsoever. It encompasses that: "Oh sh*t. I didn't plan for this. We're all dead." kind of feeling. Due to polar ice-caps melting away at a fast rate, some small island nations are even beginning to be reclaimed by the sea, along with their entire society and nation. This film just escalated that idea to have an immediate global effect, rather than a long term one.
4 years agoby @slysnideFlag
ed_wood
I can't even describe how much I hated this movie. I just don't see how the studio watched it and released it. After the first ten minutes it just fell apart and became a disaster. The actors sounded like they were reading the script for the first time.
4 years agoby @ed-woodFlag
10secMachine
M.Night has gotten to be the biggest fan of his work, which can only spell disaster for any director. He thinks all his movies are great and fails to see them for what they really are...I don't think we'll be seeing much more of Mr.Shyamalan for a while.
4 years agoby @10secmachineFlag
XJWS79
I expected too much out of this movie, and got very little. Hate to be so down on it, but it deserves to thrashed by those of us movie web who pay good money to be entertained. This movie however was not a example of whats entertaining, when the crowd laughs at whats suppose to be serious.
4 years agoby @xjws79Flag
dcrock
This movie was bad but not the worst. At least not compared to some sci-fi B movies like rock monster or mosquito. Hahaha
4 years agoby @dcrockFlag
The Dark Knight
hu
4 years agoby @thedarkknight23Flag
Phatlightning
lol worst movie ever made award? wow, thats rough ed.
4 years agoby @sxers2k1Flag
joker214
i hated this movie it was a disgrace to him
4 years agoby @joker214Flag
sirmetro
come on guys,wasn't that bad.
4 years agoby @sirmetroFlag
adammatthewphillips
The movie wasn't a total piece of crap, but it definitly was his worst film. There was nothing connecting me emotionaly with these characters or with the world they lived in. I think the down fall of the film was the acting and the drab ending. There were some strokes of genius in this film.
4 years agoby @adammatthewphillipsFlag
ed_wood
He needs to take a break for a while, The Happening was a total piece of crap. Worst movie ever made.
4 years agoby @ed-woodFlag
PUNISHER
Ehh...
4 years agoby @cerealkillerFlag