Click to play videoHe is the man Newsweek Magazine declared as the next Spielberg. His name is synonymous with supernatural stories and twist in endings. You may or may not like his movies but there is no way you haven’t heard the dialogue 'I see dead people'. It’s one of the most popular lines in the movie history and it is he who coined it. The guest on the show is the writer and director of the The Sixth Sense and the Signs, Manoj Night Shyamalan.
Rajeev Masand: Welcome to the show.
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Thanks for having me.
Rajeev Masand:Your films are so steeped in supernatural and in the paranormal. This belief of yours in the paranormal is what you have inherited by being an Indian?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I think the idea of talking about things that we can’t see and the ability to believe in those things is very intrinsic to the Indian culture. My American friends believe only what they see. However, it is much easier for me to see what is there on the other side of the curtain. I can’t hear or see it but I know that there is something there.
Rajeev Masand: Did you have any supernatural paranormal experiences of your own?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Not really. I tend to be a little boring. So it’s my opportunity with movies to make things exciting in my life.
Rajeev Masand: Let us talk about your new film The Happening. It is much like the The Sixth Sense and Signs. It is another film about the fear of the unknown, isn’t it?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Out of the six my movies that everybody has seen are dark scary thrillers. The Sixth Sense, Signs and The Happening are variations of it. And then I made three movies that are outside that genre: Unbreakable, The Village and the Lady in the Water. Both genres are both equally important sides of me. But The Happening falls in the very-scary-thriller genre.
Rajeev Masand: You took a lot of public bashing for Lady in the Water. Was it important for you to make the film that your fans wanted to see?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I don’t really think like that. Though I would love to do that. They are very organic in their thinking about what I am going to do. The Happening idea came before I finished the Lady in the Water. It tends to be an answer to the previous movie in terms of tonality. One is very innocent and sweet and the other one is very dark. So it’s very natural. It takes two years to make a movie.
Rajeev Masand: I am told the only poster on your wall of a film not directed by you is that of the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Did the film have a huge impact on you? Did it change your life or something?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I’d say so. I was twelve. I went along with a friend to see the movie. I was very angry because I did not want to watch the film. I did not even know what archaeology was. My friend and me sat separately. But when the movie started, I sat there with my jaw hung. That’s when I decided that I wanted to do. I wanted to make movies like that for a living.
Rajeev Masand: I know Spielberg and Lucas came to you to write the fourth film. Why did that not happen?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Every time you do a film, there is a combination of things like timing, opportunity, etc. I so badly wanted to do that movie but I was just about finishing working on Unbreakable so I had to tell them that this is not going to work out right now. So I bowed out.
Rajeev Masand: You are one among few filmmakers who write their own material. Do you think people attach enough importance to originality in this business?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Originality is dangerous. If you succeed in one, why would you not do seven more of those and be safer? It is a moneymaking venture. The thing is that the combination of originality and money making venture do not sit well together.
Rajeev Masand: I remember meeting you in New York shortly after you completed The Village and I remember you saying that you were keen on adapting the Life of Pi. I also remember you saying that one of your concerns was whether the studio would green light a film whose lead was a non white actor. Was that why it fell through?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: No. In fact, movies sell because they are not caste dependent. Life of a Pi would have been a wonderful combination. It was again the timing. The book was a bestseller work and they wanted a decision at that moment and I said if that’s what you are asking then my answer is that I can’t do it right now but I would love to do in the future.
Rajeev Masand: Your parents are both doctors and you started out training to be one?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I would not say that because I went to a film school at the NYU. It was an assumption I guess, because if you are good in academics and you have Indian parents who are doctors, and then the doors are opened...
Rajeev Masand: Were they horrified when you announced that you were going to be a filmmaker?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: They were very disappointed. Lets just put it that way: they are not big yellers.
Rajeev Masand: When was it the first time that they began to take it seriously?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: That was two months ago when I got the Padmashree. That was the moment I think they said that it is good and that they were okay.
Rajeev Masand: It is funny that with The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis loved the script but was not sure if he wanted you to direct it?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: You have to ask him. I do not remember it that way. But I was younger then!
Rajeev Masand: Who are some of the filmmakers who have influenced you greatly?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: There are so many. Spielberg,of course, is the guru of art of filmmaking. And then Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick are among the others. I think Kubrick’s minimalism is very beautiful. Another Japanese filmmaker too has influenced me a lot. Their style has influenced me a lot.
Rajeev Masand: You don’t speak much about your daughters. You have two girls. Does your work resonate with them? Do they respond to your movies?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Yes they do. There are only a few that they have seen because they are too young to watch the others. It’s not appropriate for them to see all. They really respond to the movies. Probably they know me, and where I am coming from, so it hits them 100 per cent.
Rajeev Masand: Do you talk films at the dinner table?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: We try not to because films are something that wherever we go, everyone is talking about movies. So we don’t live in Los Angeles for that reason. It is like this unusual thing that I do for a living but we would treat it as if I work in a factory.
Rajeev Masand:You said that your mother, wife and aunts watch a lot of Hindi films, and you say you have watched snatches of those films walking in and out of the room. Did any bit impress you?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I am very touched and moved by some of them. I want to spend some time analysing the heightened language, the [camera] push-in on the close-up of a speech and then the push-in on the close-up of the same speech again. And then the music hits. I want to know what does that do to the audience — when you are not being subtle in that manner. I think there is something really beautiful about that vocabulary that starts to emerge. You start to become a pure version of yourself, a less complicated version of the audience. I really do want to analyse it.
Rajeev Masand: Are you familiar with Indian actors?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I have only seen a handful.
Rajeev Masand: I am sure you have heard of Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Yes. When I was really young, I was twelve, there was an Indian girl I met and one of her friends said to me, “she likes you more than Amitabh Bachchan.” I was like who is this dude, where is he? I got to go find him. Then I got to know that he is a famous actor.
Rajeev Masand: Why do you think Indian films haven’t really crossed over?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I think because the movies that crossed over tend to be a singular idea that is very universal. The language of the Indian movies is incredibly universal in terms of romance and unrequited love and heightened emotions. These are all universal but they don’t really come in a package. For example, two people in a building that is about to collapse and they realise they are in love but they only have an hour to live. So the onus is on the theme. But here the onus is more on the back and forth of the theme of love and betrayal. So if they add just one bit, I think it could explode.
Rajeev Masand: Do you cast Indian actors in your movies? I know Sarita Chaudhary played a character in Lady in the Water.
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I cast very organically. I don’t want it to be like an agenda. I have used Indian actors once in a while whenever there is a need. Once in a while I bring Indian actors to show them in as an anchor or in a neighbourhood.
Rajeev Masand: The Happening is your first R-rated film, and it is also one of your most violent films. If I remember correctly, The Sixth Sense had some graphic imagery.
Manoj Night Shyamalan: The Sixth Sense carried an ‘R’ first.
Rajeev Masand: And you cut it?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: No I did not cut it. It happened naturally. They were on a fence whether to make it an ‘R’ or not, and we just kept finishing the movie. They were on the edge on which way to go. The Village got an ‘R’ for one scene and we changed it a little bit with the sound effects and it actually went back again.
So I have been there a couple of times, but it’s a very visceral movie. When I think of the movies that I have in my house, the posters in my house, the Exorcist, Godfather and Jaws, those are the three posters that are there in one room. Exorcist was hard ‘R’, Godfather was ‘R’ and Jaws, I believe, if it was rated today, it would have been an ‘R’. Those are my influences. So I say, let me make a movie like that, a movie that will go on that wall, a movie with a similar hard experience. So The Happening is by far my scariest movie. In some scenes people are sniffling, some hiding and some crying. You have all those emotions there. It’s fun to have a movie like that where the people scream and cry.
Rajeev Masand: Newsweek famously declared you the next Spielberg. You went from that to the guy who has lost his mind after Lady in the Water.
Manoj Night Shyamalan: They are both connected by the way. I guarantee you one does not come without the other.
Rajeev Masand: Did that shake you up?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: No, I am honoured to get made fun of. There is no one who has a prominent career in any field that does not have this happen to them.
Rajeev Masand: How did your parents react?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: They loved the movie and I loved the movie. That criticism was not even about the movie. If you remember, it was about me. That is fine. They honoured the movie as they were bashing me. There wasn’t really much to talk about the movie. They just kept going after me.
Rajeev Masand: Why did you feel was the reason behind the sudden attack?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: A lot of things. Warner Brothers beautifully describe it as the Perfect Storm. It was that time in my career, I was on television, I was in the Amex commercial, I was on the posters, I was everywhere. A book was written on me and people read it. And everything that could go in that direction went in that direction.
Rajeev Masand: You have acted in several of your films. Is that something that you enjoy?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I love it. I don’t get to do that a lot. I get to write and direct but I don’t get to act much. I get to talk and analyse about acting. It’s the same thing that we were speaking about Bollywood actors. If I was doing the exact same thing what I do now, if I was white, it would be so much easier because it would not stand out that much. So if I were a neighbour in the movie, it would be no big deal in the movie. But if I am an Indian guy in a white neighbourhood, then there is some problem.
It has to always fit into the movie. In some way that it isn’t a statement. I am not trying to make a statement. I want to be very normal. It’s a giant issue. It’s the same difficulty that Shah Rukh Khan would face.
Rajeev Masand: Your next film is Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is based on a children’s TV series, also in Japanese. It is also deeply rooted in Hindu mythology. Is it the closest you have come to putting your roots out there?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Absolutely. I had not thought of it as a movie. My kids watched it with my mom, and my mom was screaming that is Hindu philosophy and they are stealing our philosophy. She was outraged, but in a good way. And a year later I thought of making it as a movie. It has almost everything that I love. It has all the philosophies, the religion in terms of Hindu philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, martial arts, genocide, and such deep subjects. The mythology is in the scale of Star Wars. It has to be natural of course.
Rajeev Masand: Do you feel the twist in the ending has become like a noose around your neck? Damned if you do and damned if you don’t?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Yes. I don’t know what to do. You know Hitchcock is known for twists in the endings. So I am not the first one to get a label.
Rajeev Masand: Is there a twist in The Happening?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: There is none and that is an honest answer.
Rajeev Masand: Best of luck and we are looking forward to see The Happening and lots more exciting movies from you.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.