M. Night Shyamalan and the Career Arc of a Director

No, I haven't seen The Last Airbender yet.

And I'm not gonna.

Know why?  Two words - The Happening.

I loved Sixth Sense - liked Unbreakable - loved Signs - tried to like The Village - was totally unimpressed with Lady in the Water.

I figured I'd give M. Night one more chance with The Happening.  But do you know what happened at The Happening?...  He took my 10 bucks and spit in my face.

Really.

That movie is an affront to filmmaking - either one of the worst, most tone-deaf movies made in the last 30 years, or the most brilliant satiric self-immolation ever put to film.  I seriously thought he was trying to purposefully trash his career so he could get out of his current contract by making the worst movie ever.

Then he made The Last Airbender... and it's getting even worse reviews.  I don't need to see it.

How can this be possible?  How can the same guy who made Sixth Sense and Signs, two of my favorite movies of the last decade, slide steadily into absolute dreck? Has he totally lost his mind?  Does he not care anymore?  Did someone else write and direct his first three movies for him?

I wanted to see just how bad it really was, so I did what I always do...

I made a chart:

This chart shows the ratings (per Rotten Tomatoes) for every M. Night directed movie.  As you can see, it looks like a big ol' slide to wretchedness.

That got me thinking... What do other director's charts look like?



Let's say, one of my favorite directors - Martin Scorsese:

Wow - now that's more like it.  Some ups and downs, but consistently above 80 and a solid body of work.  The Aviator and The Departed propped him back up after losing some steam there for a while.

What about the Cohen Brothers?

Hmm - very similar.  Not surprising really, considering they are always in the Oscar hunt.

What about my all-time favorite - Stanley Kubrick?

Wow - an unbelievably consistent and brilliant performance.

What about some relative newcomers like Quentin Tarantino:

...or David Fincher:

Nice - both of them very solid.  Looks like either could have a Scorsese type career ahead of them.

Here are two that are similar shaped - starting out high, then a slight overall downward trend:

Also notice the alternating series of successful and not-so successful movies to the right of the charts.  Looks like after they made their masterpieces, they have struggled a bit to find good material.  And note Coppola's string of four in a row (The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part 2, Apocalypse Now), perhaps the finest run of cinema ever produced - although Ridley's back-to-back of Alien and Blade Runner is pretty impressive.

Now here's one that just makes me scratch my head:

I mean really, how can the same guy that made The French Connection and The Exorcist spend the rest of his career making such inconsistent movies?  Not just unsuccessful movies, but horrible movies.  It's as if he has no filter for taking on bad projects - he just takes whatever comes his way.  Sometimes he gets lucky - and sometimes he is stuck with garbage. Compare this to how surgically focused Kubrick was in choosing his material.

Now this leads me back to M. Night - has he lost the ability to direct, or the ability to discern a good story from a shitty one?  If someone else picked the material and he just directed, would it be any better?

Any finally, one more chart:

Yep - another couple of guys who were heralded when they first came out but have created worse and worse movies as their career has progressed.  Did they, like George Lucas essentially have one good idea for their entire career?  Do they even care about telling interesting stories anymore?  Was The Matrix just a lucky guess?