M. Nightly Retrospective: ‘The Sixth Sense’

THE SIXTH SENSE | UNBREAKABLE | SIGNS | THE VILLAGE | LADY IN THE WATER

Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) is a little boy who sees ghosts. Bruce Willis plays a child psychiatrist trying to help him get to the bottom of the problem.

• BOX OFFICE: $293,506,292 domestically, $672,806,292 worldwide and #27 all-time
• PRODUCTION BUDGET: $40 million
• Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay and three more Academy Awards
• Opened on M. Night Shyamalan’s birthday
• Following The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan was said to be in talks with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to help in writing the fourth Indiana Jones film. (source)
• Bruce Willis earned about $14 million for his part in the film (source), co-star Haley Joel Osment was paid $150,000 (source). Willis’s private jet tab alone was $450,000.
• M. Night Shyamalan has a cameo in the film as a doctor who examines Cole after the incident at the birthday party.

ONE GOOD:

“The Sixth Sense” has a kind of calm, sneaky self-confidence that allows it to take us down a strange path, intriguingly. ~ Roger Ebert, “Chicago Sun-Times”

ONE BAD:

Too plodding to be a thriller, too one-dimensional to be psychological, and not nearly frightening enough to be chilling, this film sets up a problem, and then never bothers to solve it. ~ Jeff Gray, “Globe and Mail”

I am not afraid to admit I didn’t figure out the twist of The Sixth Sense before the final moments. I could tell something was up but I was never able to put all the pieces together. Regardless of whether or not you figure out the twist there is more to this film than just the ultimate outcome. It’s a ghost story in the purest sense as a spectre dominates almost every second of its running time. None of the scares feel cheap and best of all, the twist actually does hold up under scrutiny upon repeated viewings.

The Sixth Sense also offers up the first of many fantastic scores provided by James Newton Howard for a Shyamalan film. Howard has scored all of Night’s major studio efforts and while this one isn’t the best of the bunch it certainly adds a lot of welcome atmosphere to the project.

After watching The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water I came to notice a lot in terms of how Night likes to shoot his films. Most notably are several shots involving reflections and several bird’s-eye shots. Over the next few days you will see some of that in the pics I provide from each film.

As for The Sixth Sense, from a visual perspective it is not Shyamalan’s best, but it certainly is a nice starting point.