A final look at M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, this time its formal approach with a special emphasis on his inventive use of point-of-view shots, stealthy camera movements, overhead and underhead shots, and many other subtleties.
A Shyamalan enthusiast is struggling mightily to come to terms with the conundrum of The Happening, a split identity film that swings wildly between excellence, rampant quirkiness and unchecked hysteria.
A guide to the many powerful suicide scenes, including the brilliant, icily electrifying opening where normality turns into nightmare. Plus motifs, visual ideas and references to earlier Shyamalan works.
Say what you want about M. Night Shyamalan’s foray into disaster movie terrain, but its last 25 minutes are excellent, carefully walked through in this screenshot-based analysis.
Avlutningen på Shyamalans eksperimentelle superhelt-trilogi nærmer seg med stormskritt. Se den første traileren.
Filmåret 2017 ligger bak oss, og det er endelig tid for vår årlige runde med topplister her på Montages. [11]
The cat-and-mouse sessions between psychiatrist and patient form a thrilling acting laboratory, where M. Night Shyamalan’s fundamentally static set-ups are done with rigour and discreet invention. Bonus: film references.
The apparent simplicity of Split conceals a surprising amount of ideas, refinement and subtlety. This is a moment-by-moment analysis of the brilliant abduction scene, plus a hard look at isolation, corridors, animals and flowers.
«During the climax of The Last Airbender, Shyamalan succeeds in finding a cinematic equivalent to the effortless unfolding of superhuman powers, in a formal framework also suggesting the hero’s ritualised path to that state.»
I en omfattende utvidelse av sin artikkel på norsk, fortsetter Dag Sødtholt prosjektet om M. Night Shyamalans filmer: «In The Last Airbender the sketchily drawn characters become pieces in a formal game of harmony.»
We look at three outstanding scenes in this better-than-you-think M. Night Shyamalan film, along with its pervasive motif of figures in a landscape, visual rhymes and many occasions of elegant staging.
With the artistic, commercial and critical success of his two latest films, it is about time to soberly unearth the very real qualities of M. Night Shyamalan’s disproportionally maligned middle period.
Med den kunstneriske, kommersielle og kritiske suksessen til hans to nyeste filmer friskt i minne er det på tide med en nøktern gjennomgang av M. Night Shyamalans filmer i den tunge perioden 2008-2013. [8]
Etter noen års ørkenvandring i Hollywood har M. Night Shyamalan reist seg som en fugl føniks med sine to siste filmer The Visit (2015) og Split (2017). Særlig sistnevnte har blitt en forbausende suksess, laget på lavt budsjett med total kunstnerisk kontroll.
The new leaner, meaner version of M. Night Shyamalan has made a bizarre but thoroughly gripping film, providing an emotionally deep understanding of why psychological survival mechanisms arise in abuse victims.
James McAvoy har 24 personligheter og tre tenåringsjenter fanget i kjelleren i en helsprø og appetittvekkende smakebit på M. Night Shyamalans nye film Split.
Whispered echoes, nightmare logic, high melodrama, relentlessly ingenious staging – this visual analysis of M. Night Shyamalan’s pastoral masterpiece preserves the film’s own gestures, often rearranged in surprising combinations.
After a general evaluation of this M. Night Shyamalan tour de force, the large cast of characters and their relationships are examined, with a special emphasis on subtext and how that is expressed through mise-en-scène.
Before The Visit came M. Night Shyamalan’s early masterpiece The Village. Mismarketed and misunderstood as a horror movie, it has gained a following as a mood piece of pastoral beauty, intense emotion and stylised lyricism.
Joaquin Phoenix har tidligere spilt i M. Night Shyamalan-filmene Signs og The Village, og nå har den eksentriske skuespilleren opprettet en dialog om et nytt samarbeid med regissøren.
En fersk trailer til M. Night Shyamalans mystiske lavbudsjettsfilm The Visit har landet, og sender urovekkende signaler om generisk hjemmevideo-horror. [4]
David Robert Mitchells It Follows vekker ærefrykt langt utenfor skrekkfilmentusiastenes rekker. Denne første av i alt tre artikler skal se på 10 mulige innganger til filmen, og forsøke å sette ord og bilder på hva som gjør den så spesiell. [30]
In Signs scenes do not only exist to drive the plot forward. Their formally distinctive staging creates additional layers, encouraging meanings and symbols, often enigmatic.
Signs offers rich allegorical subtexts of dreams, magic and the aliens as metaphors for the characters’ inner demons. We also chart references to The Birds, and analyse the masterful cellar sequence and the film’s ending.
M. Night Shyamalan is particularly adept at creating a set of hidden motifs that govern the film. We look at circles, water, doors, houses, the sky and how they operate in two brilliant horror set pieces.
M. Night Shyamalan has created a Signs fiction film about alien invasion, with powerful horror set pieces and comedic touches. An analysis of its dreamlike opening sequence peels away complex layers of motifs and echoes.
M. Night Shyamalan’s visual style consists of a series of recurring formal devices. Watching Unbreakable feels like participating in a ritual where these devices are applied and reapplied, in new variations and combinations.
Vår kåring av 90-tallets 100 beste filmer er klar, og her presenterer vi Montages’ utvalgte – fra 100. til 91. plass. [11]
M. Night Shyamalan’s enigmatic superhero thriller is a film where everything seems to be connected to everything else. We look at various motifs and colour codings that move in intricate and sometimes very strange patterns.
Our in-depth look at M. Night Shyamalan’s early films continues with Unbreakable: perhaps the only mainstream Hollywood formalist film, a mass-market movie approached with an unrelenting European art film sensibility.
Etter høybudsjetts-kalkunene The Last Airbender og After Earth leger M. Night Shyamalan sårene med indiefilm-prosjektet Sundowning, som ifølge The Wrap skal ha blitt spilt inn i smug.
We conclude our in-depth analysis of M. Night Shyamalan’s masterpiece with a close look at motifs and structural aspects, concluding with a shot-by-shot commentary on the post-funeral sequence.
A visual analysis of key scenes of M. Night Shyamalan’s masterpiece and his virtuoso use of motifs, staging and interconnectedness to achieve coherence and closure.
A stunning piece of high-precision filmmaking, formally inventive, thematically intelligent, emotionally gripping, a momentous commercial success, an almost perfect film.
A return to this severely under-appreciated film, for its discussion of storytelling, interpretation, film criticism, artificiality, stylisation, interconnectedness – and whether stories can become real.
It was one of the most hated films of the 2000s, but with the trauma now at a distance, it is time to appreciate M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water for its very real qualities.
Det er mye sci fi i nyhetsspalten om dagen, men så skjer det også mye spennende på den fronten. De ferske trailerne til Joseph Kosinskis Oblivion og M. Night Shyamalans After Earth vitner begge om episke fortellinger. [5]
