New Delhi: Indian-American filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan says he believes, perhaps naively, that people wait for new ideas, and the way he likes to get their attention is by doubling down on the “weirdness” of his stories.
The director, known for his mysteries and twisty endings, now comes up with “Trap,” starring Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoughue and Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka.
Warner Bros. released “Trap” in India last week.
“There’s this assumption, maybe naïve, that people are excited to experience something new if we can give them something new… I tell my partners, Warner Bros, that what’s different about the film is something to celebrate. Emphasise how weird and different it is,” Shyamalan said in an interview to PTI.
In “Trap,” Hartnett plays Cooper Adams, an ordinary father who becomes the target of a ruthless serial killer known as “The Butcher,” and Donoughue plays his teenage daughter Riley.
Asked how difficult it is for a filmmaker to make original films when most Hollywood films are franchises or superhero projects with strong IP, the 54-year-old said there is no point in making something “normal” under such a situation.
He added, “The other aspect is that you have to sell the weirdness of the new idea and really tell them why it’s a new accent. I have an accent in the way I tell stories. Make sure I have that accent. I used to talk to the trailer makers. And I used to say ‘Don’t cut it like it’s everybody’s film’. You’re stealing what’s unique about it. And that’s our weapon.”
Born in Puducherry and raised in Pennsylvania, the filmmaker made his Hollywood breakthrough in 1999 with “The Sixth Sense”, for which he received Oscar nominations for best director and screenplay. He followed it with hits like “Unbreakable”, “Signs” and “The Village”.
This was followed by a series of poorly reviewed big budget flops such as “Lady in the Water”, “The Happening”, “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth”.
Recalling that dark period in his career, Shyamalan said it made him realize it was futile to try to “do what the system wants”.
What he did next was something he wouldn’t recommend to others, but luckily, it worked for him and revived his career with “The Visit.”
“I wasn’t succeeding, I wasn’t happy… I was so unhappy that I thought, ‘I’m just going to make a movie. I’m not going to ask anybody anything. I’m just going to shoot a movie and mortgage the house. Let’s see what happens’.”
“And that’s where it all started, through ‘Trap’ and ‘Servant’ and other movies like that. Well, I don’t recommend what I did. But it gave me a passion and autonomy that leads to this kind of very original work that the audience can feel.”
In his second innings, the filmmaker has directed “Split”, “Glass”, “Old”, “Knock at the Cabin”.
In “Trap,” he teams up with musician-daughter Saleka. She plays Lady Raven, a Taylor Swift-like figure whose concert Cooper attends with his teenage daughter when he discovers a trap has been set for him.
Is this film, with its elaborate musical setup, the closest you can get to directing a Bollywood-style musical film?
“It’s in our genetics. So, doing a completely music-based film doesn’t seem as strange as you think,” says Saleka. She talks about it a lot and maybe it’s in my head. It’s interesting.
He said, “If I was more proficient in Indian languages, I would work from the South… My parents speak Tamil, but if I was more proficient, I would consider working in some form. I like it.”
When asked about his love for weird ideas, Shyamalan said that as a storyteller he just wants to know what happens next.
“On a visceral level, the tone and point of view of the story is exciting to me. When I was younger, I probably wouldn’t have been able to express it the way I have done now, i.e., an idea and then a point of view. I’ve realised you need both before the ignition goes off.”
The director said most of the time he starts with an idea, and in the case of “Trap,” it was about a man trapped at a music festival.
“But the point is, you’re with him. You’re the father, you love him and you have to find a way out. That’s what inspired me to make the film.”
According to the internet, his original name is Mek Nelliyattu Shyamalan. How and when did the word ‘knight’ become part of it?
Shyamalan said he chose his middle name when he was 17 or 18, and received a National Merit Scholarship, a government-funded scholarship awarded to select students.
“In order to be accepted, I had to be a citizen but I didn’t have a middle name. In some ways, I felt I was inventing myself. I was very interested in the Lakota Indian culture at the time. I read this name. It was actually a woman’s name. At the time, it was about a connection to things we don’t know and nature, which felt right to me.”
“Later when I started working in the thriller genre, I coincidently felt that it was right for me to make a living. But I had no such intention. It felt like ‘Hey, this is another version of you’,” he said.
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