M. Night Shyamalan says Hollywood is a “sick industry”
The divisive American filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has come out to say that there are signs of “complete dysfunction” in modern Hollywood.
Shortly about to release his latest cinematic enigma in the form of the forthcoming horror flick Knock at the Cabin, starring Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Rupert Grint, Ben Aldridge, Abby Quinn and Nikki Amuka-Bird, Shyamalan spoke about his feelings towards the modern industry in an interview with AFP. Having been in the cinema industry since the early 1990s, Shyamalan has experienced how the movie landscape has changed with time.
“If you look at the industry right now… there are movies that feel incestuous, they’re just masturbatory… It’s just Hollywood talking to themselves,” he told the publication, adding: “And then there are movies where they’re saying: the audience is dumb, so we’re going to take all the soul out, and we’re just going to do it by numbers…These are signs of complete dysfunction”.
Explaining his thoughts as to how the industry has changed, Shyamalan looks back to 1999, the year his six-time Oscar-nominated movie The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, was released in cinemas. Competing for Best Picture in 2000 with the likes of Sam Mendes’ American Beauty and Michael Mann’s The Insider, Shyamalan misses the quality competition Hollywood had to offer.
“The industry was different then,” the director admitted, “It was aimed at — how do you get the best storytellers to tell stories for the widest audience? That’s not the case now…I found the only way is to leave the system and pay for it myself… to make small movies but take huge risks — not having to ask whether they like having a gay couple at the centre, or whether I should hire a wrestler”.
Elaborating on his love of cinematic “risks,” he explains: “This is my way of staying healthy after spending a long time in a kind of sick industry,” he added, “Even until late in the writing of the movie I was like, how many times can I flip you back and forth? Because I had thought of another way, and I was worried the audience are going to get whiplash if I do one more”.
