Barratt applies Bordwell’s approach to The Sixth Sense, exploring how we comprehend and remember the film. Are there aspects of his analysis that you find more or less convincing? Are there other aspects of the film that you think matter in our narrative comprehension? And how might you apply such ideas to Torchwood?
13 thoughts on “Responses for 9/23”
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First and foremost, I’d like to comment on the fact that Cole’s last name is “Sear”–the first time I saw the film I did not catch how that sounds exactly like “seer” (which is what he is because he can see dead people). Anyway…
Barratt’s argument, which uses Bordwell’s model of “primacy, priming, and schema” begins by calling attention to two of the human facets that filmmakers “take advantage” of: attention and memory. I hate to say it, but… duh. This is not some sort of epic revelation. Paying close attention in films is extremely important, especially when it comes to directors like Shyamalan.
One of Barratt’s arguments that I liked the most is the one about “assumptions” and “primacy” (although I could have done without the long-winded A and B Malcolm character traits). The reason why these two are so important is because people will often assume things through visual/other cues, which is what allows them to be blinded/tricked from the get-go. Barratt makes the point that because we see Malcolm “walking and talking” that we naturally make the assumption that he is alive.
After taking a long look at it, Barratt’s table 3.1 is somewhat helpful in understanding the film from a structural standpoint. He then goes on to discuss the opening scene of the film (which to be completely honest, even back when I first saw it, I thought it was a little peculiar that it would go to black after the character just got shot–the fact that he didn’t go to the hospital, or something to that effect, struck me as a little bit odd… probably an early indication that I was meant to be a film major, but hey…)
Barratt’s examples of the three scenes in the film that are misconstrued by the audience are really on-par. When we first witness them, we assume one thing, but after being given a bit more information, our inferences change completely relating back to the primacy in a way. In that section, I think Barratt has a really stable argument.
At the film’s midpoint is the infamous scene where Cole tells Malcolm “I see dead people.” Moments before that is when Cole makes the extremely self-reflexive comment that all good stories need “twists” (this moment was so self-reflexive that half of us snickered during the screening). This is one of two moments where M. Night shows his narrative hand, and reveals how the film works. The second is more subtle. It comes in the first half of the film when Malcolm asks Cole whether he has ever tried free association before. Cole reveals that he has indeed done some free association writing. This moment is self-reflexive because the scene is intercut with a presumed flashback of Cole’s mom finding Cole’s creepy-@$$ blood-red scribbles. This juxtaposition forces Bordwell’s active viewer to make a procedural assumption. The viewer evaluates the content of one scene versus the other, and deduces there is a connection. I.e., that Malcolm is talking with Cole about free association because Cole’s mother found the creepy-@$$ blood-red scribbles and called Malcolm and told him about them. This pattern of misled assumptions based upon free associations is made throughout the film. It is one of M. Night’s key stratagem in deceiving his viewer. Put in other terms, there is a gap between the viewer’s ongoing creation of fabula and the sjuzet that actually occurs. We fill in story moments–we believe Malcolm survived, that he has marital problems, that Cole’s mom hired Malcolm and etcetera– because of these cognitive assumptions and thus create a false chronological ordering of the story.
I think it would be more beneficial for me to respond to your post, Josh. First of all, I never actually made the connection in my head that the mother had discussed Cole’s writing with Bruce Willis’ character. I think that this maybe shows how our attention to the same detail could lead us all to different conclusions due to our personal schemata.
There were a lot of moments in which I felt us snicker as an audience, or in which I felt that we were taken out of the film while watching it for the second (or third) time. Knowing the final twist wasn’t a good experience, in my opinion, because it took away from the magic of the film. I did not find myself reconstructing my ideas in my head, but was instead watching in a much more passive way. Maybe it’s because I have seen it three times now, but I found myself snickering quite a few times. Barrett talks about how “first impressions count”, but I would take that a step further and say that, when our first impressions are proven wrong we become particularly attune to all of the stylistic devices used to trick us. To an extent, this can cause us to be taken out of the thrill of watching, and become a distracting mission.
In Barrett’s essay, he mentions “trustworthy” as one of his schema for “doctor.” This is relevant in Torchwood as well because at the end of the episode we learn that the doctor is, in fact, a liar. However, I don’t think that you can label a character ‘Doctor’ and guarantee that spectators will trust him-people have had bad experiences with doctors or are skeptical of medicine in general. Also, doctor isn’t necessarily the dominant schema. In Torchwood, spectators could make assumptions based on the man’s race, or his youth, or his feelings on faith. I think that you can generalize schema to the point of establishing a relative hierarchy (profession trumps shoe size), but profession, race, religion, and age are all major players in the assumptions we make.
As for The Sixth Sense, I must admit that it is difficult to not assume someone is alive if they are walking, talking to people, and working. That’s the biggest selling point for me–who works after they die? Regardless, I concede that ‘normal person’=’living person’ is a schema shared by anyone who would watch a movie. Another ‘universal’ schema could occur when movies set up their own rules and then exploit them. Everyone watching the movie has the shared experience of watching that movie. Barrett makes a big deal about how, after Cole says “I see dead people walk around like regular people” there is a close-up of Malcolm, and the audience doesn’t get it. In a first-time viewers defense, it’s just an eye-line match that happens in dialogue scenes all the time.
So movies can set up their own rules/schema, and there are basic human schema, but to try and narrow something down to doctor=trustworthy isn’t working for me.
Watching The Sixth Sense for a second time gave me new appreciation for the Bordwell reading. Bordwell’s idea that the viewer is making expectations and assumptions seemed pretty basic, but I didn’t realize just how powerful this can be. Looking back on the Sixth Sense it seems SO OBVIOUS that Malcolm is dead, and yet I truly never realized this during the movie.
During tonight’s screening, I found it interesting to compare two template schemata’s that were created and their long term effects. For example, I haven’t been the first to wonder why all of M. Night Shymalan’s movies after The Sixth Sense have been so terrible (with the possible exception of Unbreakable). Ironically, he was destroyed by the genius of his own twist. By creating a template schemata in which there is a great unexpected twist, he could never again have an unexpected twist. To contrast this, I would argue that R. Kelly has also created his own template schemata: a structure in which a series of utterly ridiculous things occur. In every episode we expect that he will raise the stakes of his own absurdity, and this expectation completely guides our perception of the series. It leaves us constantly hungry for more, wondering how R. Kelly will manage to do something even crazier. Shymalan’s template, on the other hand, is much less sustainable.
While watching The Sixth Sense, I was able to notice how well the style served to stimulate schema and a primacy effect. I started to see, the second time, that I figured Malcolm was called by Cole’s mother. She mentions “One hour” when we first see him across from her, and we think, based on schema of doctors, “OK–Cole’s got one hour with his doctor–a typical session.” From then on, we’re primed to think that he’s alive, and continue from there. The scenes start with Malcolm in immediate action–we never know how he gets to where he is or what happens prior. We think back into our memory of previous schemata–as we are primed to believe he is alive–that he was called to that fancy/scholarly room/office at the school after Cole flips out on his teacher. It’s not abnormal for Cole’s psychiatrist to be called to the school after he has an episode.
I think as someone who just came into Torchwood, just about every detail in the story was an information load. Hills talks a lot about the mix of different story elements that are taking place here, whether it be something extraterrestrial, someone being immortal, a secret police (like the MIB) a government cover up, pregnancy, the two main male protagonists as a couple(one of with being immortal AND a father of a woman who looks older than him), aliens not just coming, but coming back, etc.
LOTS OF STUFF.
speaking of style…
Bordwell subsumes everything ‘technical’ under the heading ‘style.’ That is opposed to narrative elements of syuzhet that are not ‘technical’ in nature. Bordwell points out that it is up for debate whether style can be considered as having narrative content or not. He concludes that it can and does.
I think this is true of Sixth Sense. Barratt talks about the scene where Malcolm’s late for his anniversary dinner. He points out that one of the elements of style used to cue to the viewer that something is fishy about this interaction is the unconventional editing. Usually when two people are talking in a restaurant you have the shot/countershot arrangement where we cut from the speaker to the reaction, then back to the speaker, and so on. But in this scene from Sixth Sense there is no such shot/countershot editing. The camera kind of floats around. It misses reactions, and there seems to be no logic to its cuts. I remember thinking there was something weird about this scene, and now i know why, because subconsciously i was so used to that mode of editing, and this was a subtle break from it. The break from conventional editing techniques serves the narrative as a subtle indication that maybe this relationship is not what it seems.
…just one case in which style serves a narrative function.
How could any viewer have been deceived?! On second viewing, the audience’s initial obliviousness to the oncoming plot twist is so fascinating. I think Baratt’s delineation between working and long-term memory is a crucial one: though there are many scenes which should cue the viewer to the possibility that Malcom is already dead, they would likely not fit into the fabula already constructed by the spectator.
Narration is a constant retrofitting of details which the syuzhet and style first highlight, and are then interpreted by the audience. For the manipulation to work in this situation, the space between author, content, and audience here has been consciously constricted. Though the possibility (or reality) that Malcom is dead – with the camera cutting to him immediately after Cole’s revelation that he can see dead people – is made clear, we’re nonetheless inclined toward the alternative narrative: that Malcom is alive and on call to help Cole.
Though such principles as the presence of a self-consciousness and communicativeness within a film’s text are very prominent elements in following a narrative, I feel Bordwell’s most outstanding perspective regarding how “we” as an audience cognitively parallel our participation in the narrative rests in his constructivists approach. Here, Bordwell addresses the active mind rapidly making inferences, assumptions based on previous filmic experiences, recollection of important memory markers, while building structured hypotheses is a fascinating theory; which is none more visual than in M. Night Shyamalan’s, The Sixth Sense (1999).
Specifically, Bordwell’s schemata theory is very telling as key cognitive highlights, which allow our perception to structure and organize knowledge that guides our possible predictions for the film itself. Though I am slightly unsure if I absolutely consent with the clarification of Bordwell’s take on the fibula/syuzhet, but I do agree there are psychological workings that allow viewers to construct a narrative knowledge through the style of the film, as well as the depth/range accessed through that style; none more active than the urgency to use one’s memory in The Sixth Sense.
M. Night Shyamalan “asks” the viewer to participate and invest in the film for a significant extent of the time. For about forty minutes the audience follows these two characters, Malcolm (Bruce Willis) and Cole (Haley Joel Osment), through their developing relationship, but we are unaware of the small details to look out for that brings us to our shocking conclusion. In actuality, the film is shot in such a “patient” pace we don’t expect to have any twist at the end—or anywhere for that matter. Also, I feel—like Jason mentioned in the class—the personal relationships between Cole/his mother and Malcolm/his wife was just a “red-herring,” which drew attention to the reality of Malcolm’s condition. This style within the syuzhet, or simply plot, allowed audiences to use their expectations and assumptions to fill in gaps that, without the justification, leave audiences without a release of tension for occurrences in the film. Bordwell gets at this and sheds light on the significance theorists—in his opinion—should solely be investigating when delving into what is known as the active/passive viewer.
And it is because of Bordwell’s Cognitive theory that contributes to M. Night Shyamalan’s film.
I find Barratt’s analysis of the narrative of The Sixth Sense very convincing. I think he sums his main idea up nicely toward the end of his essay: “I would suggest that when we watch The Sixth Sense for the first time, we only see what we have been ‘primed’ to see.” Psychologically, we use schemas to organize, categorize, and make sense of our world because there is just too much data out there; we must be selective and discriminate of what we give our attention to, and form memories based on the most pertinent information. We operate on the basis of assumptions which we usually do not question unless we have good reason to. For example, we assume that Malcolm did not die from his gunshot wound because we see him walking and talking and interacting with Cole. Since he interacts with Cole, we assume that he must be interacting with other characters in the story and that there is no reason to think that he might not be a living, breathing person.
There are other aspects of the film that I think are important for narrative comprehension. One important assumption for the viewer from the outset is that the protagonist of a story will not usually die, especially not in the beginning phase of the narrative. The casting of Bruce Willis as the central character of the narrator reinforces this assumption. Willis’s star persona contribute to the sense that he is the hero who will eventually prevail against any antagonist force, whether it be terrorists holding people hostage in an LA high rise or ghosts haunting a scared young boy.
I’m slowly but surely coming to the conclusion of Halo: Reach as the narrative begins to push towards the beginning of the very first Halo game. The last level I played was of great interest to the narrative and, for the first time since playing, made me notice a disadvantage video gams have over their film counterparts; building narrative suspense. The level’s climax was defending a research base from wave after wave of alien forces as a scientist tried to salvage humanities last hope inside. The cut-scene before the encounter brought the tension to an ultimate emotional high; I could not be more engaged in defending humanities last chance at survival. Then I died. with the cut-scene still fresh in memory, I dropped back into the level as pumped as ever. Then I died again. By the time I completed the objective and viewed the next emotionally-engaging cut-scene, I had died almost twenty times and completely forgotten about the previous cut-scene. While the story was still coherent, I knew exactly what was going on, the narrative suspense was all but diminished, nowhere near what it would have been had I beaten the objective in one try. Granted, I’m playing on a higher than normal difficulty setting (I know, I’m awesome), but any good game should challenge it’s gamers to the detriment of narrative suspense.
whoops, wrong thread.