Issue date: November 19, 2000

In this article:
Stephen Covey on recharging creativity

Night Vision

M. Night Shyamalan sees things. nuances. creative possibilities. Will his sixth sense also help his new movie succeed?

By Dennis McCafferty

'm not seeing something.

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan struggles with a movie script. He stares silently at the stucco ceiling from his bed. He can't afford a leather chair. He made one movie, then another; both went nowhere. Now, he channels all of his intellectual energy into a new project, and the words aren't working. He's on his fifth draft. There must be more, he realizes, to this thing called The Sixth Sense.

This much is certain: A little boy sees dead people. A psychologist tries to help him.

There's something more mysterious and profound. Why can't I find it? Layer by layer, fear desensitizes him until it scrapes the chilled bone of self-doubt.

Will I always be destined to fail?

Then, he feels nothing. Everything is numb. He lapses into this state for what may be hours.

That's when he first arrives at "the quiet place."

Everyone who has hit this cerebral cinder-block wall can understand how valuable this place can be. Before getting there, under immense pressure to create, desperation clamps down so hard that it gets difficult to breathe. Then, it happens. You end up in this strange and wonderful place, where that all-too-elusive state of absolute awareness and clarity come together. In Shyamalan's case, in one brilliant journey of the mind, he grasps the once-hidden key to what will become his first masterpiece.

The psychologist is dead.

He's been dead the whole time, Shyamalan learns. That's why he and the boy connect. In every other draft, the psychologist was alive. "I had put my hand through some imaginary wall, grabbed one of those great ideas and brought it to this side," he now says. "From then on, you couldn't stop me. Every word that came out was better and better. I was writing better than I had ever written."

For good reason, Shyamalan (SHAH-ma-lan) has returned often to the quiet place. It serves as a metaphysical muse for this movie mystic. By any standard, Sixth Sense was a smash, with six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Its estimated $294 million in domestic sales rank it No. 10 of all time. His much- anticipated new film, Unbreakable, opens Wednesday.

In an in-depth discussion with USA WEEKEND Magazine, Shyamalan, 30, reveals insight into his unique artistic process. It's tempting to dismiss it as esoterica from yet another tortured perfectionist. But overcoming creative stagnation is a universal challenge. There are eclectic means to achieve the ends, both orthodox and not. (See Stephen Covey item, below.) The alternative? For many, endless all-nighters that end no better than they begin. Considering that reality, Shyamalan's methods seem relatively sound.

Besides, until Sixth Sense, Shyamalan was just some no-name from Philly with a bunch of strange film ideas.

The first, 1993's Praying With Anger, was about an exchange student who returns to his homeland, India. Obviously personal to Shyamalan, whose family is from Madras, India, it didn't connect with audiences. In 1998, Miramax bigwigs collectively squirmed in their seats while watching Shyamalan's Wide Awake, set in a Catholic boys' school. Again, the theme was spiritual. The movie died a quick and tidy death. Ten years, two bombs, and Shyamalan was running out of chances.

Then along came the flick with the mixed-up kid and the dead doctor.

Since then, Shyamalan has emerged as a Hollywood player, No. 77 on Entertainment Weekly magazine's list of the 101 most powerful people in entertainment (ahead of David Letterman, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio). But he remains refreshingly honest to his roots. A devoted family man, he once walked out before a business meeting in New York with powerful movie execs. They'd kept him cooling his heels for three hours, and Shyamalan had promised his wife he would be home before nightfall to take care of their infant daughter.

He still writes from the Philadelphia suburbs, where he blows off steam in the evenings playing basketball in his old high school gym. For an interview over lunch, he opts for a local burger joint instead of fine dining. "When you become successful, all the parameters go away," Shyamalan says. "So, if you said, 'I'd love to go to Brazil for a month,' or whatever you wanted to do, there's nothing stopping you. That creates a free-fall effect. I prefer structure."

Shyamalan's resolve for normalcy is belied by his filmmaking. Haunting images -- disturbing and hopeful, murky and enlightening -- weave seamlessly and linger long after the final credits. His intuitive talents are uncanny. After all, it was Shyamalan who looked beyond Bruce Willis the Action Hero and captured the introspective, understated actor within for Sixth Sense. "Ever since I was really little," he explains, "I could tell what people were feeling."

Such perception contributed to his breakout success. For movie audiences, the "secret" in Sixth Sense was hiding in plain sight throughout the film -- as it was for Shyamalan when he wrote it. Without reaching the quiet place, it would have remained unknown.

"He's quite hard on himself," says Barry Mendel, Shyamalan's longtime friend and co-producer of his movies. "When it's not working, he gets to the quiet place to bring his voice into the work. People will see Unbreakable and will see that it's his style. But it won't be like the last movie, either."

Many say Shyamalan makes horror films, but they're wrong. His movies are existential versions of The Twilight Zone. Sixth Sense is about a man who gains a sense of peace after disappointment because he helps someone. Once he realizes where he is and how he got there, the cloudy becomes clear. Shyamalan's creative journey mirrors that of his protagonist; he has to go somewhere else to connect with answers.

When he does, he produces work that is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. "He puts so much care into every shot," says Leonard Maltin, movie critic and historian for TV's Entertainment Tonight. "Nothing is there by accident. That's why it works so well. There are no MTV-style editing tricks. It isn't built on the foundation of a soundtrack to sell CDs. It draws upon the most fundamental -- one might say old-fashioned -- sense of telling a story. It's everything Hollywood doesn't want."

In writing and directing Unbreakable, again teaming up with Willis, Shyamalan continues to explore the unknown. "We talk about instinct in this movie and the development of that instinct," Shyamalan says. "Both movies are about something nagging you in the back of your head, and bringing it to the forefront with clarity."

Oddly enough, he arrives at his quiet place of clarity when playing those nocturnal basketball games in the old high school gym. On the court, he feels isolated, within a moment where he scores over and over again.

It's as if the players' faces wash away and Shyamalan can sense in advance how each will react. "You're not thinking about whether the ball is going into the hoop," he says. "It just is. In basketball, I'm not good enough at it to will it. It just happens or it doesn't."

Then Shyamalan writes, and will takes over.

He's in his home office. He turns on soft classical music. He gets into a leather chair. (He can afford one now.) There is inspiration on the walls: three posters of Spielberg movies, Jaws, E.T. and Jurassic Park. "The three No. 1 films of all time in three different decades by the same man," he says. "Quite an achievement." There are no windows. He just sits. Slowly, he blocks out everything. He can stay like this for hours. When the scene is realized, he goes to the computer and writes.

With Sixth Sense, he had only begun to tap into this process. With Unbreakable, he went there at will: A train wrecks. Bruce Willis is the sole survivor. He escapes without a scratch. How? "Some people who have seen it say it reinvents the action movie," Shyamalan says. "That's because there's no label for it. Your heart pounds, but there are no car chases. Nothing blows up. No one gets shot."

Shyamalan is more interested in humankind. And possibilities. "What is your potential? That's what this movie is about. Obviously, it comes from my own life, with people's expectations."

The next Spielberg. Shyamalan hears this a lot. It's frightening.

"Someone comes up to you after a train wreck and says, 'I believe you are something special.' Do you believe it? What happens when you find out whether it's false? Or true?"

You survive career disasters, then craft a work with vision and humanity. Its success salvages you. People conclude you are special. They believe you can see things that others cannot.

Can you?

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Stephen Covey on recharging creativity

When you hit that intellectual wall at work or home, there are all sorts of ways to refuel your creative instincts, according to USA WEEKEND Contributing Editor Stephen Covey, author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People":

• "Focus on the rewarding ends, not the troublesome means: Walk away from the PC or that home project and focus on your ultimate goal. Try going to sleep immediately after visualizing that outcome, with faith that you will achieve it. Often, when I do this, I wake up the next day with a clear solution."
• "Lean on someone you trust: Good colleagues and mentors give you honest feedback about why you're failing. In a creative rut, you're trapped in a box. People who don't provide unearned praise will shake you out of your comfort zone. If you don't see the big picture, they can help you frame it. When I get too weighty and ponderous in a speech, for example, my wife will flash signals, like 'Tell a joke!' "
• "Change venue and invigorate: Jog, walk or read a book. Let the physical departure from the scene of frustrated progress recharge your thinking. When I go swimming, I'm amazed at how much better I revise my books in my mind."
• "Watch an inspiring movie: I like movies that convey a sense of noble purpose. I watch, lose myself in the theme, and suddenly my subconscious runs wild with new ideas. Remember the Titans did that for me. It inspires teamwork. It demonstrates how to accomplish seemingly impossible goals."