Saw Shutter Island.
WARNED BE YE: BELOW THAR BE SPOILERS
WARNED BE YE: BELOW THAR BE SPOILERS
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
So even though I warned you, I'm not here to specifically discuss what happens at the end.
Instead, I wanted to talk about something this movie made me think of: the art of the twist. Knowing this flick has a twist is just about enough to spoil it for you. It did for me at about 20 minutes in.
I think there are two keys to having a successful twist in a story:
1) Don't lie to your audience to try to convince them there's no twist.
2) Don't lower the stakes with your reveal.
You could argue about the first point with this movie. The second, though, it pretty clearly broke. We go from a far-reaching conspiracy involving Machurian Candidate-type experiments and potentially hundreds of lives intertwined with a war story, to one dude's fevered delusion. The whole movie up to this point was, basically, a dream. Now, instead of the more significant story, we're helping a single crazy guy deal with his problems. And if he doesn't, well, that sucks. And if he does, well, that's good. I guess.
Fight Club is generally considered to have a successful twist, I think, because when we get the big reveal, everything still matters. No scene is invalidated - only shown under a new perspective. And all of the events surrounding the twist are still happening. Buildings are still blowing up. If anything, the stakes are higher because now this is all on the main character's head instead of Tyler Durden's.
The Sixth Sense also has a pretty good twist for the same reasons. Shyamalamadingdong's later movie, The Village, falls into at least one of the traps I described above. First we're hearing a mystery story about the strange traditions this village practices to protect themselves from the clearly supernatural, occult forces that surround them. Lives, possibly souls, are at stake. But it turns out they're actually just Amish. All of the tension from earlier in the movie is false, because there was no real danger, and the stakes are, again, lowered. No lives are at stake. There is nothing supernatural going on.
I know it seems like an awfully subjective measurement, and maybe you could argue the opposite position for each of these movies, but right now it seems to make sense to me. Seems like it'd be a good rule of thumb for film makers and writers to keep in mind, anyway.
Instead, I wanted to talk about something this movie made me think of: the art of the twist. Knowing this flick has a twist is just about enough to spoil it for you. It did for me at about 20 minutes in.
I think there are two keys to having a successful twist in a story:
1) Don't lie to your audience to try to convince them there's no twist.
2) Don't lower the stakes with your reveal.
You could argue about the first point with this movie. The second, though, it pretty clearly broke. We go from a far-reaching conspiracy involving Machurian Candidate-type experiments and potentially hundreds of lives intertwined with a war story, to one dude's fevered delusion. The whole movie up to this point was, basically, a dream. Now, instead of the more significant story, we're helping a single crazy guy deal with his problems. And if he doesn't, well, that sucks. And if he does, well, that's good. I guess.
Fight Club is generally considered to have a successful twist, I think, because when we get the big reveal, everything still matters. No scene is invalidated - only shown under a new perspective. And all of the events surrounding the twist are still happening. Buildings are still blowing up. If anything, the stakes are higher because now this is all on the main character's head instead of Tyler Durden's.
The Sixth Sense also has a pretty good twist for the same reasons. Shyamalamadingdong's later movie, The Village, falls into at least one of the traps I described above. First we're hearing a mystery story about the strange traditions this village practices to protect themselves from the clearly supernatural, occult forces that surround them. Lives, possibly souls, are at stake. But it turns out they're actually just Amish. All of the tension from earlier in the movie is false, because there was no real danger, and the stakes are, again, lowered. No lives are at stake. There is nothing supernatural going on.
I know it seems like an awfully subjective measurement, and maybe you could argue the opposite position for each of these movies, but right now it seems to make sense to me. Seems like it'd be a good rule of thumb for film makers and writers to keep in mind, anyway.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
I can't read the spoiler because I haven't seen the movie yet, but would you recommend it?