Split represents a shift in tone from your previous thrillers. It’s nastier and more in your face while still maintaining your signature atmosphere of mystery. The comedy is darker too like in The Visit. Do you think this represents an evolution in style? Or is it more a case of adapting to modern sensibilities? Or something else entirely?
M. Night Shyamalan: It’s my instincts to go here, this kind of darker, more visceral stuff but juxtaposing that with the emotion and really using humor to be the bridge here and keep it buoyant. This dark humor is really, really interesting to me right now and you can see it in both movies, The Visit and Split.
I don’t know if this is valid, but it’s just my feeling about everything – when I make the movies at a smaller budget, I feel I’m allowed to do that, to take chances with tone. In case I’ve ostracized people, at least I’m not being financially irresponsible.
Ironically to what you said, and I believe this, it might have actually gained me a larger audience in hindsight because it’s visceral and truthful and electric to watch and it doesn’t feel like other movies. The hope is that if you’re following your voice specifically it becomes more powerful.
I want to talk about flashbacks!
M. Night Shyamalan: Yeah! I love them.
Well, sometimes they can be considered a dirty word in screenwriting classes but in films like Unbreakable, Signs and Split they work to the film’s advantage adding to the emotional core of the story. Can you speak a little on how you go about incorporating flashback sequences into your scripts?
M. Night Shyamalan: I’ve always heard that about screenwriting. Don’t use flashbacks as a crutch. I guess I didn’t learn that lesson well because I didn’t understand what the negative of it was. You mentioned a whole bunch of movies. In Signs, not only do I use it but I use it in the climax.
For me, if you go under the premise that making a thriller is about withholding information, inherently flashbacks are a wonderful way to gain information for the audience at the correct times as the characters are reflecting and you’re catching up.
Like, why is Casey’s character acting like this in Split? There’s a mystery in the flashbacks that’s growing to an answer as to why she is like this and then that culminates in the foreground story. I find it a very powerful tool of disseminating information in the format of a thriller where the withholding of information is your litmus test for tone.
So what’s next? With Tales from the Crypt, Wayward Pines and just the explosion of horror/thrillers on TV over the last 5 or 6 years – is that where you see your career going, or are there some new features on the horizon?
M. Night Shyamalan: Well no, my day job is filmmaker for theaters. That’s definitely who I am. I’ll be last man standing in that artform, obviously. I just came out of a meeting talking about TV. I was like, “let’s talk about the philosophy. Why are we doing it? Why do we do it?” Always ask yourself these internal questions to make sure you’re not walking down a path that you’re not aware of why you’re walking down it.
With TV, it’s a way to tell stories to the audience in between each of these two year movies and they’re longer form, too, so I get to tell different types of stories. I also get to work with writers and directors who I love and get to meet and learn from and help them. Which is different from my movies, which are very lonely. It’s a very myopic kind of thing, especially the way I make them in Philly and all that stuff. I really do like being around people and so that part of it is really cool.
I do think you can reach a different audience with that group because there are certain people that don’t go to the movies. They watch TV and hopefully you can reach a wider audience with your storytelling. TV is so character-driven and that’s such a joy for a writer-director.
That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank M. Night very much for his time. Be sure to check out Split as it’s now playing in theatres everywhere!
