Bruce Willis plays Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a successful child therapist/psychologist who, in the beginning of the movie, has his life altered after one of his former patients breaks into his house, shoots him in the stomach and then commits suicide in front of Crowe and his wife. The movie fades out and we return to Dr. Crowe, embarking on a new project with 9-year old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) that he believes will vindicate his previous failure. From then on, The Sixth Sense leads its viewer through a genuinely interesting relationship between Dr. Crowe and Cole, where, at the price of losing his relationship with his wife, Crowe finds out that Cole is haunted by his ability to see dead people roaming around in his everyday world. In the last five minutes of the movie, it is revealed that Dr. Crowe was killed in the first scene with his former patient, and that he has been interacting with Cole as a ghost for the entire movie.
"I was deceived, damnit." - Rene Descartes (hypothetically, during the "twist" of 'The Sixth Sense')
Descartes, in his first meditation, reflects on the nature of deception, specifically noting its unavoidability. He writes that, "If however, it is contrary to [God's] goodness to have made me such that I constantly deceive myself, it would also appear to be contrary to His goodness to permit me to be sometimes deceived, and nevertheless I cannot doubt that He does permit this." Because our reading did not cover the Cartesian Circle (Descartes' uber-criticized proof that clear and distinct perception is possible because of God, and God is possible because of clear and distinct perception) and because its extremely complicated and (although it might apply) I can't say that I would be surefooted using it to review The Sixth Sense, I would like instead to focus on the last sentence of Meditation VI:
"But Because the exigencies of action often oblige us to make up our minds before having leisure to examine matters carefully, we must confess that the life of man is very frequently subject to error in respect to individual objects, and we must in the end acknowledge the infirmity of our nature."
Paraphrased: "Because our everyday life moves quickly, we can be deceived."
Within the context of the movie, this seems especially pertinent. Did I realize that after the first scene, in which Dr. Crowe is shot and killed, he never once carries on a two-sided conversation with his wife? Of course not, because I was too busy following the plot of the movie. I remember thinking it was odd that Dr. Crowe seemingly had all of his time available to devote to Cole, but it seemed reasonable given the illustration of the psychologist as successful (he receives an award at the movie's commencement) and the subsequent shock that he had failed one of his former patients. It would be wrong for me to say I had no clue that Dr. Crowe was dead for the majority of the movie; in fact, the thing that makes the movie special is that there were clues. After a successful plot twist, the one deceived goes through the dizzying process of rethinking every scene prior with their new knowledge. It is in the nature of the twist that some truth can be found.
Shyamalan's deception seems like it would be harder to pull off in writing. Walter Benjamin wrote about how the mechanical reproducibility of art, in changing the quantity of art that we consume, has changed the qualities of how we consume it. In terms of visual art, it seems as though people are more inclined to get sucked into a film's superficial qualities before they can truly discuss its more important questions. Discussions about a movie always happen after the credits have rolled; in accordance with what Descartes wrote, there simply isn't enough time to think about each scene without missing parts of the movie. Therefore, it makes sense how one could be tricked so easily by The Sixth Sense. In this case, the deception is actually enjoyable, but the experience certainly illustrates Descartes' point: we are always susceptible to being decieved.
This notion that human beings enjoy deception is a theme explored indirectly through the nature of the plot of this film, and more blatantly in The Prestige (Cutter talks about how the audiences isn't really looking for the secret of a trick). It certainly brings to mind for me the question of practical observation and application of these philosophies. If human beings indeed to prefer deception, what does this mean for our participation in our own world? On a grand metaphysical level, trying to discern whether what we are experiencing is real or not is impractical. Less even than that matter, though, how little do we actually pay attention to our surroundings in comparison to our own personal 'plots'? I think your attention to your experience as a viewer is very poignant, and certainly has me thinking about these philosophies interaction with my life.
ReplyDeleteThe distinction you bring up about movies being more effective vehicles for deception than books is correct, I believe. However, I think it's not only due to the faster, unchanging pace of movies (you can read a book at any speed), but also due to the overload of information present in a movie compared to a written work. In a movie, much like life, it's easy to overlook a small yet significant element while you're distracted by dialogue, sudden noises, and rapidly camera movement. Moreover, even the most practiced eye would be unable to recognize all the elements of a scene as significant since many of them will prove to be merely facets of the scenery. In a book, however, the reader naturally assumes that everything the author writes is of importance, and therefore uses more scrutiny when presented with a new setting or description.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think it's false to assume that it would be beneficial for humans to recognize all minute aspects of their scenery, whether in real life or movies, and pay them all the same amount of attention. The ability to quickly discern which details of a scenario are relevant and dismiss the others is what makes us able to operate at such a high level of thought, and in fact is what makes us human. Without an ability to discriminate with such a "top-down" style of processing our surroundings our minds would be bulging with raw data and unable to make any sense of it. The mind's true value comes from its ability to pluck meaning from an overload of sensory stimuli, not in its ability to take note of every aspect of a scene.
Although I agree with the idea that we have a "top down" process for prioritizing our surroundings, I am not sold on movies being the best or most effective modem for deception. Perhaps some movies are better at it than some books, but I think that is not a critique on books but rather a compliment of the movie. That is what makes a good movie good or good book good. For instance, over winter break I read the mystery novel "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett. Although it is a shorter book, about 200 pages, I finished it in one day because I could not set it down. The entire time I was trying to figure out who the "good guys" were and so on and so forth. At the end of the novel, I was surprised (or deceived if you will) on many different levels. Continuing the discussion of "top down" processing, I find that once again, no difference lies between good movies and good books. In high school I read "The Portrait of Dorian Grey" by Oscar WIlde. There are so many different layers to that novel, that the first time through you understand the more "top down" approach, which is the plot line. Then you can go back and look at the diction that Wilde uses and how it creates mood and imagery. To sum up my point again, books can be just as deceiving as movies.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your point about the deception of this film being enjoyable - for some weird reason it's fun to sit back and think about all of the hints (as disturbingly obvious as they might be) we overlooked in the heat of the moment. I hadn't watched this movie since I was a "tween", and it was enthralling to see how obvious it sometimes was that Dr. Crowe was a ghost. Isn't it kind of weird that this is fun for us? Deception has such a negative connotation, yet it was so amusing in this case. I wonder what that says about us, that realizing we're capable of being so easily led astray doesn't terrify us or make us feel oblivious - it's entertaining! I'm wondering where the line between "bad" deception and "fun" deception is drawn. Is it when our inability to see the truth actually hurts us rather than entertains us for an hour and a half, or is it all bad?
ReplyDeleteYour blog post not only points out the deception that is inherent in any plot twist, but also nicely ties it in with the way that Descartes explores the concept in his meditations. While I do think that your point more accurately lends itself to Husserl's phenomenology and the everyday mode of being, I think that You picked up well on the fact that Descartes might have something equally explicative to say about the 6th sense. I think Descartes would agree with you that deception by a devil or by a director gets at the same point: how can we know we're not being tricked? I think in this film it comes in the form of the fact that we know the film itself is real, just as we know that we are real as long as we are thinking what we do not know is if someone is fooling us through the film or through our thoughts. But, that is not the important point for Descartes. The most important point he attempts to bring out in that line of though, and what your review nicely parallels, is the notion that we cannot be fooled into thinking the film, or ourselves does not exist, and even better we can have certain knowledge that they do even in spite of any possible deception concerning their details.
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