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.
