Going Round In Circles
Film Review
By Rhonda Karp and Terry Richards

Rhonda Karp and Terry Richards go behind the scenes of Mel Gibson's and Sixth Sense director M Night Shyamalan's latest scare-filled movie

Everything that farmer Graham Hess (played by Mel Gibson) assumed about the world is radically altered when he discovers a strange pattern of circles and lines carved into his crops. He begins to investigate but isn't ready for what he discovers — and neither are his brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) nor his two children...

For writer and director M Night Shyamalan, the pressure to follow two hit movies, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, with another must have been immense, but the 31-year-old almost shrugs the suggestion off.

"Someone asked me that yesterday, and they asked it in the form of, 'Do you feel pressure coming off your last two movies?' I said, 'Well, you know, see Sixth Sense does unbelievably well and Unbreakable is a solid hi, and so I do feel pressure but what would be the other side? What if they had both failed and I felt the pressure coming off that too!'" Shyamalan laughs. "I don't know what scenario I wouldn't feel some kind of expectation from [Signs] but I think that the thing I put on myself that's difficult is that I want to compete. I don't know if I'm phrasing it correctly, but I chose to compete against Men in Black II and Spider-Man and all that stuff in the summer, and then go and compete against Gangs of New York [stet] and all that stuff in the fall. That's how I want to make a movie: with two sides. You know, the ability to compete with the most artistic, but also entertaining. [This] ride is as strong as any ride that's out there. That's why August was and is the perfect month for me to release movies [in the US] because it's that hybrid month. I can play that summer movie thing and then, it turns into a fall movie — if it has that ability. That was the benefit of The Sixth Sense and we're getting a chance to do it again.

Shyamalan began thinking about his next film project while still at work on the post-production of Unbreakable. The prolific writer and director has developed his own process of filtering and refining his ideas. He explains: "It used to be, 'Oh, I have a good idea, I am going to write that now.' Now there are like eight levels to my decision making." He has come to measure his scripts with certain criteria: "An idea has to have meaning, suspense, emotion and humanity. It has to have a universal message that everyone can relate to, whether they're in India, Japan, or Philadelphia."

One of the key ingredients was Shyamalan's attraction to "the beauty, the grandeur and the mystique" of crop circles. "They are really just a platform from which the movie springs," he explains, "but it is a phenomenon that has always intrigued me as a subject."

Although the subject of the origins of circles has provoked fierce debate, it was the possibility that they could be otherworldly that appealed to the director. "For me, supernatural things are all metaphors for the human story." They serve as devices for "testing people and finding out what people are made of and getting people to say what they need to say to their loved ones. It's a kind of costume to reveal what's true about the movie.

"Supernatural movies kind of have a disclaimer in the beginning to say none of this is real, wink, wink. But I try not to do the wink, wink." He aims to delve as deeply as possible into what the actual journey would be for someone under bizarre circumstances — "What if this really happened? What would you feel?" — and ultimately distil from the story the emotional truth.

His love of the spooky and bizarre doesn't stop him adding a few lighter moments in his movies. "I remember when I wrote that jewellery scene in The Sixth Sense where the couple are buying the ring, people were like, 'What is this scene on paper?' I was like, 'This scene is really funny!' They were like, 'Really?!' I remember that the local casting guy who was trying to cast it, he would put people on there, and he was like, 'I have to be honest, this isn't funny,' and I go, 'It's funny. You're just not getting the right performances. We're not getting the right actors.' Finally, in the first preview screening and all the crew, I guess, were secretly mocking me behind my back. When the crowd burst out laughing, they all looked at me and I'm like, 'Yeah, what?'

"That type of real life, subtle humour that just allows you to release tension is really fun and I didn't do hardly any of it in Unbreakable. It was something that I really wanted to do in this movie."

To best tell the story of this family and the intense experience they live through as a group and individually, the cast required exceptional chemistry with each other and commitment to the story. Shyamalan says he felt "really lucky" to find actors who were truly dedicated to challenging themselves. "Actors have to believe in the screenplay," he notes. "That sounds silly, but people can be doing it for a paycheck or whatever it is, but not necessarily because they believe in the storytelling and the story that's being told. And until I see the look in the actor's eyes like, I got this. I would do this for nothing, I can't give them the part."

That level of interest was no problem for Mel Gibson, who was drawn to the complexity of the script. "It's not something you come to the realization of straight away because it's constructed very nicely," he says. "There is a lot of mystery involved and that of course makes you want to look further. It keeps you in long enough, until the pieces start to come together and you start to understand the characters in stages, which is great, because in real life you usually learn about people in bits and pieces. There was something very real about it. And it was the kind of project I hadn't done before."

"Mel was great," says Shyamalan on his lead star. "It's an amazing experience to work with your dream cast. The idea of casting these guys in these roles is so that it's challenging for them; they can show a different colour and be restrained. These guys are world-class actors, and I want to see that again.

Gibson's role of Graham Hess, a man with strength as well as vulnerability, calls upon many qualities for which Gibson has become known but it also reveals newer sides to him as an actor. Although he is one of the world's biggest movie stars, Gibson brings an Everyman quality to the role.

"It's a film about spirituality and belief and faith," says Gibson. "Graham is an Episcopalian minister who seems very insistent and stubbornly opposed to the idea of anyone called him Father. And you soon realize that he is someone who has serious doubts. He has been shut down by a devastating life experience. It's not clear at the beginning of the film what has happened, but you sense it from his behaviour and you find out the exact nature of his wounds as the story unfolds."

The bizarre appearance of the crop circles on the farm would be unnerving for anyone, Gibson continues, "but the situation already has its own built-in tensions for reasons we don't understand until later."

When asked what frightens him, Gibson answers, "I think the fear of the unknown, there the possibilities in your imagination can blow up any horror. Your imagination can be pretty horrifying. Knowledge dispels fear. So when you come up against something you're not quite sure about or don't know fully (that can cause great fear). When you're in the middle of an experience there's not so much fear involved. It's the expectation of what might happen that you're fearful of. That's usually the way stuff works. I've been in situations where I thought, 'Man, I'd be terrified if that ever happened.' But when it does, you're not terrified. You're just reacting. It's really the expectation that's scary.

"I don't know if I believe in little green men coming out of the woodwork to eat you or befriend you or make the universe a [better] place. I do believe in a realm outside our own that's pretty difficult. I think everybody's had an experience that's hard to explain exactly what it is, but it's otherworldly somehow."

Signs started production just two days after the horrific events of September 11 and it had a massive impact on the filming. "There was a stunned reaction from everyone," says Gibson. "No one could quite believe it. Everyone was in a little bit of state of shock, but we only realized it in retrospect. It's odd — and I don't mean to be mercenary about this — but the character I played, when I thought about him, is a guy in a state of shock, at the beginnings of a breakdown, who has this thick exterior on top of him. Cherry Jones [playing Officer Caroline Paski, who has a bond with the family because of her presence during some crucial moments in their history] had just come from New York, and she was reeling. It somehow translated into her performance. There was no escaping the pall that came over all of us. It was there. It was part of us."

Shyamalan has had small roles in his previous films and in Signs he takes on his greatest acting challenge to date, with the key role of neighbour Ray Reddy. "There is not a lot of screen time, but it is a fairly important part," says Shyamalan. "It scares me, and the things that scare me I definitely want to do." Gibson gives Shyamalan high marks as an actor: "He has a very good understanding of demonstration in front of a camera. He only did it for like one day, and he had a couple of warm up takes, then a better one and a better one. Then he sort of hit it. Take five was fantastic."

But what about as a director. Did the two acclaimed directors ever butt heads?

"I don't remember any kind of dispute, ever," insists Gibson of Shyamalan. "I was impressed by his brilliance. To actually cook up the idea and write it so eloquently and craft it so wonderfully in the script and then execute it with absolute certainty and precision left me very little room to ever have any kind of dispute or go to loggerheads. It just wasn't happening. I was just kind of amazed at what he was doing. We did talk about stuff. It was really interesting yakking to him and getting his observations about things. I'd throw my two cents in. We'd have disagreements about the future of digital [film-making]. That was interesting. He may be right about that, too. As a director, he's kind of like the truth police, and from an actor's point of view that's great. He'll bust you if he's not getting something truthful all the time. He's a completely objective pair of eyes out there watching everything, down to the minutiae. He has a very clear and strong vision and he has a way of communicating his vision to you that is quite understandable. You can pick up on it pretty fast. And then there's this other aspect to him that's undefinable. It's oddly spiritual. Films do three things if they're really great. They entertain, they educate, and they take you to a higher plane of existence or spirituality of reaching outside your own realm. And I believe that he's done that with this film."

Puerto Rican-born Joaquin Phoenix met with Night Shyamalan in a New York restaurant about the role of Graham's younger brother Merrill. "I asked him what the film was called and he said Signs. And he described it at first how it is the appearance of crop circles on the family farm. And then as I read the script, the metaphor became clear to me. That's kind of Night's expertise in a way. He brings you these authentic characters and yet they have these amazing epiphanies about themselves and the world but it's something with which everyone can identify."

Merrill Hess, who lives with his brother and niece and nephew, is also harbouring his own melancholy, much of which seems to stem from his failed career as an athlete. Joaquin Phoenix explains: "Merrill holds the minor league home run record, and on the other hand he holds the strike-out record. And that conflict in a sense weighs heavily on him.

It wasn't hard for him to jump on board when he was offered the script. "It was just one of those movies where there's so many things. You know, Night's films, I love. I'd seen Sixth Sense, it was very cool and I liked it very much. [He's] the kind of director where you see his work and you go, 'If he ever wants me for anything, I'll probably just do it.'" He laughs. "I don't know what it is, but on top of that kind of confidence in him as a director, I get this screenplay which is just perfect, and I don't think that I've ever read a script that's so well paced. The characters are defined, it's very clear. His intentions, the laughs, the scares are in the right place. Those were two biggies. Mel Gibson, that's another huge one. That's all I really need, three! I just need three things to sign on. That's it!"

Two of the most important roles in the movie are from the two child actors, Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin, and the cast and director have plenty of praise for them.

"Kids are always great to work with," says Mel Gibson, "because they are pure and they come to it clean. And Joaquin is just a terrific young actor. Doing scenes with him, he feeds you a lot. He gives so much. You can only give it back."

Phoenix adds, "The kids are the greatest kids in the world. We had lots of fun and Abigail and I had endless bouts of thumb war, which she won all of the time. I tell myself she's double jointed and she has an advantage. Rory entertained everyone with his James Brown impersonation. They were so easy to get along with and unbelievably professional, and I was totally jealous of their abilities as actors and tried desperately to get them fired," he laughs. "Actually, I wanted to work with kids and I'd like to play a father like most lame actors like me do. It was kind of as close as I was going to get and it was a good opportunity to work with them. There was definitely a sense of family on set."

Phoenix continues: "There is a great sense of camaraderie, for a number of reasons. Night has a wonderful energy about him. And that rubs off on everybody." But especially, says Phoenix, "Mel is just an inspiration. He just has such drive and passion for his work. Films can be difficult to make. There are times when you are on the same set for a week, doing what will ultimately be a minute of screen time. It's hard to keep that energy alive. But Mel comes on set and he is a force. He has a wonderful sense of humour and I think people are really going to be impressed with his work in the film and the character."

Signs opens on September 13.

CLOSE WINDOW