What M. Night doesn’t get
By Tom Teicholz at 2 June, 2008, 10:00 am
There is an article in today’s New York Times where M. Night tries to repair some of the damage done surrounding “Lady in the Lake,” his last movie which performed abysmally.
He goes on about his maverick qualities and how he hasn’t sold out – blah, blah blah.
Part of what M. Night fails to say (and perhaps fails to recognize ), is the reason that the collective schadenfreude of Hollywood has grown as his last projects performed poorly, is that he fails to acknowledge that studio and development executives have any talent, purpose or can add anything to his work.
Let me analogize: as a print journalist , I work with editors and although some of them I grumble about, others have improved and do improve what I write, that goes for editors making suggestions for new subjects to write about, to asking questions about what I’ve written that force me to reassess or clarify my thinking and my writing, to line editing and the work of copy editors.
The notion that Studio execs, producers and development execs — professionals who have read thousands of scripts and have watched and studied thousands of movies and have some experience with what has worked and what doesn’t — can add value and improve his work or at least serve as a sounding board — is not something that M. Night acknowledges. Night thinks it is all him, him, him. And his poor showings recently at the box office are, appropriately, to be blamed on him.
I remember when “The Sixth Sense” was a spec script, No one, including its producer Barry Mendel, knew if the film would work. They gave M. Night a chance. He needs to realize that, in fact, he doesn’t work alone.
No comments yet.