The Sixth Sense (1999)
Prior to March 4th, 2018, when debuting writer-director Jordan Peele's socially conscious sci-fi horror groundbreaker, Get Out, took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (in addition to being nominated for three other awards: Picture, Actor (Daniel Kaluuya), and Director (Peele), the Academy had all but turned a blind eye to the art of the genre for every horror movie produced in the 21st century. The last entry to have received any recognition was M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, which made it into the 21st century due to its release in 1999. While it didn't walk away with any golden statuettes, The Sixth Sense was righteously nominated in six prestigious categories: Best Picture, Best Director and Original Screenplay (Shyamalan), Best Supporting Actor (Haley Joel Osment), Best Supporting Actress (Toni Collette), and Best Editor (Andrew Mondshein). (Although, how they managed to miss Bruce Willis for Best Actor remains a baffling mystery.) It is also only one of five horror films to have ever been nominated for Best Picture, following The Exorcist, Jaws, and The Silence of the Lambs, and preceding the aforementioned Get Out. To date, the only entry to have claimed this highest honor is Jonathan Demme's Lambs. And while some may consider Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan a horror movie (in which case, that also won an Oscar: Best Actress for Natalie Portman), I personally consider it more of a psychological drama, barely a thriller.
I will concede that if only one horror film in history could take home the gold for Best Picture, I'm grateful it was Demme's 1991 psychological slasher masterpiece, but in terms of striking a pitch-perfect balance between horror and heartfelt human emotion, The Sixth Sense is a close second. In fact, I would argue that in its exploration of human psychology and the universal need for communication and love, what Shyamalan has delivered is even more aggressively moving and powerful. To put it mildly, Shyamalan's career as a filmmaker has been uneven. Considering how far he's strayed from the artistry and emotional heights of this 1999 classic, it almost seems like the person who crafted The Sixth Sense is an entirely different one from the person who made the vapid, lazy, emotionally hollow, unintentional comedy The Happening. While I can't profess to having seen all of the director's movies, judging by the Tomato-meter scores, which vary wildly from a terrific 79% (Split) to a bottom-of-the-barrel 5% (The Last Airbender), it's hard to tell if Shyamalan is simply the most notoriously inconsistent filmmaker on the planet, or secretly a genius who likes to set our expectations super low so he can blow us away with another unexpected success.
Either way, while The Sixth Sense isn't the only quality horror film Shyamalan has produced (Signs and Split are both good), it remains the best to date, as well as the pinnacle of his ongoing career as a filmmaker. No matter how far up on the rollercoaster of quality he goes, there's little to no chance he'll ever be able to recreate or surpass the magic he created with The Sixth Sense, a poignant, powerfully moving love story wrapped in the packaging of a bump-in-the-night, bone-chilling ghost story. Much like The Silence of the Lambs, in which there was a good deal of female mutilations and monstrous activity afoot, The Sixth Sense is first and foremost a character study of two psychologically troubled characters brought together by their mutual need for human connection. The relationship that develops between child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) and nine-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) is reminiscent of the one formed by psychiatrist-turned-cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) and FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster). Of course, that's a fairly extreme comparison to make. Apart from Crowe and Lecter both having worked in psychiatry at one point in time, one didn't become a cannibalistic serial killer. However, in both relationships, each member helps the other in some way. If the unorthodox, fascinatingly complex student-mentor bond between Hannibal and Clarice is the stuff of movie legends, Malcolm and Cole's gradually loving doctor-patient relationship is the most purely beautiful. In the end, both characters have left a life-altering impact on each other, both have helped each other communicate to the person who means the most to them, and what begins as a series of strained sessions between child and psychologist develops into a surrogate father-son relationship. The Sixth Sense is the most tearfully moving horror film I've seen in my entire soon-to-be-26-year-old life.
Less than a month ago, I published my first list for this blog, a top 10 roundup of the best opening scenes in horror history. I had spent over a month composing it, and it blows my own mind that I somehow neglected to celebrate the opening scene of The Sixth Sense. If I believed in circling back to previous, published posts, I would swap out the opening of It for this. While an alien clown menacing a little girl from behind a curtain in broad daylight may be more nightmarish in a traditional sense, Shyamalan commences his masterpiece with something more atmospheric, suspenseful, patient, cleverly restrained, and ultimately tragic.
Anna Crowe (Olivia Williams), Malcolm's adoring wife, heads down into their dimly lit basement to extract a bottle of wine to celebrate Malcolm receiving an award from the mayor for his outstanding achievement in child psychology. Turning around, she feels an inexplicable presence and hugs her arms to her chest, shivering. No one or thing is anywhere in sight, but the uncanny feeling of a presence lurking in the room, heightened by the near-darkness save a single light bulb, saturates the scene in palpable dread. Anna runs up the stairs, mimicking the action we would take ourselves. As Malcolm and Anna sit on the couch and stare lovingly at the expensive frame holding Malcolm's certificate, they begin to kiss and become heated, strengthened by the wine.
They relocate to the bedroom and sexily strip off their clothing. However, the mood of quiet, celebratory romance is instantly curdled into one of terror as Malcolm and Anna look down and see their telephone mangled on the floor, in company with broken shards of glass from the window. Suddenly, a shadow moves past the wall, and Anna lets out a scream as she and Malcolm quickly turn around. Ever the alpha male, Malcolm gets in front of Anna and slowly makes his way toward the bathroom. Cinematographer Takashi Fujimoto (Demme's cameraman for The Silence of the Lambs - Am I the only one just now making these connections?) skulks toward the doorway, prolonging the buildup to the reveal and ratcheting an excruciating sense of heart-stopping apprehension in the process. Standing to the left of the bathroom is a skeletal, disturbed young man clothed only in his underwear, holding a hand to his arm and looking down like a frightened child who's just committed a horrible offense. Calmly and quietly, Malcolm explains to the man that he's just broken a window and entered a private residence, and that he doesn't own any drugs. The man begins to cry and asks, "Do you know why you're afraid when you're alone? I do. I do." He reveals himself as a former patient of Crowe's, and after he divulges aspects of his background -- a child of divorce diagnosed with a possible mood disorder -- and calls himself a "freak," Malcolm recognizes him as Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg). "What do you want?" Anna asks. "What he promised me!" Vincent shouts, accusing Malcolm of having failed him. Wahlberg is only present in this single scene, but he dominates it and leaves an unforgettable impression, painting a blood-freezing portrait of a broken, emotionally stunted man haunted by internal demons too powerful to overcome. As Malcolm tries to reason with Vincent and apologize for his perceived failure, Vincent turns around, picks up a gun, and casually fires a bullet into Malcolm's stomach. He then places the gun to his temple, and as Fujimoto pans to the left, we hear a second gunshot. Malcolm collapses on his bed and clutches his stomach, and Anna runs to his aid, holding her hands over his wound. It's a chilling opening for reasons dissimilar to those of a conventional one, demonstrating the long-term effects of unresolved childhood trauma and the price of unearned fame.
The story transitions to the following fall in South Philadelphia. Malcolm is shown to have apparently survived and recovered from that traumatizing night, and is tasked with caring for a nine-year-old boy named Cole Sear. Cole shares similar characteristics to Vincent: he comes from a single-parent family, is quiet and withdrawn, suffers from acute anxiety and possibly a mood disorder. At first, Cole is extremely reticent and skeptical that Malcolm can help him. After noticing a series of cuts on Cole's forearm, Malcolm begins to think he's being abused. As the two begin spending more time together, Cole discloses the secret he's been harboring his entire life: he possesses the sixth sense of seeing dead people. "In your dreams?" an initially disbelieving Malcolm asks. "In graves, coffins?" "Walking around like regular people," Cole answers. "They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead." While Malcolm is sympathetic to Cole's fear and genuine belief in the perception of ghosts, his first instinct is that Cole is suffering from a form of "grade-school schizophrenia" and may need to be medicated or committed. However, after diving into some old archives and replaying a tape of a session he conducted with Vincent as a child, Malcolm comes to the shocking realization that Cole's claim isn't the result of a delusion after all. Refusing to abandon his patient, but admittedly unable to share in his visions, Malcolm formulates a plan to help Cole cope with his sixth sense: rather than run away from these scary-looking ghosts, listen to them.
Meanwhile, when Malcolm isn't devoting his time to helping this poor, frightened child, his home life is systematically crumbling before his eyes. Anna seems to resent the excessive amount of time her husband is spending with this one patient, and feels abandoned. As a result, their marriage has become incredibly strained. They barely speak to each other, despite Malcolm's earnest attempts, and by his own admission, they've become more like strangers occupying the same house. Making matters worse, Anna is receiving increasingly more visitations from her co-worker at the jewelry store she works at, leading Malcom to believe she's in the early stages of an affair.
While The Sixth Sense explores the interior, deeply unsettled lives of four characters in total -- Malcolm, Cole, Anna, and Cole's mother, Lynn (Toni Collette) -- the central focus is undoubtedly placed on the above-mentioned first two. Not to add yet another comparison to Demme's Oscar-dominator, but screw it, I'm on a roll. Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) and Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith) were the star players of the subplot, each given satisfying development to stand apart from their more iconic prominent counterparts. Still, there's no denying that when people think of The Silence of the Lambs, the two characters who instinctively come to mind are Hannibal and Clarice, both individually and in their growing relationship. Likewise, it's Cole and Malcolm who take center stage here, and their connection is the heart and soul of The Sixth Sense. Similar to how Clarice initially meets Dr. Lecter to achieve her own goals -- discern the identity of Buffalo Bill, capture him before he kills Catherine, and ultimately advance her career in the FBI -- but ends up getting much more than she bargained for, so too does Malcolm.
His initial intention for meeting with Cole is because he was referred to him. This is Malcolm's job. He helps children, and he loves doing so. But his determination isn't limited to professional obligation. It's no coincidence that many of Cole's traits echo those of Vincent. Malcolm's physical wound may have healed in the last year, but the psychological ones it created are just as fresh and taunting as the night they were thrust upon him. Despite the fact that he received a prestigious complimentary award from the mayor (presented in an expensive frame, no less), he still harbors feelings of failure and inadequacy because he couldn't help Vincent, a desperate little boy who needed him at the most vulnerable stage of his life. Much like how Clarice was driven to save Catherine to compensate for her failure to save the screaming, defenseless lamb, Cole represents a chance at redemption for Malcolm. In his own words, he feels that if he can help this new little boy, it would feel as though he helped the other one as well. While it would be tempting to criticize this admission as on-the-nose exposition, it makes sense in the context in which it's given. Malcolm is a sensitive, open-hearted communicator, and he feels close enough with Cole to bear his soul when the time is right.
As protective and fatherly as he becomes over Cole, Malcolm never loses sight of the person closest to him: Anna. He loves his wife with all his heart, and he acknowledges that since he's started helping Cole, his attention may have shifted from her. He wants to be able to talk to her the way they used to, "like there was no one else in the world," so much so that at one point, he considers dropping Cole as a patient, explaining that bad things happen when you stop paying attention to your family. Malcolm often sits beside his wife in bed as she sleeps, or stares at her wistfully while she showers. When she's awake and available, though, he devotes his time to his work, secluding himself in his basement and reading through his notes. He's seemingly forgotten how to talk to her, and it's eating him alive, the thought of her falling into the arms of another man. By the end, Malcolm discovers a way to communicate with her, and it's all thanks to Cole.
I mentioned earlier that it's astonishing (in the worst way) how the Academy managed to overlook Bruce Willis' soulful performance as Crowe. While I fully support the acknowledgement of exquisite work turned in by child actors, truth of the matter is they have more time to grow and expand on their talents and receive their share of awards. Willis didn't have that same luxury in 1999, and considering his recent diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, an Academy Award is far beyond his grasp. If not a full-blown win, Willis was more than deserving of a Best Actor nomination. His performance is nothing short of magnificent. Without even having to say much, Willis conveys a lifetime of regret, longing, and deep-seated pain behind his world-weary eyes. It wouldn't be hard to believe Willis lived a double life as an actual child psychologist because he inhabits the mindset of one so beautifully. He's soft-spoken and extraordinarily patient, often speaking in a whisper, thinking carefully as he chooses his words before uttering them, and unafraid to add a touch of quirky humor to his interactions with Cole. In one of the earliest and most endearing conversations between the pair, Malcolm convinces Cole to open up about himself by turning it into a lighthearted mind game. He closes his eyes, puts his fingers against his temples, and makes a succession of assumptions about Cole's character. Each time he gets one right, Cole has to take one step forward to the chair across from Malcolm. If he gets it wrong, Cole takes a step back toward the doorway. If by the end he's closer to the chair, he must sit down and talk. If he's closer to the door, he's free to go. Rather than breeze through the statements, Willis takes pauses to display his process of thinking. In another scene, where Cole is sitting in the principal's office during recess for an outburst in the classroom, Malcolm performs a silly magic trick with a penny in which he simply keeps the penny in one hand the entire time, and Willis plays the scene with the requisite dorky-dad charisma and inhibition, willing to make a goof of himself. When Cole refuses to divulge information or expresses contempt, Malcolm maintains his composure and steadfastly refuses to give up. He won't make the same mistake he did years prior.
Lying behind this placid exterior, however, lies a wounded, flawed human being, and Willis captures that humanity, that reminder that just because someone is older and successful in their career, doesn't mean they're content. In scenes where he's solo, Willis is brilliantly introspective, sitting in a chair, rocking back and forth, staring at his wife, lost in thought. So many questions and concerns are flashing in his mind, reflected in his expressive face. In one of the four most moving scenes, Malcolm sits on a sofa and watches his and Anna's wedding video, where her best friend tells him that Anna knew she loved him the second she met him on the street. As she begins to break down in tears of joy for her best friend, Willis' face lights up, smiling with tears welling in his eyes. His best moments, though, are the ones in which he's paired with Osment. From the beginning of their sessions, even when Cole is uncommunicative, Willis exudes paternal warmth, compassion, and understanding. He never becomes annoyed with or indifferent to Cole's unexpressed discontent, showing an eagerness to gain insight into his young, mysterious mind. When Cole is preparing to remove the sword in his school's production of King Arthur, Willis, standing at the far end of the auditorium, stares at him with such a look of "you can do it!" love in his eyes. The play itself looks so stupid, and yet Willis makes it a heartwarming moment of validation, expressing his approval with just his eyes.
For his part, Haley Joel Osment doesn't just give the performance of his career, he sets the standard for child acting in horror movies. There's no shortage of impressive performances turned in by preteens in this particular genre. We've got Noah Wiseman in The Babadook, Gabriel Bateman in Lights Out, Talitha Bateman in Annabelle: Creation, Drew Barrymore in Firestarter, and likely plenty more. But each of them have to be measured against Osment's unsurpassable work as the boy with the titular gift/curse. When we first meet Cole, he's a short 9-year-old boy wearing oversized glasses and running, seemingly in fright, to a church, where he gathers small figurines of religious figures. He hides on the floor behind a pew, and speaks to his plastic soldiers in Latin. When Malcolm approaches him, he remains on the floor, but gradually sits up and listens, asking if he's a "good" doctor. On their second visit, Malcolm is in Cole's home, and he appears hesitant to talk, responding initially in nods and head shakes. Osment provides compelling insight into Cole's personality in this scene, his mournful puppy-dog eyes, stillness, and soft, almost feminine voice revealing a child who's mature far beyond his years. His father has abandoned him and his mother, and while the subject is rarely mentioned, it's clear his parents' divorce has left an impact. Shyamalan's dialogue is engrossing because it's deployed to reveal crucial information about his characters. When Malcolm points out that his eyeglasses lack lenses, Cole reveals they belonged to his dad. "The lenses hurt my eyes." During their mind game, Malcolm observes the wristwatch on Cole and assumes his dad bought him that as a present before he left. In a sad reply, Cole takes a step back and elaborates, "He forgot it in a drawer. Doesn't work." Cole may not talk about his dad and the effect his absence has had on him, but he conveys his sadness through the accessories he wears of his father's. This is how Cole keeps his father with him. In a subsequent interaction, Malcolm relays Cole's mention that his father now lives in Pittsburgh with a lady who works in a toll booth.
Osment masterfully conveys this transformation in Cole, using his sad eyes and whispery delivery to present the lonely, insecure, terrified little boy at which he begins the story. When it comes to unleashing the floodgates, few actors do it as convincingly as Osment, especially at his age. He was only 10 at the time of filming, and he demonstrated a maturity, compassion, perception, and ability to live in the moment and emote that would make older actors envious. His most impressive moment arrives when Malcolm explains to Cole he can't be his doctor anymore. The pain in his eyes, the desperation and urgency in his voice as Cole implores Crowe not to "fail" him, and the tears pouring effortlessly out of his eyes like a faucet. Heartbreaking stuff. His voice descends from soft at the start to a desperate whisper by the end. Willis can hardly look him in the eye, fighting tears of his own. Less talented actors resort to what I call "the dramatic whisper" when they lack the ability to convey authentic emotion, but in scenes like this, Osment and Willis are pitch-perfect, utilizing the whisper to complement the somber atmosphere Shyamalan is constructing. It's at this moment Cole acknowledges how much he needs Malcolm's help, and how much he believes in his capability to provide it. And Malcolm realizes Cole has become much more to him than just another patient. He's the son he and Anna never had.
In a peculiar visual detail, Cole has a patch of gray in the back of his hair, emphasizing Cole's unnaturally mature personality. At just nine, he's being forced to endure more than should be expected, between grappling with his father's absence, having no friends to turn to for comfort, and, oh yeah, running for his life from raging spirits. Osment balances Cole's world-weary exhaustion and seething anger with the vulnerability of someone much younger than his exterior implies, and this allows us to believe in him as a nine-year-old child and for our hearts to ache for his constant anxiety and loneliness. When he refers to his mother as "Mama," and asks if she thinks he's a freak, his voice is so sweet and bruised with insecurity. The expression of rapidly mounting terror on his face and the tears welling in his eyes when confronted with a deceased battered woman in his kitchen are spot-on. It would be impossible to share in his fear if his reactions weren't as committed and unforced.
As Cole's stressed-out but unwaveringly loving mother, Lynn, Toni Collette offers an early glimpse into the scream queen she would become in the approaching future, with echoes of Ellen Burstyn's stellar performance in The Exorcist. It feels like this supporting role was destined to be a training course for her future performance as Annie Graham in Ari Aster's supernatural horror drama, Hereditary. Living on her own in a Philly apartment, Lynn is doing the best she can to keep her small family together. She no longer has the benefit of a husband, and she's working two jobs to keep a roof over her and Cole's heads. The relationship between Cole and Lynn is very warm and affectionate. She prepares his bowl of Cocoa Puffs in the morning, replaces his tie for school when she sees a spot on it, and asks him how his day was when he returns home. Lynn is a prime example of a working mother who does what she needs to do to provide for herself and her child, without outwardly complaining or showing any resentment. However, she finds herself growing increasingly frustrated with Cole's unwillingness to communicate with her, and is concerned for his welfare when signs of physical trauma manifest.
My favorite dialogue occurs between Cole and Lynn after he returns from school. She asks about his day, and he doesn't respond. "You know, you can tell me things if you need to," she says. In an effort to compel him to open up, Lynn, instead of sharing how her day went, fantasizes about how she wishes her day had transpired. In her fantasy, she won the Pennsylvania lottery in the morning, quit both of her jobs, had a picnic in the park with lots of chocolate mousse pie, and swam in the fountain all afternoon. Collette delivers this tantalizing fantasy in the perfect soft, wistful tone, matching her co-stars in dropping to a whisper, which makes the fantasy all the more delicious and visual.
When Cole is trapped in a cupboard, screaming and crying hysterically, Collette conveys authentic panic and desperation, unable to comprehend why the door won't open and what exactly is happening inside. The only instance where Lynn loses her easygoing motherliness is when she finds her mother's bumblebee pendant in Cole's drawer, leading her to believe he put it there. During a very tense, strained dinner (again - training for Hereditary, anyone?), Lynn tries to shame him into confessing, finally unloading the physical and mental exhaustion she's been experiencing since her husband left. When Cole remains adamant that he didn't move it, she loses her cool and demands he leave the table. "Go!" she shouts, putting her hand on her forehead. Collette was practically born for this type of everyday hardworking mother role. When she has a private breakdown in front of her dog, and Cole approaches her, she quickly turns her head and wipes the tears from her eyes, ashamed to have her son see his mother drop anchor. He asks, "If you're not very mad, can I sleep in your bed tonight?" As independent as Cole is, he isn't above sleeping with his mother when in a state of fear. "Look at my face," she says. "I'm not very mad." Lynn invites Cole into her arms, and while she's holding him, she notices he's shaking and asks why. Characteristically, he refuses to answer, and she breaks down, terrified for her child and wanting to understand what's happening to him.
Without a doubt, the scene that earned Collette her nomination is her final one, the second to last scene of the movie. Lynn and Cole sit in the car during an undisclosed accident. She comments that he's very quiet and assumes he's mad she missed his play. Finally ready to communicate, Cole reveals his ability to see ghosts and that his grandmother is one of them, and it's she in fact who keeps taking the pendant. At first, Collette conveys the appropriate skepticism, humoring her son to avoid making him feel judged. Once he drops the bomb that her mother had secretly watched Lynn as a child at her dance recital after they had a fight, her eyes widen with shock and wonder. She's at once astonished, disbelieving, afraid of her own son, and hopeful that what he's saying is true. As the information Cole gives to prove his claim becomes more vivid and specific, tears gradually begin to build in Collette's red eyes, she sobs silently into her hands, before she speaks, she's forced to swallow. Osment delivers his confession slowly, carefully, detail by detail, in a shaky voice. It's one of the two most beautiful, tearfully moving scenes in the film, second to the final one. At last, mother and son have communicated, broken through their barriers, and they commemorate the experience with a prolonged hug, Lynn caressing the back of Cole's head. Collette's may qualify as a supporting role, but her influence on her son's behavior, the love she communicates for him in every interaction, is indispensable. The Sixth Sense would not be the same without her.
While her role may be the smallest of the core cast, Olivia Williams is excellent as Anna Crowe. Like Collette, she's a hell of a screamer (as evidenced in the opening when the shadow moves past her), and does a great job of internalizing her character's profound sadness and loneliness. Since the shooting of her husband, Anna feels cut off and disconnected from the world. She occupies the same house as Malcolm, but he's never physically with her. She eats dinner by herself at home and at the restaurant where he was supposed to meet her for their anniversary. She sleeps by herself with a box of tissues nearby. And worst of all, she's fighting a growing attraction for her co-worker, Sean (Glenn Fitzgerald). He shows up at her house and invites her to join him at an Amish market, and while she knows she wants to, she declines. At their shop, she gifts him a first edition book for his birthday, and he gives her a hug. Only she becomes lost in the hug, and doesn't want to let go. Both move in hesitantly for a kiss, but are interrupted by a perfectly timed commotion. (Malcolm hurls a rock at the window.) Anna is craving the warmth and affection of this man because she's no longer getting it from her husband, but her love for Malcolm is still so strong and powerful, she's not ready to let go.
Love and communication sit at the forefront of The Sixth Sense. Each of the four main characters are yearning for communication, and each share a love for one another that's unbreakable. Malcolm wants to communicate with his wife, but has lost his ability since the shooting. He realizes he's sacrificing time with her to focus on his new patient, but he feels as though he's getting a second chance and doesn't want to let it slip by. This feeling is vocalized in a manner that feels natural as opposed to blandly expository. He wants her to understand what's motivating him, even as he acknowledges how much it hurts her. Cole wants to share his secret and anxieties with Lynn, but is worried she'll look at him the way he sees everyone else looking at him: as a freak. Lynn pleads for Cole to talk to her and express what's troubling him, and it frustrates her that he opts to keep his lips sealed. While some of the ghosts plaguing Cole come across as vengeful and dangerous, many just want help, and through Malcolm's wisdom, Cole learns that in order to make them go away, he must listen to them and do what they ask.
In the case of Kyra Collins (Mischa Barton), he has to find the video tape that exposes her mother as the cause of her two-year-long illness and death, and give it to her father so he may find answers and closure. One of the greatest instances of character development is when Cole is terrified out of his tent by Kyra's ghost, vomiting and crying. He dashes from the tent and hides beside a couch, sobbing and catching his breath. After a moment of hesitation, Cole stands up, slowly walks to his tent, pulls back the cover, and sympathetically asks, "Do you want to tell me something?" He's summoned the strength and bravery to confront this spirit, seeing her as a scared, tortured child in need of release beyond the physical realm.
Finally, it's the communication between Cole and Malcolm that proves most potent. If it wasn't for their heart-to-heart conversations, neither would succeed in opening up to the people closest to them. It's Cole who gives Malcolm an idea on how to talk to his wife -- while she's sleeping -- and in that same scene, it's Malcolm who insists they've said everything they needed to, and that now it's time to do the same with someone closer to them. This is the fourth most potent scene, where Cole and Malcolm say their goodbyes to each other. Cole suggests they pretend they're going to see each other tomorrow, and Willis and Osment take a moment to stare at each other with the most loving smile and eye contact. Without ever hugging or expressing in words, these two have achieved a level of intimacy and understanding that surpasses any doctor-patient relationship. Malcolm has become the father figure Cole needs, and Cole has forced Malcolm to confront feelings within himself that he was suppressing. Both doctor and patient have learned from each other, and their lives will never be the same again.
The most moving scene for me is the ending. In the last two weeks, I've watched The Sixth Sense twice, and both times, it's the ending that reduced me to a blubbering puddle of tears, and I say that without abashment. While the second to last scene in the car is magnificently acted and relatable to anyone who lost a grandparent they were close to (I personally can't relate), it's that ending that leaves me openly, audibly crying every time I see it. For anyone who hasn't seen The Sixth Sense or is uninformed about the legendary twist ending, consider yourself warned.
While sitting beside his wife, who's sleeping on a couch, talking in her sleep wondering why Malcolm "left" her, Malcolm notices his wedding ring is no longer on his finger. Anna has dropped it on the floor. All at once, it hits him: he didn't survive the shooting from last fall. A flashback reveals the bullet went in his stomach and exited his back, causing him to bleed to death. When Cole said he sees dead people, and that they don't know they're dead, Malcolm realizes he was talking about him as well. This explains why he never spoke to anyone else besides Cole, why Anna has been having single dinners every night, why she hasn't said a word to him this entire time, why she snatched the check from him at the restaurant, and why he hasn't been able to open the door to his basement: a desk with his books has been blocking it.
Shyamalan withholds the twist ingeniously, dropping subtle clues around every corner without making them painfully obvious. Whenever Malcolm sits beside Anna in her sleep, she pulls her sweater over her. This ties back to Shyamalan's sneakily informative dialogue when Cole says the temperature drops whenever a ghost is present. Every time Malcolm sees Anna with Sean, it appears she's having an affair owing to his submersion in his work, when in reality she's trying to move on with her life after his death. Malcolm seems to appear everywhere Cole is: in the hospital, principal's office, school hallway, auditorium, his own living room. Yet he's never seen talking to or being talked to by someone else. On his way home, Malcolm sees Sean leaving his house and getting into his car. He calls out to him and walks up to the car, but Sean makes no reaction and quickly drives off, seemingly ignoring Malcolm's yell. Naturally, we assume Sean knows he's busted and doesn't want to deal with a confrontation. When Malcolm arrives late at the Italian restaurant for his and Anna's anniversary, he sits in front of her and initiates a one-way conversation, apologizing for his recent emotional distance and explaining his personal investment in Cole's case. The entire time, Anna just sits silently, looking down. A waiter drops the check on the table, and as Malcolm generously reaches for it, Anna snatches it. After writing it out, she takes a pause and softly says, "Happy anniversary," before standing up and leaving. By not acknowledging Malcolm's presence, not giving any responses, through her embittered body language and her sorrowful delivery of that single line, Anna seems to validate Malcolm's belief that she's simply resentful of his lateness. Factually, she's grieving his death and trying to keep his memory alive. The most daring tactic of subterfuge is a momentary shot of Malcolm sitting across from Lynn in her living room seconds before Cole walks through the door. Our instinctive assumption is that these two have been talking, as they seem to be looking directly at each other. But really, Malcolm is looking at her, and she's just staring off into space. Pardon my French (never took a single class), but the misdirection is fucking brilliant!
After coming to terms with his status as one of the dead, Malcolm sits one last time beside Anna and quietly tells her he can go now, that he just needed to "do a couple things" and "help someone." But first, he has to tell her something, and get ready, because this is the most romantic line I've ever heard in a movie bar none. My eyes are literally welling with tears as I think about it. "You were never second," he says, in that sincere whisper. "I love you. Go to sleep. Everything will be different in the morning." Finally able to hear her husband's voice, as if in a dream, Anna whispers, "Goodnight, Malcolm." Never has the simple act of whispering been as powerful in exchanging heartfelt dialogue. As the rivetingly sentimental music by James Newton Howard rises to a crescendo, the screen fades to white, and the final shot is of Malcolm and Anna's wedding video, in which they share a kiss. Let me repeat, I am sobbing over the end credits of this movie every. Single. Time. Not "tearing up." Not smiling and feeling chills. I'm talking full-blown ugly cry. And Shyamalan earns every single teardrop he extracts.
The Sixth Sense is his magnum opus and captures him at the peak of his career. Like Osment, he has never been better, and really could never hope to be. His direction is contemplative and unhurried. Shyamalan allows the emotion of every scene to leak through the screen and into the hearts of those in attendance. He never rushes to the next scene, the next big jump scare. He takes his time and, like his protagonist, methodically investigates the interior lives and minds of his characters, no matter how reserved and difficult they may be. His sense of pacing is undeniably slow, but also necessarily, and never sluggish. No scene, shot, or line of dialogue is wasted. Every exchange tells us something about the characters, whether it's a piece of background, a personal desire, longing. It's a character study of four lonely, misunderstood human beings joined by their shared love for each other and desperation to communicate their feelings.
As he did in Demme's picture, Fujimoto favors slow zooms on to close-ups of his actors' faces. That way, every emotion that passes across them, we will not only see it but feel it, and Shyamalan doesn't turn away so fast. He grants us access to their innermost thoughts, emotions, and secrets. At Kyra's funeral, Mr. Collins (Greg Wood) watches the tape of his daughter playing with her puppets in her room, until his wife comes in with her lunch. As she stirs poison into the soup before giving it to her, Fujimoto zooms in slowly on Wood's face, gradually flooding with dread, horror, and disbelief. (We never find out what becomes of his wife after he confronts her in front of the attendees, but we can certainly assume, and to unveil more would've been to detract from the protagonists' journeys.)
Shyamalan directs Willis and Osment to take pauses before uttering their next line, increasing the realism of their conversations, showing them thinking about what to say, and showcasing Crowe's professionalism as a psychologist, never wanting to offend, choosing his words carefully with sensitivity. To prevent the pace from sagging, editor Andrew Mondshein employs lots of J-cuts, transitioning to a scene verbally before matching it with the accompanying image.
While a love story sits at the core of The Sixth Sense's screenplay -- both a platonic and romantic one -- make no mistake: this is a terrifying supernatural chiller as well. The direction may be tender, emphasized by a scene where Lynn is having a nightmare and Cole caresses her cheek, whispering for her to go to sleep, but the sequences depicting Cole's run-ins with the various apparitions generate the requisite level of suspense. In short, they're what nightmares are made of. In the early portions of the movie, prior to Cole's iconic admission in the hospital, Shyamalan keeps the presence of the ghosts restrained, relying more on the suggestive power of visual cues than overt displays of paranormal phenomena. In the simple yet jarring first instance, Lynn walks into her empty kitchen and is annoyed to find some of the drawers and cabinets open. She closes them, calls Cole in for breakfast, and removes his tie after noticing a spot. She walks to the laundry room to fetch a cleaner one, and upon returning to the kitchen mere seconds later, she lets out a flawlessly timed and authentic scream. Every cabinet door and drawer is open all the way, and a scared-looking Cole sits at the table, as though he never moved. A tense silence penetrates the room, and after taking a moment to compose herself, Lynn cautiously asks if he was looking for something. "Pop tarts?" Cole says. After he leaves for school, Lynn notices a fading handprint on the table where Cole was sitting.
Shyamalan also uses the cold and light to imply the ghosts' presence. From the first scene with Anna and Malcolm, all the characters appear to be experiencing extremely low temperatures, bundling themselves in sweaters and sweatshirts. Cold air escapes many of their mouths whenever an apparition is around the corner. While doing laundry, Lynn stops to look at photographs of her and Cole on the wall. But something catches her attention she never noticed before: streaks of white light dot the background of every last one. In the most heart-stopping sequence, taking place shortly after Cole reveals his secret, it's nighttime (naturally). Cole is poking his head out of his bedroom door and holding his bladder. He badly needs to relieve himself, but is too intimidated to walk the short distance to the bathroom, which is actually deeply upsetting. Unable to bear the pain any longer, he waddles to the toilet and begins to urinate. Mondshein cuts to an insert shot of the thermostat dropping rapidly. As Cole continues, Fujimoto's camera placed behind the doorway, a figure suddenly walks past, accompanied by a loud, jolting, non-diegetic sting. Slowly, Cole turns his head around, and condensation spills from his mouth as he breathes. He slowly leaves the bathroom and walks down the hallway, following a noise in the kitchen. Mondshein cuts to a POV shot toward the kitchen, building a sense of dread as we walk down this hallway alongside Cole. Once he reaches the doorway, he's relieved to see who appears to be his mother, standing at the counter, only to have his fear validated once she turns around, revealing herself as the ghost of a woman who committed suicide to escape the wrath of her abusive husband. She sports a similar hairstyle to that of Collette (smart casting or hairstyling right there), along with a black eye and two slit wrists, which she displays in close-up.
At a birthday party for a classmate whose father forced him to send the invitation, Cole follows a red balloon to the top of a spiraling staircase, leading to the threatening growl of a man imprisoned in a cupboard for allegedly stealing "the master's horse." Cole stands transfixed by the voice, emanating from the darkness of the open closet. Judging by his tone, this man is struggling to breathe and his fury is mounting as no one is letting him out. Rather than having the man pop out and reveal himself, Shyamalan portrays him only as a voice, understanding that the unknown, especially when in the blackness, is scarier than anything that can be displayed. Taking advantage of Cole's social awkwardness and naivete, Tommy Tammisimo (Trevor Morgan), Cole's "pretend friend" who walks with him to school on Lynn's account, and Darren (Peter Tambakis), the birthday boy, drag him against his will into the closet under the pretense of putting on a pretend play and shut the door. Unable to open it, Cole is violently attacked, but Shyamalan judiciously presents it from outside the cupboard, keeping the focus on Lynn as she desperately bangs on the door and struggles in vain to free him. That way, we don't see what this ghost looks like or what specifically he's doing to Cole. We only know it's physical, horrifying, and painful.
What's so creative and thoughtful about Shyamalan's construction of his entities is the variety of appearance and overarching humanity with which he portrays them. Each has their own look, their own cause of death, and some are more malevolent than others. One is a young boy who was shot in the back of his head by a friend to whom he was showing off his dad's gun. Another is a family of three hanging from the hallway in Cole's school. As Malcolm theorizes, all of these specters, including the scary ones, are united by one common desire: help. Smartly, Cole fears, "What if they don't want help? What if they're just angry and they just want to hurt somebody?" His theory is just as valid. Many of these ghosts do cause physical harm to him. He has cuts on his forearm, and when Lynn lifts his shirt while he's sleeping, she finds more on his back. These are not exactly friends of Casper the friendly ghost, but neither are they one-dimensional forces of evil whose only purpose is to terrorize a defenseless little boy. Even the unseen specter in the closet expressed a clear desperation to be freed from his confinement. With Kyra Collins, Shyamalan subverts our expectation as to her nature. While Cole is hiding in his tent, illuminated only by a flashlight, the clothespins he attached along the canopy snap off one by one. Kyra then manifests across from him, crying and vomiting. Cole's initial instinct reflects our own: he makes a run for it. But once he takes Malcolm's suggestion into consideration and works up the courage to confront her face to face, we see that Kyra is essentially no different from Cole: a terrified, lonely child seeking to connect.
Shyamalan suggests the existence of the supernatural is around us in our everyday lives. In one of the most quietly spellbinding exchanges between Cole and Malcolm, the former, in his characteristically whispery tone, describes the sensation when ghosts are present: the dreamlike feeling of falling down really fast, even when you're standing still; the "prickly things on the back of your neck"; and the tiny hairs that stand up on your arm. James Newton Howard composes a score for The Sixth Sense that highlights its dual nature as a supernatural thriller and a love story. The primary theme is sentimental, mysterious, and heartwarming, deployed most effectively in Willis' revelatory final scene. During Cole's encounters with his undead visitors, on the other hand, the music becomes intensely creepy and pulse-pounding, such as when Kyra appears in Cole's tent. Howard's aural contributions offer a stirring combination of surreal horror and heart. A perfect complement to Shyamalan's bone-chilling, masterfully acted, profoundly affecting masterpiece as a whole.
8.2/10
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