Customer Reviews

The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale

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I love Shyamalan's films, but I cannot lie - this book is a big blight on his image. It portrays him as a very unpleasant personality - the type who won't stand for less than constant adulation, takes everything, inculding professional talk, personally, and makes a ton of nasty personal remarks in retaliation.

Sportswriter Michael Bamberger is the ostensible author, yet the book is Shyamalan's manifesto; it includes countless internal monologues unknowable to a third party. Disingenuous, but the less disquieting of the two options; surely no human being, not even in marriages or cults, has been this fawning, this lavishly and unquestioningly worshipful of another.


"If [LitW] came together, it would be like Dylan and Clapton and Springsteen and Eminem and Kanye West and Miles Davis and Bonnie Raitt and Joan Armatrading and Jerry Garcia and every musician you've ever loved joining George Harrison and belting out the opening chord of 'A Hard Day's Night' at the same time."

[on demanding execs read his scripts on their days off] "[Shyamalan] was comfortable getting in the middle of people's weekend. He felt that the reading of his script should not be considered work. It should add to the weekend's pleasure."

"If you're a Bob Dylan, a Michael Jordan, a Walt Disney - if you're M. Night Shyamalan -"


The book exists to observe Shyamalan do something, then applaud his effortless skill. We learn what a good debator and actor Shyamalan is, what a good basketball player, how good he looks in a suit, how quickly he loses weight, how he has a better ear than the hired band, how perfect the grill lines are on his chicken breasts. (Is he modest? Yes, moreso than anyone the author's met.) Everyone else is a downtrodden failure, but Night takes them into his grace. Alas, they are mere humans and prone to grievous sin. The "freak" Cindy Cheung (she's 5'9" and Asian) is perfect, *perfect* for her role - until her agent wants a little more than the SAG minimum, whereupon she is "compromised" and a money-grubber. The venerable Mary Beth Hurt tries ad-libbing a couple lines; that's stunningly stupid. Much is made of how shlubby Paul Giamatti is, his biggest role to date supposedly a Nike ad. ("Sideways" doesn't count, apparently.) Later, he backstabs Shyamalan when he asks if he can stutter on a different syllable than the script indicates. Bryce Howard, the book admits, carried "The Village", but Shyamalan begins to dislike her, afeared she has lost her soul - "not right for the part, not the girl who hung on every word Night said". Her big offense? Becoming a vegetarian.

Then there's the actress who wasn't hired because Shyamalan didn't like the way she ate her Fritos.

And these aren't treated as minor annoyances; these flyspeck incidents constitute deep betrayals deliberately aimed to shatter the director's soul. Anything these scrubs manage to do correctly is at Shyamalan's instigation.

The worst is reserved for Nina Jacobson, Shyamalan's discoverer, whose (valid) criticisms of the LitW script prompted Night's break with Disney. Shyamalan's grievances date back to the delivery of the script by his assistant, Paula. Jacobson is having problems getting her kids to bed after an exciting birthday party and calls back four hours later; she has to read the script tomorrow.

"Now Paula was beyond shock. She felt like a pile of bricks had hit her. She wanted to throw up. She was accustomed to people treating Night with deference - with the respect he had earned - and now they weren't. She was accustomed to people doing what Night had wanted them to do. It was part of his aura."

This earns Jacobson the book's ceaseless playground mockery - not for a big head, but for a dead soul, a dull mind, unappealing looks, a "screechy" voice - "wah-wah-wah-wah-wah". In a follow-up, Bamberger decries her as a bad parent - in the same breath indicting her for not pulling her son away from the birthday party when Shyamalan demanded. Shyamalan's overreaction is flooring - for the rest of the book, he envisions his Disney bosses as demons inside his head, Furies bent on hounding him into madness and professional ruin. Night is portrayed as the victim of a deeply invasive crime he struggles every day to survive - all because his primary supporter didn't say she 100% unequivocally loved his latest.

Where is the honest appraisal of Shyamalan's creative process? We're told, in the *last ten pages*, that LitW received two sweeping edits in response to test screenings. We learn next to nothing on those overhauls where chapters are required. What of the failure of "The Village"? Shyamalan blames its denial of the supernatural after three movies affirming it. Those thoughts should have been explored, examined - but Bamberger can't. If we trust the book, Shyamalan takes any inquiry as treachery. This project has been...darned with overflowing praise.

I'll admit, Bamberger's prose is breezy and compulsively readable. The book does give step-by-step insight into how a director puts a movie together in the early going. And Bamberger eventually paints a thoughtful portrait of Giamatti - positive, insightful, yet not overdoing it.

Any reader, though, could've told Shyamalan that the hosannas at a quarter of their current length would still be unpalatable and discredit his side of the Disney breakup. If this is a conscious attempt, like the faux doc a few years ago, to skew his public image, then he gains nothing from labeling himself as petty and egomaniacal. And this book will surely cause hard feelings among his co-workers.

I'm not exactly an M. Night hater nor do I think he is the genius that some profess him to be (modern day Hitchcock? Please.). I loved THE SIXTH SENSE, was so-so on UNBREAKABLE, liked SIGNS (until the flawed ending), hated THE VILLAGE, and consider LADY IN THE WATER to be unwatchable (I had seen the film well before reading this book). Nor am I one to turn away from a good movie just because of the filmmaker's personality (I don't care what Woody Allen or Roman Polanski do when filming or not filming, or how big of a jerk a filmmaker is, if the movie is good then so be it). But what made this book so fascinating is the fact that M. Night comes off as essentially a big baby who can't accept any form of criticism. At one point, the book outlines how M. Night isn't looking for "yes" men/women, but he only wants people around him who believe -- but he definitely comes off as someone who indeed is looking for "yes" men/women and anyone who doesn't see his way is "lost".

In terms of M. Night's "fight" with Disney, this is one of the few exceptions where you come out siding with the corporation. Neither M. Night nor his assistant can't accept why the Disney execs won't drop everything in their personal Sunday lives to read the new script -- including taking a child to a birthday party, then settling him down afterwards -- then they get upset when Disney tells him they'll finance the movie and won't interfere with him at all! "We'll give you $60 million then see you at the premiere" offers Dick Cook. Offers like that are extremely rare, and I had no sympathy at all for M. Night during this "plight" when he feels he is betrayed by Disney. Disney's notes are not unreasonable, and actually are pretty much on the money. Then he gets upset when Giametti doesn't call him back immediately -- but M. Night has worked with the likes of Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Samuel L. Jackson. I guarantee they didn't drop everything and call M. Night immediately -- and this is something that I would have like seen in the book is how M. Night "manipulated" all these major stars in the past movies as the author claims he does. To me this book came off as a making-of a regular movie, with M. Night thinking that everyone was there to service him and that anyone who doesn't believe in him is lost.

I did enjoy the insight into the insecurties of M. Night, and you can definitely see where his ego stems from -- it's an extremely fragile ego indeed. Movie making takes a lot of courage and confidence, and M. Night puts up a good front, but his inner turmoil is so much more complex. For instance, the book constantly refers to the Disney execs comments as being a negative force that seem to stick to M. Night throughout the making of the film -- especially when something goes wrong. Jeff Robinov the creative power at Warner Bros. who is one of the smartest execs in the business, and is not one to gush over filmmakers. His "good job" to M. Night at a read-through although it bothers M. Night incredibly, is a great example of how Robinov lets the artists alone with their work unless circumstances call for Studio interference. That "good job" is in fact high praise.

Ultimately, I enjoyed reading this book. I love Hollywood, but I also love the foreign film and independent film worlds as well. This is a book that will definitely appeal to film lovers who liek insight into the creation process -- but will especially appeal to those types that love to trash Hollywood, and view the corporations, executives and producers that inhabit it as mindless drones (which is of course, definitely not the case).

The great irony is of course that LADY IN THE WATER is now considered a box office bomb, coming in a distant third on an opening weekend against -- wait for it -- a Disney film (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2) that was in its third week in release. In the end, Mickey Mouse gets the last laugh after all.

This book is probably most interesting to people who know a fair bit about the film business. I found it fascinating, but think it needs an epilogue to examine the fallout from the movie's very disappointing reviews and box office.

M. Night Shyamalan can be whatever you want him to be here... a genius idealist, a brilliant filmmaker, or more likely, a man whose inflated ego and desperate attempt to do something important cause him to make a terrible career move and a terrible movie.

Shyamalan's arrogance is fascinating, as is his belief in what is clearly flawed material. However, his deep love for film and desire to make a film he believes in are certainly admirable.

Michael Bamberger is an interesting choice to write this book, because he's not in the film industry nor terribly familiar with the process of making a film. But I think that actually works, because he's at once infatuated with M. Night's celebrity and disgusted by the self-indulgence of his process. I think that a writer who knew more about Hollywood would have been tempted to make this an all-out character assassination (because there's certainly enough material to tempt a writer in this direction), but Bamberger's take is actually pretty balanced. This was a very interesting book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

This book and the film that inspired it are bare---meaning exposed or deprived--like the emperor at the end of the Hans Christian Anderson tale, when the townspeople finally stop pretending he is wearing clothes.

The book is an obsequious gesture. Really, it is an absolute prostration at the feet of M. Night--now exposed as a man without content. The author clearly lacks knowledge of the industry as much as he lacks journalistic prowess. Luckily the critics have had enough of Night and this author's libelous book will go down with him.

Particularly troubling is the author's treatment of the crew, who do the most thankless work in the industry. For anyone who was there (and I was) it is disturbing to see in print the outrageous liberties this man takes in depicting the lives and personalities of the various crew members. It is no wonder he is so enamored of Night. "Lady in the Water" was so poorly written one critic quipped that it seemed as though the actors were making up the story as they went along. There is a lot in this book that is made up too.

The amazing visual aspects of the film (a la the fabulous Chris Doyle and his crew) and Paul Giamatti's undeniable charm are all that is left - the film itself and this pathetic documentary of it deserve no further attention. Let's stop pretending.

That's how I felt the whole time I was reading this book. I loved The Sixth Sense, really liked Unbreakable, sorta liked Signs, and hated The Village. When Lady in the Water came out, I really didn't have any desire to see it. However, when I saw this book in the library, I have to admit that I was intrigued. As a writer, I'm always curious as to how others go through the writing process. What drives them? A peek into a creative mind like Shyamalan's was too much too resist.

I wish I had.

Others have written that Shyamalan comes off as egocentric. I didn't get that sense so much. He's a visionary who couldn't get everyone to buy into his vision. Whether or not his vision was one worth pursuing . . . well, I think anyone who reads this book or sees the movie will know how to answer that.

However, the problem for me wasn't the subject. It was the author. Bamberger was simply not the right person to pen this tale. I really don't know much about the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster, and apparently, neither does Bamberger. He provides little or no insights throughout the text. I think that a good, seasoned writer could have done something with this story. Instead, we got 270-some pages of nothing special.

After reading this book, I went back and read Roger Ebert's review of Lady in the Water. He wrote something in there that was interesting. He said the movie was all tell and no show. I felt the book was much the same way. Bamberger continually tries to get away with just telling us the facts, as opposed to showing us how the story unfolded. As a result, the narrative is dry, and incredibly uninteresting, considering the subject matter.

All in all, I'd definitely pass on this book.

If you're hoping to direct one day...if you go to NYU, USC, UCLA, and hope to be a successful filmmaker, megaplex, arthouse, or otherwise...if at some point you've criticized Shyamalan yet known in the back of your head that at least SOME small percentage of the vitriol was driven by an understandable jealousy...READ THIS BOOK.

Most of the reviews of this book were written by Shyamalan fans, many of whom are shocked - SHOCKED! - that this is how he behaves in public and private. This is amusing to me, in many ways. I work in the NYC film production world and have served on films with directors ranging from Spielberg to Ridley Scott - and I have seen countless directors and actors with a quarter of Shyamalan's talents copping attitudes light years worse than his.

What this book reveals is the story of a very talented filmmaker who got too big too quickly, and the horrors that your own insecurities can play on you. Confidence is a necessity in Hollywood - every bad movie out there was made by a guy who was confident he was going to make a good one, and spread that confidence to investors, production companies, his crew, and actors. Confidence has led to the worst films in history.

When we pick up with Shyamalan, we find a man who is nagged by insecurities, someone who has grown up with parents that were disappointed that he was only on the cover of Newsweek and not Time, a person desperately seeking approval from literally the entire world. Yet at the same time, Shyamalan has a vision and is desperately trying to bring it to reality, trying to have that 100% confidence at all times, only to have this feeling be undermined by the simplest of incidents - someone asking a question about the continuity of a screenplay, for example. He lashes out at Disney exec Nina Jacobson over her questions over the screenplay because they upset his confidence, even though he later discovers that she was right. The hint that this film wasn't ready to be made should have come in how precariously his confidence was balanced on a pin that nearly toppled over when someone would brush it.

What's best about this book is that it's a rare, full access look at the process of a major studio film helmed by a guy at Shyamalan's level. Shyamalan himself read the final manuscript and amazingly made no requests for changes. You see the good, the bad, and the terrible. It's not one of those unhelpful interview books in which the director gets to sit down, cross his legs, and start praising himself ad nauseum and finding art where there probably wasn't during the production of the film. It's real filmmaking, real personalities clashing, real studio politics, and the case of art vs. money, success vs. failure.

If you come to this book like I did hoping to find Shyamalan the egotistic one-dimensional person some of these reviews make him out to be, you'll be disappointed. There's too much to his personality to pigeon-hole him into such a cliche.

That he didn't learn from his mistakes for the recent The Happening is very upsetting, especially after the disappointment that was The Village, and the disaster of Lady in the Water. Whether or not he'll ever get his groove back is questionable, though I hope he does. Shyamalan is young, rich, talented, and successful, and while people like to see such a person succeed, we all secretly love to see that person fail. This book will make you think twice about such condemnation.

This book is a delight to read. Rarely does one come across a nonfiction piece that manages to create such a wellspring of hatred, animosity and overwhelming ill-will toward its author and subject as this.

The writing is often atrocious, in keeping with the author's journalistic background. But it is the near-constant and over-the-top adulation he evinces toward Shyamalan that keeps us spellbound. Was there any irony in his comments? Was the potential paycheck too alluring to give him any reason to ruffle Shyamalan's feathers?

Or, maybe, just maybe, Bamberger is such a genius that by playing dumb, he manages to brilliantly illuminate what a world-class megalomaniac M Night Shyamalan is. Read the book, but don't drop a penny on it.

I agree that Bamberger could be the greatest satirist living, if that was his intention. The endless verbal oral sex the author performs on his subject...The abject awe...It is truly hilarious.
It's also true that you'll only enjoy laughing at this road apple of a book IF you didn't pay anything for it, as I didn't.
Let us all hope that in the future, M. Night Shamalamadingdong does NOT listen to the same voices that told him to put out "Lady in the Water," AND this book.

I loved this book, and hope Mr. Bamberger will write more like it. It is insightful, informative, and downright fun. Paul Giamatti, someone I already liked as an actor, comes across as one of the most interesting people in the business or elsewhere. Why he wasn't nominated for "Sideways" is one of life's big mysteries. I hope he knows how much he's liked. Shyamalan is a very interesting person as pictured here, a truly patient filmmaker, and an original thinker. Maybe he isn't always portrayed as someone we'd like to know, but how could he be? That would be whitewashing the truth, since no one in the position of movie director could be easy to be around all the time. Bryce Howard comes across as very idealistic, with her vegan foods and dreams for world peace. And the DP, Doyle, is a most outrageous character--one would think Shyamalan would have axed him a long time ago. It's easy to write about the characters in the book here because Bamberger really brings them to life. He is a great writer, but anyone who thinks this is a scholarly work on Shyamalan is wrong. However, it's certainly more than an US Magazine article, as has been suggested. What's wrong with breezy writing, anyway? I recommend this book whole-heartedly. Film buffs will not be disappointed.

You should read this book if:
1. You've always been fascinated by Shyamalan.

2. You enjoy behind-the-scenes stories about how movies get made.

Neither option requires you to love Shyamalan's movies -- that's irrelevant, I think. But just about every other reviewer seems stuck on that point. That is, if you love Shyamalan's movies, you give this book 5 stars, and if you hate everything Shyamalan has ever done (including the screenplay to Stuart Little), you call this book the propaganda of an egotist and give it 1 star.

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times has accused Bamberger of taking a "few too many sips of the M. Night Kool-Aid" and portraying Shyamalan too positively. Really? Consider that in the course of this book, Bamberger (1) notes that Shyamalan went through numerous crying fits while writing his new screenplay, (2) describes one phone conversation between Shyamalan and Paul Giamatti, where the former informed the latter that he was getting too fat, and (3) tells Shyamalan, after an early screening, that he didn't like the new movie. At times, Bamberger speaks more candidly than some of Shyamalan's own crew does.

Where this book becomes truly worth reading is in the second half, on the set of "Lady in the Water." Bamberger isn't there to report on frivolous tabloid gossip or leak script info online -- he's simply there to report what happens. You're pulled along in the narrative of that, and it's a really fun ride.

This book doesn't stand up to heftier and more important texts about the movie business. But it doesn't pretend to. Bamberger focuses on a brief span of events, and the result is an honest and entertaining read.