Oscar Horrors: The Sixth Sense (1999)
Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 7:17PM Boo! It's time for "Oscar Horrors". Here's Deborah Lipp on Best Picture nominee The Sixth Sense.
In 1999, I started going to the movies by myself. My marriage had ended, and there were visitation weekends when my ex had the kid, I was alone, out of sorts, and determined to do something with that time that felt good.
Going to the movies alone is great. You always get the seat you want, because there’s always a singleton somewhere, and you don’t have to engage in long discussions about what to see. You just…go. That’s how I saw The Sixth Sense...
I knew absolutely nothing about the movie, because I hadn’t discussed going with anyone, and I hadn’t seen a preview. A friend said she loved it (and said nothing else). I was in the habit of going to a local twenty-plex and buying a ticket for whatever looked good.
The Sixth Sense blew me away. Everything about it makes me sad for M. Night Shamalayan’s subsequent career. The direction, the visual construction, the acting—everything.
My experience with The Sixth Sense has become my go-to argument against spoilers. To be a virgin to a film, wide-open, is an exquisite movie experience.
Previews that tell the whole story, posters that reveal secrets, and endlessly, the Internet, are destroying that experience. If The Sixth Sense were released today, what are the chances we’d be surprised by the time we saw it? The other day I read an article about a shocking episode of Orange is the New Black. The headline was clearly marked “spoiler,” with appropriate warnings about which episode it was. But the url gave away which character came to a dark end. The freaking URL!
I would probably have loved The Sixth Sense anyway. But here is my public and impotent plea to respect the cult of “no spoilers”, because that cone of silence is a gift to movie lovers.
Season 3 Oscar Horrors is a Wrap
The Bad Seed - Supporting Actress
Bram Stoker's Dracula - Makeup
Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse -Animated Short
Flatliners - Sound Editing
Fatal Attraction - Film Editing
Kwaidan - Foreign Film
Misery - Actress
Pan's Labyrinth - Production Design
Sleepy Hollow - Production Design
Sweeney Todd - Best Actor
The Uninvited - Cinematography
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - Cinematography
Reader Comments (34)
I saw the commercials: "I see dead people." I didn't know the movie had a twist. I honestly didn't know much of it at all except what I saw in the commercials, and I thought it was a horror movie (not a cheap slasher, but a horror movie like The Omen or Exorcist). So me and my friend went to see it.
I thought it was an excellent movie, and that was before the ending reveal. The performances were note perfect, the direction was mesmerizing, the whole experience was amazing.
I, too, feel sad that his first movie was his greatest glory. Unbreakable was good but not great; it wasn't the great superhero movie that so many claim it to be, and the forced twist regarding Samuel Jackson's character just felt unnecessary to me. Signs was mostly excellent (the acting and direction was perfect, and I never cared that the aliens' weakness was such a common thing), but then he tried to tie it in with the words of a dying woman that just made the ending lame instead of powerful. And then there was The Village, one of the worst movies I've ever seen, a film that made no logical sense whatsoever. The Village was when I gave up on Mr. Shyamalan, although I saw Devil, based on one of his ideas, years later and realized the man had one perfect movie/story/idea and that was all.
But oh, what a perfect movie/story/idea. I'm sad that he never came close to reliving the perfection of The Sixth Sense, but I'm glad we got The Sixth Sense. Anything else would have always been gravy anyway.
Such an exquisite film! Acting, writing and directing were all top notched. Shyamalan had hints of Spielberg. Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong.
I love this movie so much. And to those sad about M. Night's current career, Split with James McAvoy has gotten positive reviews!
M. Night certainly brings out the best in his actors.
Sixth Sense gave the amazing Toni Collette her first and sadly only Oscar nomination. Her scene in the car is amazing.
Say what you will about how awful The Village is, but it's worth watching for Bryce Dallas Howard's performance.
And then there's Haley Joel Osment...
Undoubtedly his best work, although I do think Unbreakable is almost as good. He seems like he has an enormous ego that won't allow him to direct someone else's script; that's too bad because he's a great director but really awful screenwriter.
I agree with Biggs, the car scene with Toni Collette is fucking amazing.
i'd heard there was a twist so i was determined to see it on opening day so not to be spoiled. while i was lined up to go in, the previous session was coming out and a woman said to her friend "...so he was dead the whole time?"
grrrr
Bruce's best performance,one of the best child performances ever & Collette knocking out big actresses Diaz and Moore for that 5th spot.Classic.
A friend figured out the twist about 20 minutes in, and thoroughly enjoyed it, and was surprised when the audience reacted.
I remember watching the reaction like a wave, as the theater audience slowly came to realize what was going on.
All hail Micheal Caine,sure, but without Haley's performance, this might not have worked so well. And we're certainly still discussing this movie over "The Cider House Rules". In a spectacular Best Supporting Actor race, Haley should have won.
Amazing film from a talent that can't quite get over himself. Still have high hopes for him.
Re: "Spoilers" - I can't be the only one who thinks that it's a spoiler to even be warned about a "spoiler" or a twist. It immediately puts you on guard, even if the ultimate spoiler hasn't been revealed.
I was only 13 when The Sixth Sense came out, so wasn't able to see it in the cinema (being from the UK), but as soon as I heard there was a twist, it immediately got me wondering what the twist might be. And knowing the plot of the movie from the trailers (boy sees ghosts, Bruce Willis is his psychiatrist), there was only a few reasonable options - boy is revealed to be a liar; boy ends up being a ghost; Bruce Willis is a ghost. And if you know anything about stories or films, only one of those seems like a realistic, dramatic reversal. So viola, the twist was spoiled simply by virtue of the fact that I knew there was a twist.
The same goes today with "Spoiler alert!" in review titles. It makes you watch the episode/film with that in mind, so you can usually guess it pretty early on (it's usually always a death), just because you were told there was something that could be spoiled to begin with.
The Jack: I agree!
I unabashedly love this film.
I still feel that Haley Joel Osment should've won the Best Supporting Actor award. The honor went to Michael Caine for The Cider House Rules - a film/performance that I can barely remember. Caine had the Miramax machine working overtime, nudging for a Caine 'career' award - which obviously reached the voting bloc.
The Cider House also won a screenwriting award - I can barely quote two sentences from that witty dialogue...Guess there's a built -in hostility for awarding 'horror' films. (At least the 600 new Academy members will nominate 'Ouija Board' for Best Picture...)
TOM: The first thing everyone needs to remember about the 1999 Supporting Actor race is that Caine's second Oscar is almost ENTIRELY due to filming Jaws: The Revenge instead of showing up to the 1986 Academy Awards. The second thing everyone needs to remember about the 1999 Supporting Actor race is that, if Caine HAD shown up in 1986, Cruise, not Osment, would have been the winning performance and Plummer might have gotten the fifth slot.
Let's have less of this shortsighted revisionist attitude - Caine absolutely did not deserve to be nominated, let alone win. However, let's not condone category frauding Osment to a win!
Jude Law, Tom Cruise and their career-best work all say 'hi'
Tommy Marx -- Wide Awake was Shymalan's first film. I was one of the few people who saw it, so The Sixth Sense's twist seemed predictable to me. What amazed me was the quality differences between the two films. Wide Awake could have fitted easily between The Village and Lady in the Water in Shymalan's descent.
The film is wonderful, and at the time I was strongly pulling for Collette to win Best Supporting Actress out of the five nominated performances (though I wish Blanchett had been in the mix). But as good as Osment is - and he's very good - to me, Caine got the Oscar Jude Law, not Osment, should've won.
I've enjoyed this movie, both not knowing the twist, and watching it (many times) afterwards, knowing the twist.
Re-watching The Sixth Sense knowing the twist, highlights Haley Joel Osments performance with its delicacy, intelligence, and kindness, such a rare and wonderful combination.
1999 was V Strong remember the people left out Cooper,Plummer,Sarsgaard,Malkovich all had support.
Volvagia -- this is nonsense I'm sorry. 1986 had nothing to do with his win in 1999. They successfully played a career card though I'm confused how they got away with it since he already had an Oscar. People can barely remember who won from year to year let alone being like "i wish i'd seen his speech" 13 years after the fact.
People forget that CHR was a late breaking force and back then Miramax was very good at the late December have it everybody's heads and nothing else there in the final weeks. Plus the Academy had awful taste in 99 bypassing so many great things for a blah BP lineup.
Mark -- the acting races were really strong that year. Particularly in Supporting Actress you can make a whole other lineup that's just as strong
Moore - Magnolia
HBC -Fight Club
Diaz - Being John Malkovich
Antonia San Juan - All About My Mother
Manville - Topsy Turvy
Blanchett - Talented Mr Ripley
It's like I'm a ghost in this thread. Just like every thread.
@ Nathaniel
And I'm one of those people who consider Paltrow's Marge one of her best performances, even stronger than Blanchett in the film.
Oh yes!! now if she could put down her cookery back and do THAT agian i'm there,my 99 winner for supporting actress.
I'm in the Gwyneth camp too...absolutely fantastic...Ripley should've been her afterglow nom.
The Sixth Sense is a great horror movie. One of the last embraced by the academy. A huge part of it is that no one could have seen it coming. M. Night, Osment and Colette were unknowns. Willis was far from at his peak. This was just another movie and it was such a huge success. A very exciting rise to behold. That year was so great though. So many movies that have aged very well and will be the classics of tomorrow. Magnolia, Being John Malkovitch, The Talented Mr Ripley.... The Cider House Rules is a shameful shameful inclusion in that company.
Love this movie so much and couldn't agree more with the hatred of spoilers. It's actually one of the reasons I hate seeing film festival culture blow up on the internet in such a big way - by the time most of those movies open we've been hearing about how mind-blowingly great they are for MONTHS, and not very many films can stand up to that kind of hype over such a long period of time.
And yeah, even being informed that something is worthy of a discussion headlined "SPOILER ALERT!" is itself a spoiler, because you're on edge looking for it. I saw The Sixth Sense having heard that the ending needed to be kept secret, but I was young enough to forget that UNTIL the last scene when Willis finally talked to his wife, and I audibly gasped at least a full minute before the big reveal because I had figured it out and was shocked. Much to the chagrin of the rest of the audience, I'm sure. Of course, it probably helped that the movie itself was so well-done and involving - it drew me in almost right away, just like a really good campfire ghost story.
Love Colette in that car scene with JHO. That was the first time I have seen her in any movie. I followed her career since and saw her perform best very best each time from the little-seen Hotel Splendide with pre-007 Daniel Craig and the late Katrin Cartlidge, to Japanese Story . An amazing actress. No wonder in a roundtable interview last year with potential Oscar nominees, Brie Larson and one other actress (either Jennifer Lawrence or Kate Winslet) came out saying they'd want to work with Toni freaking Colette!
I love Catherine Keener in Being John Malkovich and I am possibly in the minority here but also love Melora Walters' turn in Magnolia much more than Moore's uneven acting in the same film.
I've always thought of the film more as a character study than a horror movie, which speaks volumes regarding the potency of the storytelling, from the writing and direction to the acting and other production values.
I remember having my mind absolutely blown by this movie. I don't think I've had this same experience of being completely shell-shocked by an ending like that, especially living in the digital age where spoilers are everywhere!
100% agreement with Biggs (on everything) and everyone else on Collette's car scene. I can see it in my mind's eye with perfect clarity, and it's probably been 5 years since I revisited this movie. And NO ONE knew Bruce Willis could deliver this kind of gentle, understated performance before The Sixth Sense.
Michael Caine won for one of his worst performances, which would be ironic except, with Oscars, you'd have to say "typical". Isn't that what Pacino did, after all? It remains one of the great acceptance speeches, nonetheless.
And Nathaniel's right, of course. In one of the great movie years, an embarrassment of choices were there for the Academy to overlook.
One thing that pleases me about "Spoiler Alert" headlines is, now they seem to appear for *anything* that is a giveaway, so they no longer truly flag a twist. In 1999 this was not the case.
forever -- what do you mean you're a ghost? The only reason I don't agree with you about Haley winning is that he was a lead actor. But yes its' a great performance. I was rooting for Jude Law at the time because of that category frauding.
Deborah - that's a good point. They now mean any plot details given away beyond like the first act.
Everyone is right about 1999 being a wonderful year for movies. But you'd never know it based on the mostly terrible Oscar nominations & wins that resulted. Michael Caine over Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment? And Angelina Jolie's hammy performance in Girl Interrupted over basically everyone else in her category? Please. It was of those peculiar years where they got nearly everything wrong, start to finish.
I completely agree about spoilers (although for me it was The Crying Game that made me hate being forewarned of a big twist).