The movie I chose for the month of February is Signs. I am a fan of M Night Shyamalan's work. He is, in my opinion, a master storyteller. Signs is technically an alien movie, but honestly, the aliens are almost a side thought that helps to facilitate a great story about one small American family. It's a story about grief, family, forgiveness and God's providence.
Watch Signs sometime during February and be sure to tell us what you thought of it.
Adiel
A place to talk about the art of movies and what they tell us about our world and our Creator.
The Big Wig Waggles:
Gabrielle Ben-Ezra
Adiel Gardner
Raquel Mutton
Adiel Gardner
Raquel Mutton
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13 comments:
I could probably write pages listing all the reasons why I like this movie so much. I could list many of those tiny little details that bring it to such high standing in my mind. And maybe I’ll mention a few later, but first I want to mention something that I just noticed when I watched Signs again last night. Signs is Graham’s story. Now maybe this is an obvious fact to you folks, but I guess I always thought it was about the whole family struggling through a difficult time in their lives and then to top of their bad year there was an alien invasion. But I see now that the order of events and culmination of the story all revolve around Graham. It’s like Shyamalan is saying that God killed Graham’s wife, gave his son asthma, ruined Merrill’s baseball career, and even had aliens brutally attack the world- all to bring Graham to closer to Him and to deepen his faith.
Maybe I’m completely off the mark here. What do you all think?
There’s more that I want to say about this movie, but I think it will have to come in increments.
I haven't had a chance to re-watch this movie yet, I'm hoping to do it over the weekend, so I will reserve my remarks mostly for then.
One thing I know I always loved about the movie was the end message of God being in complete control of life and even (especially) when we don't understand why bad stuff happens.
Signs is one of my favoritest movies of all time and I will have more after I re-watch it.
Do you take suggestions for movies?
My thoughts about Signs this time through were more technical than theological. I was noticing M. Night's skill as a storyteller and so the actual story got pushed to the background.
One thing I love about M. Night movies is how he goes about creating tension. He takes the time to establish certain effects such as the color red in The Village or the baby monitor in Signs. Then when he brings that effect back in later you know exactly what it means. In The Village when Ivy is stumbling around in the woods and the camera pans back to show her surrounded by bushes of red berries I gasped and knew, just knew, it was going to be very bad. In Signs at the end of the dinner scene (one of the most emotionally powerful moments of eating I have ever seen) the camera moves to the baby monitor and all the lights go red. Part of my head was just sitting back from the action and noted that it's just a baby monitor; it's not really that tense. The other part of my head that was deep in the movie jumped and wanted someone to hold onto. There was an entire scene earlier in the movie that mostly just established the function of the baby monitor. That scene feels a little superfluous at first, but because of it that later scene works very, very well.
I watched some of the special features a while back. The one I really appreciated was M. Night explaining how he doesn't like computer effects. He said that so many movies show you what is scary and let you have your own reaction, but he'd much rather show you the reaction he wants in his movie and then let the viewer imagine what scares them. So instead of getting to see what's on the roof at the beginning we see how Meryl feels about it and then fill in what would make us feel like that. It is a very effective way to do movies.
The other thing I re-noticed this time through is how very funny Signs is. It's easy to miss the first time through because the humor is restrained and natural. You have normal people dealing with tragedy and then getting thrown into a stressful situation. There is very little in this world that is funnier than normal people. The movie is funny without losing any tension because it's true.
I feel like there's way more I could say, but I'm gonna stop here and trust other people to continue to sing the praises of the excellent movie and it's maker.
My favorite part of the movie (from a technical perspective) is when they drop the flashlight in the basement. Everyone is running and you hear things, but all you can see is the flashlight, being kicked around.
Of course, I say this having not rewatched the movie this month. Bad Seth, no biscuit.
Fritz,
Yes, we eagerly accept suggestions, but we may just as eagerly ignore them. ;o) Seriously, it'd be great to get suggestions so that we Big Wig Waggles will have a wide variety of movies to choose from.
Gaby,
"That scene feels a little superfluous at first..."
I'm assuming you're referring to the car scene where they form a human antenna. I was noticing this time around that that is actually one of my favorite scenes in the movie. I think it just feels real. It starts out with the adults thinking the kids are overreacting and being silly to where they all end up somewhat unified in their fear. When Graham is going to let go of the baby monitor and Merrill says, "You'll loose the signal." it's an important turning point in the story because now it's no longer some childish silliness, but an actual possible danger. I think the baby monitor idea is pure genius and that scene does set it up well like you said.
Something I didn’t mention before is how excellent I think all the actors are in Signs. They pull off the “real people in real situations” feel well. Cherry Jones deserves recognition for her role as Officer Paski. She represented the town in a sense. She is what made their little town believable to me. I quite enjoyed her in The Village, too.
I sort of wish M. Night hadn’t played the part of Ray simply because, being darker skinned, he stood out from everyone else and I found it distracting. What does everyone else think? I loved him acting in his other story “Lady in the Water.” He was terrific in his role there and I don’t think anyone else could have done the part like he did.
Yeah, the lighting for the whole basement scene is really great. I love it when Merrill accidentally smashes the light bulb with the ax and they are plunged into darkness. It's intensely scary, but not over-the-top.
After rewatching the movie I have some other remarks:
I find it interesting how some people hate the movie since they were expecting something completely different. This is not a horror movie, in fact you only ever get two good looks at the aliens, and they aren't even that good actually. The grainy footage from Mexico and the alien in the house, but when it is in the house there is so much backlight that it is hard to see it clearly.
What interests me is that the dire moment of urgency and need isn't getting attacked by aliens, rather it is when Mel Gibson tells God that he hates Him while holding his son who is having an asthma attack. That is what finally causes his brother to speak up and reproach him for losing his faith.
The ending of Signs is definitely one of my favoritest ending in any movie, it ranks right up there with the ending of Pan's Labyrinth (which I think should be the March movie since I am curious what others think about it :) )
Yeah, I was trying to explain to someone that Signs wasn't a horror movie because it doesn't have a stick-with-you-freak-out effect. I hadn't realized it at the time, but the most stressful things (more or less) are so close to home that they're just tense, not horrific. I don't lie awake at night waiting for "deciding whether to make your last stand at home or not" or "someone's having an asthma attack and we left the medicine somewhere else" to jump out at me from the darkness. But that also means the movie doesn't throw the external fears into high relief (even though they're there). It really highlights the internal struggles and fears.
I'm sure I have more thoughts on Signs, but they will have to wait for a different time...
Okay, I posted this reply before, but it must have gotten eaten.
Adiel, I totally agree with you about the baby monitor on the car scene. It sets up the monitor, but also shows the stress lines running through this family. Merrill ends up siding with the children while Graham is still refusing to be completely convinced. What's cool is that M. Night took the time to do all of that. When I saw the movie for the first time I wasn't sure exactly what to expect and, not really knowing the importance of the scene, it felt like the scene just slowed the movie down. But it didn't, it really didn't.
Okay, everyone here so far agrees that Signs and its creator are way up there on the spiffyness meter. So what I want to know is why do you think the rest of America isn't as fond of it?
Not enough in-your-face scariness? Too much religion? Too slow? Or is it that everyone else just has bad taste and we can be justifiably snobby now? ;o)
I adore this movie! It's thought-provoking and beautiful! Mel Gibson does an incredible acting job (like always! :)) and really makes you "feel" what he's going through-which is no small success! :)
I'm not sure why America doesn't like it very much. Maybe Shyamalan makes them think, and I don't think people in the world like to think. Especially about the kind of things "Signs" causes you to consider...
Just a thought. :)
I'm gonna go with everyone else has bad taste. ;-D
LOL, Gabrielle!! :D That must be it! :D
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