from July 14, 2008
Review: "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale" By Michael Bamberger
There are some biographies that you love because they are well-written. There are some biographies that you love because you love the subject of the book. This book is neither of those things, and yet it's one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. It's entertaining the way a train wreck is entertaining if in this case the train crashed into Noah's Ark, if Noah's Ark in addition to two of all the world's animals was filled with fireworks, and chocolate pudding and the Cirque de Soleil. There should be a constant Greek chorus while you are reading this book, chanting things like "Can you believe he just wrote that?" and "Who the fuck does M Night Shyamalan think he is, anyway?"
I'm not even sure how to describe this book, it raises such a welter of contrary and violent emotions. It is a clusterfuck wrapped in a fiasco, dipped in hubris and then set ablaze with a sparkler made out of unintended irony. I spent large chunks of the book entertaining the question "Who do I despise most, M Night Shyamalan, or Michael Bamberger?" By the end I chose to be equitable and call it a flat-footed tie of abhorrence.
Where to begin... Michael Bamberger is a hack. That's as good a place as any. Bamberger is primarily a golf writer for Sports Illustrated. Not that that's necessarily damning - one could be a good writer about any subject (see Harvey Penick's "Little Red Book"). But Bamberger is a shitty golf writer, hackneyed, prone to trite underdog stories, and rife with cliches - notable in the world of golf journalism mostly for having pointed out a rules infraction that got Michelle Wie kicked out of a tournament. A shitty golf writer who knows nothing about movies except they're a pleasant way to pass the time on drizzly Martha's Vineyard afternoons. Who better to write an insightful book about the film industry and one of its most enigmatic directors? If you said "anyone", congratulations.
In addition to being a hack, Bamberger is a name-dropping star-fucker. He meets Shyamalan (his friends call him "Night") at a ritzy Philadelphia dinner party. Bamberger makes sure to note that former tennis pro Jim Courier also attended - "Wow! THE Jim Courier?!?" But from the moment Shyamalan makes his "entrance" Bamberger only has eyes for Night. His shirt unbuttoned like vintage Tom Jones, Night casts a spell over everyone he meets - is he psychic or just preternaturally charismatic? Bamberger isn't sure, but he's in love.
What follows is one of the most embarrassingly lionizing pieces of idolatry you're ever likely to read. Bamberger lays out the nature of Night's genius, his meteoric rise from a merely pampered upbringing to enviable affluence with tortured Tiger Woods and Bob Dylan metaphors and florid crush note prose. Bamberger spends the next year or so following after Night like a loyal stray beagle, living in the reflected brilliance of Night's genius and annointed celebrity, nuzzling his hand for validation and burrowing his warm supportive nose into Night's neck when the vagaries and slights of the uncomprehending mundane world bring Night low.
That Shyamalan happened to be creating "The Lady in the Water", one of the most soggy piles of cowflop to ever grace the silver screen (before he set the bar even soggier and floppier with "The Crappening"), during Bamberger's Icarus-like flight only makes the unremarked-upon dramatic irony all the richer. Bamberger lauds Night as a man of the people for allowing his chauffeur, personal chef, and nanny to read his newest opus, then turns around and joins his voice to Shyamalan's own shocked and wounded whimper when Disney suggests they "might have some notes". Night's personal assistant is noted to be remarkable for her ability to not confuse her station with that of her employer, and also her faculty for not going to the bathroom for the duration of the flight from Philly to LA to deliver the script to Disney, as well as her completely justifiable shock and disdain that Nina Jacobsen of Disney chose taking her son to a friend's birthday party over the prompt receipt of Night's "sale script" (to be read not as work, but as a weekend's entertainment) and Jacobsen's offer of "low-carb soup" FROM THE FRIG!
To say merely that Bamberger lacks the objectivity to notice that anyone who voices the slightest dissent from Night's "vision" is branded a traitor (or that all those voices were proved prescient) is to pardon him for what is in actuality the aiding and abetting of felonious egomania. There is an interesting story going on here, not just between the lines of Bamberger's Gospel of M Night, but behind the scenes of "Lady in the Water", unremarked upon and entirely unnoticed by Bamberger - the story of how success and fame in the arts can so distance one from the real world as to completely neuter that art.
There's an anecdote that's relayed enthusiastically - M Night is in an elevator on the way to a casting call. In the elevator with him is a child actor and the actor's mother. Night tries to engage the youngster, but he is reticent about talking to strangers, and the mother is understandably protective. Night cannot believe that had this child, or the mother ONLY RECOGNIZED him, he could have been their lottery ticket. Oh, the bitterweet irony that HAD THEY BUT KNOWN who Night was (don't they watch American Express commercials?) they could have found the very success they were struggling to achieve at countless casting calls.
That Bamberger takes Night at his word that this episode is a tragically failed attempt by Night at charity and an emblem of his man-of-the-people magnanimity and not rightly as symptomatic of a delusional and grandiose Christ complex says everything you need to know about both the book and M Night Shyamalan.
There are some biographies that you love because they are well-written. There are some biographies that you love because you love the subject of the book. This book is neither of those things, and yet it's one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. It's entertaining the way a train wreck is entertaining if in this case the train crashed into Noah's Ark, if Noah's Ark in addition to two of all the world's animals was filled with fireworks, and chocolate pudding and the Cirque de Soleil. There should be a constant Greek chorus while you are reading this book, chanting things like "Can you believe he just wrote that?" and "Who the fuck does M Night Shyamalan think he is, anyway?"
I'm not even sure how to describe this book, it raises such a welter of contrary and violent emotions. It is a clusterfuck wrapped in a fiasco, dipped in hubris and then set ablaze with a sparkler made out of unintended irony. I spent large chunks of the book entertaining the question "Who do I despise most, M Night Shyamalan, or Michael Bamberger?" By the end I chose to be equitable and call it a flat-footed tie of abhorrence.
Where to begin... Michael Bamberger is a hack. That's as good a place as any. Bamberger is primarily a golf writer for Sports Illustrated. Not that that's necessarily damning - one could be a good writer about any subject (see Harvey Penick's "Little Red Book"). But Bamberger is a shitty golf writer, hackneyed, prone to trite underdog stories, and rife with cliches - notable in the world of golf journalism mostly for having pointed out a rules infraction that got Michelle Wie kicked out of a tournament. A shitty golf writer who knows nothing about movies except they're a pleasant way to pass the time on drizzly Martha's Vineyard afternoons. Who better to write an insightful book about the film industry and one of its most enigmatic directors? If you said "anyone", congratulations.
In addition to being a hack, Bamberger is a name-dropping star-fucker. He meets Shyamalan (his friends call him "Night") at a ritzy Philadelphia dinner party. Bamberger makes sure to note that former tennis pro Jim Courier also attended - "Wow! THE Jim Courier?!?" But from the moment Shyamalan makes his "entrance" Bamberger only has eyes for Night. His shirt unbuttoned like vintage Tom Jones, Night casts a spell over everyone he meets - is he psychic or just preternaturally charismatic? Bamberger isn't sure, but he's in love.
What follows is one of the most embarrassingly lionizing pieces of idolatry you're ever likely to read. Bamberger lays out the nature of Night's genius, his meteoric rise from a merely pampered upbringing to enviable affluence with tortured Tiger Woods and Bob Dylan metaphors and florid crush note prose. Bamberger spends the next year or so following after Night like a loyal stray beagle, living in the reflected brilliance of Night's genius and annointed celebrity, nuzzling his hand for validation and burrowing his warm supportive nose into Night's neck when the vagaries and slights of the uncomprehending mundane world bring Night low.
That Shyamalan happened to be creating "The Lady in the Water", one of the most soggy piles of cowflop to ever grace the silver screen (before he set the bar even soggier and floppier with "The Crappening"), during Bamberger's Icarus-like flight only makes the unremarked-upon dramatic irony all the richer. Bamberger lauds Night as a man of the people for allowing his chauffeur, personal chef, and nanny to read his newest opus, then turns around and joins his voice to Shyamalan's own shocked and wounded whimper when Disney suggests they "might have some notes". Night's personal assistant is noted to be remarkable for her ability to not confuse her station with that of her employer, and also her faculty for not going to the bathroom for the duration of the flight from Philly to LA to deliver the script to Disney, as well as her completely justifiable shock and disdain that Nina Jacobsen of Disney chose taking her son to a friend's birthday party over the prompt receipt of Night's "sale script" (to be read not as work, but as a weekend's entertainment) and Jacobsen's offer of "low-carb soup" FROM THE FRIG!
To say merely that Bamberger lacks the objectivity to notice that anyone who voices the slightest dissent from Night's "vision" is branded a traitor (or that all those voices were proved prescient) is to pardon him for what is in actuality the aiding and abetting of felonious egomania. There is an interesting story going on here, not just between the lines of Bamberger's Gospel of M Night, but behind the scenes of "Lady in the Water", unremarked upon and entirely unnoticed by Bamberger - the story of how success and fame in the arts can so distance one from the real world as to completely neuter that art.
There's an anecdote that's relayed enthusiastically - M Night is in an elevator on the way to a casting call. In the elevator with him is a child actor and the actor's mother. Night tries to engage the youngster, but he is reticent about talking to strangers, and the mother is understandably protective. Night cannot believe that had this child, or the mother ONLY RECOGNIZED him, he could have been their lottery ticket. Oh, the bitterweet irony that HAD THEY BUT KNOWN who Night was (don't they watch American Express commercials?) they could have found the very success they were struggling to achieve at countless casting calls.
That Bamberger takes Night at his word that this episode is a tragically failed attempt by Night at charity and an emblem of his man-of-the-people magnanimity and not rightly as symptomatic of a delusional and grandiose Christ complex says everything you need to know about both the book and M Night Shyamalan.
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