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Author
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Comment
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HyldorQueen
Registered User
(8/2/04 11:16 pm)
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Shyamalan's The Village and the fable of disinformation
***WARNING*** Contains a spoiler, so proceed no further if you don't want a crucial plot point revealed...
Whatever its flaws (and the reviewers have found many), the thing that struck me the most about "The Village" is the mythic, almost archetypal nature of the storyline. Cinematographically, the eponymous village is an amazingly primal place. Granted, much of the film occurs in the autumn, but it fairly shreiks Harvest Home and corn maidens and other loamy manifestations of the seasonal mysteries. And the use of color, the emphasis on the woods and the forbidding beasts that live there (Jungian ideas if ever there were)... well, director Shyamalan has created a fine little fable here. But as I was driving home, something even bigger occured to me. The fable that Shyamalan has tapped into is much larger than this one movie. The idea of a society struggling towards utopia through enforced illusion; of one that rests precariously on the premise that all those but a chosen few have been duped into believeing a certain version of reality... we've seen this before. Two examples that sprang immediately to mind are the film "The Truman Show" and the old Star Trek episode which I believe was called "For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky." The latter concerns a multi-generational spaceship whose latter-day inhabitants have been "mythologically" programmed to believe that they must never climb too high out of fears that they will realize they are not in fact residing in a city, but instead inside a closed spacecraft run by a computer with less than sanguine intentions. Another similar idea is played out in the plot of Edgar Allan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death." An important feature of this fable seems to be the impossibility of
maintaining the illusion and the safety it provides, yet Shyamalan leaves that aspect of his story somewhat ambiguous.
I am casting my mind about for other examples of this sort of fable from art and literature, and would love any input to this discussion. What is the function of this fable, do you think? How old is it? It gives me a somewhat creepy feeling about our own cultural mythology...
-Courtney
Edited by: HyldorQueen at: 8/2/04 11:17 pm
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/3/04 4:32 am)
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Re: Shyamalan's The Village and the fable of disinformation
Look at Margaret Haddix's RUNNING OUT OF TIME, which seems to be the same story. (Check Amazon and get a complete plot synopsis.)
Jane
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swood
Unregistered User
(8/3/04 10:37 am)
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Indigenous peoples
The thing that struck me about The Village, which I have yet to hear discussed, is how the things that live in the woods, and the stories the villagers make up about them are very similar to the portrayal of Native Americans in early American literature. The fact that the things living in the woods also have red as their color, (not to mention leave skinned animals left as warning, something I felt referenced scalping) really drove the point home.
I felt the movie had a lot of opportunities to explore xenophobia, or cross-cultural sharing, that never evolved.
Sarah
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asweeney
Unregistered User
(8/3/04 11:44 am)
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RE: Indigenous peoples
I thought that the twist would be exactly that - Native Americans. I think the reason it's not brought up in discussion is because xenophobia is not the issue - at least not the typical sense. The basic theme is there, but I think reading native/colonist conflict into it is a little forced.
In a little blurb, M. Night called it an adult "Little Red
Riding Hood". Searching for RRH, I can across these morals
:( from www.usm.edu/english/fairy...hhome.htm)
Then listen, all ye children,
And mind your mother's word!
For the great WOLF, men call EVIL
Is prowling round unheard!
****
If in this world secure you'd be,
From danger, strife, and care;
Take heed with whom you keep company,
And how--and when--and where.
This ties into all the buzz about The Village being a post 9/11 cautionary tale (isolation, unquestioning faith in leadership, the lengths that leadership will go to for the illusion...)
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midori
snyder
Registered User
(8/3/04 4:57 pm)
ezSupporter
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Fairy Tale elements
I really enjoyed the fairy tale elements--the stilted language of the adults (as they play a role of almost one dimensional types)--as though flattening them into stock characters from a tale they desired to inhabit.
The prohibitions--"don't step off the path" and "don't pick the red berries" and the journey to the town--all of which must be broken by the young adults engaged in a form of intitiation--interesting too that the adults represent the greatest impedement to arriving at adulthood--accepting stagnation, retention in an artificially innocent world.
I saw the adults using fairy tale technique--the telling of tales, the monster tales in the woods to control their enviornment fascinating. I am not sure I read the monsters as a version of Native Americans...or even the xenophobic fear of outsiders. I read it more as "that which they didn't want to talk about" (as we learn that it is their dead who are most like "The creatures we don't speak of")--the fear and horror they had left behind, inscribed in narrative. The red for me signified the blood and violence that they thought they had shed in sequestering themselves. They created concrete monsters out of that intolerable fear, their anguish and their traumatic memories of their dead--and used those monsters and their stories like a barrier to prevent them from feeling or recalling or even acknowledging the violence--even in themselves. (and that corsetted way they spoke, the way the women dressed--as though afraid to breathe. Ivy is the only female who doesn't wear one)
So when Noah murders the small animals, attempts to kill Lucius in his jealous rage and attacks Ivy in the woods--all those different meanings of red come together--blood/passion/lust/rage...and, disguised in the monster costume, he presents the imaged body of the past the elders thought they had insulated themselves from. There is also that curious beautiful and terrifying moment when Ivy is standing in the field of red berries--and if this is her rite of passage then the red here is also vaguely menstrual and it becomes a visual moment of her transformation from adolescent ot adult.
Although, there is also a lovely twist on the fairy tale journey of the young girl--usually an outward journey towards a house of marriage--but here, in this century, she performs like a boy (calls herself a tomboy infact, "runs like a boy" Lucius says) and she goes out on a journey like a boy, is initiated by her father before she leaves and alone in the woods, and then returns home (as does the hero) with the "water of life" in the medicines. There is also a sense that her father has inducted her into the world of the elders--to take his place almost--the lineage from her grandfather (and their shared visionary sight). All very male and really interesting....
any way...random thoughts...saw it last night and still mulling it over...really loved it.
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rowan
Unregistered User
(8/3/04 6:51 pm)
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Plato's Republic
Regarding earlier examples in which a select few have engineered a situation of mass deception in pursuit of a utopian society, I was thinking of Plato's Republic. That's pretty long ago!
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HyldorQueen
Registered User
(8/3/04 6:54 pm)
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Re: Color symbolism
I've enjoyed the astute comments about the symbolic use of red in The Village, but red is also a fairly easy one to suss out. What about the yellow? I thought the obvious connotation would have been caution, be aware, but I'm wondering what some other interpretations might be. I also though of the colloquial use of "yellow" to refer to cowardice. Presumably the elders originated the color system used in the village, and perhaps red to them was symbolic of the violence of the outside world, while yellow embodied the cautious vigilance that constitued their lives.
-Courtney
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isildae21
Registered User
(8/3/04 11:39 pm)
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Re: Color symbolism
I too wondered about the yellow, and cowardice was the first thing to spring to my mind. Especially concerning the one village boy who escorted Ivy beyond the borders, and then backed out in fear. Being afraid is accepted in their community because it allows them to control their facade.
Brilliant, and very similar to our own society.
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RBrunea
Registered User
(8/4/04 2:45 am)
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Plato's Republic
Slightly later examples of the oblivious utopian societies: the movie "Logans' Run", and Lois Lowry's "The Giver", where Jonas is selected as the Receiver of Memory for the new generation. The Receiver is expected to collect within himself all of the memories of humankind that may be unsettling to the Community, so the Community won't have to know about them. It's a kind of involuntary self-sacrifice for the Receiver, and a willing blindness on the part of the Community. Great book!
Rhonda
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LegendMaker
Registered User
(8/10/04 4:34 pm)
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Multiple commentary: Paranoia, Socialism, Conspiracy
I agree regarding the choice of yellow, it was very likely representative of fear, which was the driving theme of the entire movie. The elders used the very fears they hid from to imprison their own descendants, and were not introspective enough to realize their ironic mistake. Interestingly, the media campaign lured audiences to the movie on the pretense that there were really monsters in the woods, while the elders in the movie contained the villagers with the same deception.
Night introduces us to the character of Lucius, a young man who is said to be braver than all the rest. At the beginning of the movie we see that a boy has died because the villagers do not have the medicines they needed for him. Technically the elders could have saved the boy, but they let him die to uphold their principles, and their oaths to each other. But the boy's death prompts Lucius to ask permission from the elders to penetrate the woods where the monsters lurked, and fetch medicines from the towns. He expresses his belief that the monsters would not harm him, because surely they would realize (somehow) his noble motives.
But as brave as the request may seem, we are meant to notice how frightened Lucius is at asking for this permission. He is clearly more nervous standing in front of a group of people (even with his mother among them) than of the creatures in the woods. He would behave this way again when he passed a note to the elders during a town meeting, admitting his guilt in compromising the town boundary--he was more afraid of speaking in front of the crowd than of admitting his guilt that brought a creature into their village. Mr. Walker admits that he could never be as courageous as Lucius, but Night wanted us to understand that Lucius is not himself without fear. He just prioritizes his fears differently.
The message Night wanted to tell seems to be, in part, that it is futile to hide from your fears, but rather to face them. It could be his reaction to the level of fear and paranoia Americans seem to carry about them in general, something which seems to have been made worse by 9/11. The elders disguised as creatures (monsters-that-walk-among-us) may be Night's allusion to both terrorists and political leaders (depending on which way you look at them), the marks on the doors a nod at the color-coded terror alerts, the color red representative of our fear of death, and the yellow boundaries around the town a metaphor for paranoia and its resulting control over our behavior, like duct tape around windows.
At the same time, I couldn't help but wonder if this was also a stab at socialism. Not so much peaceful socialistic communities, like the Israeli Kibbutzim, after which the elders seemed to want to model themselves, but extreme social democracy on a govermental scale, like the Soviet Union. Socialism as a mutually cooperative arrangement is fine, but it never works on a large scale because too many people have their own self interests and want to explore personal freedoms that are not to be found in a socialist group. So a socialist government resorts to fear tactics to keep its members in the fold. That's probably more indicative of Fascist Socialism (dictatorship) than Socialism itself. The U.S. has always been intolerant of dictatorship control in any form, whether we refer to it as "Communist" or "monopoly" or anything else. That's because it was dictatorship in the form of English Monarchy that led to the formation of our government in the first place.
And yet, although Walker is the founding elder, he does not seem to be in "charge." He is not a dictator. The elders as a group are acting together under oath. So its a socialistic community led by a conspiracy to use fear and lies to control its members. Their attempts at brainwashing the members to believe something that isn't true are failing because of the courage of Lucius (which Mr. Walker admires) and because Noah doesn't have enough of a brain to "wash" (or at least the elders underestimated him and let him fall under the radar, thinking it wouldn't matter).
There may be yet another message. It is only blind faith in the elders that enforces the belief that the yellow boundary works. And when people grow up from childhood believing in what they are told, sometimes its hard to break free of that prison. They challenge it, to some extent, but it still has a strong hold. They are hard-wired to believe something is true without testing its logic. Like a Muslim extremist who believes they are to battle and destroy everyone who does not belong to their paradigm, especially other forms of monotheists, even to their own demise. (As a general rule, monotheism tends to be more insecure about itself than polytheism or other forms of religion.)
One last thing: The first moment I really drew a strong parallel with folklore was when I saw a creature for the first time. It's that red cape. I thought, "Why would a monster wear a red cape?" The image of Little Red Riding Hood immediately sprang to mind, not only with the red cape but with the journey of the blind girl, Ivy, through the woods, and the howls and growls of the creatures that sounded a little like wolves. (I could not figure out how humans could make these sounds, btw. It seems the logic of the movie failed many times, especially with regard to Noah's skinning of the animals and how he pulled that off under everyone's nose. But I don't think Night wanted us to examine his hand, rather to look where it's pointing.)
I should note I was disappointed to find out the monsters didn't exist. (An interesting side of human behavior, that. For in the real world, I would feel just the opposite.) But Night cleverly made me distrust him to the point that I thought Edward Walker was lying to his daughter when he said it was all a hoax. Or half-lying. In fact, when Ivy was confronted by a 'creature' in the woods, and it looked just like the costume we saw, an eerie thought occurred to me. What if the monsters DID exist, but they were using these costumes, provided by the elders, to disguise their true appearance? Why would the elders have such a truce with the creatures? What could the creatures have really looked like that they should disguise themselves as monsters that looked bizarre to begin with? I was really eager to find out the answer to this, and was again disappointed to find out I was wrong.
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copperwise
Registered User
(8/10/04 8:09 pm)
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Haddix
Indeed. So much so that M. Night is going to be sued by the publisher.
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Amal
Registered User
(8/10/04 11:57 pm)
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Discrepancies
I thought it was a very good movie, and that the actress playing Ivy was excellent. I'm also quite prepared to be biasedly in favour of any movie with Joaquin Phoenix in (except Gladiator -- stupid, trauma-inducing movie!) I loved the use of red and yellow, and hadn't thought of it as an indicator of cowardice or paranoia; while making the blood/stain = red connection, I'd thought of yellow -- the kind of yellow they were using, anyway -- as closer to saffron. In that context, I'd see red as the "fire" in the Buddha's "Fire Sermon," with the yellow being the "safe" colour because it was akin to calm and holiness.
To LegendMaker: I was under the impression that the noises coming from the woods were somehow recorded, or rigged, given that they would happen seemingly all the time, at night, when the elders would presumably be at home with their families. Of course, that would also imply that the elders have a secret stash of radio batteries, or somesuch... But then, why not? They have those boxes full of newspaper clippings and other things. Also, I thought that Walker had indicated that another elder was the one who skinned the animals -- the one who'd lost a child in the opening scene of the movie, and whose subsequent behaviour seemed affected. Of course, I found family relations hard to follow, as I felt sure that Noah was Ivy's brother up until quite later on in the movie. So this could all make little to no sense. ; )
Did anyone else see the punchline a while off, though? The lack of accents (when I thought they were trying to portray seventeenth century settlers from Britain), some discrepancies in clothing, the music they were playing on the piano, combined with how stilted the dialogue seemed to be, seemed like too much to be wrong with one movie -- also, the fact that there was no place/time marker, like, "Massachussetts, 1630," or somesuch -- so it seemed more reasonable to assume that they were in some kind of closed utopian community. A big tip-off came the moment I noticed men and women commanded equal respect, as well as the lack of religious language on the whole -- replaced, instead, with "we are grateful for the time we have been given," which seems like a fitting mantra for Walker, who feels it's time to move the project along.
There's so much to say about it, and so many essay-worthy topics to address! I really, really liked it -- much more than "Signs," if not quite as much as "Unbreakable," which really did shock me.
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LegendMaker
Registered User
(8/11/04 8:19 am)
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Re: Discrepancies
Amal: You are right there are a lot of logical holes and missing clues in the movie, which is why the first time I saw it I was very confused. I saw it twice and was still confused. The issue of who skinned the livestock is, I think, one of the worst problems, because the question is raised by the elders and never adequately answered... Or at least not obviously. When Walker was confessing the hoax to Ivy, he said, "We think it's one of the elders," but he didn't know for sure, nor did he speculate WHY (which is an important question that needs answering). The point of Those We Do Not Speak Of is to keep people from entering the Forest. That's it. When someone penetrated the yellow boundary, the elders would retaliate by having a creature enter the village, to show that the villagers will not be safe if they break the truce. But the skinned animals were in retaliation for *nothing*. They just happened, from the very start.
I also thought about August Nicholson, the elder. It was his child who died at the beginning of the movie, I believe. And we heard him tell Lucius how tired he was because he was up too late. (Lucius didn't ask him what he would have been doing up so late, and we don't know what August's "job" was. But I found it suspect that August should say this much. Especially to Lucius, who was known to be the bravest of the younger generations.) August also, in that dialog, gave us the vague impression that he was tired of secrets, which is when Lucius looked over at the lockbox in the room. Lucius would indeed get perturbed about the secrets as he brings that up with his mother later. August was also the one who was late to the emergency meeting of the elders near the end, when Walker told them he sent Ivy into the woods. Walker excused himself by saying he "couldn't get away." It seemed suspicious to me. And finally, he was the quickest to agree with Walker's decision to let someone breach the woods. He said something to the effect of, "what ever is going to happen, let it happen." So there is a good case for August.
One critical clue would be if we saw him at the wedding dance, because that's when the big livestock skinning took place. I can't remember seeing him there, but I'm not sure. I'd have to see it a third time and check more closely. (I'll wait for the DVD.) The kids came running in and said they believed the creatures want them to LEAVE the village. That may be a clue to Night's suggestion that August was the guilty party. Perhaps August was trying to use the animals for just that reason. Let everyone think the truce has ended.
But I think the mystery should have been concluded. It was left open. Most people assume Noah did the skinnings. Some have argued it was very clear, in fact... When the elders entered the Quiet Room and found the hatch in the floor open, two things were said. One, the man said Noah found the costume hidden under the floor. Two, the woman yelled out, "The animals!" People assumed that meant the animal skins...That Noah had been hiding them under the floor. But I didn't see any animal skins in the shot, I saw bones and feathers, and I thought they were part of the costume. If she had said, "The animal skins!" That would have been more clear. Or even, "The livestock!" (They referred to the skinned beasts as the "livestock" earlier.) Some feel that it tracks perfectly for Noah to have skinned the animals, because he showed signs of violence all through the film (he hit other boys with a stick, he stabbed Lucius with a knife). He had clearly been outside the boundary of the village, because he had picked the red berries. And he seemed to know the secret all along, because he laughed and clapped when ever he heard the horns in the woods, and when one of the creatures came into the village to frighten them. It was as if he thought it was a game.
It never occurred to me clearly that this was set in modern times until the end. In the opening shots of the film, the boy's gravestone showed it was supposedly the 1800's. The unnatural dialog was probably intentional on Night's part, and likely difficult for the actors to pull off. (They had to force themselves NOT to sound too natural. They were, after all, people from the modern world who were trying to speak in a way that sounded like they were living hundreds of years ago.)
One last thing that the yellow boundary of the village reminded me of: a police cordon, to tape off a crime scene. We kept hearing the elders speak of murder and violence against their loved ones, and when I saw it the second time I looked for clues that maybe these people were the murderers themselves... Or people who had gotten away with murder. But there was no evidence of this.
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LegendMaker
Registered User
(8/11/04 9:33 am)
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Original ideas are more of a myth these days
Regarding the accusations of plagiarizing... In all fairness it should be noted that Night may not have even known the book (Among the Betrayed, by Margaret Peterson Haddix) existed. Believe it or not, it is entirely possible, and even likely, for two people to come up with remarkably similar ideas. I'm a writer and it happens to me all the time. In film school my strange little 16mm project in 1986 was about a guy who, when he puts on his glasses, sees aliens around him that nobody else sees. A couple years later, John Carpenter made a movie called They Live. Nobody saw my little film except the other students, and there is no connection. It just happens.
People sue filmmakers all the time. Playright Lisa Litchfield filed suit against Steven Spielberg because she believed E.T. (released in 1982) was taken from her play, Lokey From Maldemar, in 1978. Which it was not. Raiders of the Lost Ark was also in court, as a man named Stanley Rader (no lie) sued George Lucas and company saying they stole his idea. Spielberg and Michael Crichton were sued for Twister, Landis sued for Coming to America. And so on, and so on. Sometimes there is legitimate idea-theft going on, especially if the original idea was optioned. But most of the time there is no connection. Usually the defendant wins, because coincidences of ideas just happen.
And sometimes plots are similar becuase one plot inspires another. There are no "original" ideas, only twists of previously used ideas. J.K. Rowling's young-wizards and school of wizardry theme has been done many times. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea had a young wizard, a school of wizardry, even a bully that reminds one of Malfoy. Sparrowhawk, the wizard in her yarn, was far more complex and better developed than Harry Potter, but Harry Potter is more popular in its time because it connects with school kids very well. But there are many examples. What about Diane Duane's Young Wizard series that began in the early '80's? And I think there was similar series by Debra Doyle (which I now get confused with Diane Duane's.)
How this will turn out for Night I don't know. I don't know if there is a paper trail connecting him with this book, or what. But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
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LegendMaker
Registered User
(8/11/04 9:37 am)
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correction...
Sorry, I meant Running Out of Time, by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
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copperwise
Registered User
(8/11/04 10:56 am)
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Original ideas
Oh, I agree. I was halfway through writing a really decent story when Katherine Kurtz published a book with the same theme. Grrr.
I can name at least two books that I would swear on my life contain stolen ideas and scenes, one taken from Harry Potter and another from Emma Bull's War for the Oaks. But it's unlikely that there's any proof.
On the other hand, I did do a great research paper in high school on an author who plagiarized Tolkien, and I think I provided enough proof, including passages with only one or two words changed, that the Tolkien estate could have done something unpleasant with it.
You just never know.
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/11/04 11:41 am)
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Re: Original ideas
And my WIZARD'S HALL, published 8 nyears before HP, had a hero named Henry, a wicked wizard trying to ruin the school, a redheaded sidekick and a girl who is a best friend, pictures on the wall that move and talk, etc.
Jane
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copperwise
Registered User
(8/11/04 11:50 am)
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Wizard's Hall
That's right, it did! It's been years since I read that one. Of course I've lost track of how much of your work I have read over the years...*grin*
The one I'm thinking of has a "sorting well" rather than a "sorting hat", and it sorts kids into the correct camp cabin rather than into the correct dorm. But I actually hadn't read HP when I reviewed this one, so there's no mention of the resemblance in my piece.
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Casey
Cothran
(8/12/04 6:07 am)
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Re: Color Symbolism
I was especially fascinated by the lingering camera shot of dying Noah.
The beast in the red cloak ... it was as though he were both the wolf and Red Riding Hood, both the predator and the victim at the same time. For me, this image was an interesting way to address both Noah's illness and his violent tendencies. It makes me wonder about how I am meant to view the elders ... are they also beastly innocents?
I was also interested to note how Ivy fell in the landslide -- her yellow cloak was covered in dark mud, the original color nearly obscured. It is after this moment that she is able to act defensively, to save herself.
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LegendMaker
Registered User
(8/14/04 1:50 pm)
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Re: Color Symbolism
That's a good point regarding the yellow getting covered with mud. I hadn't thought of that. I did notice that Ivy came upon a wall covered with ivy. Another symbol? Maybe a coincidence.
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Shelly
Rae Clift
Registered User
(8/14/04 11:01 pm)
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Yellow to Gold
Interesting, rather than the color yellow I saw gold which made me think of the golden age that the community was trying to create/preserve. Red for blood, and violence, gold for innocence and virtue (although there didn't really seem to be a religions per se).
I also think that the monsters are very real--they just happen to be human not some otherworldly creature. Ivy's blindness is perfect because she'll never see either that the monsters are human or that the humans are monsters.
The film had some excellent acting including Bryce Dallas Howard (Ivy) who is Ron Howard's daughter.
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