Looking for Arthur in All the Wrong Places: A Note on M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense

This article contributes to the recent discussion of what is often referred to in film studies as “complex storytelling.” Unfortunately, complex storytelling is a vague term, and therefore the aim of this article is to identify one specific, clearly distinguishable category of such storytelling, “mind-tricking narratives.” These employ narrative techniques — to be more precise, focused and temporary surprise gaps — that deliberately deceive the audience. They play with the viewers’ experiences, expectations, and responses during the viewing of a film and spring an utterly surprising outcome in the end that calls for a distinct reviewing — as in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, David Fincher’s Fight Club, and Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. After problematizing recent work on complex storytelling in film studies, this article analyzes mind-tricking narratives in greater detail. It seeks to explain why such narratives are a subtype of complex storytelling despite the fact that many of them are narrated in a seemingly classical way. Furthermore, they will be distinguished according to three main aspects: who deceives, how is it done, and when does the audience find out about the deception?

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Looking for Arthur in All the Wrong Places: A Note on M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense

Abstract: The Sixth Sense contains more than one surprise. For Arthurians, the surprise—and it is a surprise that has been ignored by the critics—is that the film invokes the legend of the return of Arthur to heal the central character, his mother, and, even, his psychiatrist.

Cited by 5 publications

References 5 publications

Semiotic Structuring in Movie Narrative Generation

Semiotic Structuring in Movie Narrative Generation

Arthurian Myth and Cinematic Horror: M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense

Mind-Tricking Narratives: Between Classical and Art-Cinema Narration

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