Screenplay Five: The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense (1999)
M. Night Shyamalan
Click for screenplay.
"De profundis clamo ad te domine." ("Out of the depths I cry to you, lord." - Mass for the dead)

I can't believe that I feel like I have to do this, but

BEWARE: SPOILERS.

I imagine that by now, everyone on the planet is familiar with the twist in The Sixth Sense, but I am not holding back at all below the cut. So... be warned.

The Seven Steps:

1) Once upon a time, a prominent child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe lives with his wife Anna in modern-day Philadelphia. Separately, a young boy named Cole Sear lives with his mother Lynn.

2) And every day, Malcolm uses his knowledge and skill to help children overcome fears, difficult situations, etc. Cole struggles to function like a normal child, as a result of divorced parents and unknown internal challenges.

3) Until one day, when Malcolm and Anna are celebrating Malcolm's award for his outstanding achievements, a former patient--Vincent Gray--breaks into their house. Because he feels that Malcolm failed him , Vincent shoots Malcolm and then shoots himself. Malcolm survives the attack (...), but stops taking clients. He questions his previous success until he finally has another patient--Cole--with symptoms identical to Vincent's.

4) And because of this, Malcolm dedicates all of his time to Cole (damaging his relationship with Anna) and tries to find out what is happening to the young boy.

5) And because of this, Cole trusts Malcolm to finally admit that he sees dead people. Malcolm, wary at first, finally believes Cole and shares a hypothesis--that these people are asking Cole for help because they weren't "finished" with their lives.

6) Until finally, Cole helps a little dead girl by revealing that her mother poisoned her. Through this (and other events), Malcolm realizes that he did not in fact survive Vincent's attack. He has, since then, been one of the ghosts that haunt Cole.

7) And ever since that day, Malcolm has moved "on" because by helping Cole, he made up for his failure with Vincent. Cole now has a new strategy for dealing with those who haunt him and can live a relatively normal life.

(That was harder than I expected. While Malcolm is clearly the major character, his character growth rests on Cole's story so completely and the two become so entwined that together, they create the plot of the screenplay. Neither can succeed without the other.)







I've liked this movie since the first time I first saw it. I initially liked it for the thrill of the genre and the shock of the twist ending. I recognized the detail in Shyamalan's story when I first discovered the concept of symbolism. Now I can approach it and see if it holds up under my extremely professional scrutiny of the screenplay.

...

It's still super awesome.

Shyamalan writes his screenplay as if he is used to writing prose; his descriptions go beyond general mise-en-scène and into the realm of emotion/thoughts which (despite my limited experience with screenplays) is typically underneath dialogue in the list of significance. And Shyamalan's dialogue stands my rigorous test of Goodness... but what's interesting is how many beats he actually writes into the script. How much silence plays a role. How much silence is scripted, how much deeper it is than just the actors' artistic license.

Sure, why not, I'll start with



Silence

Dead people are typically pretty silent. Especially quiet and empty places are dead. Things are as silent as the grave. Death is a flatline.

Not for Cole.

And that's why The Sixth Sense is placed in the genre it is (Wikipedia claims "psychological thriller"). It's not your average scary movie with zombies and blood and screaming and blonde girls getting chopped up (go watch Cabin in the Woods). Instead, it takes something we claim to be 100% certain of (dead people are silent, gone) and informs us that no, we are in fact wrong (at least, in Cole's life). What's even more scary is that this awareness--this sixth sense, if you will (I'm so funny)--is given to a child. An eight-year-old boy.

It's heartbreaking, because he is in a stage of development where such a discovery--that his world perspective is fundamentally different from the rest of society--can do, and does, a lot of damage.

ANNA: They're also saying that my husband has a gift... your gift teaches children to be strong in situations where most adults would piss themselves.

Anna says this to Malcolm early on in the script when the two of them are celebrating Malcolm's recent award. It's important not only because it characterizes Malcolm as a talented and compassionate psychologist, but because it foreshadows his next client--Cole. Cole's ability to interact with dead people is bound to make his mind a noisy place. What's really impressive is how he's managed to do this as a child, whereas I know I would indeed piss myself if I had to deal with this, and I'm an "adult". Supposedly. 

Now, compare the cacophony in Cole's life with the film's on-screen (and in-screenplay) silence. The word "beat" is used approximately 230 times in the screenplay to describe a prolonged pause between movement/dialogue. (I counted.) (Just kidding.) (But no, seriously, it's used approximately 230 times.) 

Lots of very pregnant pauses and lots of silently watching or moving without verbal accompaniment... the scripted silence creates a vacuum where the audience is forced to pay more attention to the dialogue. When characters talk, they really have something to say. Each line is situated between moments of silence and each word is necessary.



Fear

VINCENT: Do you know why you're scared when you're alone?

COLE: Instead of something I want, can I have something I don't want?
Malcolm turns back to Cole. Malcolm nods "yes." Beat.COLE: I don't want to be scared anymore.

Fear serves to remind the audience that Cole is a child, despite the extreme maturity he has to show given his sixth sense.

MALCOLM (referring to two of Cole's toy soldiers): What happened to these two? Being under tissue paper can't be a good thing.Cole removes the tissue.COLE: That's Private Jenkins and that's Private Kinney. They got killed. Private Jenkins has a baby girl that was born seven pounds, six ounces. He's never seen her. He wanted to get back to Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and hold her... Private Kinney's wife is really sick--she has something called a brain anism.MALCOLM (soft): You mean aneurysm.COLE: Yeah, Private Kinney needed to get back safe to take care of her... it's sad they died, isn't it?

JESUS CHRIST, if that scene doesn't bring fat melty tears to your eyes, leave me alone

Of course, I can't know for sure that these little histories Cole shares belong to two ghosts who have spoken to him. But let's assume they do.

First: symbol. The soldiers are Cole's toys. They're his--special to him. Like the ghosts he sees.

Second: symbol. The tissue covering the soldiers. They're ghosts. We're used to white sheets, but for a toy soldier, a tissue is sufficient...

Third: verb tense. Private Jenkins has a baby girl... Private Kinney's wife is sick. For Cole, these people still are (not were). Some really beautiful writing by Shyamalan here.

Fourth: Cole is afraid of the ghosts he sees. This fear gives him a childish, nervous quality... but knowing the truth of the situation, we as the audience can see that the sadness Cole exhibits in the above scene is an innocent sadness. No. An innocent sympathy, or to use Malcolm's word for Vincent... compassion.

I think another reason for all the silence in this screenplay is the fear that so many characters experience. Malcolm is afraid that he won't be able to help Cole, and consequently that he is losing his wife. Cole is afraid because (surprise) he sees dead people and they seem to want to hurt him. The fear does different things to them: Malcolm's fear of failing Cole damages his relationship with his wife, and his fear of losing his wife makes him angry. Cole's fear is a paralytic and possesses his childhood, threatening to turn him into Vincent (more on that later). These fears are finally dissipated as each character eventually faces their fear(s) and subsequently vanquishes them.

Malcolm, however, has another fear on a subconscious level--which brings me to my third topic.



Vincent and Cole

MALCOLM: I do remember you, Vincent. You were a good kid. Very smart... quiet... compassionate... unusually compassionate...
VINCENT: You forgot cursed... you failed me.

Vincent is a drug-addicted, paranoid, fearful nineteen-year-old when he shoots (and kills) Malcolm. Malcolm's notes on Vincent from his time as Malcolm's client included "acute anxiety, socially isolated, possible mood disorder, parent status--divorced, communication difficult between mother/child dyad". Vincent has a shock of white hair on the side of his head. He identifies as a freak.

Now let's look at Cole.

MALCOLM: You ever tell [your mom] about how it is with Tommy?COLE: I don't tell her a thing.MALCOLM: Why?COLE: 'Cause she doesn't look at me like everybody and I don't want her to. I don't want her to know.MALCOLM: Know what?COLE: That I'm a freak.

Cole is a strange, quiet, fearful eight-year-old when he meets Malcolm. Malcolm's file explains Cole's background as identical (verbatim) to Vincent's. Cole also has a shock of white hair on the side of his head and he also identifies as a freak. 

So now we know the two are extremely parallel. But why has Shyamalan set it up like this?

Let's check out some name symbolism that I may just be pulling out of my ass, but I really think it's at least partially valid or I wouldn't waste my (and your) time...

"Vincent Gray" -- Vincent is torn between two worlds... those of the dead and of the living.

Dead --> Dark --> Black

Living --> Light --> White

Black and white make gray. For Vincent, the two worlds are inseparable and therefore form one where there is no black-and-white dichotomy. Additionally, the color gray suggests a fading of some sort... like, faded to the point where Vincent does not function normally and also faded in the sense that it is too late for Malcolm to help him.

"Cole Sear" -- Coals are used to start fires. Cole has a spark in him that Malcolm sees and wants to nurture above the asocial shell that Cole is building to cope with his sixth sense. Vincent and Cole are essentially identical; after Malcolm's failure with the former, he makes it his primary focus to help the latter. Both Malcolm and the audience know a potential road for Cole to take... and that road leads to Vincent, a killer. Which leads me to...

A Second Chance

Cole is Malcolm's second chance. Vincent and Cole are identical, and Cole is the world's way of offering Malcolm a chance to prevent Cole from becoming a killer like Vincent.

Of course, it's only offered to him in death. Malcolm has some eerie insight (I say eerie because it that relates to him, but he doesn't know it yet):

MALCOLM: But I'm getting a second chance here. I can't let it slip away. 

MALCOLM (recording himself): ...Cole Sear allowed me to witness something today. (Beat.) This time I'm going to listen.

MALCOLM (to Anna, he believes, although she cannot hear him): Look, he's an eight-year-old child. He's my only client. If he invites me to his play, I'm not thinking about how late I get back... I go. I have to go. You know that. That's the only way I know how to work. (Beat.) Vincent said I failed him. I won't give Cole a chance to say those words to me! I won't!

MALCOLM: These [dead] people... people that died and are still hanging around. Maybe they weren't ready to go... maybe they wake up that morning thinking they have a thousand things to do and a thousand days left to do them in... and then all of a sudden, it's all taken away. No one asked them. It's just gone... 

These quotes all serve to demonstrate that Malcolm is taking his second chance very seriously. That's why this moment below is especially heartbreaking: 

MALCOLM (recording himself): Cole... (Beat.) His pathology is more severe than initially assessed. (Beat.) He's suffering from visual hallucinations, paranoia--symptoms of some kind of school-age schizophrenia. (Beat.) Medication and hospitalization may be required. (Stops recording.) ...I'm not helping him.

Malcolm makes a diagnosis: schizophrenia. He suggests treatment: medication and hospitalization. 

THEN HE ADMITS THAT HE IS NOT HELPING COLE BY DOING THESE THINGS.

Maybe he remembers that he made the same diagnosis and recommendation for Vincent, which obviously didn't help. Maybe he just feels that he's not truly helping Cole. Either way, he knows that his second chance will be wasted if he continues with this assessment. This is concrete evidence that Malcolm's character is reaching a critical point of development, where he can continue down the same road and fail another child, or he can try something else--which will require belief and/or faith (see below)--that may prove more beneficial. 

Malcolm's unfinished work is making up for his failure with Vincent. That's when, after he helps Cole recognize the potential of his sixth sense rather than fear it, Malcolm can move on.

RELIGION/FAITH

Our introduction to Cole is fleeting. He steps out of his house and runs down the street (without acknowledging Malcolm) into a church. When Malcolm finally catches up to Cole, they talk:

MALCOLM: I like churches, too. (Beat.) In olden times, in Europe, people used to hide in churches. Claim sanctuary.COLE: What were they hiding from?MALCOLM: Oh, lots of things, I suppose. Bad people, for one. People who wanted to imprison them. Hurt them. COLE: Nothing bad can happen in a church, right?MALCOLM: Right.

Hey, Cole's hiding in a church! 

He is clearly in the church because he believes that no harm can come to him, and since he thinks the ghosts he sees are trying to harm him, he thinks he is safe from them inside the church. Whether he is hiding from dead people we as an audience are not aware of or whether he is hiding from Malcolm (who Cole, we can assume, already knows is dead), he is under the belief that the church offers sanctuary for him. And Malcolm sharing the history of sanctuary in churches comforts Cole.

And of course, there's the homemade tent in his room.

[The interior of the tent] is a striking sight. The bedsheet walls of the tent are lined with religious pictures... tiny statues of saints surround the interior perimeter. We see the statue Cole stole from the church is in here... this tent is a sanctuary made by an eight-year-old to hide in.

Random assortment of important things Cole says (or, Proof that M. Night Shyamalan is a fantastic writer)

"I see dead people... walking around, like regular people... they can't see each other. Some of them don't know they're dead."

"They tell me stories... things that happened to them... things that happened to people they know." (FUN FACT: Cole says that one moments after Malcolm shared his story with Cole.)

"When they get mad, it gets cold."

"Sometimes people think they lose things and they didn't really lose them. It just gets moved." 

And finally, one that I can't help but talk about...

"I'm not going to see you anymore, am I?"

Cole says this to Malcolm after his second school play (in which he plays King Arthur. Symbolic much? Especially given that in the first school play he literally held up props. That's it).

(By the way... that first play? It was The Jungle Book. And the only line the film's audience hears from this one is, "There once was a boy, very different than other boys. He lived in the jungle, and he could talk with the animals." I'll leave you to interpret that one.)

ANYWAY

"I'm not going to see you anymore, am I?"

Think about the construction of this line. What would have made more sense for Cole to say, in my opinion, is "We're not going to see each other anymore, am I?" I mean, they are both seeing each other. That's literally what's happening. Why would Cole say that he won't be seeing Malcolm anymore? Also, the verb seeing... why not "meeting"? Or a dozen other more likely verbs?

This is Shyamalan's last little hint that gee, maybe, something isn't quite right with Malcolm... that maybe he didn't survive Vincent's attack...

Cole won't be seeing Malcolm anymore because Malcolm will disappear. He will disappear like Mrs. Marschal probably did, like Kyra probably did... because he has completed his unfinished business. Damn, that's good writing. 

And so, Cole enters his own personal ritual chamber at Kyra's funeral: her bedroom. He knows he will confront his fear (a dead ghost who he now knows needs his help) and he bravely goes in anyway. He comes out with the object needed to put both Kyra's ghost and her entire family (especially her father) at rest. And before leaving the funeral, he comforts Kyra's little sister in her time of grief and confusion. Cole has developed the SHIT out of himself.

He also constructs a parallel between himself and Malcolm. Malcolm "fixed" kids and their families... Cole "fixes" dead people and those they left behind. Don't believe me?

• Mr. and Mrs. Marschal (not in the movie, but I basically cried when I read this in the screenplay...
• Kyra's family and Kyra
• Cole's mother and her grandmother (tears all over the place, I'm not kidding you)
• and of course, Anna and Malcolm (Anna can move on because Malcolm is finally leaving her at peace after finishing what he needed to do)

There's plenty more I could talk about (Lynn's character, the subtle hints that Malcolm has been dead the entire time, color motif [in the film, not so much the screenplay], Cole's glasses [he wears his father's old thick-rimmed frames and hey whaddya know, Cole "sees" more than all of us], the fact that we almost never see Malcolm travel from place to place [except for the journey to Kyra's, but he and Cole are on their way to the climax of the narrative, so it's symbolic of the journey both characters are about to complete])...

But I won't. Instead, I should probably come up with an armature of some kind.

Good communication is key for all parties involved in a conflict.

I was gonna say something cool about second chances and catharsis but while those are two very important ideas in the screenplay, I think Shyamalan is trying to emphasize communication. Look at all these mini-conflicts:

Cole/Lynn

Malcolm/Anna

Malcolm/Vincent

Living/Dead

And thanks to Malcolm's second chance, all of these conflicts are ameliorated by improved communication brought about by Malcolm (although I suppose his conflict with Vincent cannot be ameliorated, but Malcolm as the "survivor" [he thinks] can move on by the end of the story).

Shyamalan made a ghost story, a horrific story, a "psychological thriller". And he made it about relationships. And it was good.

This final quote is from Malcolm and Anna's wedding video, which is playing while Anna sleeps in the living room when Malcolm says goodbye to her. These are the last words of the script.

MALCOLM: I just have to say, this day today has been one very special day... I wish we could all stay and play.  

But he can't. He's completed his earthly commitments, and he's gotta go.