The Sixth Sense.

The Sixth Sense, film written and directed by famed director M. Night Shyamalan released in 1999, by Buena Vista Pictures. It became the second highest grossing movie of the year and managed to bag six Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor and Actress.  Starring Bruce Willis, Hayley Joel Osment and Toni Collete, The Sixth Sense was a horror movie of sorts.  Not in the typical sense, but had enough of the usual horror movie tropes to be classified as such.  In this, I hope to discuss Rick Altman’s genre theory and the various aspects that can identify the genre of The Sixth Sense.

Genre is usually a very difficult thing to define. Like all things art, it is very subjective. However , if we follow certain similar elements between movies, we can form a theory for genre itself.  The semantic/syntactic approach is a method that seems to work best in classifying films. Developed by Emeritus Professor Rick Altman , the semantics and syntax in a film are analysed concurrently to put the film in its respective category. Semantics is defined as the meaning of words. In this context however , semantics is usually classified as common traits of a genre in a film. This encompasses characters, set design, location, makeup/costume, lighting and basically anything  that is a visual aspect.  For semantics we analyse the mise en scène of various scenes and how the actors portray the characters in regards to movement , language, and behaviour.  Syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases to form sentences. In a film’s sense, it is what we can extract from its narrative. We can observe the syntax by looking at the type of characters in a film, the ideas presented, themes, and conventions.   These two aspects come together to form the genre of a film. Semantics and syntax of The Sixth Sense will be analysed to deduce its genre.(Altman,1984)

The Sixth Sense, revolves around Dr Malcolm Crowe, an esteemed child psychologist as he tries to help, Cole Sear as atonement for failing a previous patient. The aforementioned patient broke into Dr Crowe’s house and shot him before committing suicide due to his increased mental instability. After spending enough time with Cole and gaining his trust, Cole eventually reveals to Dr Crowe that he can see dead people. Initially, Dr Crowe wanted to stop trying to help Cole because he thought Cole was delusional. But after reviewing his old work, Dr Crowe believes Cole and starts to help him adjust to his abilities.  He suggests  that Cole should use his gift and help the restless spirits to fulfill their last desires.  Eventually once Cole had made peace with his gift, he becomes more sociable and seems happier and it became time for Dr Crowe to be on his way. When Dr Crowe reaches home and tries to talk to his wife, hi wedding ring falls from her grasp and it becomes revealed that Dr Crowe died on the night of the shooting and Cole was helping him with his unfinished business. He then departs to the presumed afterlife.

Through a semantic approach it’s easy to see why this movie can be categorised as a horror movie. It has all the credentials to be classified as such.  For starters, there are ghosts in this movie. Cole sees various ghosts in this movie trying to make contact through him. The appearances of the ghosts add to the horror element as most of them appear rather gory and unsettling. For example, the little girl vomited, the lady in the dressing room had a burnt face, there were three corpses hanging from the ceiling and a boy with a gunshot wound on his head. These are the few of the ghosts that Cole could see. For the squeamish, this is a very unnerving sight. Besides that, the  overall lighting for the movie seems very dull and ominous. Scenes like the basement where Dr Crowe works from, and the kitchen where Cole sees the ghosts all have a darker lighting. The colours used, give a mysterious and creepy vibe that is a staple in a horror movie.

When approached syntactically, the movie gives out a more of a drama vibe. The overall theme of this movie is about is about things left unsaid or unfinished. It can be seen throughout the movie where the ghosts comes back to Cole to ask for his help in communicating. Cole is the messenger in which the ghosts use to relay their messages to the living. The  theme is far from a common horror movie. It isn’t a horror movie for horror’s sake. The horror elements are basically a vehicle to drive the theme. In addition, it has very little syntax related to a horror movie. The only aspect present of a horror film is threat to normalcy, which is observed when Cole says he can see dead people. Besides that, the movie serves as a journey of acceptance for Cole and retribution for Dr Crowe.  Syntactically The Sixth Sense is a drama.

All in all, The Sixth Sense satisfies the three conditions for the horror genre. There are general semantics and syntax that have horror motifs, such as ghosts, gore, and threat to normalcy.  Secondly, the audience can roughly guess where the movie is heading , based on the initial clues. Except for the twist ending though, that was a really well placed twist. Most people wouldn’t have seen that coming.  Lastly, the movie delivered the horror genre by packaging very differently from its counterparts. It is fair to say that The Sixth Sense is not entirely a horror film, it has many dramatic elements to it. It can be considered a hybrid genre of drama and horror because those two elements are prevalent in this film.  

References

1) Rick Altman, (1984) A Semantic/Syntactic approach to Film Genre. Cinema Journal Volume 23, pp 6-18, DOI: 10.2307/1225093