This part won’t be like a comic book. Real life doesn’t fit into little boxes that were drawn for it.
Elijah Price, Unbreakable
In 2002, Sam Raimi made the superhero blockbuster feasible; in 2008, Christopher Nolan made the notion credible; and in the same year, Jon Favreau catalyzed the genre’s unprecedented era of box-office success. Yet in 1999, M. Night Shyamalan was advised by Disney to distance his next film, Unbreakable, from the superhero genre lest he wished to alienate his producers and audience alike.
Unbreakable and its follow-up from 2016, Split, effectively bookend a cultural shift of popular cinema. Not only did superhero films shift from cult classics at best prior to Unbreakable, but they transformed into the genre of the most commercially-successful pictures. As if the astral sign of the movie-going zeitgeist, it’s difficult to envision a discussion of what makes a blockbuster without considering The Avengers. Not unlike the success of the current Star Wars trilogy, one could deviate the rise of superhero film from nostalgia compounded by the advantage of pre-existing household names. However, very few works, an entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or otherwise, dissect the mythology of the superhero. That’s not to suggest certain pieces, like James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy or even Nolan’s aforementioned Batman adaptation, don’t manipulate the genre in an interesting way. They just don’t really dissect it. Years before and nearly a decade after the movement, Shyamalan sought to do so.
In order to examine the rise of the superhero myth in film, Shyamalan did so without the aid of a pre-existing intellectual property. Unbreakable and Split, the first two entries of the recently-identified “Eastrail 177 Trilogy,” anchor the origin of protagonism and antagonism deep within reality. Premises born within a vacuum may not benefit from the boon of familiarity, but they can evade the bane of expectation. Moreover, both films can bound between examinations of reluctance, fear, and consequence while also integrating the fantastic. In other words, Unbreakable and Split forge a tether between the actual and the mythological, skewing heroic and villainous destiny as they are applied to realistic figures with sincere struggles.
Shyamalan’s first attempt to deconstruct and actualize the superhero myth is perhaps his most acclaimed. Unbreakable follows David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who, after miraculously surviving a train wreck, discovers his skin is near impenetrable, his strength far exceeds his own expectations, and, most notably, he possesses the ability to identify a criminal’s actions by touch. However, throughout his life, David considers the abilities unambiguous, a stark contrast to the vast bulk of origin stories. Even the casting of Bruce Willis, by 2000 an action star stereotype, goes against the grain of the genre as Roger Ebert noted in his original review of the film. Only through the lens of Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), an illustrious comic book curator suffering from brittle bone disease, does David begin to frame the seemingly mundane parts of himself as extraordinary. Through his lead, Shyamalan conjures a figure both reluctant and prototypical for a hero. His abilities are suited almost exclusively to combat crime, yet not so much so he is overwhelmingly powerful. Thus, though his prowess is exceptional, they are not so much to instill doubt.
Just as Shyamalan’s superhero is not born of a vacuum, nor is his villain. Split, on the other hand, is deliberately unclear at its onset. Following Kevin (James McAvoy), a kidnapper with severe dissociative identity disorder, the film establishes no clear connection to its predecessor save in its closing moments. Though Kevin’s decent into antagonism is spurred by a trigger, the abuse of his mother and subsequent death of his father, Shyamalan fills his character with over a dozen personas. Furthermore, each of the alters possesses a catalyst for malicious action, be it Dennis’ dependence on structure, Patricia’s adherence to ritual, Hedwig’s malleable naivety, or the Beast’s appetite for wrath. This, in turn, builds towards an eclectic whole, like a culmination of every possible villainous background. By creating such a cognitively-kaleidoscopic figure, Shyamalan likewise builds a nemesis struggling with actualizion to a similar effect as David.
The struggle towards actualization, ultimately, is what grounds Shyamalan’s examination. Across the two films, the filmmaker bounds between his characters’ struggle towards realization with considerations of weakness and strength. Whereas David harnesses his power through his vulnerability to water, Kevin’s dominant personas (predominantly Patricia and Dennis) push him towards channeling the full potential of the antagonistic collective within himself, “the Horde.” Despite involving the uncanny, each figure’s journey parallels one’s own path towards self-discovery. Where one is compelled by the endeavor of a stoic guardian, the other commits to violent toxicity.
Shyamalan’s meticulous concern with weakness opens the gate towards an even greater notion: Susceptibility. Though virtually every hero and villain possess some compromising facet, it rarely defines them, such is the case with Superman or Captain Marvel. Yet between David and Kevin, the narrative thread built from these weaknesses spurs identity. In Unbreakable water is the reason for David to doubt himself and, at a critical moment of the film, completely disregard his abilities. For Kevin, the utterance of his full name quickly pulls apart the Horde, a constant reminder his uniqueness is bound by a real trauma. Shyamalan, though not always flawless in execution, is careful to compose weakness out of something tangible and accessible. Anyone can drown just as one can be harrowed by the discord of their past.
Vulnerability grounds mythology, even if only to a minimal extent. For Shyamalan, however, weakness is the key to identifying the reality within a myth. The limits of life, after all, beget the components of legends.
Has the anticipation of Glass hurled you down the Shyamalan rabbit hole? Let the Cinematropolis be your guide with more essays over the filmmaker.
