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Critical Approaches to the Films of M. Night Shyamalan represents the first serious academic engagement with auteur director M. Night Shyamalan and his work. The essays, including contributions from established film scholars David Sterritt, Murray Pomerance, Emmanuel Burdeau, R. Barton Palmer, Matt Hills, and Katherine Fowkes, explore the Hollywood blockbusters from The Sixth Sense to The Happening in terms of their themes, aesthetics, and marketing. Taken together, the collection recognizes and explores Shyamalan s "star status" and offers the concerted analysis that this cultural phenomenon requires.

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Introduction: Telling Stories About Stories: The Films of M. Night Shyamalan - Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock Feature One: Narrating Shyamalan, Narrating Culture The Homefront Hero in the Films of M. Night Shyamalan - Elizabeth Abele Reaching Out to the Other Side: Problematic Families in the Films of M. Night Shyamalan - Elizabeth Rosen Melodrama and Male Crisis in Signs and Unbreakable - R. Barton Palmer Spellbound in Darkness: M. Night Shyamalan and the Epistemological Twitch - David Sterritt Four Films by M. Night Shyamalan: Oh, the Irony . . . - Katherine A. Fowkes Intermission: Shyamalan´s Story Making Sense of M. Night Shyamalan: Signs of a Popular Auteur in the "Field of Horror" - Matt Hills Reshaping the Director as Star: Investigating M. Night Shyamalan´s Image - Kim Owczarski Feature Two: Stories by Shyamalan Sigmund Freud, Pedophile Priests, and Shyamalan´s Filmic Fairy Tale ( The Sixth Sense ) - Jane F. Thrailkill Unbreak My Heart: The Melodramatic Superhero in Unbreakable - Matthew Yockey The Simulation of Evil in M. Night Shyamalan´s The Village - Miriam Jordan and Julian Jason Haladyn "Something Ancient in Modern Times": Myth-Making and Meaninglessness in Lady in the Water - Nicholas Parker and Nirmal Trivedi Whatever Happened to M. Night Shyamalan: Meditation on an "Infection" Film - Murray Pomerance

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"A thoroughly impressive and dynamic study of one of today´s most controversial, slippery, and stylish filmmakers. Contributors to this anthology come from a wide range of disciplines and shine light on places that seemingly deny the specter of interpretation. The first of its kind, this book will doubtless pave the way for future scholarship on Shyamalan and remain a formidable touchstone." - D. Harlan Wilson, associate professor of English, Wright State University and author of Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction

"Love them or hate them, it is impossible to overlook the films of M. Night Shyamalan. This excellent, thoughtful, and timely study brings together the writings of renowned scholars and critics of film to put into context one of the most intriguing and provocative directors of the new millennium." - Ernest Mathijs, associate professor, University of British Columbia

"The design of this book is excellent, the essays as a whole are accessible and intelligent, and the collection represents a real contribution . . . Weinstock has done a superb job of providing broad and deep coverage of Shyamalan´s major representative films." - Tony Magistrale, professor and chair of English, University of Vermont

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