Honestly, I do believe thinking his first film was Sixth Sense, whether people honestly didn't know about the first two or choose to ignore them, contributes to selling dude short.

I think he is a guilty as anyone, having bought into his own hype. It's not like he spent a lot of time reminding people he made a movie with Rosie O'Donnell.

But

>Fair points I suppose. But we often ignore the beginnings of
>someone's career in the "pre-stardom" period. It's not unique
>to M. Night, though I don't have other examples off-hand.

I tried to think of some as well, drew a blank. It's very common with writers, as they will often take little crap gigs just to make a couple bucks or to get into the guild, then they breakthrough with something big and no one mentions the crappy work they did before that. It's also common for actors, but harder to hide as someone will always dig up the scene in the lame horror movie where he got killed in the first few minutes or where she took her top off and showed her pre-enhancement boobs. I know it happens for directors too, but I get the impression it's a little more rare.

>And my claim that his career has been on a downard slope since
>Sixth Sense is not debunked by the fact that he made two
>relatively obscure movies before that point.

Of course not, I was initially just addressing the statement that this was his first movie.


>>People who discount his earliest
>>work are more likely to think he was just a one-trick pony
>who
>>is deserving of "downward trajectory" discussion threads.
>
>I don't think he's a one trick pony at all, and I certainly
>hope he can reverse the downward trajectory that unfortunately
>describes his current career pretty well.

I hope so as well. And none of this was directed at you, but I do think a significant amount of the Night hate is because people only see him as the guy who made Sixth Sense -- either mad cause he can't achieve that again or mad because he tried to do something other than that. Don't know if he can ever *not* be defined by that movie, but right now that's the albatross around his neck.

RED
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