The Subverted Expectations of Genre Convention in M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass
UNIVERSAL - TOUCHSTONEM. Night Shyamalan brings finality to his nineteen-year, long-in-the-making Eastrail 177 trilogy with Glass, after Unbreakable and Split, in 2000 and 2016, respectively. Released in early 2019, Shyamalan's thirteenth feature has caused much stir to the likes of fans and critics of the series regarding its controversial and provocative narrative, specifically its ending. However, it is this very provocative and alluring narrative that not only sets Glass apart from its contemporaries but cements it as a masterpiece in subverting the expectations of a generic narrative.
The quintessential narrative structure for a superhero blockbuster is an unwritten rule of three set pieces, of progressive grandeur and outlandish nature. The M.C.U. – Marvel Cinematic Universe – is a prime example of using this technique. It is an element that has ultimately come under scrutiny and criticism, due to its seemingly conventional and repetitive nature, in a set of twenty or so films. Avengers: Age of Ultron begins with a castle storm in its first act, uses the hulk-buster action sequence as heightened engagement in its second act, and then presents a tremendously large set piece of gargantuan nature in its third. Rinse and repeat.
This conventional nature leads to predictability, and predictability leads to a lifeless entity with little engagement level of tension or atmosphere. M. Night Shyamalan's Glass is an anomaly to this rule set by the predictable and conventional routine the MCU has composed upon audiences. Glass misdirects audience expectation. It subverts such expectation through a narrative structured by cutting its first integral set-piece short between Bruce Willis' Overseer and James MacAvoy's The Beast. By not giving in to audience expectation and the need to sustain the thrill of this genre piece by a mindless fight, Shyamalan cuts his losses short and rides the tide of slow anticipated build-up that flows strong with layered character depth.
Granted, there are notable films within the realm of cinema that detach from a conventional narrative structure, and relatively speaking, lead to greater reception with audiences and longevity. Chad Stahelski's John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is a notable example that uses a two-piece structure with a gigantic action set piece in its first and last act. However, it pauses contextually within its middle ground to craft the necessary content of depth and character weight in order for the film to emotionally resonate. Lana and Lily Wachowski's The Matrix: Revolutions incorporates a similar technique structure., Not only do both films happen to star Keanu Reeves, but such a structure allows the budgets of the respective features to remain sane and sound. However, most notably, both examples do not live within the brackets of the comic book genre.
Shyamalan's Glass also focuses on character convention and subverts the expectation of the villain. Becoming accustomed to a lack of character depth, is, once again, something that has been perpetuated into the mythos of comic book cinema from the MCU. Shyamalan, however, presents Samuel L. Jackson's Mr Glass as not only the most intellectual and therefore dangerous character on the screen – with layered and weighted depth – but also as the character with the greater emphasis on completing and constructing his arc. This factor cannot be said for the likes of Mickey Rourke's Whiplash or Christopher Eccleston as Malekith in Iron Man 2 and Thor: Dark World respectively. Unlike genre convention, Shyamalanhas no issue with crafting a multifaceted and ambiguous character who , is never considered to be purely evil or the main villain. Even after heinous and diabolical crimes, Shyamalan allows the audience to determine the labels of hero or villain themselves, and not strictly have it conveyed by the rules of protagonist and antagonist. Ultimately, this frees the film from the weight of predictability but injects a new-found layer of power to each individual who lives the film for themselves.
This freeing sentiment with the characters of Glass is also relevant in the film’s third act. In a casual action blockbuster, the final act set piece is undoubtedly the crowning glory. Not only does it inform and tie up loose ends for the viewer on a narrative level, but visually it presents an amalgamation of everything capable on a technically. Shyamalan repeatedly exercises a subtle narrative nod to a finale between Dunn and Crumb, not only contextually through the film but also with regards to the marketing material that, when ignited, one of these heavyweights would win. Glass repeatedly mentions the opening of the skyscraper in Philadelphia titled The Osaka Tower, ironically prefaced as 'A True Marvel'.
Jackson's Mr Glass threatens to destroy Osaka tower with The Beast as his right hand, influencing David Dunn to break free and stop them. This sets their destinies into motion. This is a traditional and quintessential conventional supervillain trope of a veiled masterplan, one that, on the surface, seems to be an avenue Shyamalan travels down. However, Shyamalan's feature never gets to the point of no return and ends a stone's throw away for the psychiatric hospital with Osaka Tower a mere object in the distance. Instead of the blockbuster extravaganza approach, the writer/director subverts his audience's expectation of spectacle and condenses it to an intimate and devastating portrayal of unpredictability.
By doing so, Shyamalan kills off all three of his central characters, the roles he has made viewers wait almost two decades to see come back to the big screen.He lets Sarah Paulson’s villainous Dr Ellie Staple live to see her plan come to fruition, a plan in which she hides the true extent of these characters’ power. Not only is this masterful on a narrative level, and ultimately destroys any form of audience anticipation, it also denies an emotional connection by taking away the characters the audience has become enamoured with. The mythology of the hero is deconstructed. Their quintessential power is stripped away in the characters acceptance of physical and phycological power. Instead, all three characters symbolise hope and power, as even when their shades and sides of the law differ, they are all from the same source.
By virtue, Shyamalan also denies the possibility of the now renowned exploit of a ‘shared universe’ by putting his beloved franchise to bed in such an ironic circumstance of bringing it to life – subverting the expectation of genre to a further level by the notion of an origin film. It was used as the beginning of a superhero feature but now acts as a closing statement on the recycled over-saturated cinematic phenomenon.
(7) Twenty-three years after M. Night Shyamalan's effective and genre-defining, The Sixth Sense, the writer/director is still conquering and defining cinema as well as cultural expectation. With Glass, the infamous and much discussed helmer offers an ingenious and subverted masterclass of character tropes, expectation and genre convention. An attribute which, at the time, remains a much-maligned and controversial decision that unfortunately affected both the box office and critical reception. It did, however, craft a stronger and more dynamic personality that, for decades to come, will shock, sadden and invigorate any audiences who come across this diamond in a sea of predictability and saturated convention.
