Anniversary of The Sixth Sense
On August 2, 1999 in Philadelphia, Pennsilvania, USA, the premiere of "The Sixth Sense" directed by Manoj Nelliyattu "M. Night" Shyamalan was held.
Literally on the day of the premiere of this film in the newspaper "The New York Times", and this, for a moment, one of the largest and most influential media in the US, the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party, a review was signed by Stephen Holden. We will not retell the content of this review, since it, like 95% of other reviews of other films and other film critics, contains a retelling of the plot of the picture. We give only a summary of the conclusion of this review. In it, in a rather condescending form, the assumption is made that the “Sixth Sense” is a little bit higher than Shyamalan’s previous film “Awakening” and only thanks to the participation of Bruce Willis the box office will be a little larger. For reference: with a budget of $ 6 million, the total box office receipts of “Awakening” around the world did not exceed 300 thousand dollars.
What about "The Sixth Sense"? With a budget of $ 40 million plus $ 25 million for advertising and promotion, the total box office worldwide has exceeded $ 672 million. That is, the film made a profit that far exceeded both its budget and the loss of the previous film.
However, for us the financial performance of films is not any determining criterion. We cited this data only to once again show the "competence" of film critics, including in leading US publications.
But there are rare exceptions. For us, this is Roger Ebert, whose opinion we are interested in almost every film. Regarding "The Sixth Sense", Ebert wrote: "I have to admit I was blind-sided by the ending. The solution to many of the film's puzzlements is right there in plain view, and the movie hasn't cheated, but the very boldness of the storytelling carried me right past the crucial hints and right through to the end of the film, where everything takes on an intriguing new dimension..... "The Sixth Sense" has a kind of calm, sneaky self-confidence that allows it to take us down a strange path, intriguingly." Ebert put the movie 3 stars out of 4 possible. And this, probably, can be considered an average, generalized assessment given to the film by the film critic community, since the range of reviews was very wide, from enthusiastic to devastating.
As for the assessment of Shyamalan's film by the cinematographic community, here the picture is as follows: the film obtained 36 film awards and 55 nominations. The most significant of the 36 awards the film has received is the Award of the Japanese Academy for Best Foreign Film. Moreover, in the competition for this award, "The Sixth Sense" outstripped both the "Matrix" of either the brothers or the sisters Wachowski, and the film "La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful)" by Roberto Benigni.
And at home, the festival successes of "The Sixth Sense" were much more modest. The film did not receive Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture or Best Director. For the Oscar, however, the film received 6 nominations, including in the most prestigious categories: Best Film and Best Director. But in both of these categories, the American Film Academy gave preference to "American Beauty" and its director, Sam Mendes.
In the competition for the British BAFTA Prize in the nomination "Best Film" Shyamalan's picture again lost to the film of Sam Mendes, and in the nomination "David Lean Award for Direction" M. Night Shyamalan himself lost to Pedro AlmodĂłvar, the director of the film "Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother)".
The rating given to Shyamalan's film by ordinary moviegoers was, perhaps, significantly higher than the assessments of film critics and filmmakers. 75% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave "The Sixth Sense" ratings from 8 to 10.
Considering the above, FilmGourmand's rating for "The Sixth Sense" was 8.624, placing it 271st in the Golden Thousand.
