After Malcolm is shot the scene very swiftly moves to another day and the words “next fall” appear to show that the story is set a year later. The fact that the audience observe Malcolm walking and talking to Cole maintains the audience’s belief that he is still alive, as this is what an every-day person would do, but on the other hand Mr Crowe is still wearing the identical clothes he wore the day he got shot. At some scenes he wears an additional coat, hat or tie, but he is always seen in the same shirt and trousers.
After meeting Cole for the first time, Malcolm mentions his silver plaque that he received which shows that this scene was set after he was shot. The fact that Malcolm remembers his life and doesn’t act out of the ordinary, the audience are tricked by his behaviour into thinking he is still alive, as Malcolm himself believes. When he walks out of a building, as when he enters any house, a high-angled shot is used to show how vulnerable the characters are. Also, throughout the film the audience may have noticed that Malcolm is never seen walking through a door during the high angled shots, and in these scenes he never even pauses to open the door. It is as through he just walks through them. This is evidence that Malcolm is dead because this is the kind of behaviour a traditional ghost would do, but the majority of the audience would not really notice this weak hint.
An incredibly significant scene in “The Sixth Sense” is Dr Crowe’s meeting with Cole’s mother. The scene begins when Cole enters the house and the audience see Cole’s mother and Malcolm sitting opposite each other. They are not talking but they look uncomfortable, as though deep in thought. The silence and absence of music creates an uncomfortable feeling. In this scene the audience assume that the mother and the doctor have been in discussion. As soon as Cole enters the house he doesn’t make any reference to Malcolm being there, which seems as though he is ignoring the doctor. To audiences that have seen the film before, it becomes understandable that he has acknowledged Malcolm is already dead and has no wish for his mother to believe he was crazy looking at and talking to an invisible person. Cole and his mother then have a personal conversation about their lives, which is very private and would not be thought to have taken place in front of a guest. Mrs Sear then says she will make Cole some “triangle pancakes” but doesn’t offer Malcolm any. She tells Cole “You’ve got an hour”, which could mean anything, but the audience think she means that he and the doctor have an hour together because it implies the duration of an appointment to the viewers. The mother then just walks off and the audience imagine this is to leave Cole and he doctor alone, but the real reason is because she hadn’t acknowledged his being there. The only person Malcolm is visible to is Cole. During an additional scene of Malcolm’s meeting with Cole, the young boy is asked whether he has ever written down anything rude on paper and at this point the director uses a voiceover to reinforce this idea. The audience see Cole’s mother discovering the words her son wrote. This gives the audience the image that Dr Crowe has found out this information by communicating with the mother.
At the anniversary dinner the audience are given further clues that Malcolm is dead. In the scene Malcolm meets up with his wife at a restaurant, slightly late. His wife is already seated on the chair opposite. Before he sits down he doesn’t move the chair, and this gives the audience a clue that something is different about him because any other person would. To audiences who have seen the film before, they would know that if Malcolm had moved the chair Anna and other people around would think it strange that the chair moved by itself. Malcolm continuously talks to his wife throughout the scene and to the audience Anna is ignoring him, but she really cannot hear him. Malcolm mostly talks about Cole. It is as though he is putting his wife first, and job second and this may be why Anna is angry according to first-time audiences. It looks as though the couple’s marriage isn’t going too well at the moment. At the end of the scene Anna speaks to Malcolm for the first time and says: “Happy Anniversary Malcolm” which maintains the audiences belief that Malcolm is still alive because his wife is making conversation with him.
Anna conveniently sits with her back facing the camera so as the audience cannot view her expressions as Malcolm talks to her. The camera angle is over her shoulder, only showing Malcolm’s face. The lighting of this scene is very dark, and the only source of light is from the lamp in the centre of the table, shining on Malcolm’s face. This is the opposing view of what ordinary people imagine customary ghosts to be like. The audience imagine them to be dark, gloomy and gruesome, the way that Cole sees them.
Another scene that portrays Malcolm’s character is the Hospital scene, when Malcolm listens quietly to the conversation between Mrs Sear and a doctor (played by M.Shyamalan himself) about Cole’s health. Mr Crowe only states one exclamation in the conversation, which was “Oh my God”, but no one asked his opinions. The audience can assume that no one turned around, but actually they could not see him, but the audience do not notice this for themselves because of the way the cameras merely focus on the characters singly. Only close-up shots are used on the characters during the whole scene as not to show the interaction between them. This helps maintain the audience’s belief that Malcolm Crowe is still alive because it does not show the characters in one whole shot and consequently it is as though all the characters are involved in the conversation. The audience therefore are unable to see the reactions to what the characters say to each other.
The follow up of this scene consists of another extensive clue the audience is given that Dr Crowe is not alive. In the conversation between Malcolm and Cole, Cole reveals everything he understands about ghosts. This is ironic to the viewers because what he is essentially doing is telling Dr Crowe and the audience what Malcolm is in disguise. Cole told Malcolm his secret, which shows their trust, and it is a juxta-position to what the audience would expect between a ghost and a child. Throughout this scene the camera is focused on a close-up view of Malcolm’s face, giving the audience a clue that Cole’s words have something to do with him!
At the closing stages of the film the truth about Malcolm is suddenly revealed, and at this point flashbacks are used to demonstrate to the audience the clues they missed throughout the film, which exposes to them that Malcolm was actually dead from the beginning. The twist at the end causes the audience to feel the equivalent emotions Malcolm felt when he found out the unfortunate truth. This is a demanding objective to achieve when producing a film.
In general the director’s techniques throughout “The Sixth Sense” are extremely talented, for they steer the audience into another direction, preventing them from working out the clues that were littered throughout the film, such as the fact that Malcolm continuously wore the same clothes, or the chilly sensation people felt when around Malcolm when he was angry. They have been cunningly made to make the audience assume alternatives.
In conclusion the film was enormously successful in making the audience believe that Malcolm Crowe was still alive and it beyond doubt attracted substantial amounts of audiences judging by the responses reached at cinemas worldwide. The movie gives the audience spiritual experiences, and questions about grief, loss of loved ones and deaths are posed. As the director said: “The film crystallises some people’s opinions of what will happen in life after death.” “The Sixth Sense” definitely fooled audiences globally. Many call it the unknown and find it impossible to distinguish what is out there.
By Valentine Phillips
