Buckland-Warren-Puzzle-Films-Complex-Storytelling-Contemporary-Cinema

“Twist Blindness” 79anxiety?” In the first of three scenes (6), Malcolm accompanies Cole onhis way to and from school. We learn that Cole is regarded as somethingof a freak by his peers and that Cole’s father has left the family to live inanother city with another woman. We also learn that Cole has engaged inthe exercise of “free association writing” and that he has written “upsetwords.” The second scene (8) takes place in the school itself. In a historylesson, the teacher (and former pupil) Stanley Cunningham asks the classwhat the school building was used for a hundred years previously.Timidly, Cole raises his hand and states that the building was used as aplace for hanging people; when this answer is rejected, Cole has a tantrumand taunts the teacher with his schoolboy nickname of “StutteringStanley.” In the third and climactic scene (10), Cole is invited to the birthdayparty of a boy from school. In a cruel prank, Cole is locked into theattic of the house by the birthday boy and an accomplice – a room which,unbeknownst to the two, houses a ghost-like presence that is only visibleto Cole. Severely traumatized by the experience, Cole is taken to the hospitalfor a suspected seizure. By systematically increasing the number ofcognitive clues (free association writing, unexplained knowledge of the past,evidence of extra-sensory perception) and by systematically increasing theaffective stakes (upset words, tantrum, seizure), these three scenes encourageus to generate a series of hypotheses about Cole’s condition and to refrainfrom assessing Malcolm’s apparent status as a living person.Meanwhile, the secondary storyline (labeled B in Table 3.1) centers onMalcolm’s relationship with Anna. Here, the main cognitive concern is “Isthe marriage between Malcolm and Anna breaking up?” while the mainaffective concern is “Can the marriage be saved?” Given that the “marriageon the rocks” schema has been successfully activated, Shyamalan nolonger needs to include scenes in which Malcolm and Anna are presentedin the same frame, while being in a position in which they could (plausibly)see each other; from this point onward, he uses various stylisticstrategies to keep the two characters separate. In the first of two scenes (7),Sean, a young man who works at Anna’s store, knocks on the front doorand invites Anna out to a market, only for the invitation to be rejected.The crucial separation is achieved in both spatial and visual terms:Malcolm is sitting in his study and hears the conversation between Seanand Anna “off-screen.” When Malcolm goes to the window, his hostilitytoward the departing Sean is clearly signaled by the dialogue. In thesecond scene (9), Malcolm walks into the bathroom as Anna is taking ashower. In this case, the crucial separation is achieved through an aspect