Studying The Sixth Sense, Mark Kirwan-Hayhoe, Auteur Publishing 2006, 60pp large format, ISBN 1903663636

This latest entry in Auteur's series of study guides takes a film that created a real stir in 1999 going on to become an all-time high earner and establishing its writer-director. I'd go along with the guide's blurb which describes it as "resurrecting the values of the classical Hollywood horror . . . [after] the post-Scream strain of knowing teen horror". At the time, I thought the film did indeed herald a new director worth watching. After his second film Unbreakable, I wasn't sure if he was even more clever than I had thought or was teetering dangerously on the edge of the ridiculous. After the third, Signs, I tended towards the latter. None of this stops The Sixth Sense being a suitable text for various approaches in film studies. Showing an extract recently I was struck by how many students didn't know the film -- how quickly major films fade from view. In this context I was intrigued to read the guide.

Mark Kirwan-Hayhoe has done his research carefully and I learned things about the film and its context that I didn't know -- and got ideas about readings that I hadn't thought of before. He writes lucidly and entertainingly and overall I think that this a worthwhile guide that film and media teachers will find useful. Yet . . . After reading through the first two sections on Narrative and Genre I got the feeling that I inhabit a parallel universe. I'm not going to suggest that the author is 'wrong'. He quotes reputable sources and applies a range of critical tools in conventional ways -- but somehow it doesn't fit my ideas about these two key concepts.

I think this is partly a problem inherent to all single film study guides -- the author is obliged to sketch in an overview of each key concept in order to apply it to the film in question and the inevitable compression can create problems. Here, Kirwan-Hayhoe uses a Bordwell and Thompson approach to describe how 'classical Hollywood' works. Which would be fine if we were still in the period of 'classical Hollywood' -- but it ended nearly 40 years ago. There is a confusion here between the conventions that have survived from the era of 'Studio Hollywood' and the general state of Hollywood Cinema, which has altered in so many ways since the 1960s. What makes The Sixth Sense interesting is that it is 'old-fashioned' in looking back to a cinema that did use colour coding and careful mise en scène and camerawork to build suspense. But it isn't so old-fashioned' that audiences in 'post-classical Hollywood' (or however else you like to describe contemporary cinema) want to reject it. To be fair, Kirwan-Hayhoe is well aware of this and the 'Film Language' section of the guide deals with the formal properties of the film very well.

My main problem is with the section on genre. Here the dreaded 'hybrid' raises its head and Kirwan-Hayhoe spends quite a lot of time tussling with it. I'm not really sure what the fuss is about. I'm happy to think of The Sixth Sense as a 'ghost story' which uses the techniques of the psychological horror film. I don't think it is a particularly difficult film to discuss in terms of generic elements. I do, however, welcome the guide's discussion of melodrama since the network of family relationships in the film is important (and is handled very sensitively). Earlier in the guide's general introduction to genre there is some discussion of science fiction with which I found myself disagreeing several times. I think that the genre section overall would have been helped by some reference to horror outside Hollywood, especially in East Asia where The Sixth Sense was well received and where similar films are not uncommon. However, the guide is resolutely Hollywood-focused (even to the extent of listing Run Lola Run (Germany 1998) as an implied 'American independent).

The other sections of the guide deal with 'Themes and Characterisation' and 'Institutions and the Star'. These are very useful and there is also a Bibliography and 8 pages of Worksheets. It's an interesting film, the guide has plenty of good ideas and resources -- you should find it useful. But I would be more circumspect about Hollywood narrative and less constrained in my view of genre than the guide allows.

Roy Stafford