In his latest film, "The Happening," director M. Night Shyamalan poses the question, what happens if nature turns on us, not through some random act of violence, like a tsunami or hurricane, but through a deliberate, premeditated effort to eliminate the human species? Rather than an apocalypse brought on by manmade disaster, Shyamalan's characters are forced to contend with an uprising of trees and plants that begin secreting a powerful neurotoxin. Once inhaled, the poison drives people to commit suicide. As the wind carries this call to arms from Central Park up through the farms and fields of New England, the death toll rises. NEWSWEEK's Jeneen Interlandi spoke with Shyamalan. Excerpts:
Where did the idea for movie come from?
I was driving to New York and going down a country road with a lot of trees and fields, and it occurred to me that we are totally outnumbered, like a million to one, by plants and trees. Its so funny—we think we're all that, and really we're just this little scar on the land.
The film takes some big scientific leaps. Did you consult with any experts?
Yes. After I got the idea I said, "Let's find out how plausible this really is. Tell me the mechanisms of plants and trees." So I had my staff start talking to scientists. And as it all started to come in, a conspiracy of plausibility arose. I was amazed to learn that plants can communicate with each other and that some of them can secrete chemicals to protect against specific predators. And they are extraordinarily attuned to their surroundings. If you sing to a plant, it grows, and if you yell at a plant, it dies. Scientists still have no explanation for that. The neurotoxin thing was something we specifically went and talked to heads of universities that ran brain research and had them break it down for us how poisons go through the system and so on. And obviously there would be disagreements between some scientists, but in the end you believe one more than the other.
How do you then strike a balance between staying true to the science and taking liberties with it for the sake of a fictional movie?
For us it was very clear to go "A, B and possible C." So C hasn't happened yet, but we're saying it's possible based on A and B. We weren't making up facts, but we were saying, "If we know this and this, then what else is possible?" And there will always be arguments about why something happens: "Why was there a tsunami?" "Why were there so many tornadoes, or so many floods?" There will always be arguments about those things.
What is the message of the film? Did you mean it to serve as some sort of cautionary tale, or is it simply a thriller with an environmental bent to it?
Probably the latter. It's like in the classic B movies: you take the paranoia of the time and morph it into an almost silly, dismissible thing. But then it sticks with you in a way that taps into your original paranoia. For that to work, you need to have this angle to the movie: "I'm not serious … or am I?" It ends up being a nightmare sort of scenario.
The story never touches on why exactly the trees and plants are so upset with us, what triggers "The Happening." Why did you leave that out?
That was always the intention of the movie—to have this open-ended quality—I wanted it to bleed out into the real world a little. For me, one of the great things about "The Birds" was that you never knew why it happened. By leaving it out you force the audience to consider what their own culpability is, to ask, "Are we blameless?" Because, of course, we aren't.
Do you see yourself as an environmentalist, or have you become one since making this movie?
I am the first one that the plants would kill. But I am definitely the classic person of today, because I am constantly becoming more aware of our impact on the environment. I was at this hotel and they ironed my shirt and brought it up in a plastic wrap and I thought, "Are they wrapping everything they iron in plastic? What a waste. Why not just bring it up?" I never noticed stuff like that before, but now I see it everywhere, and it's kinda scary.