Unreliable storytelling in feature films: In 1999, the ghost film “The Sixth Sense” and the fight drama “Fight Club” amazed millions of moviegoers. With the two thrillers, twist endings became mainstream.
A spooky atmosphere, first-class actors and endless conversation after a surprising ending: Both “The Sixth Sense” by M. Night Shyamalan and the psychological thriller “Fight Club” by David Fincher are turning 25 this year. After the success of the two films, there was a real boom in so-called twist endings (also called “final twist” or, more broadly, “plot twist”).
Films with a plot twist present a disillusionment for the viewer, which is not disappointing at all, but often leads to an unforgettable aha moment. New information towards the end means that a film can be largely reinterpreted.
The year 1999 was a very special year for films: “The Matrix”, “Magnolia”, “American Beauty”, “Being John Malkovich” and “Blair Witch Project” all premiered at that time. However, the two thrillers with the twist ending left a particularly lasting impression.
“Fight Club” and “The Sixth Sense” stood out in 1999
“The special thing about ‘Fight Club’ and ‘The Sixth Sense’ was that both films had different scenes that had to be reassessed in retrospect, given the plot twist,” says film expert and author Bernd Leiendecker, who received his doctorate in media studies from the University of Bochum ten years ago. His doctoral thesis was published as a book under the title “They only see what they want to see – History of unreliable narration in film.”
“The two films awakened the desire to watch the crucial scenes again,” says Leiendecker. “At the same time, the DVD began to triumph, so you could easily jump to the crucial scenes and also see a razor-sharp still image at crucial moments.” Both of these things were previously difficult to achieve with video cassettes. “‘Fight Club’ was still considered a flop after its theatrical release, but was a huge success on DVD,” says Leiendecker, who has been running the blog “mindfuck-film.de” since 2015.
When it comes to twist endings like those in “The Sixth Sense” and “Fight Club,” film studies roughly distinguish between four possibilities, which can of course also be mixed: the narrative twist (assumptions about the narrated world were wrong), the perceptual twist (perspective and perception could not be trusted), the set-up twist (conspiracy is revealed) and the wake-up twist (the actor wakes up from a dream or hallucination). The more classical the story is beforehand, the greater the wow effect.
In the psychological thriller “Fight Club” with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, the protagonist, bored with his life, meets the dubious Tyler on a business trip in an airplane, with whom he later engages in tough fist fights – as an alternative to functioning in the capitalist system, he celebrates violent masculinity and self-destruction as self-determination. Tyler is an anarchist, does everything the protagonist doesn’t dare to do.
“I see dead people”
In “The Sixth Sense” with child star Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis, nine-year-old Cole suffers from supernatural abilities. Little Cole first confides in child psychologist Malcom Crowe: “I see dead people (…). They walk around like normal people. They can’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead.”
Don’t worry: There are no spoilers here, the main storyline is not revealed. But this much can be said: “Plot twist” is actually a misleading word. Because at the end, it’s not the plot that changes, but a different level of meaning is revealed, and the knowledge about the relationship between the characters changes.
Of course, there were films with twist moments before the twist ending classics “Fight Club” and “Sixth Sense” – that is, works that had a huge surprise effect. Early examples include “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” by Robert Wiene (1920), “Citizen Kane” by Orson Welles (1941), “Witness for the Prosecution” by Billy Wilder (1957) and of course “Red Lola” (1950) and “Psycho” (1960) – both by Alfred Hitchcock.
In the 1990s, Hollywood produced thriller films such as David Fincher’s serial killer epic “Seven”, Bryan Singer’s crime thriller “The Usual Suspects” and Fincher’s redemptive thriller “The Game” with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn during the thriller boom following the box office hit “The Silence of the Lambs” with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.
Since 2000, more and more plot-twist hits from “Memento” to “Saltburn”
But it was only after 1999 that there seemed to be an increasing number of films that expected viewers to experience a so-called mindfuck, a term often used today when a film requires mental effort. Be it because there is a surprising twist, unusual time structures or no clear resolution.
In 2000, Christopher Nolan’s “Memento” was released, in 2001, for example, “The Others”, “Donnie Darko” and “Mulholland Drive” were released, in 2010 “Shutter Island” and “Inception”, in 2013 there was “Now You See Me”, in 2014 “Gone Girl”, in 2017 “Get Out”, in 2019 “Parasite”, in 2020 “The Father”, in 2022 “The Menu” and “Triangle of Sadness”, in 2023 “Saltburn” and “All of Us Strangers”. The twist is different every time – but it hits hard.
IMDb: The Sixth Sense IMDb: Fight Club
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
