Cloaked Classification: The Misdirection Film and Generic Duplicity

Abstract

Spoiler Warnings: The Contemporary Misdirection Film and Generic Discourse ANYONE WHO HAS INADVERTENTLY EXPOSED A FILM'S NARRATIVE SURPRISES likely realizes that moviegoers typically prefer that unexpected revelations be kept secret. A perusal of virtually any film's User Comments section on the Internet Movie Database supports this observation. A majority of these amateur reviews contain spoiler warnings-disclaimers advising readers that subsequent passages contain potentially revelatory narrative information. Since the early 1990s, the need for such spoiler warnings in both professional and recreational film criticism has increased with the proliferation of films such as The Usual Suspects (1995) and The Sixth Sense (1999), which are renowned for their twist endings. Though these films undoubtedly are primarily associated with their surprise endings, they also belong to preexisting genres. The Sixth Sense is frequently referred to as a supernatural thriller or a horror film, and The Usual Suspects is typically classified as a crime drama or heist film. In this essay, argue that, though these films can be grouped according to their preexisting generic identities, they are more appropriately recognized as constituents of the genre. Furthermore, following Rick Altman's hypothesis in Film/Genre, contend that there is a heightened awareness in the minds of critics, producers, and spectators alike of the distinctiveness of misdirection films. And because my analysis exposes the secrets of many films in which spectator comprehension of narrative events is drastically changed by an unforeseen revelation, I'd like to offer my own spoiler warning: please do not continue reading unless you are prepared to have the curtain pulled back on films you might not yet have had the pleasure of viewing. Those of you still with me probably know why infamous lines of dialogue like Who's Keyser Soze? and I see dead people. They're everywhere, only they don't know they're dead. are particularly unforgettable. It is not only because these quotations reference The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense respectively, but also because they specifically evoke both films' surprise endings. have used the term misdirection to describe this set of films because they rely on deception to divert the spectator from prematurely unearthing the secret. Like wolves in sheep's clothing, these films mislead the spectator by forwarding narratives that ostensibly adhere to the standard hierarchical causality and generic conventionality of the Hollywood film. The spectator's preliminary interpretations of the narrative, however, are violated by the discovery of concealed evidence that provokes a rereading of narrative events. For example, audience interpretations of narrative events change drastically once it is understood that Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) is the legendary Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects. The emergence of this evidence encourages a retrospective reinterpretation of all that has come before; initial readings of the narrative are revealed as erroneous or incomplete. Harking back to literary antecedents at least as old as O. Henry and Edgar Allan Poe, this particular narrative mode has been around for some time and is present in highly recognizable classical Hollywood films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Citizen Kane (1941). Since at least the release of The Wizard of Oz, every decade has been peppered with Hollywood releases- The Woman in the Window (1945), Stage Fright (1950), Planet of the Apes (1968), Chinatown (1974), and The Spanish Prisoner (1987)-that contain a late narrative revelation that sheds new light on everything that precedes it. However, this recognizable history pales in comparison to the recent explosion of films employing the narrative form. The recent spate of misdirection films and their relative commercial success signals that something has changed and suggests that the connection that these films have with contemporary audiences merits further study. …

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