The Village (2004 film)
Encyclopedia
The Village is a 2004 American fantasy
-thriller film
written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
about a end-of-the-19th-century village
whose inhabitants live in fear of the creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it. The movie was shot in a recreation of a 19th-century village outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, following Shyamalan's penchant for staging his films near his hometown. The movie opened to reviews ranging from overall negative to mixed and was not as financially successful as some of Shyamalan's earlier movies, although it did gross over three times its budget. Despite this, the film gave composer James Newton Howard
his fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score
.
with the monsters; the villagers do not go into their woods, and the creatures do not enter their village. Even so, the villagers are shown executing a well-rehearsed alarm, in which they rush home, lock their doors, and hide in their cellars. Also, the dead, skinned bodies of small animals start to appear around the village.
After the funeral, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix
) asks the village elders for permission to pass through the woods to get medical supplies from "the towns". His request is denied and, later, he is admonished by his mother, Alice (Sigourney Weaver
), for wanting to go to the towns, which the villagers describe as "wicked places where wicked people live". It is revealed in that scene that the Elders seem to keep dark secrets of their own in the form of black boxes, the contents of which they keep hidden from their own offspring. After Lucius makes a short venture into the woods, the creatures leave warnings around the village in the form of splashes of red paint (referred by the villagers only as "the bad color") on all the villagers' doors.
Meanwhile, Ivy Elizabeth Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard
), the blind
daughter of the chief Elder, Edward Walker (William Hurt
), informs Lucius that she has strong feelings for him, and he returns her affections. They arrange to be married, but things go horribly wrong when Noah Percy (Adrien Brody
), a young man with apparent developmental problems
who is in love with Ivy, stabs Lucius with a knife that he kept hidden away in his pocket.
Edward goes against the wishes of the other Elders, agreeing to allow Ivy to pass through the forest and seek out medicine for Lucius. Before she leaves, the first plot twist
is revealed when Edward explains the secret of the creatures – they are "farce" - bogeymen
created by the Elders to keep the children from entering the woods in an attempt to keep them from leaving the village. Edward does mention, however, that "Those We Don't Speak Of" were based upon legends that he had heard at one time, of "real creatures" living in the woods. Ivy seems only partly convinced by this explanation, inquiring whether the skinned animals were "also farce".
While Ivy is traveling through the forest, one of the beasts suddenly attacks her. She tricks it into falling into a deep hole to its death. It is then that the second plot twist is revealed — the creature is actually Noah in a costume that he had found under the floor of the room where he was kept locked from others. It is implied in that scene that it was Noah who had been skinning the animals all along.
Ivy eventually finds her way to the far edge of the woods, where she encounters a high, ivy-covered wall. After she climbs over the wall the final plot twist is revealed: the film is set in the present day (a newspaper in one scene shows July 30, 2004, the date of the film's release). A park ranger driving a Land Rover
with the words "Walker Wildlife Preserve" on the side spots Ivy and is shocked to hear that she has come out of the woods. He then learns that Ivy's last name is "Walker".
It is revealed that the village was actually founded some time in the late 1970s, when Edward Walker, professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania
, approached other people he met at a grief counseling
clinic after his father had been murdered. He asked them if they wished to join him in "an idea" he had. From this apparently grew "the village", a secluded town in the middle of a wildlife preserve purchased with Edward's family fortune, a place where they would be protected from any aspect of the outside world. The head ranger named "Jay" in the ranger station (M. Night Shyamalan
) seen reflected in a glass door, fills in several plot points; the Walker estate pays to maintain the ranger corps, the rangers make sure no one goes into the wildlife preserve to "disturb the animal(s)", the Walker estate "paid off" the government to keep the entire wildlife preserve a "no-fly zone
". Once the village was created, it appears the original "Elders" rolled the clock back to the late 19th century to what they thought was a simpler, more peaceful time.
The ranger retrieves medicine from a ranger station and Ivy returns to the village. This sequence is intercut with brief segments showing the Elders opening their black boxes, which are revealed to contain mementos from their lives in the actual outside world, including one or more items related to their past traumas
. The film ends with a scene in a cabin where all the Elders are sitting around Lucius' bed. In that scene Edward points out that Noah's death will allow them to continue deceiving the rest of the villagers that there are "creatures" in the woods and all the Elders take a vote to continue living in the village. The film ends with Ivy arriving and saying "I'm back, Lucius".
. In one of the final scenes, his voice is heard for a time and his reflection can be seen.
, The Woods, already had that title. Like other Shyamalan productions, this film had high levels of secrecy surrounding it, needed to protect the expected twist ending that was a known Shyamalan trademark. Despite that, the script was stolen over a year before the film was released, prompting many "pre-reviews" of the film on several Internet film sites and much fan speculation about plot details including the film's leaked final line, a truck driver exclaiming "Crazy f***ing white people".
The village seen in the film was built in its entirety in one field outside Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. An adjacent field contained an on-location temporary sound stage. Production on the film started in October 2003, with delays because some scenes needing fall foliage could not be shot because of a late fall season. Principal photography was wrapped up in mid December of that year. In April and May 2004, several of the lead actors were called back to the set. Reports noted that this seemed to have something to do with a change to the film's ending, and, in fact, the film's final ending differs from the ending in a stolen version of the script that surfaced a year earlier with the "Crazy fucking white people" scene replaced by an "Ivy meets a friendly ranger" sequence and a new ending scene added after that with all the Elders and Ivy around Lucius' bed.
with only 43% giving it a positive appraisal, based on 197 reviews, and a score of 44 out of 100 ("mixed or average") in Metacritic
's weighted average scoring system, based on 40 reviews.
Roger Ebert
gave the film one star and wrote: "The Village is a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn ... To call the ending an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes
but to prefix
es. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It was all a dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore." There were also comments that the film, while raising questions about conformity in a time of "evil," did little to "confront" those themes. Slate
's Michael Agger commented that Shyamalan was continuing in a pattern of making "sealed-off movies that [fall] apart when exposed to outside logic."
The movie did have a number of admirers. Critic Jeffrey Westhoff commented that though the film had its shortcomings, these did not necessarily render it a bad movie, and that "Shyamalan's orchestration of mood and terror is as adroit as ever". Philip Horne of The Daily Telegraph
in a later review noted "this exquisitely crafted allegory
of American soul-searching seems to have been widely misunderstood".
The soundtrack by Howard has also been widely praised, and was nominated by the American Film Institute
as one of the Best Film Scores.
, publishers of the 1995 young adults' book Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix, claimed that the film had stolen ideas from the book. The book had a plot which features a village whose inhabitants are secretly forced to live in the 1830s when the year is actually 1996. The plot of Shyamalan's movie had several similarities to the book. They both involve a village, which is actually a park in the present day (Shyamalan uses a late nineteenth-century village), have young heroines on a search for medical supplies, and both have adult leaders bent on keeping the children in their village from discovering the truth. In Haddix' novel, the truth is that village is a genetic experiment; in the movie, that the adults had decided to withdraw from the outside world.
2005 Academy Awards
(Oscars)
2005 10th Empire Awards
2005 Evening Standard British Film Awards
2005 MTV Movie Awards
2005 Motion Picture Sound Editors
(Golden Reel Award)
2004 Online Film Critics Society
Awards
2005 Teen Choice Awards
, and feature solo violinist Hilary Hahn
. The album was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score
(lost to the score of the film Finding Neverland
).
Track listing
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
-thriller film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan
Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
about a end-of-the-19th-century village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
whose inhabitants live in fear of the creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it. The movie was shot in a recreation of a 19th-century village outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, following Shyamalan's penchant for staging his films near his hometown. The movie opened to reviews ranging from overall negative to mixed and was not as financially successful as some of Shyamalan's earlier movies, although it did gross over three times its budget. Despite this, the film gave composer James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
his fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
.
Plot
The movie begins at a funeral of a child in a small village. The death date on the tombstone establishes the date as 1897. As the story progresses, it is revealed the villagers live in fear of nameless creatures in the woods that surround the village. They have built a barrier of oil lanterns and watch towers that are constantly manned to keep watch for "Those We Don't Speak Of", who are mentioned numerous times early in the film. It is explained that the villagers have a long-standing truceArmistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
with the monsters; the villagers do not go into their woods, and the creatures do not enter their village. Even so, the villagers are shown executing a well-rehearsed alarm, in which they rush home, lock their doors, and hide in their cellars. Also, the dead, skinned bodies of small animals start to appear around the village.
After the funeral, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
) asks the village elders for permission to pass through the woods to get medical supplies from "the towns". His request is denied and, later, he is admonished by his mother, Alice (Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
), for wanting to go to the towns, which the villagers describe as "wicked places where wicked people live". It is revealed in that scene that the Elders seem to keep dark secrets of their own in the form of black boxes, the contents of which they keep hidden from their own offspring. After Lucius makes a short venture into the woods, the creatures leave warnings around the village in the form of splashes of red paint (referred by the villagers only as "the bad color") on all the villagers' doors.
Meanwhile, Ivy Elizabeth Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard
Bryce Dallas Howard
Bryce Dallas Howard is an American film actress and daughter of director Ron Howard. She made her acting debut in her father's 1989 movie Parenthood and went on to have small roles in films and make stage appearances for the next several years...
), the blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
daughter of the chief Elder, Edward Walker (William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
), informs Lucius that she has strong feelings for him, and he returns her affections. They arrange to be married, but things go horribly wrong when Noah Percy (Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist . Winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 at age 29, he is the youngest actor to do so...
), a young man with apparent developmental problems
Developmental disability
Developmental disability is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe lifelong disabilities attributable to mental or physical impairments, manifested prior to age 18. It is not synonymous with "developmental delay" which is often a consequence of a temporary illness or trauma during...
who is in love with Ivy, stabs Lucius with a knife that he kept hidden away in his pocket.
Edward goes against the wishes of the other Elders, agreeing to allow Ivy to pass through the forest and seek out medicine for Lucius. Before she leaves, the first plot twist
Plot twist
A plot twist is a change in the expected direction or outcome of the plot of a film, television series, video game, novel, comic or other fictional work. It is a common practice in narration used to keep the interest of an audience, usually surprising them with a revelation...
is revealed when Edward explains the secret of the creatures – they are "farce" - bogeymen
Bogeyman
A bogeyman is an amorphous imaginary being used by adults to frighten children into compliant behaviour...
created by the Elders to keep the children from entering the woods in an attempt to keep them from leaving the village. Edward does mention, however, that "Those We Don't Speak Of" were based upon legends that he had heard at one time, of "real creatures" living in the woods. Ivy seems only partly convinced by this explanation, inquiring whether the skinned animals were "also farce".
While Ivy is traveling through the forest, one of the beasts suddenly attacks her. She tricks it into falling into a deep hole to its death. It is then that the second plot twist is revealed — the creature is actually Noah in a costume that he had found under the floor of the room where he was kept locked from others. It is implied in that scene that it was Noah who had been skinning the animals all along.
Ivy eventually finds her way to the far edge of the woods, where she encounters a high, ivy-covered wall. After she climbs over the wall the final plot twist is revealed: the film is set in the present day (a newspaper in one scene shows July 30, 2004, the date of the film's release). A park ranger driving a Land Rover
Land Rover
Land Rover is a British car manufacturer with its headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is owned by the Indian company Tata Motors, forming part of their Jaguar Land Rover group...
with the words "Walker Wildlife Preserve" on the side spots Ivy and is shocked to hear that she has come out of the woods. He then learns that Ivy's last name is "Walker".
It is revealed that the village was actually founded some time in the late 1970s, when Edward Walker, professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, approached other people he met at a grief counseling
Grief counseling
Grief counseling is a form of psychotherapy that aims to help people cope with grief and mourning following the death of loved ones, or with major life changes that trigger feelings of grief ....
clinic after his father had been murdered. He asked them if they wished to join him in "an idea" he had. From this apparently grew "the village", a secluded town in the middle of a wildlife preserve purchased with Edward's family fortune, a place where they would be protected from any aspect of the outside world. The head ranger named "Jay" in the ranger station (M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan
Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
) seen reflected in a glass door, fills in several plot points; the Walker estate pays to maintain the ranger corps, the rangers make sure no one goes into the wildlife preserve to "disturb the animal(s)", the Walker estate "paid off" the government to keep the entire wildlife preserve a "no-fly zone
No-fly zone
A no-fly zone is a territory or an area over which aircraft are not permitted to fly. Such zones are usually set up in a military context, somewhat like a demilitarized zone in the sky, and usually prohibit military aircraft of a belligerent nation from operating in the region.-Iraq,...
". Once the village was created, it appears the original "Elders" rolled the clock back to the late 19th century to what they thought was a simpler, more peaceful time.
The ranger retrieves medicine from a ranger station and Ivy returns to the village. This sequence is intercut with brief segments showing the Elders opening their black boxes, which are revealed to contain mementos from their lives in the actual outside world, including one or more items related to their past traumas
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
. The film ends with a scene in a cabin where all the Elders are sitting around Lucius' bed. In that scene Edward points out that Noah's death will allow them to continue deceiving the rest of the villagers that there are "creatures" in the woods and all the Elders take a vote to continue living in the village. The film ends with Ivy arriving and saying "I'm back, Lucius".
Cast
As is usual in his films, Shyamalan is seen in a brief cameoCameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
. In one of the final scenes, his voice is heard for a time and his reflection can be seen.
- Joaquin PhoenixJoaquin PhoenixJoaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
as Lucius Hunt - Bryce Dallas HowardBryce Dallas HowardBryce Dallas Howard is an American film actress and daughter of director Ron Howard. She made her acting debut in her father's 1989 movie Parenthood and went on to have small roles in films and make stage appearances for the next several years...
as Ivy Elizabeth Walker - Adrien BrodyAdrien BrodyAdrien Brody is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist . Winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 at age 29, he is the youngest actor to do so...
as Noah Percy - William HurtWilliam HurtWilliam McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
as Edward Walker - Sigourney WeaverSigourney WeaverSigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
as Alice Hunt - Brendan GleesonBrendan GleesonBrendan Gleeson is an Irish actor. His best-known films include Braveheart, Gangs of New York, In Bruges, 28 Days Later, the Harry Potter films, The Guard and the role of Michael Collins in The Treaty...
as August Nicholson - Cherry JonesCherry JonesCherry Jones is an American actress and recipient of the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series and the 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play.-Career:...
as Mrs. Clack - Celia WestonCelia WestonCelia Weston is an American actress of stage, film and television, and a character actress. Professionally, she may be best known for her role as Jolene Hunnicutt on Alice.-Life and career:...
as Vivian Percy - Frank CollisonFrank CollisonFrank Collison is an American actor known to television audiences as the hapless telegrapher Horace Bing in the series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.-Early life:...
as Victor - Jayne AtkinsonJayne AtkinsonJayne Atkinson is an English-born American film, theatre and television actress. She is perhaps best known for the role of Karen Hayes on 24 as well as her Tony Award-nominated roles in The Rainmaker and Enchanted April...
as Tabitha Walker - Judy GreerJudy GreerJudy Greer is an American actress, known for portraying a string of supporting female characters, including Kitty Sanchez on the Fox series Arrested Development and Cheryl on the animated comedy series Archer...
as Kitty Walker - Fran KranzFran KranzFrancis Elliott Kranz is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Topher Brink in Joss Whedon's science fiction drama television series Dollhouse.-Early life:...
as Christop Crane - Liz StauberLiz StauberLiz Stauber is an American actress. She attended North Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana.-Selected filmography:Film*All Good Things as Sharon McCarthy*Shut Up and Sing as Michelle...
as Beatrice - Michael PittMichael PittMichael Carmen Pitt is an American actor and musician. Pitt is best known in film for his role in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and in television for his portrayal of James "Jimmy" Darmody in the hit HBO series Boardwalk Empire.-Personal life:Pitt was born in West Orange, New Jersey, the...
as Finton Coin - Jesse EisenbergJesse EisenbergJesse Adam Eisenberg is an American actor. He made his screen debut with the comedy-drama television series Get Real from 1999 to 2000...
as Jamison - Charlie HofheimerCharlie HofheimerCharlie Hofheimer is an American film, television and theatre actor. He landed his first film role as Jim Garland in the 1994 version of Lassie. He has also made many TV guest appearances in a number of TV series....
as Kevin, the young security guard - M. Night ShyamalanM. Night ShyamalanManoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
as Jay - "Guard at Desk"
Production
The film was originally titled The Woods, but the name was changed because a film directed by Lucky McKeeLucky McKee
Edward Lucky McKee is an American director, writer, and actor, largely known for the 2002 film May, which has acquired a cult following.-Biography:...
, The Woods, already had that title. Like other Shyamalan productions, this film had high levels of secrecy surrounding it, needed to protect the expected twist ending that was a known Shyamalan trademark. Despite that, the script was stolen over a year before the film was released, prompting many "pre-reviews" of the film on several Internet film sites and much fan speculation about plot details including the film's leaked final line, a truck driver exclaiming "Crazy f***ing white people".
The village seen in the film was built in its entirety in one field outside Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. An adjacent field contained an on-location temporary sound stage. Production on the film started in October 2003, with delays because some scenes needing fall foliage could not be shot because of a late fall season. Principal photography was wrapped up in mid December of that year. In April and May 2004, several of the lead actors were called back to the set. Reports noted that this seemed to have something to do with a change to the film's ending, and, in fact, the film's final ending differs from the ending in a stolen version of the script that surfaced a year earlier with the "Crazy fucking white people" scene replaced by an "Ivy meets a friendly ranger" sequence and a new ending scene added after that with all the Elders and Ivy around Lucius' bed.
Reception
The Village received mixed to average reviews from film critics polled, earning a "rotten" at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
with only 43% giving it a positive appraisal, based on 197 reviews, and a score of 44 out of 100 ("mixed or average") in Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
's weighted average scoring system, based on 40 reviews.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film one star and wrote: "The Village is a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn ... To call the ending an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes
Climax (narrative)
The Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...
but to prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It was all a dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore." There were also comments that the film, while raising questions about conformity in a time of "evil," did little to "confront" those themes. Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
's Michael Agger commented that Shyamalan was continuing in a pattern of making "sealed-off movies that [fall] apart when exposed to outside logic."
The movie did have a number of admirers. Critic Jeffrey Westhoff commented that though the film had its shortcomings, these did not necessarily render it a bad movie, and that "Shyamalan's orchestration of mood and terror is as adroit as ever". Philip Horne of The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
in a later review noted "this exquisitely crafted allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
of American soul-searching seems to have been widely misunderstood".
The soundtrack by Howard has also been widely praised, and was nominated by the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
as one of the Best Film Scores.
Plagiarism allegation
Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
, publishers of the 1995 young adults' book Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix, claimed that the film had stolen ideas from the book. The book had a plot which features a village whose inhabitants are secretly forced to live in the 1830s when the year is actually 1996. The plot of Shyamalan's movie had several similarities to the book. They both involve a village, which is actually a park in the present day (Shyamalan uses a late nineteenth-century village), have young heroines on a search for medical supplies, and both have adult leaders bent on keeping the children in their village from discovering the truth. In Haddix' novel, the truth is that village is a genetic experiment; in the movie, that the adults had decided to withdraw from the outside world.
Box office
The film grossed $114 million in the U.S., and $142 million in international markets. Its worldwide box office totalled $256 million, the tenth highest grossing PG-13 movie of 2004. The film cost $71.6 million in production fees and $44 million in marketing.Awards and nominations
2005 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards- Won - Top Box Office Film — James Newton HowardJames Newton HowardJames Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
2005 Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
(Oscars)
- Nominated - Best Original ScoreAcademy Award for Original Music ScoreThe Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
— James Newton Howard
2005 10th Empire Awards
- Nominated - Best Actress — Bryce Dallas HowardBryce Dallas HowardBryce Dallas Howard is an American film actress and daughter of director Ron Howard. She made her acting debut in her father's 1989 movie Parenthood and went on to have small roles in films and make stage appearances for the next several years...
- Nominated - Best Newcomer — Bryce Dallas Howard
- Nominated - Best Director — M. Night ShyamalanM. Night ShyamalanManoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
2005 Evening Standard British Film Awards
Evening Standard British Film Awards
The Evening Standard British Film Awards were established in 1973 by the British London area evening newspaper Evening Standard. The Standard Awards is the only ceremony "dedicated to British and Irish talent," judged by a panel of "top UK critics." Each ceremony honours films from the previous...
- Won - Best Technical/Artistic Achievement — Roger DeakinsRoger DeakinsRoger Antony Deakins, ASC, BSC is an English cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers. Deakins is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers...
2005 MTV Movie Awards
MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
- Nominated - Best Breakthrough Female PerformanceMTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough PerformanceThis is a following list of the MTV Movie Award winners and nominees for Best Breakthrough Performance. In many years, the awards were split into Male and Female categories...
— Bryce Dallas Howard
2005 Motion Picture Sound Editors
Motion Picture Sound Editors
Founded in 1953, Motion Picture Sound Editors is an honorary society of motion picture sound editors. The society's goals are to educate others about and increase the recognition of the sound editors, show the artistic merit of the soundtracks, and improve the professional relationship of its...
(Golden Reel Award)
- Nominated - Best Sound Editing in a Feature: Music, Feature Film — Thomas S. Drescher
2004 Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
Awards
- Nominated - Best Breakthrough Performance — Bryce Dallas Howard
2005 Teen Choice Awards
Teen Choice Awards
The Teen Choice Awards, are an annual awards show that air on the Fox cable channel, that honor the year's biggest biggest achievements in music, movies, sports, television, fashion and more, voted by teen viewers aged 14 through 17. Winners receive an authentic full size surfboard designed with...
- Nominated - Choice Movie Scary Scene — Bryce Dallas Howard, Ivy Walker waits at the door for Lucius Hunt.
- Nominated - Choice Movie: Thriller
Soundtrack
The original film score and songs were composed by James Newton HowardJames Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
, and feature solo violinist Hilary Hahn
Hilary Hahn
Hilary Hahn is an American violinist.Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia. Beginning her studies when she was three years old at Baltimore's Peabody Institute, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age ten, and in 1991, made her major orchestral debut with the...
. The album was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
(lost to the score of the film Finding Neverland
Finding Neverland (soundtrack)
Finding Neverland is the original soundtrack album, on the Decca label, of the 2004 film Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell and Dustin Hoffman. The original score and songs were composed and produced by Jan A. P. Kaczmarek.The album won the Academy...
).
Track listing
- "Noah Visits"
- "What Are You Asking Me?"
- "The Bad Color"
- "Those We Don't Speak of"
- "Will You Help Me?"
- "I Cannot See His Color"
- "Rituals"
- "The Gravel Road"
- "Race To Resting Rock"
- "The Forbidden Line"
- "The Vote"
- "It Is Not Real"
- "The Shed Not To Be Used"
External links
- American Cinematographer Magazine, August 2004. Interview with Roger Deakins on The Villages cinematography.
- "Disney and Shyamalan in your back yard" - Website by a local resident describing the filming of The Village in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
- The Woods unspecified draft script for The Village