With a professional career spanning over 16 years, Singer has yet to make a film as critically acclaimed as The Usual Suspects. As a result, I always wondered why he never chose to make something similar. It made me wonder whether Bryan Singer was a cinematic visionary with the ability to provide credibility to big budget Hollywood projects, or whether he was a race-horse that started off fast out of the gate, but who broke his legs around turn three and needed to be "retired" (I don't think they shoot race horses anymore, do they?)? I gave this question quite a bit of thought a few weeks ago, and this is what I came up with.
First off, Singer has directed five Hollywood films, since directing The Usual Suspects in 1994: 1998's Apt Pupil; X-Men and its sequel X2 in 2000, and 2003 respectively; 2006's Superman Returns and the 2008 WWII thriller Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise. He's been the Executive Producer on a number of television shows (House, Dirty Sexy Money etc.), but for the sake of argument, we'll focus on those who's visual elements he's had a direct hand in shaping.
I love The Usual Suspects, but primarily for nostalgic reasons. Many reviewers - both mainstream as well as bloggers - have struggled with it's confusing story line. Rottentomatoes.com is peppered with reviewers who struggle with the film, and/or the so-called pretentious way in which it jerks viewers around. While TIME's Richard Corliss sung it's praises several times, Roger Ebert has noted that, surprise ending aside, The Usual Suspects ultimately solves nothing in a film that has nothing to solve (if that makes sense). However, most criticisms I've read of the film focus on it's up-and-down plot direction and tend not to dwell on its stylistic elements.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, the film shows flashes of cinematographic brilliance, with intelligent shot progressions and a beautiful use of colour - all elements that can be attributed to a director's style. While I don't believe it's a flawless film, I think it stands on it's own as a major directorial debut. But this is exactly what bugged me about Singer.
I would argue that The Usual Suspects is popular because of it's twist-ending, which is why film purists are lukewarm to me calling it my favourite. This popularity calls into question whether the film would have been a directorial tour-de-force had the plot twist not been as major a factor as it was. This ending - what people associate the most with this film - is a cliched trick, but one that was executed flawlessly. It's also what galvanizes opinion either for, or against this film. I would also argue its success created an expectation within the public sphere to produce another film equalling its success. It also created that same expectation within myself. For a long time I wondered why this guy couldn't buckle down and make something as intelligent as his debut film.
But then something happened
I was at Blockbuster with a friend a few weeks ago, looking for something to rent. He suggested we rent Superman. I reluctantly agreed. I had seen the film once before and had liked it...but not LOVED it.
We were driving back when I mentioned how much of a shame it was that Bryan Singer would never make another equal to The Usual Suspects. My friend said "I'm glad he hasn't tried. He'd be a one-trick pony if he had."
That got me thinking...
Compare Singer to M. Night Shyamalan, whose 1999 blockbuster The Sixth Sense used a similar plot twist to conclude his film. Unlike Singer, Shyamalan chose to use these twists throughout his body of work. I like most of Shyamalan's films, but his unwavering desire to use the same technique time and time has grown a little tired.
Like Singer, those who criticize Shyamalan often compare his work to his first, and most successful film. However, Shyamalan has chosen to stay roughly in the same thriller genre, which makes these comparisons credible, while Singer taken steps to distance himself from The Usual Suspects. Unlike Shyamalan, Singer's films exist despite the success of his first film, not because of it. He has never attempted to use similar plot techniques in his films, thus never pegging himself as a one-trick pony. I believe this is a good thing.
Although he's made very few films, Singer's major releases following The Usual Suspects have been set in different genres. Consider X-Men. The film was a great success...and nothing like The Usual Suspects. It was the first of the modern comic adaptations and ushered in a slew of similar adaptations that have typified summer blockbusters of the past decade. In this way, X-Men is groundbreaking.
Consider also Superman Returns. While I was initially so-so about this film, a second watching was much more fulfilling and yielded more by way of content than I ever would have suspected.
At the time of its released, superhero blockbusters had become the stable of the summer season. Big name players like Spiderman, The (Ang Lee) Hulk, and Daredevil had already had their kick at the can. The X-Men franchise had spawned two more sequels, one which surpassed the original in terms of complexity and one that sucked big time. Even smaller cult heroes like Hellboy and Constantine were allowed to shine on screen.
When Superman was announced, many (including myself) thought it was going to centre around a major character reinvention, somewhat analogous to Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Batman Begins. But it didn't play out like that at all.
In an era where the pressure was on remaking and reinvention, Singer chose to continue the original story line last portrayed on screen in 1987's Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. While this film was terrible, Singer's decision to transfer many of the character nuances and histories over into his film was a brave decision, and one that deserves a certain amount of admiration. To continue an existing story line 19 years after it last ended shows a respect for film history and the mythology that surrounded the release of those original films.
Singer's Superman ultimately under-performed at the box office, at least in the eyes of Warner Bros. Studio exec Alan Horn. But a rereading of this film proved to me that Singer possesses a creative edge that is not solely based on the desire to produce a body of work.
As I mentioned in the opening to this post (way back when), I had initially struggled with Singer's inability to replicate the success he had achieved with The Usual Suspects. Watching Superman again made me realize that perhaps replication had never been Singer's goalas a filmmaker.
I suppose it would have been easy for him to create another film with a crazy plot-twist ending (Like Shyamalan), but he didn't. In 16 years of filmmaking, he's only directed five films, which suggests to me that he picks what he does carefully. That he has chosen different films existing in different genres and being made under different circumstances tells me that he is a director that is not as much concerned with replicating his freshman success as he is with making challenging films altogether.
Like I said earlier, I don't think Singer will ever be as great a director as those we consider to be the best. That being said, he is a good director with a good understanding of what good films should look like. He's also better at traversing the boundary between Film and TV than most, making him a master at achieving success regardless of the medium. There is a lot that can be said for being able to exist in these two different worlds harmoniously.
While I was on the fence about Bryan Singer, some careful thought, analysis and research made me realize he's not the lame race horse I once thought he was.
No need to send him to the glue factory just yet.
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