STACK February 2017 Issue 148

16 / 95

PRIMAL
FEAR
The filmmaker who introduced the notion
of seeing dead people in The Sixth Sense
explores Dissociative Identity Disorder in
Split, with James McAvoy exhibiting 24
different personalities. Words Gill Pringle
Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan originally
wrote the Split script with Joaquin
Phoenix in mind, having previously
worked together on The Village and Signs. But
when Phoenix dropped out, James McAvoy
stepped in – no stranger to multiple personality
disorder, having already made a trial run in Filth.
A stickler for homework, Shyamalan, 46, has
done much research into Dissociative Identity
Disorder, otherwise known as Multiple Personality
Disorder.
DID is still the black sheep of the psychiatric
world, many believing that patients invent their
“multiples” to dodge prison sentences or that
therapists actually “push” the DID diagnosis on
fragile patients who may be suffering from other
psychiatric disorders.
When STACK meets with the director in Los
Angeles, his eyes light up at the sheer numbers.
“Oh there are as many as like 60 personalities [that
have] been diagnosed in one patient. Tons! I mean
even Sybil Dorset had 16 and the famous ones, like
Billy Milligan, was 22, or something like that,” he
says, referencing The Minds of Billy Milligan, a film
treatment to which Leonardo DiCaprio has long
been attached, while the former's story was told in
the 1976 mini-series Sybil, starring Sally Field.
For Shyamalan, however, the 1957 film The
Three Faces of Eve, starring Joanne Woodward in
an Oscar-winning performance, really spoke to him.
“I found it very moving. I just find this
psychological disorder absolutely moving and
tragic, and amazing too. Especially the science of
it. Pretty much everything I do in the movie, with
one exception, is true.
“DID is a disorder that only happens to
individuals who were consistently sexually or
physically abused between the ages of one and
five years old, which is when the brain is still
developing and the brain actually starts different
synapses, and starts a different area, and goes
‘We can’t deal with the fact that our uncle or
mother, or whatever it is, is doing this, so we’re
going to create a whole other existence’. And
then once it learns to do that during those
years, it does it forever; it keeps on splintering
over the course of time, so that these different
personalities all become options for them,”
explains Shyamalan, who worked with some of
the top researchers in the DID field; genuinely
compassionate of those afflicted with the
disorder.
With all of his research into DID, it was little
wonder he felt anxious once the deal with
Phoenix failed and he began recasting the lead.
“But sometimes it’s like the right human being
walks into your life at the right time. James was
actually very aware of this subject, so I wasn’t
starting from zero. Not many people can do
empathy, comedy, and the physicality all at once.
That was what scared me. But he was able to do
it all.”
Split also features The Witch's Anya Taylor-
Joy in a key role; the actress was yet to hit the
zeitgeist when she first auditioned.
“I was unfamiliar with her but just found her
mesmerising," says Shyamalan. "She’s just an odd
soul. She can’t be normal, and she’s obviously
very beautiful, but she has the energy of this odd,
ethereal person with her china doll-like face. And
there’s a darkness there underneath, which I got
to bring out.”
Split is in cinemas now and reviewed on page 22.
16 FEBRUARY 2017
visit CINEMA FEATURE
I just find this
psychological
disorder absolutely
moving and tragic...