NIGHT: Chasing ghosts

As The Village opens at the US box office this week, Night has got his chance again. Billed as one of this summer's blockbusters-in-the-making, it stars Sigourney Weaver and Oscar winners Adrien Brody and William Hurt. It also marks the screen debut of Bryce Dallas Howard. Night has much to live up to. There is his unofficial title as the king of the Hollywood thriller as also the box-office returns of his 1999 mega-movie, The Sixth Sense. He does not seem to be daunted by it. Unbreakable was not a significant commercial success but Signs returned him to the A-list, even though critics began to lampoon his style. But Night, with a cumulative box office of $600 million in the US alone, refuses to depart from what he believes is his cinematic signature: exploring fear with the audience.

The timing could not be better. The 9/11 Commission report has reopened old wounds. The event itself inspired Night's new script. "It kind of came from the 9/11 tragedy. There was so much fear in the air. There was a wanting to get away from all that, go to a place where there is innocence and not be in a world that is impossible," he says. That world is a 19th century world, which has led movie magazine Premiere to declare that his new film is a cross between Wuthering Heights and King Kong. The master of suspense has written romance for the first time and the movie is ultimately about what love can overcome.

LOVE-FEAR MIX: Adrien Brody and Bryce Dallas Howard in the Village

Night knows all about love. His life is all about balancing his work and love; movies and family. He married his wife Bhavna, who has a psychology degree from New York University (NYU), in 1993. The two met when Night was at NYU. "My wife has to share me with everyone else. First, with my work. But I try to make sure that my family knows that love comes first. I don't really have a job. This is what I love to do. It is not everybody's life," he says. It is also a disciplined life, something that he says comes naturally to an Indian immigrant.

Though born in Pondicherry, he was raised in Pennsylvania and has made the best of both worlds. While he inherited a strong work ethic from his parents (Nelliate and Jayalakshmi) who immigrated from India, Night soaked up the exposure that America brought with it. He had his early education at a Catholic private school and Philadelphia's Episcopal Academy. And very early in life he found his vocation by launching into movie making at the age of 10. Six years later, he had built up a repertoire of 45 movies and the courage to tell his family that he would be breaking with family tradition-12 of whom are doctors-and embracing filmmaking by joining the Tisch School of Arts in New York.

Night's first feature film, Praying with Anger, was an emotional work made up of personal moments. It did not have his trademark style, but the Night imprimatur could not be missed. He had served as the film's writer, director, producer and star. Later, the star would be replaced by a cameo presence, but the rest of the elements would remain unchanged. Whether it be in The Sixth Sense, Signs or most recently in The Village, where one almost misses Night's reflection in the glass door of a medicine cabinet. About his Hitchcockian influence, Night says he feels more connected to the authors he reads than the directors-Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg-who "inform" his style.

SPOOKY TIME: A scene from the Vilalge, set in the 19th century

Meticulous planning is called for such an ambition. In the period that he is writing-which is normally 7-8 months-the daily grind is in virtual solitude. "I rewrite many, many times. I try to be very structured about it. You don't want to get to the point where you say I don't feel it today so I cannot write. I set finite goals for each draft and thereby keep myself motivated," he says. He is working at present on a screenplay which he will not talk about. After concluding this he will take up Life of Pi, Yann Martel's Booker Prize winning novel about a boy shipwrecked off Pondicherry.

This process of working has made it possible for Night to write, produce and direct a movie every year since 1998. The niche that he has carved for himself goes well beyond any confines that his ethnic roots may have dictated. "I have universal kind of stories. The kind of talk-"this kid in Philadelphia who is making movies and he is Indian"-makes it sound mystical. It has added to the concept of spirituality in the movies. And it is not about one kind of religion, but of all kinds. That is a very Hindu philosophy," he says. More to the point, he says there is such a dearth of original ideas in Hollywood that even if a Martian with two heads were to make a good movie, it would be accepted.

The effort to carve out his own time has led to the accusation that Night is a recluse. So his fans were surprised to hear him on the raunchy Howard Stern radio talk show on Monday. While Stern refrained from rude comments about The Village, he was not sparing about Bhavna, whom Night described as "curvy". Most of the time, she chose not to respond to Stern's lewd queries. Not even when one of the shock jock's sidekicks offered her $1,000 to get topless.

Night is not defensive about his unwillingness to make his private life public, saying, "I am a quiet person. There are certain things that are private. It gets kind of dizzying when everyone knows everything about you. You don't feel any kind of peace."

But that lack of privacy, as anyone in Hollywood knows, is a trademark of having arrived.