Clearly, the key element of The Sixth Sense is the
relationship between Malcolm Crowe and young Cole Sear.
Advertisement
Cole is an extremely troubled child whose mother is
struggling to handle him, and it’s Bruce Willis’ Malcolm who ultimately swoops
in to save the day by trying to connect with Cole and find out what’s really
tormenting him.
To establish this relationship between Malcolm and Cole, the
Malcolm character is a child psychologist. But that wasn’t always the case.
In the early drafts of The Sixth Sense, Malcolm Crowe was
actually a crime scene photographer. Making him a child psychologist, of
course, makes the ties to Cole far more logical than if Malcolm was indeed
snapping pictures at crime scenes.