Vulture: Have you read the reviews for The Last Airbender?

M. Night Shyamalan: No, I haven’t.

Vulture: Well, are you aware of the reviews?

Shyamalan: No, actually.

Vulture: Well, for the most part, critics have not been kind. Are you just ignoring them? Will you read them this weekend? Have you just not had time?

Shyamalan: Are you saying that in general they didn’t dig it?

Vulture: In general, no. Roger Ebert, who liked The Happening, did not. The first line of his review is, “The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category that I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.” How do you react to something like that?

Shyamalan: I don’t know what to say to that stuff. I bring as much integrity to the table as humanly possible. It must be a language thing, in terms of a particular accent, a storytelling accent. I can only see it this certain way and I don’t know how to think in another language. I think these are exactly the visions that are in my head, so I don’t know how to adjust it without being me. It would be like asking a painter to change to a completely different style. I don’t know.

Vulture: Critics haven’t been kind to your last couple of films. Do you still worry about reviews?

Shyamalan: I think of it as an art form. So it’s something I approach as sort of immovable integrity within each of the stages. So if you walk through the process with me, there’s not a moment where I won’t treat with great respect. So it’s sacred to me, the whole process of making a movie. I would hope that some people see that I approach this field with that kind of respect, and that it’s not a job.

— from a New York/”Vulture” interview that happened this morning, and was posted today at 4 pm.