[PLEASUREMAN]

Any substantive discussion of Shutter Island will involve spoilers, not that there are any particularly shocking twists. In fact I don't think Scorsese intended the ending to be a great surprise, as many of the details are broadly hinted or foreshadowed. But if you haven't seen it you might want to put off reading this.

I enjoyed this movie far more than I expected to. Critical reaction has been very mixed, so it surprised me to find that Scorsese has made a very effective movie out of what at bottom is a psychological thriller with twist ending. But then again Hitchcock, who apparently influenced Scorsese's approach here, usually worked from rather homely plots; the effectiveness of this sort of material, Hitchcock knew, was in giving the audience a kind of voyeuristic insight into the protagonist's mental struggle, and emphasizing the pulp emotions of anger, grief, revenge.

While I need more time to determine whether Scorsese accomplished something that bold, I find Shutter Island to be among his best work as a filmmaker--far exceeding the grotesque luridness of Cape Fear or the sadistic relish of Casino; better and different from most of what he has done.

To get the first thing out of the way, I don't know why Scorsese is in love with Leonardo DiCaprio either. Taken purely for his acting skills, there is nothing at all bad about DiCaprio--he's far better than the overrated Johnny Depp, for example, and exhibits greater range than most of his A-list peers. The problem is physical--DiCaprio's face is squat and unemotive, so that for all his effort there is a distracting distance created by his unusual features. This has become more of a problem as he's gotten older, and it probably doesn't help being repeatedly cast in the movies of a single highly stylistic director. But if you can stand to watch DiCaprio in yet another Scorsese movie, there isn't anything objectionable here, and perhaps it's just my personal coolness toward him.

The story begins with DiCaprio as U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner being ferried to Shutter Island, home to a mental institution for the criminally insane. Teddy's brief is to locate a missing prisoner who evidently escaped into thin air. After a brief look around and some interviews with patients and staff whom Teddy feels were coached in their answers, Teddy asks to see the patient files but is summarily refused. After repeated demands to see the files followed by repeated refusals, Teddy stormily declares that his investigation is at an end and he and his partner will expect to be ferried out the next day.

As it happens, a hurricane hits the island that night, preventing Teddy's immediate departure. The general chaos that the hospital is left in allows Teddy to investigate the mysterious Ward C, which he suspects is in fact being used to conduct experiments in mind control. As he relates to his partner, he came across a former resident of Ward C some time ago who divulged information about these experiments, and that whatever the outcome of the missing patient case, Teddy's real intention all along has been to get onto the island to collect evidence exposing the government-sponsored experimentation.

In the meantime, as his stay on the island lengthens, Teddy experiences frequent flashbacks to his time in the United States Army, where he was among the liberators of Dachau. During the liberation, he and his fellow soldiers lined up the German (or, more likely, Polish) guards and executed them, an action that has continued to torment Teddy to the present. He also recalls finding the camp commandant who had botched a suicide attempt and whom Teddy watched suffer through his last miserable hour.

Commencing with the hurricane, Teddy also has nightmarish dreams of his wife, who died in an arson fire set by a man who may be the "67th patient" alluded to in a discovered scrap of writing. Increasingly his suspicions fall on the institution's psychiatrists, including a German physician played by Max von Sydow with charming insouciance (Teddy retains an intense dislike of Germans from his wartime experiences). Teddy begins to believe that the doctors are on to his investigation and that he has been drugged, a fact apparently confirmed when he discovers the missing patient, who turns out to be a former doctor at the institution. She objected to the nature of the experiments in Ward C and was declared insane and kept under custody as a patient. She assures Teddy that they will have drugged him with any food or cigarettes offered during his stay.

Finally Teddy makes his way to the lighthouse, where he thinks the experiments are now being conducted, and here the movie presents its revelation: Teddy is in fact a paranoid schizophrenic, and this "investigation" has been part of his therapy, an attempt to fight through his delusions and, his psychiatrist (who confronts him there) hopes, avoid the need for lobotomy. Teddy recovers his true memories: his wife was the one who set fire to their home in a failed attempt to kill herself. Teddy moved with her to a pastoral setting, hoping to restore her sanity, only to find on returning home one day that she had drowned their three children. In the shock of grief, Teddy kills her, and is subsequently committed to the mental institution on Shutter Island. Unable to face reality, he retreats into a conspiratorial fantasy, transferring his emotional devastation to his experiences in Dachau.

Where the comparison with Hitchcock is perhaps closest is in much of the psychological symbolism that emerges. The use of the concentration camp horrors as the screen memory for Teddy's personal trauma is inspired and extraordinarily effective. Scorsese blends visual elements skillfully, as when the falling ash of a burning building in Teddy's dream is echoed later by the drifting papers as the American soldiers ransack the files in the commandant's office. The symbolism goes both ways here: the discovery of the concentration camps was a profound moral shock to the West, all the more horrible for the institutional banality of its design, not unlike the same institutional banality evidenced in a mental institution. Each refers to the others in a dizzying fashion.

The supporting cast is very good; John Carroll Lynch as deputy warden and Ted Levine as warden are both notable for the different emphasis each places on the protective and the sinister elements of his role.

It's the first movie in a long time that I'd like to see again, that works on both a cerebral and emotional level while recalling a tradition of filmmaking that has been all but extinguished. Although I have never considered myself one of Scorsese's fans, he does appear to be one of the last of the greats, a fact of which this movie is a highly potent reminder.

[PLEASUREMAN]

I wanted to add to this that I've seen Shutter Island a second time and found it to be an even more intense experience than the first viewing.

Part of the movie's evocation of Hitchcock (in particular the movies Spellbound and Vertigo) can be attributed to the story being set in the 1950s, as that era's trends and attitudes were well-reflected in Hitchcock's movies--particularly in his near-veneration of early psychology and psychiatry. (Spellbound is an effusive tribute to Freudian psychoanalysis and dream interpretation.)

But another element is the movie's Hitchcockian intersection between masculine reason and irrationality (the very notion of using logic and order to break down the defense mechanisms of dementia). The liberation of Dachau is an explicit representation of this drive. It is something our society has lost, creating a void filled by directionless and disorganized urges that lead to the acceptance of non-normative behavior--in effect the acceptance of insanity on the margins.

In this light the movie is a profound universal tragedy. Teddy must sacrifice his mind because he refuses to relinquish his insanity, which is his personal tragedy, but Teddy is of course stand-in for modern man, whose rational world has broken down as its machinery has been employed for purposes he cannot accept. Because of this break in the chain of reason, man falls to drugs and mindlessness of various kinds.

[antistoic]

I think most audiences were aware of the twist before the movie even started. It's a good bet that any movie that involves mental illness and/or an insane asylum will end with a 'shocking' revelation that the protagonist is going insane or is already insane and that the entire preceding narrative took place within his own broken mind. I think you can blame Chris Nolan for this. It's fair to note, however, that Shutter Island handles this conceit with no small amount of intelligence and grace - it never beats the viewer over the head or wallows in its own cleverness like Shlaamamlayaayallan does. I also particularly enjoyed the dialogue between the protagonist and the Nietzschean military officer who comes to retrieve him after he loses his 'partner'. Also, and this is a minor complaint, but the mise-en-scène bears a suspicious resemblance to that of Session 9, another psychological thriller with an insane asylum setting (and a very good one too), especially when the characters are exploring "Ward C"...but maybe that's just me.

Otherwise, I agree with your assessment - it was probably the best theater release I've seen this year, far surpassing the visually brilliant but narratively anemic Avatar.

[PLEASUREMAN]

Wikipedia sums up the divided critical reaction. The division is somewhat interesting because of the very low standard of film criticism today (alas, John Simon is no longer a defining figure on this miserable landscape blasted smooth by idiocy). One understands when mediocrities like A.O.Scott or Roger Ebert gush over the latest diddlings of Speilbergian shit, to say nothing of the likes of Dana Stevens (it honestly pains me to even type the name of this dumb whore). More confusing is when a truly accomplished work is like a riddle to our poor critics. I suppose it is an indicator of our declension that criticism has been reduced to this unintelligent gabbing and opinionizing. One can't help suspect that part of the reason it is so stupid is that newspapers need somewhere to put the women who insist on going into journalism.

[PLEASUREMAN]

mlad, 01 March 2010 - 01:45 AM:

I think most audiences were aware of the twist before the movie even started. It's a good bet that any movie that involves mental illness and/or an insane asylum will end with a 'shocking' revelation that the protagonist is going insane or is already insane and that the entire preceding narrative took place within his own broken mind. I think you can blame Chris Nolan for this. It's fair to note, however, that Shutter Island handles this conceit with no small amount of intelligence and grace - it never beats the viewer over the head or wallows in its own cleverness like Shlaamamlayaayallan does. I also particularly enjoyed the dialogue between the protagonist and the Nietzschean military officer who comes to retrieve him after he loses his 'partner'. Also, and this is a minor complaint, but the mise-en-scène bears a suspicious resemblance to that of Session 9, another psychological thriller with an insane asylum setting (and a very good one too), especially when the characters are exploring "Ward C"...but maybe that's just me.

Otherwise, I agree with your assessment - it was probably the best theater release I've seen this year, far surpassing the visually brilliant but narratively anemic Avatar.

Yes, I really liked that scene--Ted Levine (the warden) is a terrific character actor, his most memorable role being Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. A true chameleon. Several of the other actors had very fine moments; some of the wit of Von Sydow's performance is more evident on a second viewing. I also liked Patricia Clarkson's handling of her heavily expository role (even if only the exposition of paranoia).

You are also right that Scorsese uses the twist much more like Hitchcock than like modern directors--not as a sudden revelation that upsets your expectation, but as the final piece of the puzzle which the movie has been assembling (it will come as a surprise to almost no one). I am still amazed at the overdetermined intensity of the dreams and flashbacks, how splendidly they are used to play out Teddy's inner turmoil before the story has given the cause. By the time we see the lighthouse and the lake scene, the emotional tension has already reached an extreme.

Much to my pleasant surprise, this movie has become still more fascinating after a second viewing.

[violent retching]

lobotomize me plz

[darkestofniggers]

i liked it and thought the dream scenes were really well done, but i saw the ending coming and i'm getting really tired of tyler durden movies

[PRCalDude]

I saw it last night with my wife. No, it didn't coax her into labor.

I'm now pretty convinced I'm crazy.

[PLEASUREMAN]

darkestofniggers, 06 March 2010 - 09:17 AM:

i liked it and thought the dream scenes were really well done, but i saw the ending coming and i'm getting really tired of tyler durden movies

It's not supposed to be that shocking, Scorsese plays fairly and leaves plenty of clues, which combined with Teddy's increasing confusion leads naturally to the conclusion. You need to watch some older movies to see that the influences on this movie are much older than Fight Club--to which it has no real similarity aside from a plot twist, which is hardly novel to modern films.

[darkestofniggers]

PLEASUREMAN, 06 March 2010 - 12:46 PM:

It's not supposed to be that shocking, Scorsese plays fairly and leaves plenty of clues, which combined with Teddy's increasing confusion leads naturally to the conclusion.

i agree with this, i've just seen a few newer movies lately where the protagonist turns out to be crazy and his "quest" imaginary manifestations of his damaged psyche

i will check out spellbound and vertigo

[PLEASUREMAN]

darkestofniggers, 06 March 2010 - 01:51 PM:

PLEASUREMAN, 06 March 2010 - 12:46 PM:

It's not supposed to be that shocking, Scorsese plays fairly and leaves plenty of clues, which combined with Teddy's increasing confusion leads naturally to the conclusion.

i agree with this, i've just seen a few newer movies lately where the protagonist turns out to be crazy and his "quest" imaginary manifestations of his damaged psyche

i will check out spellbound and vertigo

Angel Heart used this too, not a bad movie if you can ride along with its ending (the moody cinematography sometimes upstages the movie)...Spellbound is far from Hitchcock's best but it would make a clever double bill with Shutter Island