Shutter Island
Scorsese's first film after the Oscar-winning
The Departed over three years ago,
Shutter Island is his most deliberate foray into a genre picture since
Cape Fear (1991), and like that project will likely divide audiences and have critics and fans asking why a director of Marty's stature and accomplishment is toiling in such material to begin with? Regardless of all that, it
is a fun ride.
Set in the mid 1950s on a stormy island off the coast of Massachusetts that houses an elaborate hospital for the criminally insane, we meet Teddy Daniels (Leo DiCaprio), a U.S. Marshall assigned to look into a mysterious disappearance of a patient. He and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) sense ominous goings on before they've even set foot on the grounds, and once they meet the head of the institution, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), as well as the guards, nurses and other doctors they quickly begin forming conspiracy theories, and those theories seem to be backed up by the clues they find. With a rogues gallery of supporting players including Ted Levine (
Silence fo the Lambs, "Monk"), John Carroll Lynch (
Zodiac, Fargo), Elias Koteas (
The Thin Red Line, The Prophecy), Jackie Earle Haley (
Little Children, The Watchmen), Patricia Clarkson (
The Station Agent, The Dead Pool) and the legendary Max von Sydow, it does have a feeling in the casting like an old Warner Bros. crime picture from the '40s, full of interesting faces and character actors galore.
It's impossible to talk in much more detail about
Shutter Island without giving away its various twists and turns. The main twist can be deduced by just about anybody who has seen the trailer, I reckon, but there are layers and secondary turns in the plot beyond that basic, obvious guess of what's going on in the narrative. I knew the fuller depths of the twists before seeing the movie, not because I read the source novel by Dennis Lehane (
Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) but because I had read the graphic novel adaptation by Christian De Metter. But whether you know any or every twist or go in with virgin expectations, the movie is very well constructed and of course crafted by a master. Even more than his version of
Cape Fear, this is a movie about movies, really, and as Scorsese happily relishes the conventions and milieu of the thriller and mystery genres you know he has Val Lewton and Hitchcock and Edgar G. Ulmer and Sam Fuller informing his bite at a similar cinematic apple, though unlike a contemporary such as DePalma or a sycophant like Tarantino, Scorsese never lets his many filmic influences become homages or identifiable recreations on the screen, though they are connections that surely inform his direction and editorial choices.
Having known all the twists and turns before hand, I was able to enjoy
Shelter Island the way the unfamiliar will only get on a second or third viewing, so while I can't say exactly how successfully it shades its secrets if you knew nothing other than the title, deconstructing it with foreknowledge it does adhere to an internal logic and plays fair, in that sense, while mischievously and stylishly keeping just about every clue to the truth in plain sight. The actors are uniformly good, and for me as someone who didn't really have much use for the young Leonardo he has certainly hit his stride in these four collaborations so far with Scorsese (
Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed). DiCaprio's work is the lynchpin of the entire movie, and if it has any kind of emotional pay-off it isn't because of the expertly imagined shadowy suspense sequences and oozing style, it is just about all due to Leo, especially in the final reel as the various "truths" are brought to full light.
As a piece of technical filmmaking, of course Scorsese and company flawlessly concoct a visually arresting and layered movie. Re-teaming with the great cinematographer Robert Richardson for a fifth time (
Casino, Bringing Out the Dead, The Aviator, Shine a Light), the material really allows them to have fun creating a stylized look, and the same goes for Dante Ferretti's production design and all the other various departments. And of course it's all woven together by Scorsese and longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker in the editing room.
When you put
Shutter Island in the context of Scorsese's own work, obviously it's a different animal than
Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, GoodFellas and his most celebrated films. But judging it as a thriller with a twist, it most definitely delivers. I do love the last line, but as it sums up the theme and sort of gives away the twists I won't repeat it without a spoiler tag...
WARNING: "Shutter Island" spoilers below
"What's worse? To live as a monster or die as a hero?"
"What's worse? To live as a monster or die as a hero?"
GRADE: B+
Reply to Topic
