Shutter Island Movie Response - 2010 ENG

Essay #2 Thesis and Rough Outline

            Martin Scorsese produced and directed the movie Shutter Island in 2009 casting Leonardo DiCaprio as the lead role. The film is a little different from other Scorsese films in that it isn’t so much a bloody-violent, gun-shooting, gang war movie; instead this particular film is much more psychological, creepy, and mysterious. This particular Scorsese film does an excellent job guiding the viewer from start to finish. One thing that sets aside Shutter Island from other movies is the cinematography and the direction that the movie goes. In other words the mine-en-scene throughout the movie makes the viewer feel as if they have been transformed right into the movie, and is able to get a feel for what the characters personalities are like. The way this is done is by having the camera act as if it were human eyes.  Not only does the cinematography exemplify character personalities, but the different lighting and camera angles also grants the film the ability to change the mood of scenes. The colors and sounds throughout the film also adds tension and mystery to certain scenes.  Aside from this, the short shots and the sets that are used make the movie more realistic and it allows the viewer to relate to characters more easily.  The cinematography, lighting, color, camera angles, montage, dialogue and music throughout Shutter Island all play a vital role in telling the story of Edward Daniels and the Ashecliffe Mental Hospital.

The film takes place in 1954 at a mental hospital on an island in Boston known as the “Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital”.  Right from the beginning of the film, the main character Edward “Teddy” Daniels is introduced with his partner Chuck and we find out that they are both US Marshals and they are to do detective work on the island. Their mission is to go to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a murderer who has escaped from the mental hospital and is presumed to be hiding somewhere around the island. The first scene in the movie is the Chuck and Teddy riding over to Shutter Island on a large boat. Daniels requests the assignment for personal reasons being that his wife died in an apartment fire, and he suspects that the person responsible for the fire is on the island. Right from the beginning the viewer has an eerie feeling because of the way the scene was shot.  The scene starts with a bluish hue as we see the boat appear out of the mist carrying the two men. The mist and the blue color in the opening scene makes the movie watchers feel as if something creepy is about to happen.  Aside from this, the first time Shutter Island comes into focus, a deep, horrifying sample of music starts to play and this adds to the fright of the scene.  Right as the music is playing the driver of the boat says to the marshals, “The only way onto the island is by ferry.  As is the only way off”. 

Upon arrival of the island, Chuck and Teddy are greeted by the island security officials where they are shown around the island.  Before getting into the gates, the officials make the two men hand in their guns to ensure safety of the patients.  At this point Teddy feels reluctant to give away his firearm and says, “You act like insanity is catchy”.  After being told that they cannot get in unless they surrender their firearms, the two marshals comply and immediately they are taken to meet with the main doctor of the island, Dr. Cawley.  Cawley explains to the men what has happened to this disappeared murderer Rachel Solando and how one day she was in her cell and she just disappeared “as if she evaporated right through the walls”.  Cawley goes on to explain that the reason why Rachel is there is because she drowned her three children.  At this moment the camera focuses on Teddy who seems to be remembering some trauma in his life.  The scene quickly cuts to dead bodies lying in snow and then it cuts back to Teddy’s face leaving the movie watcher puzzled at what just happened.  Teddy seems to be in pain from this flashback and says that he has been sick from traveling on the boat.  Dr. Cawley gives Ted a pill for his headache, as Chuck seems to be concerned for his partner.  Teddy tells the doctor that he would like to investigate Rachel’s cell where she was seen last.

Once they arrive at Rachel’s cell, we see Teddy snooping around looking for evidence of Rachel’s disappearance.  He finds a piece of paper hidden beneath one of the tiles by Rachels’s bed.  The paper says “The rule of 4.  Who is 67”, and after finding this, Dr. Cawley says that he has no idea in what it could mean so Teddy decides to hold onto the paper.  After visiting the cell, they move on to meet with Dr. Naehring who is another doctor treating the patients at Shutter Island.  Upon meeting Dr. Naehring, there is a classical music piece playing and while all the men are talking, Teddy starts to have more flashbacks.  The song that is playing was the same song playing when Teddy killed people in the war.  The camera specifically focuses on the record player and then on Teddy, while the scene cuts to debris flying everywhere.  Teddy is remembering a trauma from his life when he killed many people in the war and this song is bringing back the memories.  It causes him to show extreme emotion and he takes out his anger by yelling at Dr. Naehring.  Teddy tells Chuck that the mission is over and that they are going to take the Ferry back in the morning.

After this, Teddy and Chuck go outside and begin to talk about what they believe is going on with the patients on the island.  Teddy tells Chuck the reason he wanted this mission so bad is because the person that is responsible for his wife’s death is there.  He describes this person named Andrew Laeddis as being a hideous looking man with two different color eyes and a scar down his face.  Chuck gives Teddy a cigarette and asks if he is there to kill Laeddis, but Teddy replies by saying that he isn’t there to kill him.

The next scene shows Teddy and Chuck lying in their beds talking about what they have found that night.  The camera focuses on Teddy staring hard at the piece of paper that he found in Rachels cell.  The next thing you know, the scene is transformed into a dream that Teddy is having.  Scorsese uses bright colors while Teddy is in a dream as if to show that it is not the real world. Aside from this, there are also ashes flying all around. Teddy sees his dead wife, Dolores Chanel while he is dreaming and she reminds him of when they stayed at a cabin in the summer time.  His wife tells him “she’s here, you can’t leave”.  His wife also tells him “Laeddis is there”. Teddy is woken up because there is a leak in the ceiling and water splashes down onto his hands.  Once awake he looks outside and sees that there is a monstrous storm going on and that he cannot take the ferry back to the mainland so he decides to further his investigation for Rachel Solando.

The next morning Teddy and Chuck further their investigation by finding Dr. Cawley, and asking for permission to interview some other patients.  Teddy specifically asks two patients about the disappearance of Rachel but neither knows anything about her whereabouts.  Teddy gets very personal with the first patient and starts to draw vigorously on a paper.  This really bothers the patient and he starts to cover his ears.  Finally Teddy stops scratching the paper with the pencil and he asks, “Do you know who Andrew Laeddis is”, and the patient answers disgusted by saying “No”.  After this first patient, Teddy and Chuck decide to ask a female patient some questions.  Teddy decided to ask her questions about the doctor who comes to see her and Rachel.  He asks if he is a good doctor and what kind of person he is.  The camera focuses on the female patient and she is looking in the direction of Chuck when she answers, “He’s a good doctor.  As my mother would say, He isn’t hard on the eyes”.  After she says this, the film cuts to Chuck who is smirking and writing something in his notebook.  She then asks Chuck if he can go get her a drink and as he is up she snatches Teddys notebook and writes “run”.  It was as if she didn’t want Chuck to see what she wrote.  This particular part is very important and the way this scene was shot connects to the ending of the film.  You don’t know it at the time of watching the scene, but this scene is very revealing of Chucks character.

After the questioning of the patients, Teddy decides to go out and look for Rachel around the island and Chuck follows.  As the marshals are out looking for Rachel it starts thunder storming and they run into a mausoleum to get out of the rain and under cover.  It is in the mausoleum that Chuck and Teddy have a deep conversation about Teddy’s wife and Andrew Laeddis where the viewer finally gets to see the trauma that Teddy keeps having flashbacks of.  The scene shows the guys sitting together as Teddy narrates what happened to himself in the war.  It cuts to a dead woman and her daughter in the snow and a streaming view of hundreds of prisoners.  The next clip is very Scorsese like in that it is disturbing to watch.  After lining up all these captive people against a wall, Teddy and the rest of the soldiers start shooting all the people and massacring them.  Teddy tells Chuck that “it wasn’t warfare, it was murder.  I’ve had enough killing, I didn’t come here to kill Laeddis”. After this Teddy goes on to say that the reason he is there is because hes done checking on Ashecliff and he found that its been kept very secret over the years.  Teddy believes that the doctors are conducting experiments on the minds of the patients because of a man George that told him such.  Teddy says that all he wants to do is find out what’s going on at this island and shut it down.  Chuck responds by going on a rant explaining that the island wanted Teddy there and that there is no shred of existence of Rachel Solando.  After he says this, the camera angle focuses on Teddy and we can see in his emotions that he is angry.  Just then the doors swing open and it is the police officers coming to find them and bring them back to the hospital.

After coming back to the hospital, Teddy interrupts a meeting between Dr. Cawley, Dr. Naehring and many other doctors.  He asks if any of the doctors have figured out the 2^nd line of the paper found in Rachels room.  “Who is 67”.  None of the doctors have any idea what it means and Teddy points out that there are 66 patients at the hospital.  Teddy believes that the note is suggesting that there are 67 patients on the island, but Dr. Cawley assures him that there isn’t.  At this moment he remembers that they have found Rachel and forgot to tell Teddy.

The scene switches to Teddy, Chuck, and Dr. Cawley going into Rachels cell.  Teddy decides to ask her some questions about what she did yesterday He meets her and asks her what she did yesterday.  Rachel responds by saying “I made breakfast, then I took the kids to school, then I thought of you”.  The cinematography focuses on Rachel as she slowly moves forward towards Teddy.  She then says “Don’t you know, your dead”.  After Teddy tries to calm Rachel she screams and attacks him.  Once the men leave the cell, Teddy shows symptoms of a migraine and he takes some pills to stop the pain.  One way that Scorsese shows the pain of the migraine is by making the scene very bright and irritating to the eyes.  After Teddy takes the pills he makes eye contact with the Warden of the island and then begins to dose off on a cot. 

Scorsese uses not only the lighting to transition between scenes, but also music.  We see Teddy’s face flash white and then a scary high-pitched piano noise follows.  This is a transformation into Teddy’s dreams.  In his dream the camera pans around a dead mother and daughter in the snow that he remembers from the war.  The clip cuts from the mother and daughter back to Teddy and then the next time we see the mother and daughter, it is Rachel staring at him in place of the dead mother.  The young girl opens her eyes and looks at Teddy and the music starts to build a little more as she says, “You should have saved me.  You should have saved all of us”. Teddy’s dream then switches back to an office room where we first met Dr. Naehring and it is playing that familiar classical song from prior scenes, as we see Laeddis be revealed.  Laeddis strikes a match and lights a cigarette for Teddy.  Just then Laeddis morphs into Chuck and tells Teddy that he is running out of time.  Next we hear a scream as the camera quickly moves from Chuck over to Rachel who is all bloody and there are three children dead on the ground including the girl who was just talking to Teddy.  Teddy picks up the girl and the scene transforms Teddy and Rachel to a lake where Teddy drops the young girl.  This particular scene is very revealing in the movie in finding out who Edward Daniels really is.

Teddy wakes up from his dream at the lake and now sees his wife, Dolores once again.  She tells him that Laeddis is there and that he needs to find him and kill him.  After this Teddy is truly awoken by sirens around the island and he decides to check the wards to look for Laeddis.   The marshals search through all three wards but have not found Laeddis, so Teddy believes he can be at only one place, the lighthouse.  Teddy and his partner move through the woods of the island and towards the lighthouse, but after an argument Teddy decides to go on by himself.  Chuck allows him to go and this is the last time we see Chuck.  As Teddy is moving closer to the lighthouse he notices that his partner is dead at the bottom of the cliff, so he goes to investigate.  Teddy climbs down the cliff to go see the body, but while he is down there he cannot find it and he realizes it could have just been his mind doing that.  He looks up and sees a cave that has some light in it and he decides to go look inside of it.

Once he gets into the cave he sees a woman who is hiding from the people on the island.  As the scene moves on we learn that her name is Rachel Solando and that she used to be a nurse at the hospital.  She tells Teddy that in the lighthouse they lobotomize patients by screwing in through their eyes with an ice-pick and removing nerves from the brain.  Aside from this she also explains to Teddy how nobody on the island is his friend and that the pills, the food, the coffee, the cigarettes that were all given to him were drugs to control the mind.  After Teddy falls asleep, Rachel wakes him up and tells him he has to leave so they wont find her.  Once he leaves, the Warden finds him roaming around the island.  After having a conversation with the warden for a few minutes we find out that the warden considers Teddy to be as dangerous as people come. 

After the car ride with the warden, Teddy is dropped off back by the wards and he heads towards the hospital where he goes to Dr. Cawley’s car.  While by the car he sees his wife Dolores again and he sticks his tie into the gas gauge then lights it on fire.  This is symbolic because Dolores gave Teddy the tie and with him destroying it he is trying to forget and let go of the death of his wife.  The scene is shot in slow motion as we see the little girl from Teddy’s dreams walk over and grab hands with Dolores as the car explodes.  When the car explodes it does not destroy the ghosts that he is haunted by.  Teddy begins to panic and he decides to make a run for the lighthouse because he believes that they have his partner Chuck captive in there.

On Shutter Island, there is only one way for Teddy to get to the lighthouse and that is by swimming across treacherous waves.  In a panic, Teddy dives in and swims across to the lighthouse where he specifically was told he was not allowed in when he first arrived on the island.  Once across and at the lighthouse, Teddy quickly fights the first guard he sees and then takes his rifle before entering the lighthouse.  Upon opening front door, Teddy sees that the lighthouse is ordinary to any other one and the camera focuses down at Teddy from the top of the lighthouse.  This shot gives the viewer a feel of how many rooms are in the lighthouse.  He quickly starts to run up the stairs with gun in hand ready to shoot.  Each floor that Teddy gets to has a different door that he opens and finds nothing but an empty room.  The cinematography in this scene is brilliant because Scorsese specifically filmed Teddy’s feet swiftly running up the stairs, as the camera moves around in an upward spiral motion.  It is almost a dizzying effect that Scorsese uses, but it helps build tension in the story.

Teddy gets to the top of the lighthouse and the camera focuses on one last door.  When Teddy kicks the door in he walks into a room that looks similar to an office and Dr. Cawley is sitting at a desk as if he were waiting for him.  Dr. Cawley assures Teddy that he was expecting him, and that the rifle was empty.  Just then, Teddy checks the rifle and sure enough it has no bullets.  The doctor starts conversing with Teddy and the camera fades off from the dialogue and moves into another hallucination Teddy has.  The camera focuses on a corner of the room where Dolores appears saying to him “You have to get out here. This place will be the end of you”.  Teddy looks back at Dr. Cawley and tells him about how he found Rachel in a cave and that he knows what really goes on with the patients on the island.  Dr. Cawley assures Teddy that Rachel is not even real and that she is somebody that was made up over the past 24 months.  Teddy doesn’t believe the doctor and his hands starts to shake and he gets very defensive and angry.  Dr. Cawley pulls up a piece of paper that says, “Edward Daniels-Andrew Laeddis.  Rachel Solando-Dolores Chanel”.  He explains to Teddy that the names all share the same letters and that Rachel and Edward are made up people. 

Just then, Chuck walks through the door and says, “hi boss” to Teddy.  Chuck walks over to Dr. Cawley and stands beside him as they corner Teddy and shove pictures in his face.  Chuck was never Teddy’s partner; instead he has actually been working as Teddys psychologist for that past 24 months.  The pictures being shown to Teddy include three dead children, and specifically the one little girl that Teddy has been seeing in his dreams.  Teddy feels betrayed and confused and is overwhelmed with anger so he grabs the gun that was on Dr. Cawley’s desk.  This particular gun was the one that he gave up at the beginning of the movie when he arrived on the island.  After shooting at the doctor and nothing happens, he realizes that his gun was also a fake.  Teddy suddenly faints and starts hallucinating again.

The lighting and colors become all bright and fluid once again as we see Teddy and Dolores at a lake.  After Teddy asks, “where are the kids” to Dolores she replies by saying “at school”.  Just then a dramatic sound comes on in the movie as you see three floating bodies out in the lake.  Teddy runs out into the lake and finds that all three of his kids were drowned by his wife.  After getting the children out of the water and lying them on the ground, Dolores walks over to Teddy and says, “we should dry them off and them put them at the table”.  The music from the first time we see the island cues up again and you can see in Teddy’s eyes that he is out for vengeance.  Just then, he shoots his wife in the stomach and franticly he awakens from his dream.

After he wakes up the first person he sees is the woman whom we thought was Rachel.  Instead this woman was actually a nurse and was acting when Teddy was interviewing her.  Dr. Cawley asks Teddy “who are you and why are you here”.  Teddy replies by saying, “I am Andrew Laeddis, and I killed my wife for murdering my three children”.  Chuck asks who is Edward Daniels, and Teddy replies by saying, “he doesn’t exist and neither does Rachel Solando”.  This is significant because it appears that Teddy is not insane for recognizing this, and that he finally has accepted his real identity of Andrew Laeddis.  He has finally realized that Rachel Solando and Edward Daniels were people that he made up as a scapegoat for the murdering of his wife. 

 The final scene of the movie is very puzzling and Scorsese really leaves the viewer thinking about the story.  The scene has Chuck and Teddy (Andrew) sitting and talking on the steps of one of the wards as Dr. Cawley is standing in a field holding a needle wrapped in a white towel.  The dialogue is very important here when Teddy says, “there’s something not right about this place.  We need to get off of this island and back onto the mainland”.  After saying this, Chuck looks over to Dr. Cawley and shakes his head no.   Teddy goes on by saying to Chuck, “I don’t know what is worse.  To die a good man, or to live life as a monster”.  Dr. Cawley and two security officers walk up to Teddy and tell him that its time to go.  The final scene of the movie ends with Teddy walking away with Dr. Cawley and the security guards.

As "Teddy" sat on the steps and was talking to “his partner” I believe he was trying to say to him; you know I'm not crazy but since I not going to play this game with you and the doctor I would rather die instead of living on this island forever. In other words, he would rather get a lobotomy instead of living with the fact that his wife killed his kids and he murdered his wife. 

According to a Time Magazine review of this movie, Richard Corliss finds this movie to be “a mixed entertainment, more engrossing than enthralling, that leads moviegoers down a long hall of distorted mirrors, then pulls the expertly woven rug of plausibility from under their feet to reveal the scary graffiti on the floor. Whether you feel enlightened or swindled is your call”.   In his review he goes on to say how “Audiences are so used to movies' easy seductions, with big jokes and jolts, that they may misread or discard the picture's potent message”.  What makes Shutter Island such an intriguing film is all of the different camera angles and shots that are used.  Aside from this, the dialogue throughout the film is very important and also the use of colors helps tell the story of Edward Daniels.   Martin Scorsese wanted the viewers to take something home with them after seeing the movie.  He wanted people to think about what happened and what was about to happen at the end of the movie. The lesson I got out of the movie is that there are some things within ourselves are so painful to acknowledge, we almost wish we could cut them out of our skulls.  In the end, that is exactly what “Teddy” does.

Another document that I came across believes that this film takes an approach similar to Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil”.  The movie review from A.O. Scott of the New York Times compares how both Orson Welles’ character in “Touch of Evil” and Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in “Shutter Island” are similar.  It is mostly due to the cinematography of the films and the brilliancy of the directors.  In the films as time goes on both Hank Quinlin, and Edward “Teddy” Daniels are transforming into different people.  Scorsese took a similar approach to Welles by gradually making changes to DiCaprio’s character.  In “Touch of Evil”, Hank Quinlin gradually looks heavier and has a scruffy beard.  Scorsese took a similar approach and made Teddy’s character “heavier than usual, with a few days' beard”.  By doing this it adds to the character depth and even in the middle of the movie, the viewer starts to think something is wrong with Teddy.

The story of Shutter Island was actually inspired by a book written by Dennis Lehane in 2004.  Martin Scorsese brilliantly transformed the words of Lehane into a visual masterpiece that makes the viewer think and take home a lesson at the end of the movie.  According to an entertainment review of the movie by Steve Vineberg “the best thing about Shutter Island is the production design.  Martin Scorsese and Dante Ferretti (production manager) has constructed a nightmare landscape, with cells that resemble tiered caves and a lighthouse that beckons almost mockingly at the foot of a rocky cliff”.  I agree that the production design was great and it adds to the realism of the film, but I believe the story was put together even better. This particular review thinks that the movie left out a lot of key events from the book and that “the events that transpire on these evocative sets make no sense.”  His example is that Teddy’s character doesn’t pay enough attention to his job and that, while watching the movie, the viewer keeps forgetting that Teddy was deployed to Shutter Island for the sole purpose of tracking down the alleged murderer.  I disagree with this, because when I first saw this film I thought Teddy was doing his job well the entire time.  It wasn’t until the last few scenes of the movie when I realized that Teddy’s character was actually insane the whole time.  Even in the end it was hard to believe he was insane because DiCaprio played the role so well.

It is hard to call the movie Shutter Island anything but phenomenal in my opinion. Not only was the screenplay brilliantly written, but also the cinematography from Martin Scorsese uses incredible camera shots, lighting, and colors to tell the story of the Ashecliffe Mental Hospital.  Aside from this, the music and the casting chosen by Scorsese was spot on.  After watching the film multiple times the viewer will catch something new that relates to the ending of the film.  Movies that can make the viewer ponder at the end are some of the best, and perhaps Shutter Island was one of the best of the year. 

Works Cited

 Corliss, Richard. "Raging Brain." Time Magazine 1 Mar. 2010: 57-58. Web.                      20 Apr. 2010.

 Scott, A.O. "All at Sea, Surrounded By Red Herrings." New York Times 19 Feb. 2010.     Web. 25 Apr. 2010.

Shutter Island. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis.                     Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley. 2010.

Vineberg, Steve. "Shutter Island." Christian Century 127.7: 59. Web. 26 Apr. 2010.