(2/21 – ED NOTE: This Tread Seems To Have Evolved Into A SPOILER THREAD… please read or don’t read accordingly.)
“Mr. Scorsese in effect forces you to study the threads on the rug he is preparing, with lugubrious deliberateness, to pull out from under you. As the final revelations approach, the stakes diminish precipitously, and the sense that the whole movie has been a strained and pointless contrivance starts to take hold.”
“He
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
I’d love to see what Scott thought of “Drag Me to Hell.” The same attributes that papers like the Times, Washington Post, Chronicle are criticizing about “Shutter Island” they loved in “Drag Me to Hell” (over the top score/soundtrack, stylized art-direction, claustrophobic atmosphere). Two different films but I can’t imagine how different the reviews would be if the directors switched places.
Agree it also seems like Polanski is getting generous praise due to his predicament.
SPOILER WARNING!
I love how Scorsese is “slumming” because Shutter Island isn’t a serious biopic or a remake of an acclaimed foreign film. Or it’s, oh no, a HORROR movie. One of those couldn’t possibly be good. But I digress. Shutter Island isn’t a horror movie. It’s also not a great movie. Parts of it are superb though. Robert Richardson’s cinematography is pretty spectacular. The booming, string-heavy score is fantastic. The cast is excellent. There are great scenes scattered throughout, including a harrowing mass execution of concentration camp guards. The last 20 minutes are very effective as well, and the conclusion it quite powerful. Leo gets stronger as the movie progresses, and by the end I was convinced that he gives a damn good performance. Sure it’s not a masterpiece. It drags here and there and you can feel the strain from throwing so many red herrings at the audience, especially in the second half. I read the novel and I got pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Critics are so dismissive of genre fare and I wonder if some of them even tried to have a good time with this. I’d recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in seeing it.
I don’t see how that particular quote from Scott is speaking for the entire audience…surely the words “in effect” qualify it. Does he NEED to say “in my opinion” after every statement like “the stakes diminish precipitously”? His name is signed to it, thus demarcating it as his opinion to begin with.
You, David, ended your Ghost Writer review by saying what percentage of the audience would like it. How is that not speaking for the audience?
I happen to agree with Scott on both. But it’s too simplistic to say both movies are alike because they’re “similarly full of games.” One is over the top and artificial, the other is restrained and has a noticeable sense of humor about itself.
Oh, and I think everyone here knows that I LOVE horror. Scorsese has no clue how to make it, unfortunately.
OK, semantically, I was wrong about percentage…musta been remembering another article. But you said this:
“almost no one is going to walk out of the movie angry that they went… just disappointing.” You are
presuming on behalf of the audience there, more so than anything in that Scott quote.
Shutter Island is not trying to be a horror film.
Well, as Stella Boy points out, Shutter Island isn’t a horror film and Scorsese clearly wasn’t trying to make one.
As for speaking for the audience, that is not the quote in which Scott speaks for the audience. And as for my comment, it was, “almost no one is going to walk out of the movie angry that they went” and that is my sense of the audience. It’s different than saying, “Polanski loses the audience when…” but no question, it is a line critics walk all the time. After all, writing “in my opinion” into every sentence would be horrible.
The Ghost Writer is completely artificial… not as stylized… but utterly artificial. Whether it’s the giant windows overlooking the expanse of ocean and actors stretching up against them or the wacky motel or the car games, the movie is never restrained, except in tone.
And for me, that is why I didn’t much care for the Ghost… it’s lying, but it thinks it’s telling the truth. (And yes, the metaphor extends to the filmmaker, but only coincidentally in terms of me seeing the film that way.) The Scorsese film is – like Cape Fear, Coppola’s Dracula, and Inglourious Basterds, amongst many others – a style piece, playing off of genre. It knows exactly what it is and what it wants to be.
The reason for a line similar to “Polanski loses the audience when…” is most likely that, at a paper like the NYT (or even the old New Times LA), one is simply not permitted to say “Polanski loses me when…”
First-person is hugely frowned upon at many old media outlets. And believe me, many old-school critics hate Internet criticism primarily because it tends to feature first-person (I’ve heard them say as much many a time). I believe there’s a place for it, but Scott may simply be trying to dance around a restriction like that, in which case, you have to say something like “we” or “the audience” when “I” is simply verboten.
I’m not sure what you mean about Ghost “thinks it’s telling the truth.” To me, the resemblance to real-world issues was simply a way of framing the story (the major spoiler I won’t mention certainly doesn’t resemble a real-life analogue), and not intended as soapbox social commentary…certainly it felt less so than all the stuff about medicating in Shutter.
“like Cape Fear, Coppola’s Dracula, and Inglourious Basterds” Indeed, but riffs on genre filled with references only work if the story is compelling, and even though we disagreed on it, I would point you to KILL BILL 2. Same kinda deal, but you didn’t like it; I think for reasons similar to why I don’t like Shutter. Though I also dislike DiCaprio’s performance, and simply don’t understand those who say he’s good in it. He’s good in the last scene, but that’s about it for me.
Coppola’s Dracula really hasn’t aged well, either.
As for Shutter not trying to be a horror movie, that’s a matter of debate; I’ve seen my fair share of articles and reviews already praising him for experimenting with a new genre, and saying that the film will be underrated because horror is looked down upon.
If he himself said it isn’t, then it isn’t. But a whole lot of people think it is.
Maybe, but I doubt if many of the people who think “Shutter Island” is horror are people who have seen it.
It is “genre,” for sure. And it threatens at times to become a “horror” movie. But it clearly does not.
And I don’t hate the Kill Bills… I just think they are grossly overpraised. And this may well be what Scott is doing now, as I did then… overcompensating for a film he can hear, as he leaves the theater, is getting people more excited than he thinks it should.
I don’t think I have ever panned Tarantino with the kind of gusto that Tony shows in his review. And I don’t think Scorsese ever smirks in this film, to his credit.
I’m genuinely curious as to what makes it NOT horror.
Mystery about someone who apparently vanished with no natural explanation.
Creepy old building that might as well be a haunted house.
Ghosts repeatedly appear – the fact that they’re dreams, memories, and hallucinations does not detract from the fact that they are for all intents and purposes ghosts, and most of their appearances are designed to creep you out.
Loud bangs on the soundtrack try to make you jump.
Scary looking inmates with weird faces and scars constantly threaten violence.
Moments of serious gore.
How is this not horror? If you want to say it’s not JUST horror, I’ll give you that.
I think Scorsese clearly intended for it to be moody and dark and thrilling, but there’s no way I would describe Shutter Island as a horror movie. I read the book, which the movie stays very faithful to, and it is not a work of horror either. I am a fan of the genre as well, LYT, and I wondered going in if it would in fact be a horror movie. I think they’re trying to sell it as such to get that crowd opening weekend, but I don’t think it is one. For me it’s a mystery/thriller. It does contain the elements you mention above, but that doesn’t automatically make it a horror movie. I don’t know. I guess it’s open to interpretation and we could argue endlessly about it. I just don’t think Scorsese intended to make a horror movie, at least not as it’s currently defined.
MAJOR SPOILERS
not having read the book, i’ve been thinking about it and the problem with ‘shutter island’ for me – and i actually quite like the movie in many respects – is simply how teddy’s story plays out.
it’s so heavily telegraphed, the moment teddy steps off the ferry with chuck and everyone is so wary of every move he makes, and the way literally EVERYONE stares at him, it’s patently obvious they all know him. and then from the moment we learn about the 67th patient and leidis, it’s obvious teddy is likely leidis and the missing patient and that’s he’s repressed his true identity, and therefor the mystery lies in what has brought teddy to this point and why.
so, okay, i figure because these elements are so overt and scorsese obviously wants the viewer to suspect teddy from fairly early on, i’ll put my mind to solving teddy’s mystery. but then in the finale when dolores and teddy’s horrible truth comes to light and it all shakes out, i discover with hindsight i was never really meant to ‘figure it out’, having been provided with very few tools to do so.
hindsight showed me that amidst all the often repetitive imagery of the dream sequences/flashbacks/hallucinations, there was plenty of bright random blood and misdirection and repetition, which is is fine, but only if there are kernels of teddy’s truth hidden amidst the cacophony, and these were few and far between.
subsequently, i felt like, ‘why did i bother?’. scorsese didn’t really want me to put it together re: dolores, he wanted her madness to come as a shock, and that’s fine, but i sort of resented the numerous red herrings and misdirection so obviously intended to get the viewer to think the answer to the puzzle is hidden in teddy’s visions, only to discover it was all just for the sake of cool red herrings and misdirection.
i think the movie would have been more effective for me either not knowing teddy is leidis so early on so that discovering his identity is woven more discreetly into the fabric of discovering the truth about him and dolores, or have the symbolism of teddy’s psyche be more revelatory of his truth even while shrouded in mystery, so that in hindsight i could look back and say, “ah!” to myself, because i like to look back and say “ah!” to myself.
(one quick example of this lack of cohesion and context is the anagrams of the names the doc shows teddy in the lighthouse during the big reveal; as it plays, the anagrams are basically meaningless to teddy and us because we’ve never even seen the written names before that point; if teddy had at some time been looking over the written names even briefly in the context of the investigation, this ‘reveal’ might carry some weight in the final act, but as it is it’s just so out of the blue in respect to instigating teddy’s catharsis, rather representational of the film as a whole imho)
I can tell you what the audience thought at the 3:30 screening at the E-Walk…
They laughed out loud as Leo cried while trying to pull his children from the water. And as the end credits began, somebody yelled out demanding his money be refunded.
I saw it this afternoon and really liked it – I am not sure what movie most of these critics are talking about, they dismiss it like it’s some Eli Roth horror crap.
It’s debatable whether the film is pure horror as much as The Silence of the Lambs is horror.
The photography was gorgeous, the music was stirring, and the cast was great – Ted Levine did a great job in his one standout scene. Leo was very strong – it has been nice to see him evolve into such an effective grown-up actor.
As for the story, well, it is a BIT drawn-out, but I was with the film every step of the way. I love how all of these smart-alecks have been saying they can predict the ending from the (admittedly overplayed) trailer – really????
I can think of very people actually being able to predict the exact way this film ends and how it plays out, sorry –
SPOILER ALERT
Scorcese does a great job of laying out all of the possibilities – is Teddy’s investigation real and he’s being trapped? Is his partner just a fictitious construct? Is Rachel Solondo a real person who is just a doctor who was trapped?
Each of these are genuine possibilities that could have panned out, but didn’t – you can call them red herrings, but that’s what a mystery is all about, right?
There is a genuine snobbery going on out there from critics that just can’t accept how popular Scorcese has become and they now want to dismiss him as a “sellout” like their favorite band that is now playing stadiums when they liked them better in smaller clubs.
I’m not saying that snobbery is driving all of the criticism, here – I can see how some folks would be annoyed by this plot. But I found it to be excellent mystery/thriller.
I know everyone loves to use Leo as their favorite whipping boy (e.g., Scott’s tired harangue about his Boston accent), but the reason “Shutter Island” works as well as it does–and I think that it works spectacularly well much of the time–is DiCaprio’s brilliant and ultimately heartbreaking performance. The reason the third act reversal still has the power to stun (even if, like me, you’ve read the book) is Leo; and that “twist” only makes his work in the first two-thirds of the film that much richer and more resonant in retrospect.
I’ve argued for years that DiCaprio is the finest under-40 actor working in American movies. “Shutter Island” (again) proves why.
“Shutter” is destined to gross more in its opening weekend than “Revolutionary Road” (a film that I happen to love) did in its entire theatrical run. No editorial comment, just stating facts.
Leo is the real deal and has been for years – hell, I even thought he was really good in Titanic. As written the role was quite cliched, but he played it perfectly.
As far as I’m concerned, the Marty and Leo duo is four-for-four, right now.
MINOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
I saw it this afternoon, and while it’s a very good movie, unfortunately, it feels too much like a movie to really take off into some kind of greatness. The filmmaking is too nice and orderly. The dream sequences feel like scenes from a movie rather than a dream, as do the hallucinations. I’m sure Scorsese could name off 5 foreign movies these are references to and have very specific purposes for everything, but it takes me out of the experience a bit.
For example, the 15-20 second pan shot of all the German guards getting gunned down in the flashback. Since the pan takes so long and the act was completely impulsive, shouldn’t all the murdered guards be on the ground well before the camera gets there? It feels like a shot being set up for a movie instead of the experience itself.
And even though people will stomp around saying “IT’S NOT A HORROR MOVIE!,” it takes place at a mental institution during a heavy storm, so shouldn’t it have more atmosphere and foreboding? The locations are fantastic and the music is great, but it took an hour when they go into Ward C for me to feel the slightest bit tense or nervous at what’s going on. I was into the story enough, but it just wasn’t completely sucking me in.
BUT, like I said, I did enjoy the movie a lot. It’s just when you get to the cinematic masters, you tend to nitpick a lot more. It’s still a very well put together movie despite my noted gripes, there’s not a single weak link in the cast, and it had some excellent scenes. To put it in DP metaphors, it’s a solid double for Scorsese. I think if Kubrick were alive today, he would’ve knocked it out of the park, but he’s not, so we have this movie, which is just fine enough.
i think leo is fine in ‘SI’, tho he takes a while to settle into his (somewhat dodgy) accent
“I can think of very people actually being able to predict the exact way this film ends and how it plays out, sorry – ”
geoff, i think the thing people claim to have figured out too easily is that teddy is a patient, not the actual reason behind WHY he’s a patient in the institution.
like i said above, i knew teddy was laidis immediately and that chuck was in on it — the way he asks, “are you okay boss?” every three minutes is a dead giveaway — but how could ANYONE who hasn’t read the book figure out where teddy’s catharsis is leading when there is no thread of internal logic leading thru the forest of red herrings and misdirection to the truth?
and therein lies the problem with the movie in a nutshell: in order to pull off a mystery effectively, there has to be at least glimpses of the truth mixed in with all the red herring imagery and symbolism, even if we aren’t able to sift thru and detect the relevant details at the time. the point of a mystery is that the viewer should potentially be able to solve it, and at the very least look back with the benefit of hindsight and see the relevant details so that you think, ‘if only i’d noticed that, that and that, i might have seen the signs pointing towards the shocking truth about dolores, teddy’s response and subsequent madness”.
but there is no such thread of truth weaving through the imagery in ‘shutter island’, which renders the mystery rather pointless even if the images are beautifully designed and presented.
“For example, the 15-20 second pan shot of all the German guards getting gunned down in the flashback. Since the pan takes so long and the act was completely impulsive, shouldn’t all the murdered guards be on the ground well before the camera gets there? It feels like a shot being set up for a movie instead of the experience itself.”
i agree totally. the only rationale i can think of is that we are viewing the impromptu firing squad thru the filter of teddy’s memory, so the rather domino-like falling of the guards as the camera pans could be a construct of teddy’s vision rather than a strict replay of the event as it actually occurred. but that’s a weak explanation.
So I’m the only one who had trouble buying that the doctors would let a psychotic man with a history of violence and having withdrawal hallucinations free to do what he pleased around the island in an attempt to cure him?…
It seems like a lot of people are perhaps taking the end of the film too literally. Many of the friends I saw it with found the last twenty minutes or so to be rather ambiguous.
If you think about it, there’s no proof in the film that Teddy’s story was wrong, due to most of the movie being some form of hallucination or delusion.
It’s a very Cartesian movie, if that makes any sense, and I loved every minute of it.
It can be plotted on an XY-axis?
I didn’t see anything ambiguous at all. I saw the ending as a typical Scorsese Christ parable.
I haven’t seen Shutter Island so for all I know I could be having the same reaction, but I get the feeling that so many of these people saying that it’s one of Scorsese’s best or that DiCaprio is brilliant would NEVER be saying that sort of stuff if it was not a Scorsese movie (even if it was the exact same movie but with a lesser-known actors giving identical performances).
mutinyco, if you want to nitpick the movie, sure, maybe that’s a problem. Or one could argue that it is in line with Dr. Cawley’s philosophy and something someone like him might try. Or you just have to allow yourself to go with it.
With the benefit of hindsight I’m sure lots of people will say they figured it out. Countless people tell me they guessed the twist in The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, Seven, Fight Club, etc., all of course after the fact.
mutinyco, I think you just have to go with it and believe that Dr. Cawley is someone whose philosophy on mental illness and healing would lead him to try it. I went with it.
I’m sure plenty of people will say they guessed it or saw it coming. Everyone I know claims they totally predicted the ending to The Sixth Sense, Seven, Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, etc.
Yikes sorry about that. Typepad problems. I didn’t think it went through so I wrote it again. My mistake.
“It can be plotted on an XY-axis?”
lol, I was speaking philosophically. As in Cartesian skepticism and Cartesian circular reasoning.
SPOILERS
just out of curiosity, what exactly are people saying they ‘saw coming’ in shutter island (assuming these are people who didn’t read the book and didn’t already know the ‘twists’)?
it’s glaringly obvious that teddy is the missing inmate/patient leidis, you’d have to be a feeb not to see that coming, so i assume that’s not it. are people saying they picked dr. crowly’s experiment and the set-up with teddy’s doctor playing chuck in a ruse to get teddy to face ‘reality’?
or are people saying they somehow figured out the reason teddy is incarcerated, because he went mad after whackjob dolores killed their kids and teddy in turn killed her?
or both? i’m genuinely curious what it is people claim to have figured out without benefit of hindsight. the movie is so random in many respects with few actual clues pointing to the truth, i’d like to know how people put it together, esp. the reason teddy is mad.
(also, why does the freaky lady with her scalp showing thru her hair ‘shush’ teddy when he and chuck first enter the asylum? i get the ‘run’ but not the ‘shush’)
Kami – If this wasn’t Scorsese – of course, at this budget, it would have to be some other famous director – the movie’s director would be instantly deified.
You may or may not like the movie, but the skill set of his work and his team’s work in this movie is way above the level of 95+% of working directors.
Could Tony Scott have made this? In theory. His skills are different, but he could have made a similar movie with the same material. That is where the judgment opens up. But both Scotts, for better films and worse, are also skilled in a way few directors are.
I had noticed watching the movie that the MW sequences looked like a different format than the rest of the movie — sharper, clearer resolution. I initially pegged it as HD. But I just looked up tech specs at IMDb and they had it down as a 35mm-65mm hybrid. So that explains that.
“If this wasn’t Scorsese – of course, at this budget, it would have to be some other famous director – the movie’s director would be instantly deified.”
Absolutely disagree.
What was the budget? Was it maybe akin to, say SAHARA, from director Breck Eisner? Or G.I. Joe/Van Helsing, directed by Stephen Sommers?
Regardless of budget, I truly feel like the Scorsese name is what makes half its supporters defend it. I do agree with the earlier comparison to Coppola’s Dracula, but seriously, try re-watching that today and keeping a straight face.
Of course, I also find it interesting that a good percentage of the positive reviews point to how awesome it is that Scorsese can do genre, and the only reason it doesn’t get any respect from haters is that it’s horror. But point out it’s pretty sucky horror, and the insta-defense is that it wasn’t ever intended to be horror.
Whatevs. Avatar haters wear me out, so I’m not gonna go on and on bashing this. You like it, you like it. Played like an overbudgeted fiasco to me, but oh well.
ISLAND POWER.
The haters have some valid points and it’s surely a love-or-hate movie, but I fucking LOVED that protracted, methodical, overexplained nightmare vibe that reminded me of Kubrick: That (brilliant) Patricia Clarkson scene was like SI’s mid-movie equivalent of the Grady bathroom conversation on The Shining; Though as much as I enjoy hearing the Penderecki and Ligeti classical cues from that, they’re SO identified with Kubrick’s movie it seems odd/redundant to hear them in another similar film.
Two more words:
WILLIAMS POWER. Oh my GOD. Back in the days of the CREEK I was TEAM KATIE, but somewhere along the line Michelle Williams started being AWESOME; Then around the time of Deception I was like “Wait a minute here,” and in ISLAND she is officially SMOKING HOT. BOW.
Also wanted to add: The Kubrick comparisons I guess are pretty blatant; But that last 30, 40 minutes has this protracted, quiet, walking-underwater pacing that seems to fluster some audiences, but I always chalk it up to some awesome filmmaking confidence. I think the last act of MINORITY REPORT has this vibe, and Spike’s used it a few times, notably INSIDE MAN…
And going back to Kubrick, I’m also thinking of the Sydney Pollack billiard room scene… the last act here borders on practically a remake of the tone and predicaments of that setpiece.
really?
i didn’t love or hate it, i actually quite liked it but found it frustrating and even a bit tinpot in places (ruffalo, of whom i’m a fan since ‘you can count of me’, seemed like he was on muscle relaxants he was that laid back and sort of ‘hey, are you ok boss?’, it’s all good, whatever, bummer you have to have a lobotomy, man)
personally i only found the first act or so particularly kubrick-esque with the shining-wannabe score and pseudo-photography, with blatant little hitchcockian flourishes here and there, not entirely unpleasant but perhaps one too many low-angle floor shots (more than one is too many, really) and then it sort of morphed into leo traipsing around the island a la some movie i’m reminded of that had a lot of traipsing and falling near and around cliffs, which currently escapes me. i think he leaned more towards hitchcockian at the last, a bit of a weird hodgepodge. at one point it even called to mind 1408, bizarrely
also what movie has the most static shots of two seated subjects in the frame facing the camera divided by the third subject’s back? SI had a shitload of those (or maybe just 3 or something, but it seemed like a lot at the time)
having said that i find myself thinking about it and nitpicking at the bits that bothered me, so it must have made some impact on my psyche
For the record, it’s the exact same music from The Shining over the two opening credits…
Yes, I wish he’d gone further out with regards to the compositions; Scorsese’s inherently a messier and warmer director than precise, clean Kubrick…
But in terms of the tone and the fever-dream, underwater vibe of the two big “conversations” — Leo and Clarkson, Kingsley laying out what was what — those two setpieces seemed pretty similar to the Jack/Butler bathroom scene, and the Pollack laying it out for Cruise scene.
Plus, how could you not love when:
SPOILER…
…Kingsley wheels out a DRY ERASE BOARD to explain the plot?
And again: MICHELLE WILLIAMS. SMOKING.
shit, that reminds me, the opening credits when it says, ‘shutter island’? BEST FONT EVER. i’m totally serious. fantastically noir and 3D-ish if memory serves
as for all that ‘eyes WS’ stuff, that’s not how i remember it but i’d have to brush up before commenting further, it’s minor kubrick in the church of leah and i’ve not watched it in some time. and i’m fairly certain i suffer onset memory loss
that fucking dry erase board has the ANAGRAMS of the names i complained about in my first SI babble. for fuck’s sake, couldn’t scorsese not see the SHEER FOLLY OF THE DRY ERASE BOARD ANAGRAMS? or at least thelma? maybe he was hell bent on having that white board presentation. christ on a cracker
i mean, “couldn’t scorsese see the sheer folly”, i’ve had a few pints
The dry erase board (and does he not also have a POINTER?) is AWESOME and WITTY and CINEMATIC and TOTALLY worth tacking on a half-star just on its very own. There’s no way that’s not tongue in cheek.
Also, that scene with Ted Levine was highly reminiscent of VANILLA SKY, aka one of my favorite movies EVER MADE.
Again, repeating myself, but I LOVE when a director does that BALLS OUT, insane, sloppy, fever-dream, let it run a half-hour too long Spike/Spielberg/Kubrick thing and slows the pacing down to where you can hear a pin drop.
It’s a sure sign of a confident master filmmaker.
ISLAND POWER. BOW. If this had dropped in ’09 it would’ve been the fourth or fifth best of the year. I can also ALL BUT GUARANTEE that on DVD or Showtime or 10 years from now on Encore, this thing will be Scorsese’s most compulsively rewatchable movie since GoodFellas.
It has a real Coen/Kubrick/Altman density where rough edges and all, people will want to check it out over and over and get new things out of it.
SHUTTER ISLAND BOW. MASTERPIECE.
The thing is, the movie never really feels like a Kubrick nightmare that deserves the scenes that over-explain everything. As I said earlier, this movie feels completely sane. You never get the feeling Teddy is really losing his mind, like say, Jack in The Shining. The dream in which Teddy’s wife turns to ash is fairly pedestrian in comparison to the scene where Jack kisses the-for lack of a more academic word-icky old lady. I know, two different movies doing two different things, but considering Scorsese is blatantly referencing Kubrick’s movie here, I think it’s more than valid. The hallucinations are far too organized and contrived. They never feel real. I’ve dated a schizophrenic. No matter how much they don’t make sense, they feel REAL enough, which this movie doesn’t really convey. They always feel elements in a script or something. I guess that’s a matter of perspective, but that’s how I felt.
I don’t want to be someone like those who gave Avatar three-and-a-half stars and then proceeded to tear it down at every opportunity. But as good as the acting, as good as the locations, and as much as I like Scorsese’s general feel on the movie, it wants to go head-first into someone’s insanity and simply dips its toes. I kept thinking of things like Jacob’s Ladder or Memento or The Shining, and now that Lex mentioned it, the scene in Vanilla Sky where Penelope Cruz becomes Cameron Diaz in the middle of murder sex set to The Monkees’ “Porpoise Song.” Now Scorsese’s too classy for something like THAT, but it needed something on that level of messed up.
Teddy isn’t losing his mind, like Jack in The Shining, for one thing. Nothing even remotely over the top in that way. This doesn’t need anything “messed up” to get it’s points across. That DiCaprio’s character is evidently not alright is pretty much clear from the beginning when clues start to pile up like cars on a turnpike. You just have to be observant enough to see them. And I can’t think of a more tender moment in the film than when Teddy meets up with Dolores in the shower of ash scene. It’s not meant to shock in the same way as Jack’s scene in The Shining, a wholly different kind of movie experience. It’s meant to bring home the anguish, guilt and painful sense of loss of the central character, which just gets more intense as things progress. Yeah, this does indeed do more than dip it’s toes into insanity thanks to a beautifully modulated and intense performance. I don’t think Jack’s work is anywhere near the same level, though he’s more entertaining I suppose. Maybe that’s what you were looking for here but it’s not typical of Scorsese to simply entertain us, is it?
mutinyco, I think the “I think I have a pretty good idea of how this movie will be regarded; I saw it with such-and-such audience and they reacted this way” anecdotal evidence shtick should be retired or at least used sparingly, ESPECIALLY when you’re using the Times Square E-Walk as the voice of the people. Pretty much every thriller I’ve ever seen in Times Square, from good stuff to crap to everything in between, has elicited that kind of reaction from some section of the audience. They groan or laugh at anything that seems too emotional or square or melodramatic or weird or pretty much anything that isn’t just straight Matrix-knockoff faux-awesomeness, and there’s almost always some douche going “booo!” or “that’s IT?!” or “I want my money back!!” because it’s an easy laugh that will always speak for a certain section of the audience (because how often is a movie going to get 100% or even 80% of the audience loving it), just as there is ALWAYS at least a percentage of the audience who starts getting up to leave as soon as the climax can be even remotely considered over. Like if the movie says “the butler did it!” these people are out of their seats by the word “did,” like there’s parking lot traffic to avoid or something.
I am presuming at this point that this is a spoiler thread – those scenes with Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, Patricia Clarkson, and Ben Kingsley in the last third completely make the movie for me. How is it over-explaining when at least half of them are complete misdirection? Honestly, I feel like every one of those scenes had a distinct purpose towards moving the character further into this nightmare of his own making.
And Lex has a point – the film has a bit of Spike Lee-like messiness to it, but the thing about Spike Lee is: when all of these elements in those scenes work(Jungle Fever – that Taj Mahal scene, even though it really has nothing to do with the rest of the movie), they REALLY work. When they don’t(Bamboozled, She Hate Me), they really don’t work.
The film just worked for me, plain and simple – the score, the performances, the music, the tension – it’s a weird journey that you’re not meant to completely understand but I dug the ride.
fwiw i don’t see spikeness in ‘shutter island’, i think that’s a huge stretch. any messiness is all scorsese trying to hit several diverse notes at once with varying degrees of success, comparing one man’s messiness to the other’s seems like a bit of a reach on a thin branch
the thrust of the mystery isn’t ‘guess what, teddy’s nuts!’, but rather teddy’s ascension OUT of madness – albeit very briefly – via the revelation of WHY he’s gone bonkers. and that’s where the story fails (for me, obv, and perhaps others from the sounds of it), because there are no puzzle pieces for either teddy or the viewer to put together, just a bunch of what turns out to be mostly random, disconnected imagery with no intent other than to provoke an emotional response or mislead. but for such misdirection to succeed, there must be hidden kernels of truth pointing to ‘the thing’, and there are very few such kernels in SI.
crowley has to practically hit teddy over the head with his white board explaining everything to him at the end, which is strangely fitting because very little in the story up to that point would actually guide teddy’s psyche towards seeing the truth. but in film, having to be told at the expense of being shown is a cardinal sin
I completely disagree that we had to have all the pieces of figuring out the mystery available to us in order for the movie to work. I figured the protagonist was involved with the woman he was assigned to find when he started seeing the kids asking him why he didn’t save them. Why is it a flaw not to lay everything? The guy was deluding himself, intentionally or not, so why would we necessarily have the truth at our disposal?
brack, i’m not sure if your comment was in response to mine but assuming so, you’ve misunderstood what i was trying to say, and perhaps i’m just crap at making myself clear re: SI (not for lack of trying i assure you).
i never said it’s a flaw not to lay everything out or have the truth ‘at our disposal’, not at all; my point was that if one is going to create an effective mystery – and ‘shutter island’ is clearly a mystery – it should be theoretically possible to solve that mystery, especially in hindsight, for both teddy and the viewer. otherwise, what is the point of the journey?
the story follows the attempt to get teddy to come out of his delusions and face reality, but even looking back on everything in the film with the benefit of hindsight, amidst all the delusions and imagery rife with red herrings and misdirection, there are very few actual hidden clues/repressed memories pointing towards teddy’s ‘truth’.
if the imagery was handled more effectively, neither teddy nor the viewer has to notice or realise the significance of the actual ‘clues’ at the time – that would be too obvious and poor story-telling – but the elements should be there for teddy to put together at the end.
as it is, when the big reveal comes along, crowley has to tediously explain everything to teddy – to the point of necessitating a white board presentation with out-of-the-blue name anagrams no less – because virtually NOTHING in the film actually serves the mystery, it’s just a hodgepodge of delusional images with little actual retrospective meaning. this also makes the delusions themselves less interesting, because they are so pointless.
thus, crowley has to explain ‘the truth’ to teddy in such a silly fashion. had the imagery been better conceived, crowley should have been able to prod teddy into finally seeing truth of what he’s done via teddy actually connecting the dots of his own repressed memories hidden within his delusions and string together the truth, leading to a more profound and believable catharsis (‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’, the essence of film wherever possible).
this rather absurd handing of how teddy’s catharsis is elicited is what lets ‘SI’ down for me. i said before i actually like the movie, but i think it could have been absolutely brilliant rather than atmospheric and stylish but frustrating. i give up now trying to explain myself, i can’t think of how else to say it
you wrote this:
“it should be theoretically possible to solve that mystery, especially in hindsight, for both teddy and the viewer.”
but then you wrote this:
“crowley has to explain ‘the truth’ to teddy in such a silly fashion. had the imagery been better conceived, crowley should have been able to prod teddy into finally seeing truth of what he’s done via teddy actually connecting the dots of his own repressed memories hidden within his delusions and string together the truth, leading to a more profound and believable catharsis (‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’, the essence of film wherever possible).”
Are you trying to have it both ways, saying that there’s no way to solve the mystery for us or Teddy, yet complaining that Teddy has to be explained in painstaking detail? How is that not being able to solve the mystery? And why is it necessary for Teddy to come to this conclusion all on his own? Is that some sort of unwritten mental health rule for coming out of psychosis?
How were the anagrams out of the blue? They were mentioned throughout the movie. How are his delusions pointless? Did you miss the part where we are shown (not told) what really happened?
I thought his “dreams” or “hallucinations” showed hints of the truth. He didn’t tell his partner about his strange dreams. It’s as if he was hiding them from everyone, or at least blaming others for them. It makes perfect sense why he is acting the way he was. Plus at the end, we realize he is cured, but blames himself, and decides to get lobotomized.
yikes, i don’t think i’m trying to have it both ways but the movie’s faded a bit in my memory now so i’ll do my best to answer, but i’m not completely following some of your reasoning.
yes, i’m complaining that teddy has to be given a whiteboard presentation to explain everything, this is just bizarre. but because there is so little in his delusions hinting at his repressed memory of what happened to dolores and the kids on that fateful day, there is no organic way for teddy to connect the dots in the context of the imagery in the film leading to his catharsis, thus necessitating all the exposition. i didn’t mean to imply teddy should come to the realisation on his own, just that crowley having to give a silly white board presentation etc. in order to get teddy to remember who he is and what he’s done is rather poor writing and cinema. crowley triggering teddy’s repressed memory could have been handled much more elegantly and profoundly.
for me the anagrams were out of the blue and an example of the lack of context and random, disconnected nature of the film. while the names of teddy and leidis and rachel and dolores were spoken in the story, to my recollection we never see them in written form. so when crowley busts out the whiteboard anagrams the viewer has no sense of context for the written names and thus the anagrams just seem arbitrary, tacked on for the sake of exposition (which i think is exactly the case). some context for the anagrams could have been achieved with something like a simple, brief scene of teddy looking over all the names in written form in his notepad or something in the course of his investigation, but as it is, the names are just another arbitrary, rather meaningless device.
“How are his delusions pointless?”
like i said, they’re pointless because they’re just a hodgepodge, a series of red herrings and misdirection that in retrospect show very little to service the mystery, a bunch of gobbledygook. this level of randomness might work for lynch, but even in the context of this loony bin film it was a little too slight and meaningless; i get that the images were teddy’s delusions and a melange of faces and changing identities and blood, but the lack of a thread of truth referring back to teddy’s repressed memory to anchor the mystery in the storm of madness was bothersome.
“Did you miss the part where we are shown (not told) what really happened?”
no, i didn’t miss it. but i don’t see what that has to do with any of my complaints.
“I thought his “dreams” or “hallucinations” showed hints of the truth.”
ok, that’s interesting, like what, specifically? i’m genuinely curious if i missed something important relating to teddy’s repressed memory of dolores killing the kids and him killing her. i’ve thought about it a bit, and the only aspects that stand out for me are the little girl from the concentration camp saying ‘why didn’t you save us?’, seemingly in relation the (supposed) fire that killed his family, and the image of emily-as-rachel’s blood-soaked body, presumably rachel standing in for the gun-shot dolores in teddy’s repressed memory. but that’s few and far between.
i do agree that why teddy acts the way he does makes sense, but that was never an issue for me.
“Plus at the end, we realize he is cured, but blames himself, and decides to get lobotomized.”
wait, that comment honestly baffles me if i’m understanding you correctly. in the movie i saw, teddy briefly regains a tenuous hold on reality (not for the first time as explained by crowley) after ‘the big reveal’, but quickly slips back into madness, as evidenced by his conversation with his doc aka chuck on the front steps of the asylum where leidis has clearly become teddy again. chuck looks at crowley and shakes his head as if to say, “we gambled and failed”, and crowley stares off knowing what has to be done, before they are all seen leading teddy off to be lobotomised.
Leah: Nope, brack is right… Leo IS still cured and opts to be put out of his misery by faking a regression.
Leah – They were delusions, but based on real events or people from his life, so I’d hardly call them meaningless.
I still don’t get your argument about the anagrams. Why would we need to see a scene with Teddy looking at the names? He already knows the names, and thinks they’re real people. There’s no connection to be made for him.
It’s true Teddy says something to make us assume that he’s relapsed, but then Teddy’s last lines were to the doc were “Is it better to live a monster or die a good man?” Those weren’t just throw away lines, there was meaning there, and by the looks on Teddy and the doc’s faces, confirm this.
“Leah: Nope, brack is right… Leo IS still cured and opts to be put out of his misery by faking a regression.
“Is it better to live a monster or die a good man?” Those weren’t just throw away lines, there was meaning there, and by the looks on Teddy and the doc’s faces, confirm this.”
ok, but the problem is, the ‘teddy is faking it in order to get a lobotomy’ scenario doesn’t make sense, guys.
i think it’s clear at the end crowley and chuck are genuinely trying to help teddy. crowley says the lobotomy is the last resort because teddy has become completely delusional, violent and unmanageable at the asylum. so the entire experiment is one last desperate ruse to yank teddy out of his violent, delusional psychosis and save his life.
so, if teddy is truly faking it at the end and the doc aka chuck realises this as brack suggests, there is NO WAY they would give him a lobotomy.
they are psychiatrists and they’d obviously know that in order for teddy to knowingly FAKE it, he would have to be cognisant of reality and thus their experiment was a success, there is a glimpse of hope, and this is precisely what the experiment was for.
if chuck knows teddy is thinking clearly and ‘sane’ enough to fake it in order to get a lobotomy, the docs would never just give in to teddy’s cognisant trickery, they’d keep fighting for teddy (leidis really, i guess) to embrace life; after all, that was the whole point. lobotomising teddy after fighting so hard for his life and realising he’s actually seeing clearly but trying to trick them makes no sense.
and if teddy is faking it and the expert – his learned doctor for years sitting right next to him, scrutinising him – supposedly doesn’t notice his trickery but we the viewer do, well then that’s just silly, i would hope the movie couldn’t be that silly
or do you think the docs are just basically allowing clear-thinking teddy to commit suicide? this doesn’t seem plausible to me, anyway
(i don’t remember the ‘live as a monster than die a good man’ line exactly, but the ‘looks’ on their faces at the end fit in just fine with teddy’s delusion; teddy is resigned to the fact he’s about to get a lobotomy, but as teddy the cop trapped in the asylum as a victim of the experiments delusion rachel told him about, not leidis, and the look on chuck’s face is one of sad resignation)
leah – Teddy’s last words weren’t enough to stop a lobotomy. He has such a history of delusional and dangerous behavior that it would take more than an ambiguous question to stop it from happening. It’s not ambiguous to us, given the events we saw of the film. The doc doesn’t know he’s in a movie.
But let’s assume the doc believes Teddy is faking. It’s not as if Teddy is going to stop faking and just say “OK, you got me, I’m sane now.” Teddy will do everything to keep up his act at this point. Plus he’s relapsed before, so of course the psychiatrists will believe it. And if Teddy felt he’d relapse again, I’m sure they’d go along with the lobotomy.
If you don’t even remember the last line of the movie, I’m not sure how you can argue your point.
well, i’ve only seen it the once so maybe i was spacing out or had a brain fart at the end or something, the rest of the movie is still quite clear in my head and i remember that line at the end (not word for word), but i obviously didn’t attach the same meaning to it as you did.
i do recall that at the finish i was looking closely for signs that teddy’s delusional version of reality was actually the truth and he’d been right all along, so maybe in looking for one thing i missed the other. i’d have to see the end again.
Perhaps I am looking too much into his line, but I was also basing it on line delivery, body language, and pauses. It just felt too intentional for it to mean something. Plus it just gives the movie a more emotional payoff, and even more depressing ending than Teddy simply relapsing, which I think is what Scorsese was going for with this material. Since it is only my interpretation, and you have defended your position quite well, I can see where you are coming from.